Colchis to Corinth: The Argonautica's Medea

Apollonius of Rhodes' third century BCE epic the Argonautica gives Medea her fullest surviving narrative arc, and it is a story engineered by the goddess Hera and Aphrodite as much as chosen by Medea herself: to help Jason survive the impossible tasks her father Aeetes sets him, the gods have Eros strike Medea with sudden, overwhelming love for the Greek stranger. Once smitten, Medea uses her considerable skill in pharmaka, herbal and magical preparations learned as a priestess in Hecate's service, to protect Jason from fire breathing bulls and a dragon guarding the Golden Fleece, then flees Colchis with him and the Argonauts rather than face her father's fury. The escape turns brutal quickly: in the best known version Medea lures her own younger brother Apsyrtus into a trap and Jason kills him, and the pair scatter pieces of his body behind their ship to slow their pursuing father, who stops to gather his son's remains for burial.

Reaching Iolcus, Medea's magic serves Jason's cause once more and once more turns dark, when she tricks the daughters of the usurper king Pelias into believing they can restore their father's youth by cutting him apart and boiling the pieces, a demonstration she stages successfully on a ram first. The trick succeeds in killing Pelias but exiles Jason and Medea from Iolcus in disgrace, setting up the far better known final chapter of her story at Corinth, where Euripides picks up the narrative for his own very different purposes.