Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

Medeia

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peculiar conveyance was long felt to be of a specially fiery sort,
may be gathered from a high-faluting description of it by Dracontius,
who wrote at the close of the fifth century A.D.:

Then came the snakes
Raising their combs aloft and viperous throats
Scaly; and lo, their crested crowns shot flame.
The chariot was a torch, sulphur the yoke,
The pole bitumen; cypress was the wheel;
Yea, poison made that bridle-bit compact,
And lead that axle, stolen from five tombs1.

In art, as in literature, Medeia escapes from Corinth on a serpent-
chariot. Roman sarcophagi, which date from the second century of
our era, represent her mounting a car
drawn from left to right by two
winged snakes of monstrous size2.
In her right hand she grasps a short
sword. Over her left shoulder hangs
the body of one of her children. The
leg or legs of the other child are seen
projecting from the car. Of this type
there are two varieties. In the first,
of which but a single specimen is
known, Medeia has a comparatively
quiet attitude3. In the second, of
which there are seven examples, she
adopts a more tragic and pathetic
pose, raising her sword aloft and
turning her head as if to mark Iason's futile pursuit (fig. 179)4.
There can be little doubt that this sarcophagus-type was based
on the tradition of earlier paintings. In fact, almost identical
with it is the scene as shown on an amphora from Canosa now at

1 Dracont. carm. prof. 10. 556 ff. {Poet. Lat. Min. v. 212 Baehrens).

2 The sarcophagi are collected, figured, and discussed by Robert Sark.-Relfs ii. 205 ff.
pis. 62—65. See also K. Seeliger in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 2508—2511.

3 Robert op. cit. ii. 205 pi. 62 no. 193, a fragment formerly at Florence in the Palazzo
Martelli. Robert notes that the purse in Medeia's right hand is due to a mistake
of the draughtsman or of the restorer—it should be a sword—, and that the scalloped
side of the chariot probably implies a misunderstanding of the second dead child's leg.
The attempt to distinguish the male snake (bearded and crested) from the female is like-
wise a suspicious trait.

4 Id. ib. ii. 2£3f. pi. 64 no. 200, formerly at Rome in possession of an engineer
named Cantoni ; now in the Berlin Museum. This sarcophagus was found in 1887 near
the Porta S. Lorenzo. See further the monograph by L. von Urlichs Ein Medea-Sarko-
phag Wurzburg 1888 pp. 1—22 pi.