Peliades (Daughters of Pelias)

The Peliades are named as the daughters of Pelias and feature in the Jason-Medea cycle. The primary dramatic treatment was Euripides' lost early tragedy Peliades; details of the episode are preserved in later summaries and mythographers (as in Hyginus and Pausanias) and in ancillary literary and artistic references. In the transmitted accounts, Medea demonstrates a supposed rejuvenation on an old ram, then persuades the daughters to dismember their father in order that she might restore him—a ruse that results in Pelias' death. The play itself is lost and the narrative survives in fragmentary and secondary sources.

Surviving sources provide no consistent physical description of the Peliades as individuals. They are typically represented simply as the daughters of Pelias in literary summaries and later commentaries; in some material culture (vase-painting references noted by commentators) they appear as generic female figures associated with the Medea–Pelias episode. The provided texts do not name them individually nor assign distinctive clothing, marks, or supernatural features.

The Peliades possess no supernatural powers in the surviving accounts; they are mortal women whose notable action is that they were persuaded by Medea's staged demonstration of rejuvenation to dismember their father under the belief he would be restored. Their salient trait, as recorded in the sources, is credulity or susceptibility to Medea's deception—witnessing the ram demonstration led them to carry out the fatal act. No independent magical abilities or durable supernatural behaviors are attributed to them in the cited material.