Medea in Corinth - The Sarcophagus - a photo on Flickriver

Sarcophagus' frieze depicting the myth of Jason and Medea in Corinth. The bas-relief describes the events concerning the myth of Jason after the recovery of the Golden Fleece in Colchis and the killing of Pelias, uncle of Jason, and usurper of the kingdom of Iolcus. After these events, and after having been expelled from Iolcus, Jason and Medeia settled in Corinth where they are said to have lived happily for ten years. But then Jason, having grown weary of being married to a foreign sorceress, felt ready for a younger and more representative wife. He found her in Glauce, daughter of King Creon of Corinth.
The events described by the images carved on the sarcophagus start from this point of Jason’s tale. They are arranged in five episodes. In the first, Medeia's children (bearing the poisoned gifts) approach an enthroned Creusa, who is surrounded by male and female attendants in her bridal chamber. The beardless figure on the far left has often been identified as Jason. In the second scene Jason is portrayed as a handsome hunter with a hunt companion. In the third, Creusa’s death is represented; Creon looks on, distraught, as his daughter's head bursts into flames. Next, Medeia watches her children holding a sword at her hand. Finally on the far right, Medeia alights from a chariot drawn by winged serpents with one dead child over her shoulder and the other visible on the floor of the chariot.
This is a well-known iconographic model and all the Medeia’s sarcophagi differ from each other only in small details.

Medeia myths and the power of the visual “consolatio”
(Source: Genevieve Gessert, “Myth as Consolatio: Medea on Roman Sarcophagi”)

The calamities that characterize Medeia's tale are certainly common to many in general terms - loss, betrayal, death but are so extreme in their details as to provide a vivid model that would be unquestionably worse than any death or loss. This juxtaposition would not only serve to commemorate the deceased in their moment of ideal death, but could also provide some solace for the mourner, performing the task of a visual consolation. As noted by several scholars, similar uses of mythological antitheses abound in funerary inscriptions of the second century AD. Medeia's story simply provides an unequivocal representation of the same sentiments in visual terms.
Imagine a mourner visiting the tomb of a deceased family member buried in a sarcophagus depicting the exploits of Medeia, such as the most complete example described by this sarcophagus. According to the argument presented here, the mythological narrative figures in the process of mourning by providing an image and a story on which to meditate in contemplating the death of a relative. For whereas Medeia overstayed her welcome on this earth and exited in the worst possible way, the deceased person in the sarcophagus went to the next world at the right time without a trail of destruction. The miseries of life, of marriage and children, are given vivid depiction in the episodes of the life of Medeia, and the deceased is certainly beyond all their vicissitudes now (and with any luck never experienced them in this fashion). Furthermore, the mourner is no Jason; the death of a single family member does not decimate the family as Medeia's departure did, and the state and society are still intact, whereas the state of Corinth in the bodies of Creusa and Creon were utterly destroyed.
In combination with the lid decoration, this particular sarcophagus also correlates meaningfully with “consolation” in the idea of the continuity of life and inevitability of death. The use of the narrow frieze of the sarcophagus lid for pictorial decoration was a uniquely Roman innovation, as Paul Zanker has observed, and often contained scenes or motifs intended to elucidate or qualify the casket iconography. Here the Corinthian episodes of Medeia's biography on the casket are paired with a lid depicting the seasons, a motif signifying the inevitable movement of time and the cycles of life: birth, growth, marriage, death. The potent symbolism and emotional effect provided by the mythological narrative clearly had some lasting meaning for the descendants of the deceased.

Roman Sarcophagus, 140-150 AD
Berlin, Altes Museum

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Taken on: January 3, 2011

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Sets appears in: • Medea's Myth • Roman Funerary Art more » • Berlin, Pergamon Museum « less

Groups appears in: • Greek Mythology • Ancient Greek and Roman Art

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