Medea and the Corinthiaca of Eumelus
Corinthiaca-Medea you will always be beloved (by me)
Eumelus of Corinth was an Archaic Greek poet from 8th century BC Corinth, theoretically making him a contemporary of Homer and Hesiod. A recent scholar has argued that he lived no earlier than the 7th century BC, contrary to ancient traditions regarding his life. He wrote many poems, but I’m just going to focus on his Corinthiaca and a few related Archaic/early Classical stories. They are untainted by Euripides’ Medea, making them very interesting showcases of what the oral tradition around her was more like.
Synopsis: The Corinthiaca covered the split allotment of Corinth to Helios and Poseidon, the founding of Corinth by mortals/nymphs, the birth of Aeetes, the adventures of the Argonauts, the founding of the Isthmian Games, the Corinthian queenship of Medea and her husband Jason, and their falling-out.
Scholiast on the Argonautica:
“Ephyra” is Corinth, from Ephyra the daughter of Epimetheus [brother of Prometheus?]; Eumelus, however, says it’s from Ephyra the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, who became Epimetheus’ wife.
Ephyra was the mythic “first settler” of Corinth. Eumelus seems to have her be detached from the royal Corinthian family tree, but Epimenides of Crete [7th-6th century BC] wrote that “Aeetes was a Corinthian, and his mother was Ephyra.” This replaced his mother Antiope in the Corinthiaca, who is mentioned further down. Perseis, or Perse, is his mother in the Theogony and Odyssey respectively (both of which also mention Circe as his sister, while the Corinthiaca didn’t seem to, at least according to extant fragments. Implying that Eumelus was unfamiliar with Homer and Hesiod’s works). Personally I think Ephyra is the coolest and most unique of all her possible names.
Pausanias read the Corinthiaca, and gives a wonderful summary of it.
The Corinthian territory, being a part of the Argolid, has its name from [a man named] Corinthus. The idea that he was a son of Zeus [and thereby founded Corinth, as sons of Zeus as ought to do], I do not know that anyone has stated seriously apart from most of the [common/uneducated] Corinthians; for Eumelus [says] […] that Ephyra, a daughter of Oceanus, first dwelt in this land.
The Corinthians too say that Poseidon got into dispute with Helios over the land, and that Briareos [the hundred-handed, hundred-headed storm god] acted as their arbitrator, who decreed that the Isthmus and that whole area should belong to Poseidon, but gave Helios the heights above the city [ie, the Acropolis of Corinth, also known as the Acrocorinth].
Scholiast on Pindar’s Olympian Odes:
Why does he [Pindar] mention Medea? Because Corinth was her ancestral possession […] we learn from Eumelus, a historical poet, who says [and I quote]:
“But when Aeetes and Aloeus were born from Helios and Antiope, then Hyperion’s glorious son divided the country in two between his sons. The Asopus riverland he awarded to noble Aloeus, while all that Ephyra had settled he gave to Aietes. Aietes chose to entrust it to Bounos, until such time as he himself should return, or someone of his blood, a child or grandchild, and he went off to the Colchian land.”
Bounos was the child of Hermes and a nymph.
According to Pausanias, Bounus established the sanctuary of Hera Bouniaia in Corinth. In reality, though, Bounus as a character probably came from Hera’s epithet, rather than the other way around as the myth attests. This was common for most etiological stories/characters. I like to imagine him as her priest
Pausanias’ summary picks back up:
Eumelus said that Helios gave Aloeus the Asopus land and Aeetes the Ephyraean; and that Aeetes—when he went away to Colchis—entrusted the country to Bounos, Bounos being the child of Hermes and Alcidamea. […] And when Bounos died, Aloeus’ son Epopeus acquired power over the Ephyraeans too.
And that subsequently Marathon [eponym of an Attic town] the son of Epopeus, son of Aloeus the son of Helios, to escape his father’s lawlessness and violence, migrated to the coastal region of Attica; and that after Epopeus’ death he went to the Peloponnese and divided his realm between his sons, and himself returned to Attica; and that Sicyon gave his name to the Asopus land [town of Sicyon], and Corinthus gave his to Ephyraea [Corinth].
Time for Medea to show up!
And that subsequently, as Marathon’s son Corinthus left no child [ie, no heirs], the Corinthians sent for Medea from Iolcus and handed over the sovereignty to her [because she was Aeetes (their first king)’s daughter].
Scholiast on Euripides’ Medea:
That Medea was queen of Corinth, Eumelus and Simonides [6th century BC] record.
First of all, LOVE this for her. Just happens to be the daughter of Aeetes so she gets to be queen. Girlboss. She was living in Iolcus because, as Hesiod said in the Theogony, she lived there with Jason at the time [it was his childhood home]:
And [Jason] the son of Aeson, by the will of the gods, led Aeetes’ daughter [Medea] away from him, that heaven-nurtured king Aeetes, when he [Jason] had finished the many grievous labours which the great king, overbearing Pelias, that outrageous and presumptuous doer of violence, put upon him. But when the son of Aeson had finished them, he came to Iolcus after long toil bringing the coy-eyed girl with him on his swift ship, and made her his buxom wife. And she was subject to Jason, shepherd of the people, and bore a son, Medeus, whom Chiron the son of Philyra brought up in the mountains. And the will of great Zeus was fulfilled.
Fascinatingly, Hesiod’s Jason only carried off and married Medea *after* completing all his other labors, rather than relying on her to complete them at all. In the Corinthiaca, though, Medea did assist by giving the Argonauts divine advice.
Scholiast on the Argonautica:
[quote from the Argonautica:] “But now the earthborn ones were springing up all over the plowland; the murderous War god’s acre bristled with stout shields and two-edged spears and shining helmets.”
This and the following lines are taken from Eumelus, in whom Medea says to Idmon [break/gap in text, also known as a lacuna]…
Idmon was the Argonauts’ seer, and was often described as the son of Apollo in other sources. Medea was apparently represented advising Idmon about the dragon teeth that were planted, which makes sense considering her prophetic role in Pindar’s Pythian Ode 4 (early 5th century BC). Interestingly though, he makes her queen of Colchis rather than Corinth:
…the word spoken at Thera by Medea, which once the inspired daughter of Aeetes, the queen of the Colchians, breathed forth from her immortal mouth. She spoke in this way to the heroes who sailed with the warrior Jason:
“[she explains how Libya will host Greek cities (not just foreign ones) one day, 17 generations down the line, as a way to praise a guy from Cyrene, Libya in Pindar’s day]”
Indeed, these were the oracular verses of Medea. And the godlike heroes bowed down motionless and in silence, listening to her shrewd words of wisdom…
Favorinus’ Corinthian Oration seems to imply a list of the Corinthiaca’s Argonauts:
For indeed they say that [the Isthmian] games were first established here by the two gods [Poseidon and Helios], and that the victors were [the rest of this quote is in poetic verse, implying it’s cited from an epic poem such as the Corinthiaca which lists all these exploits]:
“Castor in the single straight race, Calais in the double [lacuna] Orpheus won with the lyre, Heracles as pancratiast, in the boxing Polydeuces won, in the wrestling Peleus won, with the discus Telamon, in the armored racing, Theseus. A competition for horses was also arranged, and Phaethon won in the saddle, and Neleus with the four-horse chariot. There was also a boat race, and the Argo won it. And after that it sailed no more: Jason dedicated it there to Poseidon.”
Aka Castor, Calais, [???], Orpheus, Heracles, Polydeuces/Pollux, Peleus, Telamon, Theseus, Phaethon (that’s a new one), Neleus, Jason.
We can assume at least Zethes’ presence in the lacuna because of his brother Calais, but idk how big the lacuna is or how many names could potentially be missing. Idmon was probably included as well, since most of the Argonauts probably won something.
Pausanias’ summary continues:
So it was because of her that Jason was king at Corinth. Medea had children, but as each one was born she would take it into the shrine of Hera and bury it, in the belief that they would be made immortal. But in the end she realized that her hopes were in vain, and she was detected by Jason, who had no sympathy with her pleas but sailed off back to Iolcus; so Medea departed too, transferring the sovereignty to Sisyphus. That is the story as I have read it.
All other sources which name the temple of Hera clarify that it’s the temple of Hera Akraia (Hera of the Heights) aka Hera of the Acrocorinth, closest to the gods. Do NOT get me started on how much narrative power the idea of her burying their children under temple of her husband’s most beloved goddess could have—
Pausanias also explained that, technically, Medea’s plan worked, her children became immortal daemons to the Corinthians:
Their names were Mermerus and Pheres [often they had more than 2 children, including one Medeus; it’s likely that the shortening down to 2 happened to accommodate the number of actors who could fit on stage], and they are said to have been stoned to death by the Corinthians, owing to the gifts which legend says they brought to Glauce [this diverges from the archaic tradition of the Corinthiaca, but also may have inspired Euripides to combine the idea of “Medea’s children being violently killed on purpose by the Corinthians” with “their own mother lovingly killing them on accident” to get “their own mother violently killed them on purpose” which is the worst of both worlds imo]. But as their death was violent and illegal, the young babies of the Corinthians were destroyed by them until, at the command of the oracle, yearly sacrifices were established in their honor and a figure of Terror [Deimos] was set up. This figure still exists, being the likeness of a woman frightful to look upon.
(Pausanias also notes that it was an old custom to have children wear black clothes during the yearly ritual, and the children would cut their hair and sacrifice it to the children of Medea. Scholars speculate that Medea was probably imagined as a Corinthian goddess at one point (especially considering how older texts like Hesiod and Pindar repeatedly referred to her as “immortal”), and the consort of Jason was a distinct Medea with the same name, but the two became the same and thus Aeetes was added to the top of the family tree only to immediately move to Colchis. And if I were to speculate on it: her burying her children in the hope of making them immortal (and mortal children wearing black to grieve them with her every year) sounds a lot like a goddess grieving the loss of her tragically mortal offspring, much like Thetis, and hating how she had to bury them in the ground. In fact, Thetis actually has a story where she did a similar thing: in the Archaic poem Aegimius (7th-6th century BC) Thetis repeated boiled her children in a pot because she wanted to determine if any of them were immortal, like her. Peleus got “annoyed” with her and put a stop to this after she birthed Achilles. Other sources also mention a daughter, Polydora, who survived)
My thoughts
This reminds me of how Menelaus became king of Sparta. His quasi-divine wife inherited the throne, thereby he inherited it with her, and moved into her home rather than she moving to his (well, in Medea’s case, she moved into his home *and then* they moved into her new palace).
It represents a uniquely egalitarian relationship with them, I think. Both Medea AND Jason were out of their elements when living in the foreign town of Corinth. Medea grew up in Asia, but the people of Corinth already loved her because this was her ancestral homeland. Jason was Greek, so he understood the culture of Corinth better, but he had no blood ties to the kingdom. It was ultimately *Medea’s* kingdom that he happened to rule with her.
She wouldn’t be persecuted for anything she did, and ultimately he didn’t want a part of it anymore after he found out what she’d been getting away with. He chose to leave rather than her being banished or thrown out—he GAVE UP power, rather than hungrily seeking it out, BECAUSE he loved his family so much. Then out of guilt she abdicated her throne and (possibly) went after him (or went to Athens or something).
She loved their children with everything she had. She did everything in her power to give them the best lives possible, but it wasn’t enough. Her powers weren’t enough. In an effort to give their children everlasting life, she killed them before they even had a chance to live. I can’t think of a more tragic scenario for any parent.
And that could have been so genuinely tragic and gripping as a play 😭 unfortunately Euripides had to turn around and go “😏 Medea was a foreigner with no ties to Corinth; her husband cheated on her and she killed their kids to get back at him 😏 she had to do everything for him bc he was an untalented sack of shit; he died sad and alone and Medea hated him + she’s tapping Aegeus now 😏”
Anyway TLDR: live laugh loath Euripides’ Medea. The play can be summed up by “he had a hateboner for Jason and a regular boner for Medea”
(Not really, mythology is more complicated than that, I’m just salty I don’t see more soft, loving and naive Medeas in the world. Give me a Medea that would do anything for her kids and fell apart after she accidentally ended their lives. Give me a Jason that loves his children so much he’d abandon kingship and nobility over them. A Medea so desperate for forgiveness she’d give up her throne and follow her husband even after hurting him so badly. THEMMMMM—)