Aeetes
King of Colchis, son of Helios, father of Medea, and guardian of the Golden Fleece who set impossible tasks for Jason.
The Legend of Aeetes
His own daughter betrayed him for a stranger — and he never saw it coming. Aeetes was the son of Helios and brother of Circe and Pasiphae, making sorcery a family trait. When Jason arrived demanding the Golden Fleece, Aeetes set three impossible tasks: yoke fire-breathing bulls, sow dragon teeth, and fight the warriors that sprang from them. He assumed Jason would die. But Medea, Aeetes's own daughter, fell in love with Jason (aided by Aphrodite and Hera) and gave him magical ointments and strategies. She then helped steal the Fleece and murdered her own brother Absyrtus during the escape. Aeetes pursued them but failed.
Parents
Helios, Perseis
Symbols
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Medea
🗡 heroSorceress who helped Jason, then destroyed him
A powerful sorceress and princess of Colchis who betrayed her family to help Jason win the Golden Fleece, only to be abandoned by him and take catastrophic revenge.
Medea
🗡 heroSorceress princess of Colchis
Medea was a granddaughter of Helios and priestess of Hecate whose sorcery saved Jason — and whose revenge destroyed him.
Jason
🗡 heroLeader of the Argonauts
The hero who assembled the Argonauts and sailed to Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece, aided by Medea's sorcery.
Autolycus
🗡 herotheft, cunning
The master thief and shapeshifter, grandfather of Odysseus, whose gift for deception was inherited by the most cunning hero in Greek mythology.
Jason
🗡 heroLeader of the Argonauts, seeker of the Golden Fleece
The hero who assembled the Argonauts and sailed to Colchis in quest of the Golden Fleece. Jason's story is one of ambition, adventure, and tragic betrayal.
Aeson
🗡 heroFather of Jason, rejuvenated by Medea
Aeson was Jason's aged father whom Medea rejuvenated through sorcery — cutting his throat, draining his blood, and filling him with a magical potion.
Odysseus
🗡 heroMan of many wiles
Odysseus was the most cunning of all Greek heroes — the man of polytropos (many turns), whose intelligence rather than strength defined a new kind of heroism.
Pasiphaë
🗡 heroQueen of Crete, mother of the Minotaur
Pasiphaë was the queen of Crete whom Poseidon cursed with an unnatural desire for a bull — the mother of the Minotaur and a sorceress in her own right.
Thyestes
🗡 herocurse
Brother of Atreus who seduced his sister-in-law and was tricked into eating his own children at the feast of Atreus.
Oedipus
🗡 heroKing who fulfilled the prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother
The tragic king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, fulfilling a prophecy he had spent his life trying to avoid.
Pelias
🗡 herousurpation
Usurper king of Iolcus who sent Jason on the quest for the Golden Fleece hoping he would die, and was later boiled alive by his own daughters.
Althaea
🗡 heroNone recorded
Queen of Calydon and mother of Meleager who killed her own son by burning the magical brand that the Fates had tied to his life at birth