A legendary king and national hero of Athens, who features in the story of Oedipus, Procrustes, the Argonauts, and others. With Ariadne's help he killed the Minotaur; he conquered the Amazons, and married their queen, Hippolyta; later, he married Phaedra.
Theseus (Greek Θησεύς) was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night. 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. 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.
Birth and the six 'labours' of Theseus
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. 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.
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. 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. Theseus killed him by his own method. Theseus pushed him off the cliff. Theseus beat Cercyon at wrestling and then killed him instead. Theseus overturned this archaic religious rite by refusing to be sacrificed. Theseus killed him by his own method, although it is not said whether he cut Procrustes to size or stretched him to fit.
Each of these sites was a sacred place already of great antiquity when the deeds of Theseus were first attested in ceramic art, predating the literary texts.
Medea and the Marathonian Bull
When Theseus arrived at Athens, he did not reveal his true identity immediately. 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, an emblem of Cretan power.
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, where he sacrificed the Bull, Medea tried to poison him, but at the last second Aegeus recognized the sandals, shield, and sword and knocked the poisoned wine cup from Theseus's hand, and father and son were reunited.
Minotaur
King Minos of Crete had waged war on Athens and won. When the third sacrifice came round, Theseus volunteered to go to slay the monster. 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 his bare hands and led the other Athenians back out the labyrinth. Theseus took Ariadne with him but on the return trip abandoned her on the island of Naxos.
Ship of Theseus
According to some accounts, the ship Theseus took on his return to Athens was kept in service for many years. Philosphical questions about the nature of identity in circumstances like this are sometimes refered to as a Theseus Paradox.
Pirithous
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. 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."
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. They left Helen with Theseus's mother, Aethra, and travelled to the underworld, domain of Persephone and her husband, Hades.
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;
Phaedra and Hippolytus
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. 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. Artemis would later tell Theseus the truth, promising to avenge 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.
Other stories and his death
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 Skyros threw Theseus off a cliff after he had lost popularity in Athens. In 475 BC, 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." 206)
Books
Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958) is a dramatic retelling of the Theseus legend through the return from Crete to Athens. 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.
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