Medea sovrana di Corinto. Una scelta astuta nella costruzione dell’immaginario e dello spazio corinzio di epoca bacchiade

From the very initial versions of the saga of the Argonauts, the figure of Medea – bearer of superior knowledge expressed in her exceptional intellect – seems to be just as much of a cultural hero as Jason. Actually, Medea was a mythical figure with great expressive potential who must have caught the attention of the rulers of Corinth, which since the mid-8th century BC had been experiencing incessant growth in terms of urban planning as well as production and commerce. Indeed, this development, traditionally attributed to the political activities of the Bacchiad dynasty, also corresponded to their need to address their lack of a glorious local tradition highlighting Corinth’s independent and prestigious ancestry already in mythical times. Therefore, the Bacchiad poet Eumelus, while composing an epic dedicated to the story of Corinth starting from its origins, traced the saga of the Argonauts and the character Medea back to Corinth, adapting it to local political needs. By moving beyond the hypothesis of the existence of a Corinthian ancestral tradition regarding Medea, which is thought to have originated from the presence of a primordial local divinity connected to the natural world, the aim of this paper is therefore to reconstruct the figure of this heroine as she was perceived and hence adapted within the cultural context of Corinth using an archaeological stratigraphic approach. All the available clues as to her presence on the Isthmus have been systemised in order to reconstruct the role and significance of this multi-faceted figure with great communication potential in relation to the construction of Corinthian identity during the early archaic period.