Thēseus
(
Θησεύς). The great national hero of Attic legend. He was
the son of Aegeus, king of Athens, and of Aethra, the daughter of Pittheus, king of Troezen.
This, however, was the Attic tradition, which aimed at making Theseus a prince of Athenian
descent. The older legend of Troezen itself made Theseus the son of Poseidon (Pausan. i. 17,
3;
Diod.iv. 59;
Plut. Thes.
6;
Eur. Hipp. 887). Plutarch in his
Theseus has gathered into a connected story various legends, some of Athenian
origin, some from other countries:
1.
his journey from Troezen to Athens, an Attic glorification of their hero;
2.
the Cretan story of the Minotaur adapted to the Attic legends;
3.
his later adventures, some of which are of Spartan origin. But the story may be related
consecutively as Plutarch has given it.
Theseus was brought up at Troezen, and when he reached maturity he took, by his mother's
directions, the sword and sandals, the tokeus which had been left by Aegeus, and proceeded to
Athens. Eager to emulate Heracles, he went by land, displaying his prowess by destroying the
robbers and monsters that infested the country. Periphetes, Sinis, Phaea the Crommyonian sow,
Sciron, Cercyon, and Procrustes fell before him. At Athens he was immediately recognized by
Medea, who laid a plot for poisoning him at a banquet to which he was invited. By means of
the sword which he carried, Theseus was recognized by Aegeus, acknowledged as his son, and
declared his successor. The sons of Pallas, thus disappointed in their hopes of succeeding to
the throne, attempted to secure the succession by violence, and declared war, but,
being betrayed by the herald Leos, were destroyed. The capture of the Marathonian bull, which
had long laid waste the surrounding country, was the next exploit of Theseus. After this
Theseus went of his own accord as one of the seven youths whom the Athenians were obliged to
send every year, with seven maidens, to Crete, to be devoured by the Minotaur. When they
arrived at Crete, Ariadné, the daughter of Minos, became enamoured of Theseus, and
provided him with a sword with which he slew the Minotaur, and a clue of thread by which he
found his way out of the labyrinth. Having effected his object, Theseus sailed away, carrying
off Ariadné. There were various legends about Ariadné; but according to
the general account Theseus abandoned her in the island of Naxos on his way home. (See
Ariadné.) He was generally believed to have
had by her two sons, Oenopion and Staphylus; yet this does not agree with the account in the
Odyssey, which represents her as dying before her wedding with Theseus was
brought about, and apparently after her union with Dionysus (
Od. xi. 320). As the vessel in which Theseus sailed approached Attica,
he neglected to hoist the white sail which was to have been the signal of the success of the
expedition; whereupon Aegeus, thinking that his son had perished, threw himself into the sea.
(See
Aegeus.) Theseus thus became king of Athens.
Other adventures followed, again repeating those of Heracles. Theseus is said to have
assailed the Amazons before they had recovered from the attack of Heracles, and to have
carried off their queen Antiopé. The Amazons in their turn invaded Attica, and
penetrated into Athens itself; and the final battle in which Theseus overcame them was fought
in the very midst of the city. (See
Amazones.) By
Antiopé Theseus was said to have had a son named Hippolytus or Demophoön,
and after her death to have married Phaedra. (See
Hippolytus;
Phaedra.)
Theseus figures in almost all the great heroic expeditions. He was one of the Argonauts
(the anachronism of the attempt of Medea to poison him does not seem to have been noticed);
he joined in the Calydonian hunt, and aided Adrastus in recovering the bodies of those slain
before Thebes. He contracted a close friendship with Pirithoüs, and aided him and
the Lapithae against the Centaurs. With the assistance of Pirithoüs he carried off
Helen from Sparta while she was quite a girl, and placed her at Aphidnae, under the care of
Aethra. In return he assisted Pirithoüs in his attempt to carry off
Persephoné from the lower world. Pirithoüs perished in the enterprise,
and Theseus was kept in hard durance until he was delivered by Heracles. Meantime Castor and
Pollux invaded Attica, and carried off Helen and Aethra, Academus having informed the
brothers where they were to be found. (See
Academus.) Menestheus also endeavoured to incite the people against Theseus, who on
his return found himself unable to re-establish his authority, and retired to Scyros, where
he met with a treacherous death at the hands of Lycomedes. The departed hero was believed to
have appeared to aid the Athenians at the battle of Marathon. In 469 the bones of Theseus
were discovered by Cimon in Scyros, and brought to Athens, where they were deposited in a
temple (the Theseum) erected in honour of the hero. A considerable part
of this temple still remains, forming one of the most interesting monuments of Athens. A
festival in honour of Theseus was celebrated on the eighth day of each month, especially in
Pyanepsion. See p. 151.
There can be no doubt that Theseus is a purely legendary personage. Nevertheless, in later
times the Athenians came to regard him as the author of a very important political revolution
in Attica. Before his time Attica had been broken up into twelve petty independent States or
townships, acknowledging no head, and connected only by a federal union. Theseus abolished
the separate governments, and erected Athens into the capital of a single commonwealth. The
festival of the
Panathenaea (q.v.) was
instituted to commemorate this important revolution. Theseus is said to have established a
constitutional government, retaining in his own hands only certain definite powers and
functions. He is further said to have distributed the Athenian citizens into the three
classes of Eupatridae, Geomori, and Demiurgi. It would be a vain task to attempt to decide
whether there is any historical basis for the legends about Theseus, and still more so to
endeavour to separate the historical from the legendary in what has been preserved. The
Theseus of the Athenians was a hero who fought the Amazons, and slew the Minotaur, and
carried off Helen. A personage who should be nothing more than a wise king, consolidating the
Athenian commonwealth, however possible his existence might be, would have no historical
reality. The connection of Theseus with Poseidon, the national deity of the Ionic tribes, his
coming from the Ionic town Troezen, forcing his way through the Isthmus into Attica, and
establishing the Isthmia as an Ionic Panegyris, rather suggest that Theseus is, at least in
part, the mythological representative of an Ionian immigration into Attica, which, adding
perhaps to the strength and importance of Ionian settlers already in the country, might
easily have led to that political aggregation of the disjointed elements of the State which
is assigned to Theseus.