Theseus

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Theseus

• and the Legends of Athens

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Early Kings of Attica
The first king of Athens was Cecrops, who was
sprung from the earth and half-serpent. Many
other foundation stories (e.g. Thebes) begin with
a foreign founder, but Athenians always
emphasized that they were autochthonous, sprung
from their native earth.
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Early Kings of Attica
Erichthonius was another earth-born king.
Hephaestus tried to rape Athena, and when she
repulsed him, his semen fall on the ground and
fathered Erichthonius. The Erechtheum on Athens
Acropolis is dedicated to another early king,
Erechtheus.
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Procne Philomela
As Tereus pursued the women, they were all turned
into birds Procne the nightingale, Philomela the
swallow, and Tereus the hoopoe.
Procne, daughter of Erichthonius, was given to
Tereus in marriage. But when her sister
Philomela came to visit her, Tereus raped her,
imprisoned her, and cut out her tongue. Philomela
wove the story into a tapestry and sent it to her
sister. Procne and Philomela orchestrated a
terrible revenge they served up Procne and
Tereus son Itys to Tereus for dinner.
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Theseus
References to Poseidon abound in Athenian myth
Poseidon and Athena competing for the city, plus
references to Poseidon in the myths of Erechtheus
and Aegeus (as in Aegean Sea). Posidon was also
known as Theseus father. But Theseus was also
the son of Aegeus. Hmmm. Aegeus, king of Athens,
wondered why he was childless and asked at
Delphi. They told him that if he wanted
children, he should not open the wineskins neck
until he reached home.
The not-very-metaphorically inclined Aegeus swore
off the drink, but in Troezen his clever host
understood the oracle and arranged for his
daughter Aethra to sleep with him. Aegeus left
sandals, and a sword as tokens for his future son.
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Theseus
When Theseus was a young man, strong enough to
lift the stone under which the tokens were
hidden, Aethra told him of his heritage. Theseus
decided to go to Athens. He took the coastal
road, which put him in conflict with all of the
local bandits. He proved his strength and
heroism. These stories metaphorically represent
synoikism, the political uniting of the areas
around Athens into Athenian domination.
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Theseus
First he killed the bandit Corynetes (Club-Man)
and took his club. So he, like Heracles, has
this emblem. Then he killed the bandit Sinis,
Pine-Bender, who tore his victims limb from limb
with pine trees, by doing the same to him.
Then he killed the sow of Crommyon . Theseus
adventures are more oriented toward bandits but
this is a definite parallel with Heracles (the
Erymanthian Boar).
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Theseus Journey
He then killed Cercyon (also originally a local
hero), who forced passersby to wrestle him to the
death.
He killed Sciron , who pushed people into the sea
where a giant turtle ate them. Sciron was
originally a hero villainized in the Athenian
re-write of mythology to reflect its new
dominance of Attica.
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Theseus Journey
When Theseus arrived at Athens, his fathers new
wife, Medea, a dangerous witch, recognized him as
a rival to her own son. She determined to poison
him (apparently with Aegeus knowledge). But
Theseus showed his sword, Aegeus recognized it
(and him), and prevented him from drinking the
poison. Medea flew away in her dragon
chariot. Aegeus recognized Theseus as his
heir. Before phase 2, we have to look at Crete .
. .
Finally he killed Procrustes, who forced
passersby to lie in his bed stretching them if
they were too short, lopping off extremities if
they were too tall.
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Minos and the Bull
Minos, king of Crete, had prayed to Poseidon to
send him a bull for sacrifice, but when the god
did, Minos didnt sacrifice the bull. Angered by
this faithlessness, Poseidon caused Minoss wife,
Pasiphae, to fall in love with the bull. She
persuaded Minoss master-builder, Daedalus, to
build her a mechanical cow that she could get
inside to seduce mate with the bull. He
complied.
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The Minotaur
From this union was born the Minotaur (bull of
Minos), a half-human, half-bull
monster. (Heracles later brought the bull from
Crete to Eurystheus, then released it.) Minos was
so horrified at the Minotaur that he had Daedalus
build him a vast maze to hide the beast. the
maze was called the labyrinth.
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The Labyrinth
Labrys means double-ax, and labyrinth means
house of the double-ax. The labrys was a
sacred symbol on Crete many have been found as
dedications in sanctuaries.
The idea of the labyrinth as a maze may have
resulted from Greek impressions of the complex
palaces of Crete, with many underground rooms,
very different from Greek architecture.
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Daedalus Icarus
Daedalus was tired of working for Minos and
wanted to leave, but Minos wouldnt let him. So
Daedalus made wings of wax and feathers for
himself and his son, Icarus, so they could fly
away. Although he warned Icarus to steer a
middle course, the boy flew too near the sun,
melted the wax on his feathers, and fell to his
death.
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The Bull of Marathon
Theseus next heroic deed after he came to Athens
was to capture the Bull (formerly from Crete)
which was ravaging the nearby plain of Marathon.
He sacrificed it to Poseidon (as Minos should
have).
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Theseus Crete
Due to a past crime by the Athenians, Minos had
the right to levy a tribute of seven young men
and seven young women from Athens every year. He
used them to feed the Minotaur. Theseus
volunteered to be one of this number. When he
arrived in Crete, he volunteered to be first to
meet the Minotaur. Ariadne, Minoss daughter,
fell in love with the hero. She brought him the
tools he would need a sword to kill the monster,
and a ball of twine to find his way back.
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The Labyrinth
Theseus killed the Minotaur, thus liberating the
Athenians from the deadly tribute. Theseus left
with the Athenians and Ariadne.
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Ariadne
Ariadne was probably originally a divine figure.
Hesiod describes her as the wife of Dionysus.
Theseus abandoned her on the island of Naxos,
perhaps for leaving him for Dionysiac rituals.
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Theseus in Athens
Theseus had arranged with his father that if he
was able to escape death, he would change the
sail color of the ship he was sailing home
in. But he forgot. When Aegeus saw the ship come
in, he took it for news that Theseus was dead,
and threw himself in the Aegean sea (which bears
his name). Theseus was now king of Athens. His
adventures continue, sometimes taking parallel
form to adventures of
Heracles and sometimes involving Heracles
himself. He went on an expedition against the
Amazons on the Black Sea, either with Herakles or
with his friend Pirithous.
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• Theseus killed Antiope when she attacked the
  wedding party when he married Phaedra
• The Amazons attacked Athens to get Antiope back,
  and she was killed by Theseus in that battle
• She was accidentally killed by an Amazon, Molpadia

The Amazons
Theseus either captured the Queen, Antiope -- or
she fell in love with him and betrayed her city
to run off with him. The different versions
continue
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Amazons in Athens Almost all stories of Amazons
set them far away, at the borders of
civilization. This Athenian story is one of the
very few that show the Amazons attacking a Greek
country, rather than experiencing raids or
conquests by Greeks, or fighting in far off
locales such as Troy. The Amazons reached the
Areopagus (hill of Ares on the Acropolis) and
Theseus either defeated them or made a treaty
with them.
Antiope was the mother of Hippolytus, who was
devoted to Artemis and rejected sex and love
(appropriate son for an Amazon)! Hippolytus was
cursed by Theseus through Aphrodites
manipulations when Phaedra falsely accused him
of rape.
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The Amazons
The Amazons were considered men for their high
courage, rather than women for their sex for
they seemed to outdo men in their spirit more
than to be at a disadvantage in their form. . .
But after they tried to conquer Athens, having
met with valiant men, they came to possess
spirits suitable to their own nature . . .and by
their disasters rather than their bodies they
were deemed to be women. And so those women, by
their unjust greed for others land, justly lost
their own.

• Theseus exploits were often used in a symbolic
  way in Athenian political discourse (as in
  synoikism)
• Metaphorically, the defeat of Amazons showed
  Athenian superiority over (feminized,
  foreign-ized) enemies of the current day. Defeat
  of Amazons is often used for such purposes in
  Greek culture.

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Perithoos
Amazons symbolize one sort of challenge to
masculine, civilized authority nature, as
represented by figures like Centaurs, is another.
Theseus and Pirithous (king of the Lapiths)
feature in the most famous centauromachy in Greek
myth the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs, which
broke out at Perithous wedding. The Centaurs
got drunk and started trying to rape the Lapith
women but the humans won.
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Underworld Raid
Heracles rescued Theseus, but Pirithous never
returned. Theseus finally married Phaedra, the
sister of Ariadne. We have already seen her
tragic infatuation with Hippolytus and how that
turned out.
Theseus and Pirithous agreed to support one
another in two hubristic wife-capturing missions
Theseus abducted Helen from Sparta (when she was
only a child) and brought her back to
Athens. Then he and Pirithous went to Hades to
abduct Persephone for Pirithous. While they were
gone the Dioscuri recaptured Helen and brought
her home. Pirithous and Theseus were caught in
magic chairs in Hades.
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Like most local heroes, though unlike Heracles,
he was much less important in the rest of the
Greek world than in his home country.
Benevolent Theseus

• Despite the hubris of his raid on Helen and
  Hades, and despite his poor parenting skills
  (i.e. cursing Hippolytus causing his death),
  Theseus appears as a model of virtue in Athenian
  myth
• his exploits were often against bandits other
  human predators
• he freed Athens from the tribute to Crete
• Athenian sources show him as a helpful mediator
  in other cities disputes (notably the Theban
  saga).

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finis