This document summarizes the mythological exploits of the Greek hero Theseus. It describes his birth to King Aigeus of Athens and uncertain parentage. As a boy, Theseus embarked on a journey to Athens, defeating monsters along the way. As a man, his most famous adventure was slaying the Minotaur in Crete with help from Ariadne. The document notes several of Theseus' marriages and later exploits, but acknowledges inconsistencies in fitting all the stories into a single chronology due to the evolving nature of myth over time.

1. Theseus and the “Test-and-Quest”
Myth
❖ We will focus on the exploits of one particular hero,
Theseus. We will look at his birth, childhood, and
maturation story, which is a typical example of the
“test-and-quest” pattern.
❖ We will then look at his adventures as an adult; the
most famous of these is his encounter with the
Minotaur in Crete.
❖ We will also consider his marriage to an Amazon
and his later fateful marriage to Phaidra, which
results in Theseus’s killing of his own son
Hippolytos.
❖ We will conclude by discussing the difficulty of
fitting all the adventures attributed to Theseus into
a coherent chronological pattern and talk about
some of the possible reasons for this difficulty.

2. The stories of several heroes fit what has been called the “quest”
pattern. Among these, Theseus’s story is particularly rich for
investigating mythic themes and presenting possibilities for
interpretation.
❖ Theseus is less well known to
modern readers than Heracles or
Jason is, but as the legendary
synoikistes (“unifier”) of Attica, he
was an important figure in
Athenian myth. In Theseus’s case,
myth became a charter for
Athenian hegemonic control over
Attica.
❖ Perhaps because of his important
role in Athens, various stories
accrued around Theseus, and it is
difficult to work out a consistent
chronology for his adventures.
Theseus & the Centaur

3. Theseus’s birth story
❖ His birth, childhood, and young
adulthood show typical “hero” elements,
reminiscent of folktale.
❖ Oddities and ambiguities surround his
conception, not the least of which is an
apparent double-fatherhood.
❖ His human father was Aigeus, king of
Athens.
❖ His mother, Aithra, was raped by
Poseidon on the same night that she
slept with Aigeus; this, Theseus’s
parentage was uncertain. This explains
how he was a top-notch hero who, at
the same time, inherited his father’s
throne.

4. ❖ Aigeus left sandals and a sword under a boulder, with instructions that his son
should come to him in Athens when he was strong enough to lift the boulder
and retrieve the tokens. Theseus does so and sets off for Athens.
❖ Theseus’s journey to athens to claim his patrimony involves a series of
encounters with monsters.
❖ The most famous of these was Procrustes, who had a bed that he forced all
visitors to fit. This is the origin of the term procrustean.
❖ Others included the giant Sinis the “pinebender” and a monstrous boar.
Theseus “unifies” the countryside by eliminating these dangers.
❖ When Theseus reached Athens, he was received as a guest by Aigeus
and Aigeus’s current wife, Medea.
❖ Medea, better known for her previous involvement with Jason, was a
sorceress.
❖ She was pregnant and feared that Theseus (whom she recognized as
Aigeus’s son) would displace her own child.
❖ She persuaded Aigeus that the young guest planned to kill him, and Aigeus
agreed to poison the youth.

5. ❖ At the dinner table, Theseus drew his sword to cut his meat. Aigeus
recognized the sword and stopped Theseus from drinking his poisoned
wine, just in time.
❖ After his recognition by his father, Theseus embarked on a dangerous
journey to Crete to try to free Athens from its tribute to Minos, king
of Crete.
❖ Athens was obligated by a treaty to send seven young men and
7 young women to Crete every year to be eaten by the Minotaur.
❖ Athens and Crete had gone to war after Minos’s son Androgeos was
killed in Attica, wither by a great bull whom Aigeus sent him to
fight or by other young men who were jealous of his athletic
prowess.
❖ Minos declared war on Athens, and the was ceased only when Athens
agreed to let Minos name whatever recompense he wanted. Minos
instated the annual tribute to the Minotaur.
❖ Theseus volunteered to be a member of this delegation.

6. ❖ Theseus’s adventures in Crete
are the most famous part of his
story.
❖ He wa helped by Ariadne, the
daughter of Minos. As in other
“test-and-quest” stories, the
young man is helped by a young
woman.
❖ Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of
thread so that he could find his
way out of the Minotaur’s
labyrinth.
❖ In return, he agreed to take her
with him when he left Crete.
❖ Theseus killed the Minotaur in the labyrinth, then
found his way out with the aid of Ariadne’s thread.
He and Ariadne fled Crete.
❖ They stopped for the night on the island of Naxos.
❖ When Theseus set sail in the morning, he left
Ariadne behind, apparently forgetting her.
Dionysos rescued her and married her, and she
became a goddess.

7. ❖ Before leaving Athens, Theseus had
promised Aigeus that if he succeeded
in killing the Minotaur, he would
change the black sails of his ship for
white. He forgot to do so.
❖ Aigeus watched daily for the returning
ship; when he saw the black sails, he
leapt to this death.
❖ Theseus thus became king of Athens.

8. ❖ After the loss of Ariadne, Theseus married at least two more times.
❖ Theseus and his friend Pirithous agreed that they should both marry
daughters of Zeus.
❖ For Theseus, they kidnapped Helen (later of Troy) who was too young for
marriage but already extraordinarily beautiful. The plan was to keep her until
she was old enough to marry.
❖ For Pirithous, the two men journeyed to the Underworld to kidnap
Persephone.
❖ At the invitation of Hades, they sat down on stone chairs and became stuck
there.
❖ Theseus remained stuck in the Underworld for some years until Heracles
rescued him. Pirithous remained there forever.

9. ❖ Theseus also married an Amazon named Antiope or Hippolyta.
❖ He traveled to the Amazons’ land and abducted their queen.
❖ The Amazons responded by besieging Athens, but they were defeated.
❖ The son of this marriage was Hippolytos.
❖ Finally, Theseus married Phaedra, daughter of Minor and Pasiphae of
Crete.
❖ This marriage produced two sons but ended unhappily.
❖ Phaedra was smitten by Aphrodite with passion for her stepson,
Hippolytos.
❖ When he rebuffed her, she committed suicide and left a note saying that
Hippolytos had raped her.
❖ Theseus cursed his son, who was dragged to death by his own horses.
Only too late did he discover that Hippolytos had been innocent.

10. ❖ These later adventures of Theseus demonstrate a common problem
in studying classical myth, that is, chronological inconsistencies.
❖ According to most accounts, Minos lived generations before Heracles,
and Heracles lived at least one generation before the Trojan War.
❖ But Theseus is involved with two daughters of Minos, kidnaps Helen,
and is rescued by Heracles.
❖ The Trojan War was fought because a Trojan prince abducted Helen
when she was already the wife of the Greek Menelaos.
❖ How, then, can Heracles have rescued Theseus after Theseus
kidnapped the child Helen?
❖ How can Theseus live at the same time as Minos and Helen?
❖ This sort of inconsistency is probably the result of attempts to gather
diverse strands of myth from different times and places into one
coherent narrative.
❖ Theseus’s story is worth going through in detail because, as we shall
see, it offers scope for many different interpretations.