In Greek mythology, Perses (Ancient Greek: Πέρσης) is a Colchian prince, son of Helios and the Oceanid Perse, and brother of Aeëtes, Circe, Pasiphaë, and Aloeus. After Jason stole the Golden Fleece, Perses usurped Aeëtes's throne at Aea until Medea — or, in another telling, her son Medus — killed him and restored the kingdom to Aeëtes. He is distinct from Perses the Titan and from Perses son of Perseus.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Perses (brother of Aeetes)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Family
As son of Helios and Perse, Perses is full brother of Aeëtes, Aloeus, Circe, and Pasiphaë. Unlike those siblings he is absent from Hesiod's Theogony and Apollonius's Argonautica; most notices of him are Roman. In Valerius Flaccus he is Aeëtes's brother only on his mother's side, his father unnamed.
II.Usurpation of Colchis
Aeëtes had been warned that great peril would follow if the Golden Fleece left Colchis. After Medea helped Jason steal it, Perses seized the throne. Apollodorus says Medea later returned unknown to Colchis, found Aeëtes deposed by Perses, killed the usurper, and restored her father.
Another tale has Medea's son Medus arrive under a false name and be imprisoned when famine struck. Medea came as a pretended priestess of Artemis, revealed herself to her son, gave him a sword, and had him slay Perses. Diodorus, in a rationalizing account, makes this Perses father of a mortal witch named Hecate and calls him exceedingly cruel and lawless — conflating him with the Titan who fathered the goddess Hecate.
III.Homonyms
This atlas treats separately Perses the Titan son of Crius (perses) and Perses son of Perseus and Andromeda (perses-perseid), eponym of the Persians. This article concerns only the Colchian brother of Aeëtes.