Theseus
Theseus (
Greek Θησεύς) was a
legendary
king of Athens, son of
Aegeus (or of
Poseidon) and of
Aethra. Theseus was a founder-hero, like
Perseus,
Cadmus or
Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were identified with an archaic religious and social order. As Heracles was the
Dorian hero, Theseus was the
Ionian founding hero, considered by Athenians as their own great reformer. His name comes from the same root as
θεσμoς ("thesmos"), Greek for
institution. In
The Frogs Aristophanes credited him with inventing many everyday Athenian traditions. He may have originated in, or been based upon, a historical person or persons.
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Theseus and Aethra, by Laurent de la La Hyre |
Aegeus, one of the primordial kings of
Athens, found a bride at
Troezen, a small city southwest of Athens, in
Aethra, daughter of Troezen's king,
Pittheus. On their wedding night Aethra waded through the sea to the island
Sphairia that rests close to the coast and lay there with
Poseidon (god of the sea, and of earthquakes). By the understanding of sex in antiquity, the mix of
semen gave Theseus a combination of divine as well as mortal characteristics in his nature. When Aethra became
pregnant, Aegeus decided to return to Athens. But before leaving, he buried his
sandals,
shield, and
sword under a huge rock and told her that when their son grew up, he should move the rock, if he were hero enough, and take the weapons for himself as evidence of his royal parentage. At Athens, Aegeus was joined by
Medea, who had fled
Corinth after slaughtering the children she had born
Jason, and took up a new consort in Aegeus. Priestess and consort represented the old order at Athens.
Thus Theseus was raised in the land of his mother. When Theseus grew up and became a brave young man, he moved the rock and recovered his father's arms. His mother then told him the truth about his father's identity and that he must take the weapons back to the king and claim his birthright. To get to Athens, Theseus could choose to go by sea (which was the safe way) or by land, following a dangerous path around the
Saronic Gulf, where he would encounter a string of six entrances to the
Underworld, each guarded by a
chthonic enemy in the shapes of thieves and bandits. Young, brave and ambitious, Theseus decided to go by the land route, and defeated a great many bandits along the way.
At the first site, which was
Epidaurus, sacred to
Apollo and the healer
Aesculapius, Theseus turned the tables on the chthonic bandit, the "clubber"
Periphetes, who beat his opponents into the Earth, and took from him the stout staff that often identifies Theseus in vase-paintings.
At the
Isthmian entrance to the
Netherworld was a robber named
Siris. He would capture travellers, tie them between two
pine trees which were bent down to the ground, and then let the trees go, tearing his victims apart. Theseus killed him by his own method. He then raped Siris's daughter,
Perigune, fathering the child
Melanippus.
In another deed north of
Isthmus, at a place called
Crommyon, he killed an enormous pig, the Crommyonian sow, bred by an old crone named Phaea. Some versions name the sow as Phaea.
Near
Megara an elderly robber named
Sciron forced travellers along the narrow cliff-face pathway to wash his feet. While they knelt, he kicked them off the cliff behind them, where they were eaten by a sea monster (or, in some versions, a giant
turtle). Theseus pushed him off the cliff.
Another of these enemies was
Cercyon, King at the holy site of
Eleusis, who challenged passers-by to a wrestling match and, when he had beaten them, killed them. Theseus beat Cercyon at wrestling and then killed him instead. In interpretations of the story that follow the formulas of Frazer's
The Golden Bough, Cercyon was a "year-King", who was required to do annual battle for his life, for the good of his kingdom, and was succeeded by the victor. Theseus overturned this archaic religious rite by refusing to be sacrificed.
The last bandit was
Procrustes, who had a bed which he offered to passers-by in the plain of Eleusis. He then
made them fit into it, either by stretching them or by cutting off their feet. Theseus killed him by his own method.
When Theseus arrived at Athens, he did not reveal his true identity immediately. He was welcomed by Aegeus, who was suspicious of the stranger. Aegeus's wife Medea recognized Theseus immediately as Aegeus' son and worried that Theseus would be chosen as heir to Aegeus' kingdom instead of her son
Medus. She tried to arrange to have Theseus killed by asking him to capture the
Marathonian Bull.
On the way to
Marathon, Theseus took shelter from a storm in the hut of an ancient woman named
Hecale. She swore to make a sacrifice to
Zeus if Theseus was successful in capturing the bull. Theseus did capture the bull, but when he returned to Hecale's hut, she was dead. In her honor Theseus gave her name to one of the
demes of Attica, making its inhabitants in a sense her adopted children.
When Theseus returned victoriously to Athens, Medea tried to poison him, but at the last second Aegeas recognized the sandals, shield, and sword and knocked the poisoned wine cup from Theseus's hand, and father and son were reunited.
King
Minos of
Crete had waged war on
Athens and won. He then demanded that seven Athenian youths and seven maidens be sent every ninth year (some accounts say every year) to be devoured by the
Minotaur. When the third sacrifice came round, Theseus volunteered to go to slay the monster. He promised to his father, Aegeus, that he would put up a white sail on his journey back home if he was successful.
Ariadne, Minos' daughter, fell in love with Theseus and helped him get out of the maze by giving him a ball of thread, allowing him to retrace his path. Theseus killed the Minotaur (with a magical sword Ariadne had given him) and led the other Athenians back out the labyrinth. (Plutarch, Theseus, 15"19; Diod. Sic. i. I6, iv. 61; Apollodorus iii. 1,15) Theseus took Ariadne with him but later abandoned her on the island of
Naxos.
Sailing back to Athens, in his dejection about the loss of Ariadne Theseus forgot to change the black sails for white ones, as he had promised his father he would do if he survived. His father, watching from the cliffs at
Sounion Head, jumped to his death in despair over his son's presumed demise. When he finally reached Athens, Theseus had to put a stop to
Pallas, who was organizing a rebellion to take the city away from him. He was successful, killed Pallas, and became king of Athens.
Plutarch reported that Theseus's ship had been preserved into historical times by gradually replacing all the planks, and that philosophers debated whether it was still the original ship. This question is still known as the "
ship of Theseus".
Theseus assists
Heracles in his ninth labour - obtaining the girdle of
Hippolyta, queen of the
Amazons. After succeeding in the task, Theseus kidnaps Hippolyte's sister,
Antiope, causing the Amazons to attack Athens to rescue her.
In many versions Theseus marries either Antiope or Hippolyta, having a son
Hippolytus, or according to
Pindar,
Demophon. Theseus eventually marries
Phaedra (Ariadne's sister) having left his wife, or his wife having died after childbirth. In the version where Theseus is married to, and leaves, Hippolyta, Hippolyte tries to exact revenge by bringing the Amazons into Theseus and Phaedra's wedding to kill everyone, though this fails as she is killed by, in some versions Theseus' men, in others
Penthesilea, another Amazon.
Theseus's best friend was
Pirithous, Prince of the
Lapiths. Pirithous had heard stories of Theseus's courage and strength in battle but wanted proof, so he rustled Theseus's herd of cattle and drove it from
Marathon, and Theseus set out in pursuit. Pirithous took up his arms and the pair met to do battle, but were so impressed with each other they took an oath of friendship and joined the hunt for the
Calydonian Boar. In
Iliad I, Nestor numbers Pirithous and Theseus "of heroic fame" among an earlier generation of heroes of his youth, "the strongest men that Earth has bred, the strongest men against the strongest enemies, a savage mountain-dwelling tribe whom they utterly destroyed." No trace of such an oral tradition, which Homer's listeners would have recognized in Nestor's allusion, survived in literary epic. Later, Pirithous was preparing to marry
Hippodamia. The
centaurs were guests at the wedding feast, but got drunk and tried to abduct the women, including Hippodamia. The Lapiths won the ensuing battle.
Theseus and Pirithous meet Hades
Theseus and Pirithous pledged themselves to marry daughters of
Zeus. Theseus chose
Helen and together they kidnapped her, intending to keep her until she was old enough to marry. Pirithous chose
Persephone. They left Helen with Theseus's mother,
Aethra, and travelled to the underworld, domain of
Persephone and her husband,
Hades. Hades pretended to offer them hospitality and laid out a feast, but as soon as the two visitors sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them fast. In some versions, the stone itself grew and attached itself to their thighs.
When
Heracles came into Hades for his
twelfth task, he freed Theseus but the earth shook when he attempted to liberate Pirithous, and Pirithous had to remain in Hades for eternity. When Theseus returned to Athens, the
Dioscuri had taken Helen and
Aethra back to
Sparta. When Heracles had pulled Theseus from the chair where he was trapped, some of his thigh stuck to it; this explains the supposedly lean thighs of Athenians.
Phaedra, Theseus's second wife, bore Theseus two sons,
Demophon and
Acamas. While these two were still in their infancy, Phaedra fell in love with
Hippolytus, Theseus's son by
Hippolyte. According to some versions of the story, Hippolytus had scorned
Aphrodite to become a devotee of
Artemis, so Aphrodite made Phaedra fall in love with him as punishment. He rejected her out of chastity. Alternatively in Euripides' version, Phaedra's nurse told Hippolytus of her mistress's love and he swore he would not reveal the nurse as his source of information -- before Phaedra killed herself and blamed it on him because she did not believe in Hippolytus' oath. To ensure that she would die with dignity, Phaedra wrote to Theseus on a tablet claiming that Hippolytus had raped her before hanging herself. Theseus believed her and used one of the three wishes he had received from
Poseidon against his son. The curse caused Hippolytus's horses to be frightened by a sea monster, usually a bull, and drag their rider to his death.
Artemis would later tell Theseus the truth, promising to avenge Hippolytus, her loyal follower, on another follower of Aphrodite. In a third version, after Phaedra told Theseus that Hippolytus had raped her, Theseus killed his son himself, and Phaedra committed suicide out of guilt, for she had not intended for Hippolytus to die. In yet another version, Phaedra simply told Theseus Hippolytus had raped her and did not kill herself, and
Dionysus sent a wild bull which terrified Hippolytus's horses.
A cult grew up around Hippolytus, associated with the cult of
Aphrodite. Girls who were about to be married offered locks of their hair to him. The cult believed that
Asclepius had resurrected Hippolytus and that he lived in a sacred forest near
Aricia in
Latium.
More broadly, Theseus is the founding hero of
Athens. He was responsible for the
synoikismos ("dwelling together")—the political unification of
Attica, represented in his journey of labours—under Athens. Because he was the unifying king, Theseus built and occupied a palace on the fortress of the
Acropolis that may have been similar to the palace excavated in
Mycenae.
Pausanias reports that after the synoikismos, Theseus established a cult of
Aphrodite Pandemos ("Aphrodite of all the People") and
Peitho on the southern slope of the Akropolis.
According to some sources, Theseus also was one of the
Argonauts though
Apollonius of Rhodes states in the
Argonautica that Theseus was still in the underworld at this time. With Phaedra, Theseus fathered
Acamas, who was one of those who hid in the
Trojan Horse during the
Trojan War. Theseus welcomed the wandering
Oedipus and helped
Adrastus to bury the
Seven Against Thebes.
Lycomedes of the island of
Scyrus threw Theseus off a cliff after he had lost popularity in Athens. In
475, in response to an oracle,
Cimon of Athens, having conquered Skyros for the Athenians, identified as the remains of Theseus "a coffin of a great corpse with a bronze spear-head by its side and a sword." (Plutarch,
Life of Cimon, quoted Burkert
1985, p. 206)
In
Class of the Titans, a new show for kids, one main character is descended from Theseus. In one episode, she and her friends battle hundreds of clones of the original minotaur.
Mary Renault's
The King Must Die (1958) is a dramatic retelling of the Theseus legend through the return from Crete to Athens. While fictional, it is generally faithful to the spirit and flavor of the best-known variations of the original story. The sequel is
The Bull from the Sea (1962), about the hero's later career.Theseus is also a prominent character as the Duke of Athens in
William Shakespeare's play,
A Midsummer Night's Dream, ultimately marrying the Amazon known in Greek mythology as
Hippolyta.
Steven Pressfield's "
Last of the Amazons" is a fictional account of Theseus meeting and subsequent marriage to Antiope and the ensuing war. Theseus also appears as a major character in
Geoffrey Chaucer's
The Knight's Tale.
*
Plutarch,
Theseus online version*
Apollodorus*
Burkert, Walter,
Greek Religion 1985
*
Kerenyi, Karl,
The Heroes of the Greeks 1959
*Ruck, Carl A.P. and Danny Staples,
The World of Classical Myth, ch. IX "Theseus: making the new Athens'' 1994, pp. 203-222.
