Medea’s Myth and Historical Realities: The Case of Ancient Greece and Colchis

Abstract

According to the German scholar Ludwig Preller, Medea, the well-known figure of Greek mythology, was originally a goddess of the moon. In this article, we attempt to clarify the meaning of the Greek name Mēdeia. In our view, any research concerning the genesis of this name should take into account the ancient Greek word (“Moon”) and earlier linguistic forms denoting the moon ̄ such as modern English Moon, German Mond (both possibly deriving from the Proto-Indo-European root me/n/ses-), as well as Latin Deus (the source of Italian Dio, “God”) and other words of related semantics. On this basis, we propose that the name Mēdeia could mean “Moon Goddess.” We also suggest that both Hellenic myths and the ancient Georgian folk epic Amiraniani preserve mythologized traces of the same historical events. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the female character in Amiraniani bears a name with lunar semantics—Kamar (an Arabic name derived from , meaning “Moon”). In the epic, Amiran fights against Kamar’s father, abducts his daughter, and Kamar ultimately betrays her father and aids Amiran in the conflict. Similarly, in Greek mythology, Medea betrays her father Aeetes and helps Jason steal the Golden Fleece. As Ludwig Preller observed, the Corinthian myth presents Medea’s father Aeetes (son of Helios, the sun god) as a figure who originally resided in Corinth but later moved with his daughter to Colchis. In this article, we offer the view that this myth reflects an actual historical event: that temples dedicated to Aeetes and Medea were first built in Corinth and later in Colchis, possibly during the emergence of Greek poleis in the 8th-7th centuries BCE. We further assume that the mythic episodes of Medea’s and Kamar’s betrayal of their paternal families allegorically depict the struggle between local Colchian and Greek temple communities. It may be supposed that a local Colchian temple -whose main cult was perhaps dedicated to Amiran-sought to extend its influence over the temple of the goddess Medea, which had previously been under the authority of Aeetes. Medea’s chapel, in turn, may have desired to come under this new influence. Such events, we suggest, were later described in Georgian mythology in figurative form. The article further entertains the possibility that certain mythic figures connected with Colchis may correspond to specific historical persons. For instance, we may assume that a priestess serving in Medea’s temple, bearing the same name as her goddess, sought to align herself with the Colchian cult and thus betrayed the solar temple dedicated to Aeetes, with which she had once been closely associated. Finally, we propose that, similar to the evolution of Hellenic myths, the Georgian ones also underwent later transformations. For example, Kamar may have acquired her current name only in the 7th–8th centuries CE, during the period of Arab expansion into Georgia, while originally she might have borne a different name denoting the moon. The article presents several additional hypotheses of this kind.