Who was Apollonius of Rhodes?

Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius of Rhodes was a third-century BC Greek poet and scholar, best known as the author of the Argonautica, the only full-scale Greek epic surviving between Homer and Virgil. The poem is a crucial source for particular versions of Medea's choices, Apsyrtus's death and the marriage on Drepane. Precise biographical claims remain disputed, and scholars explain his title through either possible residence on Rhodes or Rhodian family extraction.

In short

Apollonius of Rhodes wrote the Argonautica in the third century BC; it is the only full-scale Greek epic surviving between Homer and Virgil.
The ancient Lives give confused accounts of a withdrawal to Rhodes, while modern scholarship considers either residence there or Rhodian family extraction as the source of his title.
In Book 3, Eros shoots Medea at the gods' request, after which the poem follows her deliberation; divine coercion shapes her passion without erasing her later decisions.
Apollonius makes Apsyrtus an adult pursuer whom Medea lures into an ambush and Jason kills; Apollodorus instead makes him a child whom Medea kills and dismembers.
On Drepane, Arete warns Medea and Jason of Alcinous's conditional judgement, allowing them to marry before he announces it.
Medea defeats Talos by calling destructive spirits and fixing her gaze on him; he wounds his vulnerable ankle, loses his ichor and falls.

What Eros changes without deciding everything

Eros enters Aeetes’ hall unseen. He crouches behind Jason, draws a fresh arrow and shoots Medea beneath the heart. The arrow burns like flame; Eros leaves the hall laughing. The gods have requested the act because Jason needs her aid, but the wound does not complete the story. It begins the poem’s sustained attention to what Medea thinks before she acts.

Book 3 follows the turmoil produced by the shot. Medea argues with herself, considers the claims of family and stranger, and must decide whether to give Jason the means to survive her father’s tests. Divine coercion is therefore part of this surviving version. It explains why desire arrives with such force, but it does not erase the decisions that follow. Apollonius keeps both pressures visible.

That precision matters because the Argonautica occupies an unusual place in the surviving record. Written in the middle of the third century BC, it is the only full-scale Greek epic surviving between Homer and Virgil. Its author spent most of his career in Alexandria, although little about his life is certain. The ancient Lives give confused accounts of a withdrawal after the poem’s poor reception. Modern scholarship treats either a possible period of residence on Rhodes or Rhodian family extraction as the likelier explanation of his title. Neither account establishes that he was born there, or that the poem was certainly revised and recited there. The title itself cannot settle which explanation is right. For myth, the secure evidence is the poem rather than the biographical story attached to its author.

Which Apsyrtus the poem kills

Apsyrtus closes in as a leader of the Colchian pursuit in Book 4. He is an adult commander, not a child carried aboard the Argo. Medea sends him into a meeting arranged as a trap. Jason waits in ambush and kills him.

The division of responsibility is exact. Medea devises the deception and lures her brother within reach; Jason commits the killing. The poem does not allow the ambush to become an accidental encounter, and it does not make the arrow shot by Eros a sufficient account of what Medea now chooses to do.

Apollodorus preserves an incompatible version in the Library. There Medea takes a young Apsyrtus aboard when she flees Colchis. As Aeetes pursues, she kills and dismembers the child, throwing the pieces away so that their father must stop to gather them. This cannot be joined to Apollonius’s sequence as another stage of the same event. The brother cannot be both the adult pursuer lured ashore and the child passenger killed during flight.

Why the marriage must come before the judgement

On Drepane, the Colchians demand Medea’s return and Alcinous decides what condition will govern his answer. If Medea is still unmarried, she must be sent back. If she is already Jason’s wife, he will not separate her from her husband.

Arete hears the decision before it is announced. She sends a warning to Jason, and the pair complete their marriage that night. Only afterwards does Alcinous give his judgement. The marriage does not follow a favourable ruling; it is completed before the ruling so that Medea meets the condition on which it depends.

Apollonius makes the order unmistakable: private decision, warning, marriage, public judgement. Arete cannot cancel the king’s condition, but she can give Medea and Jason the knowledge needed to act before it closes around them. The outcome depends on what the pair do with that warning, not on a later change of mind by Alcinous.

How Talos falls

Near Crete, Talos keeps the Argo from landing by breaking rocks from the cliff and throwing them towards the ship. Medea answers from the deck. She calls on destructive spirits and fixes her gaze on the bronze guardian, directing her power without touching him.

The attack does not melt or pierce his bronze body. As Talos lifts more stones, he grazes his vulnerable ankle against a crag. Ichor, the fluid of the gods, escapes from the wound. He loses his strength, sways and falls. Apollonius ends the encounter not with a contest of force but with the exposed ankle, the running ichor and the bronze body striking the ground.

Where to stand

Rhodes

Dodecanese

Apollonius's title links him to Rhodes, but the evidence does not identify a single secure reason. Modern scholarship considers either a period of residence on the island or Rhodian family extraction, while the ancient Lives' withdrawal story remains confused.
Rhodes