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Medea,Misunderstood
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Today's feminist mythological icon was originally seen as a symbol of xenophobia.
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From her fame on the Greek stage to the blaring of her name in the poems of Rome, “her of Colchis” – as Martial would call her – remains one of the most iconic female figures of myth (Manuwald 115). Today, she is praised for her strength and unique heroine-like portrayal. However, during the Classical Roman and Greek periods in which her myth began to spread, Medea, or Mήδεια, was a symbol of xenophobia rather than female empowerment; it is only our modern interpretation that leans into her feminine rather than her foreign identity.
To understand Medea’s reception in the Classical World, one must begin by understanding the myth itself, which begins as a story of love. Enamored with Jason, the Colchian princess aids him in his quest for the Golden Fleece. In doing so, Medea defies her father, King Aëtes, and saves her lover’s life with her magic. Jason is from Ioclus; he is Greek. His reward for obtaining the fleece is his kingdom, and Medea expects – rightly, for he has promised it – their union. The myth then begins to show stains of blood. As they flee Colchis, Medea kills her brother, Apsyrtus. When confronted by Pelias, the usurper to the throne of Ioclus, she tricks his daughters into committing patricide. It is Medea’s soiled hands that finally bring Jason to Greece, and there they are married. However, once welcomed by King Creon in Corinth, Jason betrays her and announces his engagement to the local princess, Creusa. Suddenly, the tragedy takes a poignant turn – Medea, enraged and heartbroken, burns Creusa alive with an enchanted robe; she kills King Creon; and she murders the children she and Jason have borne together. Leaving Jason in the ruins of the family he sought and the family he had, she flees to Athens on a dragon-led chariot.
The ending may appear triumphant to a modern interpreter – this is a woman, after all, who “gets her revenge” – but the Greeks, instead, saw tragedy in the absence of xenophobia. In Euripides’ 431 BC play, it wasn’t Medea that the Greeks felt sorrow for, but Jason. She was not, to them, a woman scorned, and it was not, to them, a question of female retribution. Sex was not the subject. Medea belonged to Colchis, a kingdom outside of Greece in present-day Georgia, and Jason’s marriage to her is the primary travesty of the tale. In Greece, around the time of the XII Tables, the Athenian government accepted legislation preventing the marriage of foreign women and local men so as to “preserve the Athenian race” and avoid mixed children, or mixobarbaroi (Yuan 2024). The myth of Medea, therefore, serves not as a line of caution against falling for the wrong man, but as a warning against wedding foreign women, whose fury could send a man to ruin. Once entangled with Jason, it is Medea who becomes a figure of destruction rather than redemption; reason caves to rage and this woman now seeks to unravel the life of the Greeks’ newest champion. The crowd sees her as an antagonist. Through Medea, Euripides writes, “I know indeed what evil I intend to do, but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury, fury that brings upon mortals the greatest suffering,” embodying her anger (Kasinis 2020). Her story, then, serves as a parallel to the xenophobic laws and culture of the Greeks at the time; this continues in Rome, but with a slight shift towards how we see Medea today.
The trickle-down from Euripides’ Medea to Roman culture exposed the myth to a slightly different cultural reception, maintaining xenophobic elements while praising more of her feminine traits. Medea was well-known enough in Rome that Ennius penned two works in her name, both inspired by Euripides: Medea Exul and Medea. Pacuvius’ play Medus finds Medea through her son Medus and his rise to the throne of Media. From it, Medea is seen as a mother figure defending her children and seeking to avenge them (Medus 120). More famously, Medea also appears in Ovid’s Heroides XII, and from it she becomes more of a household name. It is there that Hipsypyle, a Lemnian queen and lover of Jason, recognizes the negative denotation of wedding a non-Greek, and where Medea agrees with the popular image of foreigners at the time – as barbarians – by referring to herself as “I, the woman who is to become a barbarian to you” (Ovid 109). The Romans evidently acknowledged the values present in Greece, while recognizing through more works the different perspectives one may take on the myth.
When we reflect on Medea, it is important for us to see her for the way she was originally written – not as a woman of wits or strength, but as a vindictive, stereotyped cautionary tale. Her value today extends past the realm of storytelling, reaching the hearts of women wronged and little girls with mythology magazines, not realizing their favorite story meant something so different thousands of years ago. Society changes, and with it the meaning of the words we re-read. Due to her xenophobic characterization in the Greek theatres, due to her classification as “barbaric” in Roman works, she maintained notoriety in the Classical World, and maintains it still – perhaps in a different, more feminist light – today.
Credits & Citations
Image Credit: Medea, by William Wetmore Story (sculpture). Edited by The Boston Hound.
Kasinis, Demetra. “Medea the Refugee.” Cambridge University Press, 2020. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27111293?seq=1.
Manuwald, Gesine. “Ferox Invictaque ? Adaptations of Medea in Roman Literature.” Laurentian University, 2018, Sudbury, Ontario. Lecture.
Naso, Publius Ovidius. Medea to Jason. Perseus, www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0085%3Apoem%3D12.
Pacuvius. Medus and Other Works. Loeb Classics, www.loebclassics.com/view/pacuvius-tragedies/1936/pb_LCL314.247.xml.
“Roman Law.” Crystalinks, www.crystalinks.com/romelaw.html.
Yuan, Maggie. “Medea Through the Ages.” Discentes, U of Pennsylvania, 20 Oct. 2024, web.sas.upenn.edu/discentes/2024/10/20/medea-through-the-centuries/.
