Galaxy/The codex of Perses

Brother of Aeetes in the Sun-born house — in Hyginus a son of Sol and Persa alongside Circe and Pasiphae — who deposed Aeetes from the kingship of Colchis until Medea returned in secret and killed him, restoring her father to the throne at Aea.1

I

Hyginus numbers him among the children of the Sun: from Sol and Persa came Circe, Pasiphae, Aeetes, and Perses — the same eastern royal house that would guard the Golden Fleece and breed the witch Medea.2

II

Apollodorus tells only the usurpation and fall: after Medea's wanderings through Corinth and Athens, she came unknown to Colchis and found that Aeetes had been deposed by his brother Perses; she killed Perses and restored the kingdom to her father.3

III

Hyginus adds an oracle and a near miss with her son: an oracle warned Perses, son of Sol and Aeetes' brother, to beware death from Aeetes' descendants. When Medus, son of Aegeus and Medea, was driven to Colchis by a storm, guards seized the boy and brought him before King Perses — the very line the prophecy named.4

the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story

BEYOND THE POETS

How the centuries since have seen Perses — art, artifacts and echoes.

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