The “Golden Fleece,” in quest of which the adventurers made a voyage from the home of Jason, Iolehπs in the Thessalian Magnesia, is virtually identical with the fiery robe which Medea prepared for her rival Glance, the new bride, with the Homeric “aegis,” and with the garment smeared with phosphorus which was sent by Deianira to Hercules, and burst into a flame when brought near to a sacrificial fire. Jason, as the story went, was not allowed by the guardian of the fleece, King Aeetes, to approach it till he had performed a certain task in putting to the yoke fire-breathing bulls, which he effected by the aid of Medea. The bιdl is a well-known symbol of the sun, and it occurs in the bull-slaying group representing the Persian sun-god Mithras. Again, the slaying of a father by a son (the old sun killed by the new one) is seen alike in Oedipus having caused the death of his father Laius, in Aeson, the father of Jason, having been restored to life by the magic arts of Medea, and in Pelias having been killed and boiled in a caldron by his own daughters at the instigation of the sorceress. Lastly, the legend that Medea was herself the granddaughter of the Sun, and that she escaped in a car drawn by flying dragons, given to her for safety by her grandsire, equally tends to prove that the whole story is of solar origin, and can be explained on that theory alone.

This, indeed, has been well stated by Sir G. W. Cox, The “dragon chariot is simply the chariot of Indra, Helios, and Achilles; and it is drawn by dragons because the word denoted simply beings of keen sight, and was naturally applied to the creatures which may be supposed to bear the sun across the heaven.”

In all these legends about the sun the performance of certain imposed “toils” or labours is included, the idea expressed being the hard necessity of the sun going his daily course in the appointed time in spite of thickening storm-clouds and opposing powers of darkness, through which he has to fight his way, both visibly above and invisibly underneath the earth. Thus Hercules has his twelve labours (the number corresponding to the lunar months), while Jason is not only required by his uncle King Pelias to bring the golden fleece, but is commanded by Aeetes to tame the bulls as a condition of obtaining it. The name Mτ)δ∈ια may possibly be referred ta μr ∣ 8eσθaι, “to care for,” as Jason may contain the root laσθac, “to heal,” which is the meaning that Pindar attaches to it, or to ιov, the violet-coloured dawn, as in Iocaste, Iamos, and Iolaus. In his relation to the snake, which guarded the fleece, and to the dragons’ teetb which he sowed on the ground ploughed by the fiery bulls, compared with the serpent entwining the staff of the healing god Asclepius, we see that almost invariable connexion that subsists between solar and phallic worship. This view is confirmed by the “ship Argo,” one of the many sexual symbols of cup-shaped and boat-like form. It is the “ship” which was the Teutonic symbol of the goddess Isis.

The existing literature on the love of Medea for Jason shows how popular was the story in antiquity for its pathos and its sentimentality. Thus the Medea of Euripides was rendered by Ennius; Neophron of Sicyon and Melanthius wrote plays of the same name; we have the long and fine Pythian ode of Pindar, already referred to, the touching epistle “Medea Jasoni” in the Meroides of Ovid, and the interesting, beautiful, and too little read Argonautica of Apollonius.

Of course, the similarity of the names Mi)δoι and Mηδ∈ια led to etymological speculations on the identity of the nomenclature, and one Medus, a son of Medea, was believed to have been an eponym hero. The author of the compilation known as Hesiod’s Theogony says that Medeus was a son of Medea by Jason, and was brought up, as Jason himself had been, by Chiron in the mountains. Euripides assigns but two children to Medea and Jason, ’ a and Apollodorus gives their names as Mermerus and Pheres.