A story is prevalent [? or widespread*; literally much-flitting] among scholars, which Parmeniskos also sets forth, that Euripides, upon receipt of five talents from the Corinthians, transferred to Medea the charge of murdering the children. For, in fact, Medea's children were murdered by the Corinthians, incensed over her wanting to be queen because Corinth was her father's allotment, which he transferred to Medea. Hippys and Hellanikos are our sources for her life in Corinth. That she was queen of Corinth Eumelus and Simonides narrate. Mousaios in the Isthmia relates that she was immortal and in the same work expounds upon the rites of Hera Akraia.

Parmeniskos (Parmeniscus) -- a grammarian of the 2nd to 1st c. BCE.
Hippys -- a 5th c. BCE (?) historian.
Hellanikos -- a 5th century BCE historian from Lesbos who wrote on the Persians and the Trojans.
Eumelus -- a Corinthian epic poet of the 8th century (?) whose works on Corinth were a major source for the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes.
Simonides -- lyric poet of Ceos (Keos) of 6th to 5th c. BCE.
Mousaios (Musaeus) -- early poet of questionable existence to whose name many hymns and oracular verses are attributed.

The Corinthian women, not wishing to be ruled by a foreign woman and sorceress, plotted against her and killed her children, seven boys and seven girls. (But Euripides says she only had two.) They were being pursued and fled into the temple of Hera Akraia and sat as suppliants at the altar. Even so the Corinthians did not keep their hands off them but slit all their throats right on the altar. A plague fell upon the city and many people perished of the disease. When they consulted the oracle the god told them to expiate their guilt for Medea's children. And so up to our own times every year seven boys and seven girls of the most notable citizen families among the Corinthians spend a year in the goddess' precinct and with sacrifices appease the wrath of Medea's children and the goddess' anger on their behalf.

For it is said that Medea during her stay in Corinth killed Creon, the ruler of the city-state at that time, with poisons; that in fear of his friends and relatives she emigrated to Athens; but her sons -- since they were too young to travel with her -- she placed upon the altar of Hera Akraia, believing that their father would look after their safety. But Creon's relatives killed them and spread the story that Medea had killed not only Creon, but her own children as well.

Didymus -- the famous and prolific 1st c. BCE to 1st c. CE scholar, known as "bronze gut."
Kreophylus (Creophylus) -- an epic poet from Samos who may have composed the Sack of Oichalia (part of the Heracles saga).