Aeëtes (also Aeeta) was the mythical king of Aea — from the fifth century BCE identified with Colchis on the eastern Black Sea — son of Helios and the Oceanid Perseis, brother of Circe and Pasiphaë, and father of Medea, Chalciope, and Absyrtus. He received Phrixus and the Golden Fleece, then set Jason the deadly tasks that Medea helped the Argonaut to survive. Classical geographers treated him as a remembered Colchian name and even as an ancestor of later local rulers.
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I.Family
Most sources make Aeëtes son of the sun-god Helios and the Oceanid Perseis, full brother of Circe, Pasiphaë, and (in some accounts) Aloeus, and brother or half-brother of Perses of Tauris. His consort is variously Idyia (youngest daughter of Oceanus), the Caucasian Oceanid Asterodeia, the Nereid Neaera, Clytia, Ipsia, or Eurylyte. By her — usually Idyia — he is father of Medea, Chalciope (or Iophossa), and Absyrtus (also Apsyrtus or Aegialeus).
Other genealogies make him a Corinthian, son of Helios and the Oceanid Ephyra or of Antiope or Asterope. Comparative tables of ancient authors show how fluid his parentage, siblings, wives, and children's names remain across the tradition.
II.Foundation of Colchis and the Fleece
Pausanias, citing the poet Eumelos, says Helios divided his land between Aloeus (Asopia) and Aeëtes (Ephyra/Corinth); Aeëtes later gave Corinth to Bounos and founded a colony called Aea near the mouth of the Phasis in Colchis.
When Phrixus fled Boeotia on the golden ram — his twin Helle having fallen into the Hellespont — Aeëtes received him kindly and gave him Chalciope in marriage. In gratitude Phrixus presented the ram's golden fleece, which Aeëtes hung on a tree in a grove sacred to Ares. Hyginus adds that an oracle warned Aeëtes he would die by a descendant of Aeolus, so he killed Phrixus, though Phrixus's sons escaped back to Orchomenus.
III.The Argonauts
Jason came to claim the fleece. Aeëtes promised it only if Jason yoked fire-breathing bulls, plowed a field, and sowed half the dragon's teeth Athena had given him (the other half Cadmus had sown at Thebes). The teeth sprouted armed men; Jason threw a stone among them so they slew one another. Medea, struck with love for Jason, supplied charms against the bulls and the sleepless dragon that guarded the fleece.
When Jason and Medea fled, Aeëtes pursued by ship. Medea delayed him by killing and dismembering her brother Absyrtus and casting the pieces overboard, forcing their father to gather the remains while the Argo escaped.
IV.Historicity
Later classical writers treated Aeëtes as a name with real Colchian resonance. Arrian reported sites from his time; Zosimus mentions a "palace of Aeetes" at the Phasis mouth; Xenophon and Pliny link local rulers to his line; Strabo calls Aeetes a local Colchian name. A sixth-century Lazican nobleman even bore the name. Whether or not Colchian dynasts truly claimed descent from him, the myth and the land remained tightly bound in Greek memory.