Medea, a famous sorceress of Greek legend, daughter of Æëtes, king of Colchis, by whose aid Jason (q. v.) accomplished the object of his expedition, and acquired the Golden Fleece, and who accompanied him back to Greece as his wife; by her art she restored the youth of Eson, the father of her husband, but the latter having abandoned her she avenged herself on him by putting the children she had by him to death; the art she possessed was that of making old people young again by first chopping them in pieces and then boiling them in a caldron.