（Θησεύς), the great legendary hero of Attica, is one of
those mythological personages, whose legends it is by no
means easy to disentangle, and represent in their original
shape. The later belief of the Athenians, adopted and
strengthened by writers of authority, represented him as a
very much more historical person than he really was; and, in
consequence, the rationalistic mythologists took
considerable pains to draw up a narrative of his life in
which the supernatural should be kept as much as possible in
the back ground, and the character in which the Athenians
loved to regard him, as the founder of Attic nationality, be
exhibited in as prominent a light as the received traditions
allowed. This was avowedly the method upon which Plutarch
proceeded.
According to the commonly received traditions Theseus was
the son of Aegeus, king of Athens, and Aethra, the daughter
of Pittheus, king of Troezen [AEGEUS]. Other legends,
however, maintained their ground, which represented him as
the son of Poseidon by Aethra. (Plut. Thes. 6 ; Diod. 4.59;
Paus. 1.17.3; comp. AETHRA.) When no reached maturity,
Theseus, by his mother's directions took the sword and
sandals, the tokens which had been left by Aegeus, and
proceeded to Athens. Eager to emulate Hercules, he went by
land, displaying his prowess by destroying the robbers and
monsters that infested the country. Periphetes, Sinis, Phaea
the Cromyonian sow, Sciron, Cercyon, and Procrustes fell
before the invincible hero. Arrived at Cephisus, he was
purified by the Phytalidae. At Athens he was immediately
recognised 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 recognised 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 was the next
exploit of Theseus [comp. HECALE]. It was this same
enterprise in which Androgeos, the son of Minos, had
perished. When the occasion returned on which the Athenians
had to send to Minos their tribute of seven youths and seven
maidens, Theseus voluntarily offered himself as one of the
youths, with the design of slaying the Minotaur, or
perishing in the attempt. When they arrived at Crete,
Ariadne, 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, and rescued
the band of victims, Theseus set sail, carrying off Ariadne.
(For the variations in the story, given by Cleidemus, the
reader is referred to Plut. Thes. 19.) There were various
accounts about Ariadne [ARIADNE], but most of them spoke of
Theseus as having either lost or abandoned Ariadne on the
island of Naxos. He was generally believed to have had by
her two sons, Oenopion and Staphylus. As the vessel in which
they sailed approached Attica, they neglected to hoist the
white sail, which was to have been the signal that the
expedition had had a prosperous issue. The neglect led to
the death of Aegeus [AEGEUS]. A vessel was in existence up
to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, which it was pretended
was the very ship in which Theseus had sailed to Crete. It
was this vessel which was sent every year to Delos with the
sacred envoys. It is worth noting, that although Homer
mentions Ariadne as having been carried off by Theseus from
Crete (Od. 11.321), he says nothing about the Minotaur. All
that part of the story is probably a later addition. The
expedition to Crete was probably, in its original form, only
one of the somewhat numerous amatory adventures of Theseus.
several of which are noticed by Plutarch (Thes. 29). Soon
after he landed, Theseus is said to have instituted the
festival termed Oschophoria (Dictionary of Antiquities, s.
v. Oschophoria). The origin of the Pyanepsia, and the
reinstitution of the Isthmian games, were also ascribed to
Theseus.
One of the most renowned of the adventures of Theseus was
his expedition against the Amazons. He is said to have
assailed them before they had recovered from the attack of
Hercules, and to have carried off their queen Antiope. The
Amazons in their turn invaded Attica, and penetrated into
Athens itself, the final battle in which Theseus overcame
them having been fought in the very midst of the city. Of
the literal truth of this fact Plutarch (Thes. 27) finds
evidence in the names of the localities and the tombs of the
fallen Amazons. Cleidemus pretended even to point out the
precise position of the contending forces and the
fluctuatins of the combat. (Compare the remarkable passage
of Aeschylus, Eumen. 685.) By Antiope Theseus was said to
have had a son named Hippolytus or Demophoon, and after her
death to have married Phaedra [HIPPOLYTUS,;PHAEDRA]. Theseus
figures in almost all the ancient heroic undertakings. 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 Peirithous, and aided him
and the Lapithae against the Centaurs. Aided by Peirithous
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 Peirithous in his attempt to carry off
Persephone from the lower world. Peirithous perished in the
enterprise, and Theseus was kept in hard durance until he
was delivered by Hercules. Later writers endeavored to turn
this legend into history by making Peirithous attempt to
carry off Core, the daughter of Aidoneus, a king of the
Molossians. (Plut. 100.31.) Meantime Castor and Pollux
invaded Attica, and carried off Helen and Aethra, Academus
having informed the brothers where they were to be found
[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 B. C. 469 a skeleton
of large size was found by Cimon in Sevros [CIMON], and
brought to Athens. It was believed to be that of Theseus, in
whose honour a temple was erected, in which the bones were
deposited. 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 on the eighth of Pyanepsion.
Connected with this festival were two others : the
Connideia, in memory of Connidas, the guardian of Theseus;
and the Cybernesia, having reference to his voyage. (Dict.
of Antiq. s. v. Thescia.）
There can be little question that Theseus is a purely
legendary personage, as thoroughly so as his contemporary
Hercules. 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 a number of petty independent states or townships
(twelve is the number generally stated) acknowledging no
head, and connected only by a federal union. Theseus, partly
through persuasion, partly by force, abolished the separate
council chambers and governments, did away with all separate
political jurisdiction, and erected Athens into the capital
of a single commonwealth. The festival of the Synoecia was
celebrated in commemoration of this change. The festival
which was called Athenaea was now reinstituted and termed
the Panathenaea (Thuc. 2.15). Theseus is said to have
established a constitutional government, retaining in his
own hands only cartain definite powers and functions. The
citizens generally he is said to have distributed into the
three classes of. Eupatridae, Geomori, and Demiurgi (Plut.
Thes. 24-26). That this consolidation took place some time
or other, there can be no doubt. Whether is was accomplished
by Theseus is another question. The authority of Thucydides
has usually been allowed to settle the matter. Thucydides,
however, did but follow the prevailing opinion of his
countrymen ; and if his belief raises Theseus to the rank of
an historical king, it must also make the Trojan war a
matter of history. It is a vain task now to attempt to
decide whether there is any historical basis for the
accounts of Theseus that were handed down, 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. It has been urged that we have no ground
for denying the personality of Theseus. In matters of this
kind the question is rather " Have we any ground for
affirming it ?" And for this we find nothing but the belief
of the Athenians. The connection of Theseus with Poseidon,
the national deity of the Ionic tribes, in various ways (the
name Aegeus points to Aegae, the sanctuary of Poseidon), 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. It was probably from the relation in which he stood
to the Athenian commonwealth as a whole, that his name was
not connected with any particular phyle. (Plut. Theseus ;
Diod. l.c. ; Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 281, &c.,
vol. ii. p. 29, vol. iii. p. 91; Wachsmuth, Hellenische
Alterthumskunde, § 40. vol. i. p. 351, &c., § 128. vol. ii.
p. 488.) - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and
mythology, William Smith, Ed.
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