A broken marriage, love turned to vengeful anger, children caught in the middle - the story of Medea has strong contemporary resonances. Wider questions are raised within the play: can the origins of this disaster be discerned in the backgrounds and previous experiences of Medea and Jason? What kind of universe is this in which such an evil can occur? Seneca's writing is by turns both highly allusive and ferociously explicit, a suitable style for this highly-charged play. This edition concentrates on literary and thematic aspects of the play, and seeks to place it in its literary and historical context in the first century AD.