Lot Essay
When Jason returns to Iolkos with the Golden Fleece, he discovers that Pelias had murdered his parents and usurped the throne. Jason appeals to Medea for revenge. The sorceress approaches the daughters of Pelias with a remedy to rejuvenate their aged father. She chops up an old ram and places it in a cauldron with magical herbs, and a young ram emerges. Thus the daughters are convinced and proceed to dismember their father. However, Medea withholds her magical herbs, thereby preventing Pelias' rejuvination.
In Attic black-figure the cauldron is often flanked by the gesticulating daughters of Pelias, as on a neck-amphora, also by the Leagros Group, in the Sackler Museum, Harvard University, no. 4 in Simon, "Peliades" in LIMC. A Leagros Group hydria in the British Museum, has the daughters together with their father (see no. 11 in Simon, "Pelias" in LIMC). A neck-amphora by the Medea Group in the British Museum has Pelias, Medea and two daughters flanking the cauldron (no. 10 in "Pelias," op. cit.). On a red-figured hydria by the Copenhagen Painter in the British Museum, the cauldron is flanked by Medea and Jason (no. 134 in Reeder, Pandora, Women in Classical Greece).
In Attic black-figure the cauldron is often flanked by the gesticulating daughters of Pelias, as on a neck-amphora, also by the Leagros Group, in the Sackler Museum, Harvard University, no. 4 in Simon, "Peliades" in LIMC. A Leagros Group hydria in the British Museum, has the daughters together with their father (see no. 11 in Simon, "Pelias" in LIMC). A neck-amphora by the Medea Group in the British Museum has Pelias, Medea and two daughters flanking the cauldron (no. 10 in "Pelias," op. cit.). On a red-figured hydria by the Copenhagen Painter in the British Museum, the cauldron is flanked by Medea and Jason (no. 134 in Reeder, Pandora, Women in Classical Greece).