Chapter 12: Iason and the Argo
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♠ pp. 550-51 N² – Euripides, Peliades – Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. A. Nauck, 2nd ed. Leipzig 1889.
♠ DS 4.52.1-2 – Diodoros Siculus, Library of History
Medea then, the story relates, when night had come and Pelias had fallen asleep, informed the daughters that it was required that the body of Pelias be boiled in a cauldron. But when the maidens received the proposal with hostility, she devised a second proof that what she said could be believed. For there was a ram full of years which was kept in their home, and she announced to the maidens that she would first boil it and thus makeit into a lamb again. [2] When they agreed to this, we are told that Medea severed it apart limb by limb, boiled the ram’s body, and then, working a deception by means of certain drugs, she drew out of the cauldron an image which looked like a lamb. Thereupon the maidens were astounded, and were so convinced that they had received all possible proofs that she could do what she was promising that they carried out her orders. All the rest of them beat their father to death, but Alcestis alone, because of her great piety, would not lay hands upon him who had begotten her. Greek Text
♠ ApB 1.9.27 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
At that time he sailed with the chiefs to the Isthmus and dedicated the ship to Poseidon, but afterwards he exhorted Medea to devise how he could punish Pelias. So she repaired to the palace of Pelias and persuaded his daughters to make mince meat of their father and boil him, promising to make him young again by her drugs; and to win their confidence she cut up a ram and made it into a lamb by boiling it. So they believed her, made mince meat of their father and boiled him. Greek Text
♠ Met 7.297-321 – Ovid, Metamorphoses
but so her malice might be satisfied
Medea feigned she had a quarrel with
her husband, and for safety she had fled
to Pelias. There, since the king himself
was heavy with old age, his daughters gave
her generous reception. And these girls
the shrewd Medea in a short time won,
by her false show of friendliness; and while
among the most remarkable of her
achievements she was telling how she had
rejuvenated Aeson, and she dwelt
particularly, on that strange event,
these daughters were induced to hope that by
some skill like this their father might regain
his lost youth also. And they begged of her
this boon, persuading her to name the price;
no matter if it was large. She did not
reply at once and seemed to hesitate,
and so she held their fond minds in a deep
suspense by her feigned meditation. When
she had at length declared she would restore
his youth, she said to them: “That you may have
strong confidence in this my promised boon,
the oldest leader of your flock of sheep shall be
changed to a lamb again by my prized drugs.”
Straightway a wooly ram, worn out with length
of untold years was brought, his great horns curved
around his hollow temples. After she
had cut his scrawny throat with her sharp knife
Thessalian, barely staining it with his
thin blood, Medea plunged his carcass in
a bronze-made kettle, throwing in it at
the same time juices of great potency.
These made his body shrink and burnt away
his two horns, and with horns his years. And now
thin bleating was heard from within the pot;
and even while they wondered at the sound,
a lamb jumped out and frisking, ran away
to find some udder with its needed milk. Latin Text
♠ Fab 24 – Hyginus, Fabulae
JASON. DAUGHTERS OF PELIAS: Since Jason has faced so many perils at the command of his uncle Pelias, he began to think how he might kill him without suspicion. This Medea proposed to do. And so, when they were now far from Colchis, she bade the ship be hidden in a secret place, and she herself in the guise of a priestess of Diana came to the daughters of Pelias. She promised to make their father Pelias a youth again instead of an old man, but this the eldest daughter Alcestis said could not be done. In order more easily to bend her to her will, Medea cast mist before them, and by means of drugs formed many strange things which seemed to be like reality, putting an old ram in a brazen vessel, from which a very fine young lamb seemed to spring. So in the same way the daughters of Pelias — namely, Alcestis, Pelopia, Medusa, Pisidice, and Hippothoe — at Medea’s instigation slew their father and cooked him in a brazen caldron. When they realized they had been deceived, they fled from the country. But Jason, at a given signal of Medea, made himself the master of the palace, and handed over the rule to Acastus, son of Pelias, brother of the Peliades, because he had gone with him to Colchis. He himself with Medea departed for Corinth. Latin Text
♦ Munich, Antikensammlungen 2408: Attic red-figure stamnos by Copenhagen Painter; Side A: ram emerging from cauldron in center; on left, beardless male with staff (Iason?), and daughter of Pelias; on right, Medeia or daughter of Pelias extending right arm towards ram; Side B: two daughters of Pelias facing each other; seated, white-haired Pelias with staff; facing Pelias, a third daughter
Side A, from Flickr
Side A, from E. Gerhard, Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich Etruskischen Fundorts (Band 3): Heroenbilder, meistens homerisch (1847) pl. 157.3
Side B, from E. Gerhard, Auserlesene Griechische Vasenbilder, hauptsächlich Etruskischen Fundorts (Band 3): Heroenbilder, meistens homerisch (1847) pl. 157.4
Beazley Archive Pottery Database (with black-and-white photos of both sides)
Digital LIMC and link to entry in printed LIMC (with black-and-white photos of both sides)
♦ Tarquinia, Museo Archeologico 685: Attic red-figure column krater in Manner of Pistoxenos Painter, with (Side B) daughter of Pelias ; and (Side A) Alkandre, daughter of Pelias (named), who holds knife while leading aged Pelias (named), who leans on a crooked staff
Side B (on left) and Side A (on right), from A. Schultz, “Il mito di Pelia su un vaso cornetano,” Annali dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica 1876, pp. 43-48, pl. F
Beazley Archive Pottery Database(opens in new tab)
Digital LIMC and links to entries in printed LIMC (with black-and-white photo of Side A)
♦Basel, Antikenmuseum and Ludwig Collection, on loan: Attic red-figure cup in Manner of Euaion Painter; on Tondo/Interior, cauldron, Alkandre with sword and anxious, white-haired Pelias with crooked staff; on fragmentary exterior Side A, Medeia with small box in center, flanked by two daughters of Pelias on each side; on fragmentary Side B, on far right, Medeia with small box stand next to cauldron; she is followed by Alkandre, who pulls her father Pelias, with crooked staff, to right; behind Pelias, two more of his daughters
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
Digital LIMC and links to entries in printed LIMC (with black-and-white photos of tondo and two sides of cup)
♠ Nostoi fr 7 PEG – Poetae Epici Graeci 1, p. 97, ed. A. Bernabé. Leipzig 1987.
and at once she made Aison a pleasing vigorous youth
having stripped off old age with knowing hearts
boiling many drugs (pharmaka) in a golden lebes. (Transl. E. Bianchelli)
♠ Simonides 548 PMG – Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 286 ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
Argum. Eur. Med ii 137 SCHW.
Pherekydes [3F113] and Simonides say that Medea, having boiled Jason, rejuvenated him. (Transl. E. Bianchelli)
♠ Pherekydes 3F113 FGrH – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 90, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
♦ London, British Museum E163: Attic red-figure hydria with Medeia (named) holding a cup and sprinkling a potion from it on ram that emerges from cauldron; white-haired Iason (named, a mistake for name Aison?) with staff, who extends his right arm over cauldron as if commanding Medeia to rejuvenate him
Beazley Archive Pottery Databas
Digital LIMC and link to entry in printed LIMC( (with black-and-white detail photo of scene)
♠ Lyk 1315 – Lykophron, Alexandra
and had his own body cut to pieces in a caldron. Greek Text
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Tags:
#Iason, #ram, #Medeia, #Pelias, #Aison, #Alkandre
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, March 2022.
Artistic sources edited by R. Ross Holloway, Elisha Benjamin Andrews Professor Emeritus, Brown University; and by Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, March 2026.
