Here is the basic ancient Greek myth, with some additions made by Apollonius of Rhodes and Euripides.

Jason’s father, Aeson, was driven from his kingdom by Pelias. When Jason grew up, he went to Pelias to get his kingdom back. While in route, he helped an old woman cross a surging stream, and lost one of his sandals in the process. That hold woman happened to be Hera/Juno, who would help Jason. When Jason arrived wearing only one sandal, Pelias remembered a prophecy that he would be destroyed by a man with one sandal. But instead of killing Jason, Pelias said that he could have the kingdom if he went to far-off and savage Colchis and get the golden fleece. So Jason called together the finest heroes of Greece (such as Heracles, Orpheus, Teucer, Peleus, Castor and Pollux, etc., built a ship called the Argo, and went off to Colchis. After many adventures and dangers, the Argonauts arrived in Colchis and met the fierce king Aeetes, the son of the Sun god. Aeetes told Jason that he could get the fleece if he performed the impossible task of yoking two bronze-hooved, fire-breathing bulls and them plowing a field with them. He then had to sow dragon’s teeth into the field, and kill all the soldiers that would spring up from the dragon’s teeth. Juno, with the help of Venus and her son, made Aeetes’ young daughter Medea fall in love with Jason. Medea was a full-fledged witch, and using her magic Jason was able to perform the impossible tasks Aeetes’ had assigned, and then steal the golden fleece from the dragon which guarded it. As they were escaping, according to one version of the story, Medea took her little brother Apsyrtus, killed him, cut him into pieces and threw the pieces over the side of the ship so that the pursuing Colchians would have to stop to gather the pieces, letting them escape. 

Jason and Medea and the Argonauts went back to Pelias’ kingdom, but Pelias refused to honor his oath and give Jason the kingdom. So Medea tricked the daughters of Pelias into thinking they could make old Pelias young again by boiling him in water (see sculpture) that had magic herbs in it; but Medea did not give them the right herbs, so they ended up killing their father. But instead of Jason inheriting the kingdom, the people were so shocked at this terrible killing that they drove Jason and Medea out. Jason and Medea ended up in Corinth, where they lived for a few years, long enough for Jason and Medea to have two children. At this point Creon, King of Corinth, decides to offer his daughter (Creusa) in marriage to Jason, who accepts. Medea becomes so angry at this betrayal that she uses her magic to burn Creon and his daughter to death by means of poisoned wedding presents. Then she kills both Jason’s children and refuses to give them to him in burial. She then flees to Athens on a chariot provided by the Sun god. Jason eventually dies when a rotting piece on the Argo falls on him.

While there is still some argument on the question, most critics do not believe that Seneca’s plays were met to be staged -- only read, perhaps as part of Nero’s education. When Seneca wrote the Medea, there were already two famous versions of the Jason and Medea legend, the tragedy of Euripides, which may have created the story that Medea killed the children on purpose just to make Jason suffer - there is an alternate tale they she killed them by accident, trying to make them immortal, and the later account of Jason, Medea and the Argonauts by Apollonius’ Rhodius. However, the story of Medea and Jason was a favorite subject of both Greek and Roman dramatists, and there are many lost plays on the subject that Seneca could have read and been influenced by. In both Euripides and Apollonius Rhodius Jason is something of an anti-hero, basically flawed, one who is a smooth talker, good at getting others to do his dirty work for him, one willing to love and leave women.

To the Stoic Seneca a central point of his play is the problem of passion and the evils that uncontrolled passion can create. The passions, if not kept under control, become raging fires that can engulf the entire universe. Medea is this creature of such passion. Note for example, on 316 column 1 how the power of passionate rage is greater than any of a list of monsters or natural forces, and a similar description on page 318 column 2.

In Seneca Jason is not as evil as in Euripides, but rather he is weak and helpless in the face of such anger and determined evil. He really does want to help Medea, and agrees too easily when she seems to have a change of heart (see page 318).

In terms of style, we see many characteristics of Silver Latin in this play; the love of detailed description, the concentration on ‘special effects’, for example, the ever more gruesome descriptions of suffering and death, or on pithy, sharp ‘one-liners’, that is, memorable quotations, such as when Medea says "He who cannot hope cannot despair, " or "the fruit of sin is to count no mischief as sin". Note the overlong description of all her magic charms and devices (see page 319 in particular); the whole universe seems to be caught up in her magic. We discussed how Ovid made old Greek and Near Eastern stories new by telling them in new ways, giving them a new romantic or horrific emphasis for example. Seneca takes such excesses to a new level, trying to make the horrible even more horrible, or loading other details, as in mythological catalogues of evil and monsters. In Euripides’s play the audience saw Medea send the poisoned gifts, but not her doing the magic that mades them poisoned; note the long scene that depicts Medea doing this. (page. 320 ff.) In Euripides Medea kills the boys inside the house; we cannot see the murder, only the dead bodies afterward; in Seneca we see both murders; indeed Medea kills one son in Jason’s sight -- and then throws both bodies at Jason’s feet.

The speeches of the characters are full of formal rhetorical tricks, losing all sense of natural speech. In both Apollonius Rhodius and Euripides the human side of Medea can be seen; but Seneca is too interested in creating a picture of a witch of near total evil. In Euripides Medea is genuinely torn between her maternal love of her children and the fierce desire for revenge that compels her to kill them. We get some of this in Seneca (see column 2, page 321), but it is all over in a few lines. Again, the truly human drama is lost; instead we supposed to understand the truly horrific power of the passions when they are out of control. It’s a pity Nero didn’t pay much attention.
 
 
 
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