Taming the Dragon: Medea & Mythmaking in South Italian Vase-Painting

We tend to think of Medea, this complex and controversial figure from Greek mythology, as Euripides portrayed her in his eponymous play: a foreign sorceress who killed her own children in revenge against Jason, her unfaithful husband. However, at the beginning of her story, Medea was a maiden who fell in love with the hero when he arrived in her homeland of Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece. Using her magic, she helped Jason overcome the enormous, menacing dragon that guarded the fleece by making it fall asleep with her magic soporific potions. South Italian vase-painters of the fourth century BCE show a particular fascination with the climactic moment in Colchis. They tend to magnify Medea’s presence and foreground her pivotal intervention, often at the expense of Jason’s heroism. They extoll her magic arts, frequently depicting her offering a bowl of drugs to the dragon, an iconographic motif that persisted into Roman times. In this presentation, I bring out the iconographic similarities between Medea and the Hesperides depicted as offering bowls to their respective formidable dragons. I argue that on South Italian vases, the myth of the capture of the Golden Fleece was reimagined in local terms, assimilated with the representation of the Hesperides feeding Ladon, the guardian of the famed golden apples. However, the motif of Medea drugging the Colchis dragon is presented as the antithesis of the ideal maiden’s role, embodied by the exemplary nymphs who dutifully nourished their dragon.

The Lecture will be chaired by Professor Paul Roche FAHA, ASCS President.

Details

When

2 February 2026

Where

Sir Owen G Glenn Building University of Auckland, New Zealand

This lecture is presented in partnership with the Australasian Society for Classical Studies (ASCS).

Further details on the full ASCS Conference program can be found on their website.

Gina Salapata is an Associate Professor and Programme Coordinator of Classical Studies at Massey University, New Zealand, specializing in Greek art, archaeology, and religion. Born and raised in Greece, she received her undergraduate degree from the University of Athens. Her academic journey then took her to the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her MA and PhD in Classical Archaeology.

Her main research interests lie at the intersection of Greek material culture and religion. She has published extensively on topics such as votive offerings, heroic cults, and regional religious practices, including the monograph Heroic Offerings: The Terracotta Plaques from the Spartan Sanctuary of Agamemnon and Kassandra (University of Michigan Press, 2014).

Iconography and mythology are other areas in which she has conducted research. The heart-throb Adonis and his cult have been favourites of hers and have featured in a number of articles over the years. She is currently working on projects about the Dioscuri and the Hesperides.

She has served as Honorary Secretary of the Association for Coroplastic Studies (ACoST) and of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies.