Ancient Greek Civilization

Medea. Jason and his fellow Argonauts have sailed to the remote easternmost shore of the Black Sea, in
what is now the nation of Georgia. The vicious king of the region, who possesses the Golden Fleece,
imposes on Jason a seemingly impossible task before he will hand over the fleece to the young Greek
hero. The stage is set for an ordeal that will put Jason’s strength and courage to a test of heroic
proportions. But Jason’s ultimate success in the ordeal depends as much upon his sex appeal as on his
fortitude. For Medea, the king’s daughter, is smitten with uncontrollable passion at her first glimpse of
Jason, and she has knowledge of magical means that make Jason invulnerable. The erotic had not been a
conspicuous feature of earlier epic poetry, but the Hellenistic poets (and artists) were fascinated by the
irresistible attraction of this irrational force. Aristophanes had criticized Euripides (p. 197) for
trivializing tragedy by introducing the erotic element, but the influence of Euripides was so pervasive that
the erotic became an essential feature of subsequent Greek poetry. In the Argonautica, Apollonius
introduces Eros, the god of erotic passion, in person. It is Eros whom the goddesses Hera and Athena
recruit to inspire Medea with love for Jason, so that the success of Jason’s heroic quest lies in the hands
of Eros, who, it turns out, is a mere child, a spoiled brat, the son of Aphrodite. Apollonius very
perceptively conveys the parallelism of adult erotic passion and the uncontrollable cupidity of an
overindulged child in his portrayal of this mighty deity. According to Albert Einstein, “God does not play
dice,” but it is precisely dice-playing that this god is engaged in when we first encounter him in the poem:
He is playing at knucklebones with Ganymede, a boy who is himself the object of Zeus’ erotic passion.
Eros has won almost all of Ganymede’s pieces, but he will not be happy until he has won them all, which
he gleefully proceeds to do. Later, he has to be bribed to shoot one of his arrows into the marrow of
Medea. The bribe is a toy, a brightly colored ball, the symbolism of which is made clear by Apollonius’
description: The ball resembles the sphere of the earth, and we are left in no doubt that Apollonius wishes
to suggest that the world is controlled by a mighty force that is utterly unstable, irrational, and
unpredictable.