Medea.
    The daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, granddaughter of Helios and niece of Circe, Medea was a sorceress and priestess of Hecate. When Jason and the Argonauts came to her homeland in search of the Golden Fleece, Hera and Aphrodite induced Medea to fall in love with Jason. With her help he was able to secure the fleece, and when he fled from Colchis Medea accompanied him. On the voyage to Jason’s home in Iolchus they were married.
    When Jason arrived home bearing the Golden Fleece and claiming his right to the throne his uncle Pelias had usurped, the king resisted. Medea, however, plotted his death by means of her magical powers. She either restored Jason’s father, Aeson, to his youthful form by boiling him with secret herbs or performed the same demonstration with an old ram, cutting up its body and cooking it until it became a healthy young lamb. She told the daughters of Pelias that their father could be rejuvenated in the same way, and the maidens dutifully cut the old man to pieces and boiled the body, which, without Medea’s magic, did not come back to life. Both Medea and Jason were banished by the king’s son, Acastus, and sought refuge in Corinth, where King Creon granted them asylum.
    Ten years later, Jason fell in love with Creon’s daughter Glauce (or Creusa) and divorced Medea. Enraged and humiliated, Medea sent to Glauce a crown and a wedding dress, both impregnated with poison. When the young woman put on the garments, she and her father, who tried to save her, were burned to death. Medea then killed the two children she had borne to Jason. She escaped her husband’s wrath in her dragon-chariot and fled to Athens, where she was given sanctuary by King Aegeus, with whom she had the child Medus.
    Medea later tried but failed to trick Aegeus into poisoning his son Theseus. She escaped to Persia with her son, who founded the kingdom of Media. Medea eventually returned to Colchis, where she spent the rest of her life.

See also Jason; Jason and the Golden Fleece; Theseus at Athens.