Detail of a wine vase, from Vulci, Italy, dating to 510 B.C., now in the British Museum, London. The painted scene shows Medea extracting a ram from a cauldron. Medea was the daughter of the king of Colchis, a country located at the extreme confines of the known world. Over there went Jason with his companions, on board of the ship Argo, to seize the Golden Fleece. Medea fell in love with the hero and helped him with her magical arts in obtaining his purpose, and went with him back in Greece. During her relationship with Jason, Medea was able to demonstrate her ability in the use of enchantments and medicines, making Jason’s father young again and showing how she could bring back to life a ram, which had been dismembered and boiled into a cauldron. The story of Medea, in the reconstruction of Euripides, has a tragic conclusion: she killed with her own hands her children, whom Jason wanted to take away forever, after having repudiated her because of her coming from a barbarous country. Sorrow, love and vengeance mixed up giving origin to a wild fury, which ended up overwhelming all the woman’s attachments. After the slaughter, Medea disappeared on a chariot, driven by winged serpents, sent her by the Sun god, a deity from whom the sorceress, like Circe, drew her descent. Medea’s figure, coming from a world foreign to Hellenic civilization and culture, incarnates the ambiguity of the stranger, who at the same time seduces and fascinates for her powers but also is worrying for the wild and uncontrollable aspects of her nature.

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