Sections & Primary Sources<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
- \r\n \t
- Pseudo-Apollodorus,\u00a0Bibliotheca<\/em>, 3.15.6-E.1.6<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Bacchylides,\u00a0<\/em>Odes<\/em>, \"Ode 18\"<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Ovid,\u00a0Metamorphoses<\/em>, 7.404-452<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
<\/a>Aethra, Aegeus, and Pittheus<\/h2>\r\nThe following content is adapted by T. Mulder from Mythology Unbound<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA<\/a> license.\r\n
Theseus, like Heracles had a presumed mortal father and an actual divine father. He was the son of Aethra, the daughter of Pittheus, who was king of Troezen (a small town in the northeastern Peloponnese of modern-day Greece).<\/p>\r\n
Aegeus, who was the king of Athens, was having trouble producing an heir, so he went to the Oracle of Delphi to ask for help. The Pythia (the priestess of Apollo at the Oracle of Delphi) said, \"The bulging foot of the wineskin, O best of men, loosen it not until you have reached the height of Athens.\" As was typical with these oracles, the meaning was cryptic.<\/p>\r\n
On his way home to Athens, Aegeus stopped off at Troezen to ask his wise friend Pittheus what the oracle meant. In ancient Greece, wineskins were made from a whole\u00a0 goatskin, and one foot of the goatskin was used for the spout. When the Pythia said, \u201cDon\u2019t open the foot of the wineskin,\u201d she was literally saying, \u201cDon\u2019t uncork the wine.\u201d The foot of the wineskin also resembled a penis and was a phallic symbol. So the Pythia was actually advising Aegeus not to have sex with any woman until he returned home, since the next woman he had sex with would bear him a son.<\/p>\r\n
Pittheus realized the meaning of the oracle, but instead of telling Aegeus, he got Aegeus drunk and had him sleep with his daughter, Aethra. He did this because Aegeus was the very powerful king of Athens, and Pittheus wanted his future grandson to become king of Athens. The god Poseidon also had sex with Aethra later that same night, which Aegeus did not know, and so Theseus' parentage was ambiguous.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3855\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1315\"]
![\"A](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/08\/satyr-and-wineskin.png\")
A satyr riding a wineskin, tracing from red-figure kylix from ca. 500 BCE (accessed via Laurie Annie\/the Boston Museum of Fine Arts<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\n<\/a>The Road to Athens<\/h2>\r\n
Theseus grew up in Troezen with his mother Aethra. When he was old enough and strong enough, Aethra sent him to Athens to be reunited with Aegeus. Theseus travelled to Athens overland on a notoriously dangerous road. On the road, he encountered many bandits, marauders, and beasts, all of whom he handily defeated, thereby making a heroic name for himself and making the road to Athens safe for all future travelers.<\/p>\r\n
On the road, Theseus killed Periphetes, Sinis, the Crommyonian Sow, Sciron, Cercyon, and Damastes. These encounters are called the \"Six Labours\" of Theseus.<\/p>\r\n \r\n
\r\n<\/a>Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca<\/em>, Book 3 and Epitome (trans. J. G. Frazer, adapted by L. Zhang and P. Rogak)<\/h3>\r\n
Greek mythography, 2nd century BCE<\/h4>\r\n
The Bibliotheca<\/em> gives the story of Theseus' conception and birth as well as his early labours. Whereas Heracles was a panhellenic <\/em>(meaning 'all of Greece') hero who completed twelve famous labours, Theseus was a more localized, Athenian hero who completed six labours on the road to Athens. This selection from the Bibliotheca<\/em> describes the six labours of Theseus and also the origin of the Minotaur, the half bull\/half human creature whom Theseus faces in his most famous adventure.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n[3.15.6] After the death of [pb_glossary id=\"1756\"]Pandion[\/pb_glossary] his sons marched against [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], expelled the Metionids [sons of Metion], and divided the government in four; but [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] had the whole power. The first wife whom he married was Meta, daughter of Hoples, and the second was Chalciope, daughter of Rhexenor. As no child was borne to him, he feared his brothers, and went to Pythia [ [pb_glossary id=\"945\"]Delphi[\/pb_glossary] ] and consulted the oracle concerning the begetting of children. The god answered him:\r\n\r\n\"The bulging foot of the wineskin, O best of men, loosen it not until you have reached the height of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary].\"\r\n\r\nNot knowing what to make of the oracle, he set out on his return to [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[3.15.7] Journeying by way of Troezen, he lodged with [pb_glossary id=\"1770\"]Pittheus[\/pb_glossary], son of [pb_glossary id=\"632\"]Pelops[\/pb_glossary], who, understanding the oracle, made him drunk and caused him to lie with his daughter [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary]. But in the same night [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] also had intercourse with her. Now [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] charged [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary] with the task that, if she gave birth to a male child, she should raise it, without telling whose child it was; and he left a sword and sandals under a certain rock, saying that when the boy could roll away the rock and take them up, she was then to send him away with them.\r\n\r\nBut he himself [[pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary]] came to [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] and celebrated the games of the Panathenian festival, in which [pb_glossary id=\"1735\"]Androgeus[\/pb_glossary], son of [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], vanquished all competitors. He was the one whom [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] sent against the bull of Marathon, and who was killed by said bull. But some say that as he journeyed to [pb_glossary id=\"4675\"]Thebes[\/pb_glossary] to take part in the games in honour of [pb_glossary id=\"4503\"]Laius[\/pb_glossary], he was waylaid and murdered by the jealous competitors. But when the news of his death were brought to [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], as he was sacrificing to the [pb_glossary id=\"189\"]Graces[\/pb_glossary] in Paros, he threw away the garland from his head and stopped the music of the flute, but nevertheless completed the sacrifice; and so down to this day they sacrifice to the [pb_glossary id=\"189\"]Graces[\/pb_glossary] in Paros without flutes and garlands.\r\n\r\n[3.15.8] But not long afterwards, being master of the sea, he attacked [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] with a fleet and captured Megara, then ruled by king Nisus, son of [pb_glossary id=\"1756\"]Pandion[\/pb_glossary], and he slew Megareus, son of Hippomenes, who had come from Onchestus to the help of Nisus. Now Nisus perished through his daughter's treachery. For he had a purple hair on the middle of his head, and an oracle said that when it was pulled out he would die; and his daughter [pb_glossary id=\"1736\"]Scylla[\/pb_glossary] fell in love with [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] and pulled out the hair. But when [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] had made himself master of Megara, he tied the damsel by the feet to the stern of the ship and drowned her.\r\n\r\nWhen the war stretched on and he could not conquer [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], he prayed to [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] for revenge on the Athenians. And the city was visited with a famine and a pestilence, and the Athenians at first, in obedience to an ancient oracle, slaughtered the daughters of Hyacinth (Antheis, Aegleis, Lytaea, and Orthaea) on the grave of Geraestus, the [pb_glossary id=\"1654\"]Cyclops[\/pb_glossary]; now Hyacinth, the father of the damsels, had come from Lacedaemon and lived in [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary]. But when this was of no avail, they inquired of the oracle how they could be saved; and the god answered them that they should give [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] whatever satisfaction he might choose. So they sent a message to [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] and left it to him to claim his compensation. And [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] ordered them to send seven youths and the same number of damsels without weapons to be food for the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary]. Now the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary] was confined in a labyrinth, in which he who entered could not find his way out; for many a winding turn shut off the secret outward way. The labyrinth was constructed by [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary], whose father was Eupalamus, son of Metion, and whose mother was Alcippe; for he was an excellent architect and the first inventor of images. He had fled from [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], because he had thrown down from the acropolis Talos, the son of his sister Perdix; for Talos was his pupil, and [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] feared that with his talents he might surpass himself, seeing that he had sawed a thin stick with a jawbone of a snake which he had found. But the corpse was discovered; [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] was tried in the Areopagus, and being condemned fled to Minos. And there [pb_glossary id=\"1730\"]Pasiphae[\/pb_glossary] having fallen in love with the bull of [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] acted as her accomplice by contriving a wooden cow, and he constructed the labyrinth, to which the Athenians every year sent seven youths and as many damsels to be food for the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[3.16.1] [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary] bore to [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] a son Theseus, and when he was grown up, he pushed away the rock and took up the sandals and the sword, and hastened on foot to [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary]. And he cleared the road, which had been plagued by evildoers. For first in Epidaurus he slew [pb_glossary id=\"4418\"]Periphetes[\/pb_glossary], son of [pb_glossary id=\"356\"]Hephaestus[\/pb_glossary] and Anticleia, who was surnamed the Clubman from the club which he carried. For being crazy on his legs he carried an iron club, with which he murdered the passersby. That club Theseus wrested from him and continued to carry around.\r\n\r\n[3.16.2] Second, he killed [pb_glossary id=\"1757\"]Sinis[\/pb_glossary], son of [pb_glossary id=\"1760\"]Polypemon[\/pb_glossary] and Sylea, daughter of Corinthus. This [pb_glossary id=\"1757\"]Sinis[\/pb_glossary] was surnamed the Pine-bender; for inhabiting the Isthmus of Corinth he used to force the passersby to keep bending pine trees; but they were too weak to do so, and being tossed up by the trees they perished miserably. In that way also Theseus killed [pb_glossary id=\"1757\"]Sinis[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[E.1.1] Third, he killed at Crommyon the sow that was called [pb_glossary id=\"1809\"]Phaea[\/pb_glossary] after the old woman who bred it; that sow, some say, was the offspring of [pb_glossary id=\"643\"]Echidna[\/pb_glossary] and [pb_glossary id=\"602\"]Typhon[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[E.1.2] Fourth, he slew [pb_glossary id=\"1758\"]Sciron[\/pb_glossary], the Corinthian, son of [pb_glossary id=\"632\"]Pelops[\/pb_glossary], or, as some say, of [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary]. He in the Megarian territory held the rocks called after him Scironian, and compelled passersby to wash his feet, and in the act of washing he kicked them into the deep to be the prey of a huge turtle.\r\n\r\n[E.1.3] But Theseus seized him by the feet and threw him into the sea. Fifth, in [pb_glossary id=\"779\"]Eleusis[\/pb_glossary] he slew [pb_glossary id=\"1761\"]Cercyon[\/pb_glossary], son of Branchus and a [pb_glossary id=\"217\"]nymph[\/pb_glossary] Argiope. This [pb_glossary id=\"1761\"]Cercyon[\/pb_glossary] compelled passersby to wrestle, and in wrestling killed them. But Theseus lifted him up on high and smashed him to the ground.\r\n\r\n[E.1.4] Sixth, he slew [pb_glossary id=\"1760\"]Damastes[\/pb_glossary], whom some call [pb_glossary id=\"1760\"]Polypemon[\/pb_glossary]. He had his dwelling beside the road, and made up two beds, one small and the other big; and offering hospitality to the passersby, he laid the short men on the big bed and hammered them, to make them fit the bed; but the tall men he laid on the little bed and sawed off the portions of the body that projected beyond it.\r\n\r\nSo, having cleared the road, Theseus came to [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[E.1.5] But [pb_glossary id=\"1738\"]Medea[\/pb_glossary], being then married to [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary], plotted against him and persuaded [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] to beware of him as a traitor. And [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary], not knowing his own son, was afraid and sent him against the Marathonian bull.\r\n\r\n[E.1.6] And when Theseus had killed it, [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] presented to him a poison which he had received the same day from [pb_glossary id=\"1738\"]Medea[\/pb_glossary]. But just as the drink was about to be administered to him, he gave his father the sword, and on recognizing it [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] knocked the cup from his hands. And when Theseus was thus made known to his father and informed of the plot, he expelled [pb_glossary id=\"1738\"]Medea[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.theoi.com\/Text\/Apollodorus3.html<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/a>Bacchylides, \u201cOde 18\u201d (trans. D. A. Svarlien, adapted by L. Zhang and P. Rogak)<\/h3>\r\n
Greek victory ode, ca. 476 BCE<\/h4>\r\n
In a Greek ode for a victorious Athlete, written around 476 BCE, the poet Bacchylides dramatizes the young Theseus' journey to Athens after he has completed his six labours.<\/div>\r\nCHORUS:<\/h6>\r\nKing of sacred [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], lord of the luxuriously-living Ionians, why has the bronze-belled trumpet just now sounded a war song? [5] Does some enemy of our land attack our borders, leading an army? Or are evil-plotting robbers, against the will of the shepherds, [10] rustling our flocks of sheep by force? What is it that tears your heart? Speak; for I think that you of all mortals have the aid of valiant young men at your disposal, [15] son of [pb_glossary id=\"1756\"]Pandion[\/pb_glossary] and Creusa.\r\n
AEGEUS:<\/h6>\r\nJust now a herald arrived, having come by foot on the long road from the Isthmus. He tells of the indescribable deeds of a mighty man. That man killed overweening [20] [pb_glossary id=\"1757\"]Sinis[\/pb_glossary], who was the greatest of mortals in strength; he is the son of Lytaeus the [pb_glossary id=\"2039\"]Earth-shaker[\/pb_glossary], son of [pb_glossary id=\"169\"]Cronus[\/pb_glossary]. And he has slain the man-killing boar in the valleys of Cremmyon, and reckless [25] [pb_glossary id=\"1758\"]Sciron[\/pb_glossary]. He has closed the wrestling school of [pb_glossary id=\"1761\"]Cercyon[\/pb_glossary]; Procoptes has met a better man and dropped the powerful hammer of [pb_glossary id=\"1760\"]Polypemon[\/pb_glossary]. [30] I fear how this will end.\r\n
CHORUS:<\/h6>\r\nWho is the man said to be, and from where? How is he equipped? Is he leading a great army with weapons of war? [35] Or does he come alone with only his attendants, like a traveler wandering among foreign people, this man who is so strong, valiant, and bold, who has overcome the powerful strength [40] of such great men? Indeed a god propels him, so that he can bring justice down on the unjust; for it is not easy to accomplish deed after deed and not meet with evil. [45] In the long course of time all things come to an end.\r\n
AEGEUS:<\/h6>\r\nThe herald says that only two men accompany him, and that he has a sword slung over his bright shoulders ((lacuna))[footnote]Indicates a gap or missing segment in the text[\/footnote] . . . and two polished javelins in his hands, [50] and a well-made Laconian hat on his head with its fire-red hair. A purple tunic covers his chest, and a woolen Thessalian cloak. [55] Bright red Lemnian fire flashes from his eyes. He is a boy in the prime of youth, intent on the playthings of [pb_glossary id=\"179\"]Ares[\/pb_glossary]: war and battles of clashing bronze. [60] He is on his way to splendor-loving [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0064%3Abook%3DDith%3Apoem%3D18<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n
\r\n<\/a>Ovid,\u00a0Metamorphoses,<\/em> Book 7 (<\/em>trans. A. S. Kline, adapted by L. Zhang)<\/h3>\r\n
Latin narrative poem, 1st century CE<\/h4>\r\n
In his Latin epic poem, the Metamorphoses<\/em>, from the first century CE, Ovid dwells on the first meeting between Theseus, his father Aegeus, and Aegeus' third wife, [pb_glossary id=\"1738\"]Medea [\/pb_glossary](recall that Medea fled to Athens after killing her children in Corinth). Ovid describes the origin of the poison that Medea attempts to use to kill Theseus.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n[404-424] \"Now Theseus came to [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s son but as yet unknown to him. He, by his courage, had brought peace to the Isthmus between the two gulfs. [pb_glossary id=\"1738\"]Medea[\/pb_glossary], seeking his destruction, prepared a mixture of poisonous aconite [monkshood\/wolf\u2019s bane] that she had brought with her from the coast of Scythia. This poison is said to have dripped from the teeth of [pb_glossary id=\"1228\"]Cerberus[\/pb_glossary], the Echidnean dog. There is a dark cavern with a gaping mouth, and a path into the depths, up which [pb_glossary id=\"1591\"]Hercules[\/pb_glossary], hero of Tiryns, dragged the dog, tied with steel chains, resisting and twisting its eyes away from the daylight and the shining rays. [pb_glossary id=\"1228\"]Cerberus[\/pb_glossary], provoked to a rabid frenzy, filled all the air with his simultaneous three-headed howling, and spattered the green fields with white flecks of foam. These are supposed to have congealed and found food to multiply, gaining harmful strength from the rich soil. Because they are long-lived, springing from the hard rock, the country people call these shoots, of wolf-bane, \u2018soil-less\u2019 aconites. Through his wife\u2019s cunning [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary], the father, himself offered the poison to his son, as if he were a stranger. Theseus, unwittingly, had taken the cup he was given in his right hand, when his father recognised the emblems of his own house, on the ivory hilt of his son\u2019s sword, and knocked the evil drink away from his mouth. But she [ [pb_glossary id=\"1738\"]Medea[\/pb_glossary] ] escaped death, in a dark mist, raised by her incantations.\r\n\r\n[425-452] Though the father was overjoyed that his son was unharmed, he was still horrified that so great a crime could have come so close to success. He lit fires on the altars, and heaped gifts for the gods. His axes struck the mountainous necks of oxen, their horns tied with the sacrificial ribbons. They say that was the happiest day that dawned in the city of Erectheus.[footnote]Erectheus<\/em> may refer to various figures in Athens' history: Erectheus I (also called Erichthonius<\/em>), Erectheus II (a later king of Athens), or Poseidon, who was worshipped in Athens with the epithet Erectheus<\/em>.[\/footnote] The statesmen celebrated among the people, and they sang verses, made even more inspired by the wine.\r\n\r\n\u2018Great Theseus, admired in Marathon,\r\n\r\nfor the blood of the [pb_glossary id=\"1422\"]Cretan bull[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nyour act and gift made Cromyon\u2019s fields\r\n\r\nsafe [ from the [pb_glossary id=\"1809\"]Crommyonian Sow[\/pb_glossary] ] for the farmers plough.\r\n\r\nEpidaurus\u2019 land saw you defeat\r\n\r\n[pb_glossary id=\"356\"]Vulcan[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s club-wielding son [ [pb_glossary id=\"4418\"]Periphetes[\/pb_glossary] ],\r\n\r\nand the banks of the River Cephisus\r\n\r\nsaw evil [pb_glossary id=\"1760\"]Procrustes[\/pb_glossary] brought down.\r\n\r\n[pb_glossary id=\"779\"]Eleusis[\/pb_glossary], sacred to [pb_glossary id=\"351\"]Ceres[\/pb_glossary] the Mother,\r\n\r\nwitnessed [pb_glossary id=\"1761\"]Cercyon[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s fall:\r\n\r\n[pb_glossary id=\"1757\"]Sinis[\/pb_glossary], you killed, a man of great strength\r\n\r\ntwisted to evil art,\r\n\r\nwho could bend pine-tree trunks to the earth,\r\n\r\nand tear men\u2019s bodies apart:\r\n\r\nand [pb_glossary id=\"1758\"]Sciron[\/pb_glossary] is done for, and safe paths reach\r\n\r\nMegara\u2019s Lelege\u00efan wall:\r\n\r\nthough the ocean denied his bones a grave,\r\n\r\nand the land denied the same,\r\n\r\ntill, long-time hurled, they hardened to cliffs,\r\n\r\nand the cliffs bear [pb_glossary id=\"1758\"]Sciron[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s name.\r\n\r\nIf we wanted to count your years and your honours,\r\n\r\nthe deeds would exceed the years:\r\n\r\nto you, the bravest, we empty our wine-cups,\r\n\r\nand offer our public prayers.\u2019\r\n\r\nThe palace echoed to the people\u2019s applause and the prayers of friends, and there was no sad place in the whole city.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.poetryintranslation.com\/PITBR\/Latin\/Metamorph7.php#anchor_Toc64106443<\/a>\r\nTranslated by A. S. Kline \u00a9\u00a0Copyright<\/a> 2000 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe Minotaur<\/h1>\r\n
\r\n Sections & Primary Sources<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n\r\nThe Tribute to Minos<\/a>\r\n- \r\n \t
- Pseudo-Apollodorus,\u00a0Bibliotheca<\/em>, 3.1.1-E.1.24<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Plutarch,\u00a0Parallel Lives<\/em> 1, \"Life of Theseus,\" 15-19<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Bacchylides,\u00a0Odes,\u00a0<\/em>\"Ode 17\"<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nAriadne<\/a>\r\n
- \r\n \t
- Catullus, Poems<\/em> 64, \u201cOf the Argonauts and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis\u201d<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Ovid,\u00a0Metamorphoses<\/em>, 8.152-182<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Ovid,\u00a0Ars Amatoria,\u00a0<\/em>1.15<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Ovid,\u00a0Heroides <\/em>10, \"Ariadne to Theseus\"<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
<\/a>The Tribute to Minos<\/h2>\r\n
After being reunited with his mortal father at Athens, Theseus learns that the Athenians are being forced to\u00a0send young men and women as human sacrifices to King Minos of Crete, to be fed to the king's half human\/half bull son, the Minotaur. He volunteers to be one of these youths. His intention is to kill the beast and free Athens from its obligation to King Minos. Theseus gets help from Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, in navigating the labyrinth in which the Minotaur lives.<\/p>\r\n \r\n
\r\n<\/a>Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca,\u00a0<\/em>Book 3 and Epitome\u00a0(trans. J. G. Frazer, adapted by L. Zhang and P. Rogak)<\/h3>\r\n
Greek mythography, 2nd century BCE<\/h4>\r\n
[content warning for the following source: suicide (E.1.10, E.1.19), sexual assault (E.1.20-23)]<\/h5>\r\n
Pseudo-Apollodorus'\u00a0Bibliotheca<\/em>, gives the background for the Minotaur's lineage and how the half human\/half bull creature came to be. He recounts Theseus' battle against the Minotaur, and also what happens to Dedaelus, the famous architect who made the Minotaur's conception possible and who built the labyrinth. Finally, he narrates what happens to Theseus when he returns to Athens: his battle against the Amazons with Heracles, his journey to the underworld with Pirithuous to kidnap Persephone, and tragic events that take place between Theseus' wife, Phaedre, and his son Hippolytus, whom he produced with Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n[3.1.1] Having now run over the family of [pb_glossary id=\"1183\"]Inachus[\/pb_glossary] and described them from Belus down to the Heraclids, we have next to speak of the house of [pb_glossary id=\"1727\"]Agenor[\/pb_glossary]. For as I have said, Libya had by [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] two sons, Belus and [pb_glossary id=\"1727\"]Agenor[\/pb_glossary]. Now Belus reigned over the Egyptians and fathered the aforesaid sons; but [pb_glossary id=\"1727\"]Agenor[\/pb_glossary] went to Phoenicia, married [pb_glossary id=\"1728\"]Telephassa[\/pb_glossary], and fathered a daughter [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary] and three sons, [pb_glossary id=\"910\"]Cadmus[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"1724\"]Phoenix[\/pb_glossary], and Cilix. But some say that [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary] was a daughter not of [pb_glossary id=\"1727\"]Agenor[\/pb_glossary] but of [pb_glossary id=\"1724\"]Phoenix[\/pb_glossary]. [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] loved her, and turning himself into a tame bull, he mounted her on his back and conveyed her through the sea to Crete. There [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] slept with her, and she gave birth to [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"611\"]Sarpedon[\/pb_glossary], and [pb_glossary id=\"1725\"]Rhadamanthus[\/pb_glossary]; but according to Homer, [pb_glossary id=\"611\"]Sarpedon[\/pb_glossary] was a son of [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] by Laodamia, daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"1726\"]Bellerophon[\/pb_glossary]. Upon the disappearance of [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary], her father [pb_glossary id=\"1727\"]Agenor[\/pb_glossary] sent out his sons in search of her, telling them not to return until they had found [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary]. With them her mother [pb_glossary id=\"1728\"]Telephassa[\/pb_glossary], and Thasus son of [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] (or according to Pherecydes, of Cilix) went forth in search of her. But when, after diligent search, they could not find [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary], they gave up the thought of returning home, and took up residence in different places; [pb_glossary id=\"1724\"]Phoenix[\/pb_glossary] settled in Phoenicia; Cilix settled near Phoenicia, and all the country subject to himself near the river Pyramus he called Cilicia; and [pb_glossary id=\"910\"]Cadmus[\/pb_glossary] and [pb_glossary id=\"1728\"]Telephassa[\/pb_glossary] took up residence in Thrace and in the same way Thasus founded a city Thasus in an island off Thrace and dwelt there.\r\n\r\n[3.1.2] Now [pb_glossary id=\"1732\"]Asterius[\/pb_glossary], prince of the Cretans, married [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary] and brought up her children. \u00a0But when they were grown up, they quarreled with each other; for they loved a boy called Miletus, son of [pb_glossary id=\"183\"]Apollo[\/pb_glossary] by Aria, daughter of Cleochus. Because the boy was more friendly to [pb_glossary id=\"611\"]Sarpedon[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] went to war and won it, and the others fled. Miletus landed in Caria and there founded a city which he called Miletus after himself; and [pb_glossary id=\"611\"]Sarpedon[\/pb_glossary] allied himself with Cilix, who was at war with the Lycians, and having stipulated for a share of the country, he became king of Lycia. And [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] granted him to live for three generations. But some say that they loved Atymnius, the son of [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] and [pb_glossary id=\"1166\"]Cassiopeia[\/pb_glossary], and that it was about him that they quarreled. [pb_glossary id=\"1725\"]Rhadamanthus[\/pb_glossary] legislated for the islanders, but afterwards he fled to Boeotia and married [pb_glossary id=\"1199\"]Alcmene[\/pb_glossary]; and since his departure from the world he acts as judge in [pb_glossary id=\"211\"]Hades[\/pb_glossary] along with [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary]. [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], residing in Crete, passed laws, and married [pb_glossary id=\"1730\"]Pasiphae[\/pb_glossary], daughter of the [pb_glossary id=\"876\"]Sun[\/pb_glossary] and Perseis; but Asclepiades says that his wife was Crete, daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"1732\"]Asterius[\/pb_glossary]. He fathered sons (Catreus, Deucalion, Glaucus, and [pb_glossary id=\"1735\"]Androgeus[\/pb_glossary]) and daughters (Acalle, Xenodice, [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"1740\"]Phaedra[\/pb_glossary]); and by a [pb_glossary id=\"217\"]nymph[\/pb_glossary] Paria he had Eurymedon, Nephalion, [pb_glossary id=\"1564\"]Chryses[\/pb_glossary], and Philolaus; and by Dexithea he had Euxanthius.\r\n\r\n[3.1.3] [pb_glossary id=\"1732\"]Asterius[\/pb_glossary] dying childless, [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] wished to reign over Crete, but his claim was opposed. So he alleged that he had received the kingdom from the gods, and in proof of it he said that whatever he prayed for would be done. And in sacrificing to [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] he prayed that a bull might appear from the depths, promising to sacrifice it when it appeared. [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] did send him up a fine bull, and [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] obtained the kingdom, but he sent the bull to the herds and sacrificed another. [Being the first to obtain the dominion of the sea, he extended his rule over almost all the islands.]\r\n\r\n[3.1.4] But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] made the animal savage, and contrived that [pb_glossary id=\"1730\"]Pasiphae[\/pb_glossary] should conceive a passion for it. In her love for the bull she found an accomplice in [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary], an architect, who had been banished from [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] for murder. He constructed a wooden cow on wheels, took it, hollowed it out in the inside, sewed it up in the hide of a cow which he had skinned, and set it in the meadow in which the bull used to graze. Then he led [pb_glossary id=\"1730\"]Pasiphae[\/pb_glossary] into it; and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow. And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary]. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth. Now the Labyrinth which [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] constructed was a chamber \u201cthat with its tangled windings perplexed the outward way.\u201d\u00a0 The story of the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary], and [pb_glossary id=\"1735\"]Androgeus[\/pb_glossary], and [pb_glossary id=\"1740\"]Phaedra[\/pb_glossary], and [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary], I will tell hereafter in my account of Theseus.\r\n\r\n[. . .]\r\n\r\n[E.1.7] And he (Theseus) was counted among those who were to be sent as the third tribute to the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary]; or, as some affirm, he offered himself voluntarily. And as the ship had a black sail, Aegeus charged his son, if he returned alive, to spread white sails on the ship.\r\n\r\n[E.1.8] And when he came to Crete, [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary], daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], having fallen in love with him, offered to help him if he would agree to carry her away to [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] and take her as his wife. Theseus having agreed on oath to do so, she asked [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] to disclose the way out of the labyrinth.\r\n\r\n[E.1.9] And at his suggestion she gave Theseus a clew [ball of thread] when he went in; Theseus fastened it to the door, and, drawing it after him, entered in. And having found the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary] in the last part of the labyrinth, he killed him by smiting him with his fists; and drawing the ball of thread after him made his way out again. And by night he arrived with [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary] and the rescued Athenian children at Naxos. There [pb_glossary id=\"370\"]Dionysus[\/pb_glossary] fell in love with [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary] and carried her off; and having brought her to Lemnos he slept with her, and she gave birth to Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, and Peparethus.\r\n\r\n[E.1.10] In his grief on account of [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary], Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship when he stood for port; and [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary], seeing from the acropolis the ship with a black sail, supposed that Theseus had perished; so he cast himself down and died.\r\n\r\n[E.1.11] But Theseus inherited the sovereignty of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], and killed the sons of Pallas [ of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] ], fifty in number; likewise all who would oppose him were killed by him, and he got the whole government to himself.\r\n\r\n[E.1.12] On being informed of the flight of Theseus and those with him, [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] imprisoned the guilty [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] in the labyrinth, along with his son [pb_glossary id=\"1443\"]Icarus[\/pb_glossary], who had been borne to [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] by Naucrate, a female slave of [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary]. But [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] constructed wings for himself and his son, and instructed his son, when he took to flight, neither to fly high, in case the glue melted in the sun and the wings dropped off, nor to fly near the sea, in case the pinions became detached by the damp.\r\n\r\n[E.1.13] But the excited [pb_glossary id=\"1443\"]Icarus[\/pb_glossary], disregarding his father's instructions, soared ever higher until, the glue melting, he fell into the sea (which was named after him, the Icarian Sea) and perished. But [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] made his way safely to Camicus in Sicily.\r\n\r\n[E.1.14] And [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] pursued [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary], and in every country that he searched he carried a spiral shell and promised to give a great reward to him who should pass a thread through the shell, believing that by that means he would find [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary]. And having come to Camicus in Sicily, to the court of Cocalus, with whom [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] was concealed, he showed the spiral shell. Cocalus took it, and promised to thread it, and gave it to [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[E.1.15] And [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] fastened a thread to an ant, and, having bored a hole in the spiral shell, allowed the ant to pass through it. But when [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] found the thread passed through the shell, he perceived that [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] was with Cocalus, and at once demanded his surrender. Cocalus promised to turn him over, and made an entertainment for [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary]; but after his bath [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] was defeated by the daughters of Cocalus; some say, however, that he died through being drenched with boiling water.\r\n\r\n[E.1.16] Theseus joined [pb_glossary id=\"1591\"]Hercules[\/pb_glossary] in his expedition against the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazons[\/pb_glossary] and carried off Antiope, or, as some say, Melanippe; but Simonides calls her [pb_glossary id=\"1426\"]Hippolyte[\/pb_glossary]. For this reason the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazons[\/pb_glossary] marched against [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], and having taken up a position around the Areopagus, they were defeated by the Athenians under Theseus. And though he had a son [pb_glossary id=\"1739\"]Hippolytus[\/pb_glossary] by the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\n[E.1.17] Theseus afterwards received from Deucalion in marriage [pb_glossary id=\"1740\"]Phaedra[\/pb_glossary], daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary]; and when her marriage was being celebrated, the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary] that had before been married to him appeared in arms with her [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazons[\/pb_glossary], and threatened to kill the assembled guests. But they hastily closed the doors and killed her. However, some say that she was killed in battle by Theseus.\r\n\r\n[E.1.18] And [pb_glossary id=\"1740\"]Phaedra[\/pb_glossary], after she had given birth to two children, Acamas and Demophon, to Theseus, fell in love with the son he had by the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary], Hippolytus, and asked him to sleep with her. However, he fled from her embraces, because he hated all women. But [pb_glossary id=\"1740\"]Phaedra[\/pb_glossary], fearing that he might report her advances to his father, left open the doors of her bed-chamber, tore her garments, and falsely charged [pb_glossary id=\"1739\"]Hippolytus[\/pb_glossary] with an assault.\r\n\r\n[E.1.19] Theseus believed her and prayed to [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] that [pb_glossary id=\"1739\"]Hippolytus[\/pb_glossary] might perish. So, when [pb_glossary id=\"1739\"]Hippolytus[\/pb_glossary] was riding in his chariot and driving beside the sea, [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] sent up a bull from the surf, and the horses were frightened, the chariot dashed in pieces, and [pb_glossary id=\"1739\"]Hippolytus[\/pb_glossary], entangled in the reins, was dragged to death. And when her passion was made public, [pb_glossary id=\"1740\"]Phaedra[\/pb_glossary] hanged herself.\r\n\r\n<\/a>[E.1.20] [pb_glossary id=\"1482\"]Ixion[\/pb_glossary] fell in love with [pb_glossary id=\"185\"]Hera[\/pb_glossary] and attempted to rape her; and when [pb_glossary id=\"185\"]Hera[\/pb_glossary] reported it, [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary], wishing to know if the thing were so, made a cloud in the likeness of [pb_glossary id=\"185\"]Hera[\/pb_glossary] and laid it beside him; and when [pb_glossary id=\"1482\"]Ixion[\/pb_glossary] boasted that he had slept with [pb_glossary id=\"185\"]Hera[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] bound him to a wheel, on which he is whirled by winds through the air; such is the penalty he pays. And the cloud, impregnated by [pb_glossary id=\"1482\"]Ixion[\/pb_glossary], gave birth to the [pb_glossary id=\"1398\"]Centaurs[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[E.1.21] And Theseus allied himself with [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary], when he engaged in war against the [pb_glossary id=\"1398\"]centaurs[\/pb_glossary]. For when [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] wooed Hippodamia, he feasted the [pb_glossary id=\"1398\"]centaurs[\/pb_glossary] because they were her kinsmen. But being unaccustomed to wine, they made themselves drunk by drinking it greedily, and when the bride was brought in, they attempted to rape her. But [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary], fully armed, with Theseus, joined battle with them, and Theseus killed many of them.[footnote]The Centauromachy, the battle between the Lapiths and the centaurs at the wedding of Hippodamia and Pirithous, is a common theme in Greek art (such as on the famous West Pediment of the temple of Zeus and Olympia). [\/footnote]\r\n\r\n[E.1.22] [pb_glossary id=\"1747\"]Caeneus[\/pb_glossary] was formerly a woman, but after that [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] had intercourse with her, she asked to become an invulnerable man;[footnote]Book 12 of Ovid's Metamorphoses provides the most detailed account of the story of Caeneus. Caeneus, born Caenis (a feminine ending of the name), was raped by Poseidon, and then asked Poseidon to transform her into a man. Poseidon fulfilled this wish and gave Caeneus the additional gift of being invulnerable to weapons. For further discussion of the story of Caeneus and the concepts of gender and transgender in this myth, see:\r\nNorthrop, C. (2020). Caeneus and Heroic (Trans)Masculinity in Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses. Arethusa<\/em> 53(1), 25-41 <\/a>and Power M., (2020) \u201cNon-Binary and Intersex Visibility and Erasure in Roman Archaeology\u201d, Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal<\/em> 3(1). p.11.<\/a>[\/footnote] and so in the battle with the [pb_glossary id=\"1398\"]centaurs[\/pb_glossary] he thought nothing of wounds and killed many of the [pb_glossary id=\"1398\"]centaurs[\/pb_glossary]; but the rest of them surrounded him and by striking him with fir trees buried him in the earth.\r\n\r\n[E.1.23] Having made an agreement with [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] that they would marry daughters of [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary], Theseus, with the help of [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary], carried off [pb_glossary id=\"1663\"]Helen[\/pb_glossary] from Sparta for himself, when she was twelve years old, and in the endeavor to win [pb_glossary id=\"353\"]Persephone[\/pb_glossary] as a bride for [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] he went down to [pb_glossary id=\"211\"]Hades[\/pb_glossary]. And the [pb_glossary id=\"1743\"]Dioscuri[\/pb_glossary], with the Lacedaemonians and Arcadians, captured [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] and carried away [pb_glossary id=\"1663\"]Helen[\/pb_glossary], and with her [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary], daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"1770\"]Pittheus[\/pb_glossary], into captivity; but Demophon and Acamas fled. And the [pb_glossary id=\"1743\"]Dioscuri[\/pb_glossary] also brought back Menestheus from exile, and gave him the sovereignty of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\n[E.1.24] But when Theseus arrived with [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] in [pb_glossary id=\"211\"]Hades[\/pb_glossary], he was tricked; for, on the pretense that they were about to partake of good cheer, [pb_glossary id=\"211\"]Hades[\/pb_glossary] asked them first to be seated on the Chair of Forgetfulness, to which they grew and were held tight by coils of serpents. [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary], therefore, remained bound for ever, but [pb_glossary id=\"1591\"]Hercules[\/pb_glossary] brought Theseus up and sent him to [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary]. As a result, he was driven away by Menestheus and went to Lycomedes, who threw him down an abyss and killed him.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.theoi.com\/Text\/Apollodorus3.html<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/a>Plutarch, Parallel <\/em>Lives\u00a0<\/em>1, \"Life of Theseus,\" Chapters 15-19 (trans. W. W. Skeat, adapted by L. Zhang and P. Rogak)<\/h3>\r\n
Greek biography, 2nd century CE<\/h4>\r\n
Plutarch, a Greek philosopher and historian from the second century CE, wrote a\u00a0euhemerizing<\/em> account of Theseus and the Minotaur, attempting to give a rational explanation for the myth.<\/div>\r\n15\r\nNot long after, king [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary]' ambassadors came from Crete to demand tribute for the third time. This tribute was paid by the Athenians for this reason: [pb_glossary id=\"1735\"]Androgeus[\/pb_glossary], the eldest son of king [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], was treacherously slain within the country of Attica. Because of this, [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], in order to avenge his death, made war on Athenians and did them much damage. In addition, the gods harshly punished and scourged all the country with barrenness and famine, with plague, and with other misfortunes, even drying up their rivers. The Athenians, perceiving these dire troubles and plagues, ran to the oracle of [pb_glossary id=\"183\"]Apollo[\/pb_glossary], who answered them that they should appease [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], and when they had made their peace with him then the wrath of the gods would cease and their troubles would end.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThus the Athenians sent a message immediately to him [ [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] ], and asked him for peace, which he granted them, on the condition that every year they send to Crete seven young boys and just as many young girls. Now the historiographers agree up to this point, but not on the rest of the tale. And those who are the most preposterous say that when these young boys were delivered to Crete, they were devoured by the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary] within the labyrinth, or they were shut within this labyrinth, wandering up and down, and could find no place to get out until they died of starvation.\r\n\r\nAnd this [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary], as Euripides the poet wrote, was\r\n\r\n\"A form combin'd, which monstrous might be deemed:\r\n\r\nA boy and a bull, both man and beast it seemed.\"\r\n\r\n16\r\nBut Philochorus writes that the Cretans do not admit that, but rather say that this labyrinth was a jail or prison. In this prison, those who were kept there suffered no other punishment except that they were kept under lock and key and could not fly or run away; and that in memory of his son, [pb_glossary id=\"1735\"]Androgeus[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] had instituted games and prizes, in which he gave the young Athenian children as prizes to those who won. In the meantime, the children were kept locked in the prison of the labyrinth. At the first of these games one of the king's captains named Taurus [whose name means \"bull\"], who was a favourite of his master, won the prize. This Taurus was an ill-mannered man and very hard and cruel to these Athenian children.\r\n\r\nAnd to verify this account, the philosopher Aristotle, in his Constitution of the Bottiaeans, made clear that he never thought that [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] had ever put the Athenian children to death. He said instead that they laboured as slaves in Crete for the rest of their lives.\r\n\r\n17\r\nWhen the time came for the third tribute and the fathers with unmarried children were forced to put their children forward for the drawing of lots, the citizens of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] began to speak out against [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary], lamenting that he, who was the only cause of all this evil, was the only one exempted from this grief. And that, while he placed the government of the realm into the hands of a stranger, he did not care, that they were deprived of all their natural children and were unnaturally forced to leave and forsake them.\r\n\r\nThese sorrows and complaints of the fathers whose children were taken pierced the heart of Theseus, who, willing to yield to reason, and to have the same fate as the citizens did, offered himself as tribute to be sent to Crete. The citizens thought highly of his courage and honourable disposition and loved him greatly for his community-minded spirit.\r\n\r\n[pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] tried to persuade Theseus to change his mind, but seeing in the end that there was no other option, he drew lots for the children to go with him. [pb_glossary id=\"5689\"]Hellanicus[\/pb_glossary] instead writes that it was not the Athenians who drew lots for the children to send, but that [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] himself went to Athens in person and chose them. He chose Theseus first, on the condition agreed between them: the Athenians should provide them with a ship, and the children should sail with him, carrying no weapons of war, and that after the death of the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary] this tribute would end.\r\n\r\nBefore this time there was never any hope of a safe return; therefore the Athenians always sent the children out on a ship with a black sail to signify their certain doom. Nevertheless, Theseus encouraged his father to have faith in him and boldly promised that he would defeat the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary]. So, [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] gave the master of the ship a white sail, commanding him that at his return he should put out the white sail if his son had escaped: if not, then he should set up the black sail, to signal his misfortune. Simonides writes instead that this sail that [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] gave to the shipmaster was not white but red, dyed in grain, and of the colour of scarlet, and that he gave it to him to signal their delivery and safety. This master was called Phereclus Amarsiadas, according to Simonides. But Philochorus writes that Scirus the Salaminian gave to Theseus a shipmaster called Nausitheus, and another mariner to tackle the sails, who was called Phaeas (because the Athenians at that time were not very skilled at sea). And Scirus did this because one of the children who was chosen by lot was his nephew. And standing as testament to this are the shrines which Theseus built afterwards in honour of Nausitheus and of Phaeas, in the village of Phalerus, joining to the temple of Scirus. And it is said moreover that the feast which they call Cybernesia, the feast of patrons of the ships, is celebrated in honour of them.\r\n\r\n18\r\nNow after the lots were drawn, Theseus took with him the children allotted for the tribute and went from the palace to the temple called Delphinion to make an offering to [pb_glossary id=\"183\"]Apollo[\/pb_glossary] on behalf of himself and the children\u2013 an offering of supplication, which they call hiceteria,<\/em> which was a sacred olive bough encircled with white wool. After he had made his prayer, he went down to the sea-side to embark on the sixth day of the month of March\u2013 the day on which, even at this present time, they send their young girls to the same temple of Delphinion to make their prayers and petitions to the gods.\r\n\r\nBut some say that the oracle of [pb_glossary id=\"183\"]Apollo[\/pb_glossary] in the city of [pb_glossary id=\"945\"]Delphi[\/pb_glossary] had answered him, that he should take [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Venus[\/pb_glossary] for his guide, and that he should call upon her to lead him in his voyage. For this reason he sacrificed a goat to her upon the sea-side, which suddenly turned into a ram, and so they surnamed this goddess Epitragia, \u201cthe goddess of the ram.\u201d\r\n\r\n19\r\nThen, after he arrived in Crete, he slew the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary] (as most of the ancient authors write) with the help of [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary] who, having fallen in love with him, gave him a clew of thread, with which she taught him how to easily wind out of the twist and turns of the labyrinth.\r\n\r\nAnd they say that, having killed this [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary], he returned back again the same way he went, bringing with him those other young Athenian children. He also took [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary]. Pherecides adds that he broke the keels or bottoms of all the ships of Crete, so that they could not immediately set out after them.\r\n\r\nAnd Demon writes, the aforementioned [pb_glossary id=\"1867\"]Taurus[\/pb_glossary] (the captain of [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary]) was killed in a fight with\u00a0 Theseus at the entrance to the port as they were preparing to sail away. Yet Philochorus reports that after king [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] had set up the games, as he did every year in the honour and memory of his son, everyone began to envy captain [pb_glossary id=\"1867\"]Taurus[\/pb_glossary], because they all assumed that he would carry away the game and victory, as he had done in previous years. Furthermore, he attracted much ill will and envy because he was proud and haughty and people suspected that he was having an affair with Queen [pb_glossary id=\"1730\"]Pasiphae[\/pb_glossary]. This is why, when Theseus asked to duel with [pb_glossary id=\"1867\"]Taurus[\/pb_glossary], [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] easily granted it.\r\n\r\nSince it was customary in Crete for women to view the games, [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary] was there and fell even more in love with Theseus when she saw that he was so great a person, so strong, and invincible in wrestling that he beat every one else.\r\n\r\nKing [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] was so glad that Theseus had beaten [pb_glossary id=\"1867\"]Taurus[\/pb_glossary] that he sent him home free along with all the other prisoners of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary]. And he released and forgave the city of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] the tribute, which they paid him yearly.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0078%3Atext%3DThes.<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/a>Bacchylides, \u201cOde 17\u201d (trans. D.A. Svarlien, adapted by L. Zhang)<\/h3>\r\n
Greek victory ode, ca. 476 BCE<\/h4>\r\n
[content warning for the following source: sexual assault (10-45)]<\/h5>\r\n
In an ode for a victorious athlete, written around 476 BCE, the Greek poet Bacchylides describes the meeting of the two heroes and demigods: Minos, the son of Zeus and Europa, and Theseus, the son of Poseidon and Aethra. Each hero proves his semi-divine status with a sign from his divine father.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nA dark-prowed ship, carrying Theseus, steady in the noise of battle, and two-times-seven splendid Ionian youths, was cleaving the Cretan sea; [5] for northern breezes fell on the far-shining sail, by the will of glorious [pb_glossary id=\"173\"]Athena[\/pb_glossary], shaker of the [pb_glossary id=\"168\"]aegis[\/pb_glossary]. And the holy gifts of Cypris [ [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Aphrodite[\/pb_glossary] ] with her lovely headband scratched the heart of [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary]. [10] He no longer kept his hand away from the maiden [ [pb_glossary id=\"1751\"]Eriboea[\/pb_glossary] ]; he touched her white cheeks. And [pb_glossary id=\"1751\"]Eriboea[\/pb_glossary] cried out [15] to the descendant of [pb_glossary id=\"1756\"]Pandion[\/pb_glossary] [Theseus] with his bronze breastplate. Theseus saw, and he rolled his dark eyes under his brows; cruel pain tore his heart, [20] and he spoke: \u201cSon of greatest [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary], the spirit you guide in your heart is no longer pious. Hero, restrain your overbearing force. Whatever the all-powerful fate of the gods [25] has granted for us, and however the scale of Justice tips, we shall fulfill our appointed destiny when it comes. As for you, hold back from your oppressive scheme. It may be that the dear [30] lovely-named daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"1724\"]Phoenix[\/pb_glossary] [ [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary] ] went to the bed of [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] beneath the brow of [pb_glossary id=\"187\"]Ida[\/pb_glossary] and bore you, greatest of mortals, but I too was borne by the daughter of rich [pb_glossary id=\"1770\"]Pittheus[\/pb_glossary] [ [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary] ], [35] who coupled with the sea-god [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary], and the violet-haired [pb_glossary id=\"329\"]Nereids[\/pb_glossary] gave her a golden veil. And so, war-lord of Knossos, [40] I ask you to restrain your terrible violence; for I would not want to see the lovely immortal light of [pb_glossary id=\"215\"]Dawn[\/pb_glossary] if you were to subdue one of these young people against her will. [45] Before that we will show the force of our arms, and what comes after that a god will decide.\u201d So spoke the hero, excellent with the spear; and the sailors were astonished at the man's extraordinary [50] boldness. The son-in-law of [pb_glossary id=\"876\"]Helios[\/pb_glossary] was angered in his heart, and he wove a new scheme, and spoke: \u201cFather [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary], great in strength, hear me! If indeed the white-armed Phoenician girl [ [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary] ] bore me to you, [55] now send forth from the sky a fire-haired lightning bolt, a conspicuous sign. And you, if Troezenian [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary] bore you to [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary] the [pb_glossary id=\"2039\"]earth-shaker[\/pb_glossary], [60] bring this splendid gold ornament on my hand back from the depths of the sea, casting your body boldly down to your father's home. And you shall see whether my prayers are heard [65] by the son of [pb_glossary id=\"169\"]Cronus[\/pb_glossary], lord of the thunder and ruler of all.\u201d And [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary], great in strength, heard his blameless prayer, and brought about a majestic honour for [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], wanting it [70] to be seen by all for the sake of his dear son; he sent the lightning. And the hero, steadfast in battle, seeing the marvel which pleased his spirit, stretched his hands to the glorious sky and said, \u201cTheseus, [75] you see [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary]' clear gifts to me. It is your turn to leap into the loud-roaring sea. And your father lord [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Poseidon[\/pb_glossary], son of [pb_glossary id=\"169\"]Cronus[\/pb_glossary], will grant you supreme [80] glory throughout the well-wooded earth.\u201d So he spoke. And Theseus' spirit did not recoil; he stood on the well-built deck, and leapt, [85] and the precinct of the sea received him willingly. And the son of [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Zeus[\/pb_glossary] was astonished in his heart, and gave an order to hold the ornate ship before the wind; but fate was preparing another path. [90] The swift-moving ship hurtled forwards; and the north wind, blowing astern, drove it along. But the ((lacuna)) . . . race of Athenian youths was afraid, when the hero jumped into the sea, [95] and they shed tears from their lily eyes, awaiting terrible compulsion. But sea-dwelling dolphins swiftly carried great Theseus to the home of his father, lord of horses; [100] and he came to the hall of the gods. There he saw the glorious daughters of prosperous [pb_glossary id=\"1431\"]Nereus[\/pb_glossary], and was afraid; for brightness shone like fire from their splendid limbs, [105] and ribbons woven with gold whirled around their hair. They were delighting their hearts in a dance, with flowing feet. And he saw in that lovely dwelling the dear wife of his father, [110] holy, ox-eyed [pb_glossary id=\"1547\"]Amphitrite[\/pb_glossary]. She threw a purple cloak around him and placed on his curly hair a perfect wreath, [115] dark with roses, which deceptive [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Aphrodite[\/pb_glossary] had once given her at her marriage. Nothing of the gods\u2019 will is unbelievable to sensible men. Theseus appeared beside the ship with its slender stern. Oh, [120] from what thoughts did he stop the war-lord of Knossos, when he emerged dry from the sea, a marvel to all, and the gifts of the gods shone on his body. [125] The splendid-throned maidens cried out with new-founded joy, and the sea resounded. Nearby the young people sang a triumphal song with lovely voices. [130] God of [pb_glossary id=\"1696\"]Delos[\/pb_glossary] [ [pb_glossary id=\"183\"]Apollo[\/pb_glossary] ], may the choruses of the Ceans warm your heart, and may you grant god-sent noble fortune.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?<\/a>\r\n\r\ndoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0064%3Abook%3DDith%3Apoem%3D17<\/a>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/a>Ariadne<\/h2>\r\n
Minos' daughter Ariadne helped Theseus extensively in his conflict with the Minotaur in the Labyrinth of Minos. Theseus then brought her away from Crete, promising to marry her. Accounts vary as to what occurred afterwards. In the most common version of the myth (particularly in Ovid's accounts), Theseus abandons Ariadne on the island of Naxos, and Dionysus comes to her rescue. She then becomes an immortal goddess and the wife of Dionysus on Olympus.<\/p>\r\n \r\n
\r\n<\/a>Catullus,\u00a0Poems\u00a0<\/em>64, \"Of the Argonauts and an Epithalamium for Peleus and Thetis\" (trans. A. S. Kline, adapted by L. Zhang)<\/h3>\r\n
Latin poem, 1st century BCE<\/h4>\r\n
The longest version of Theseus' abandonment of Ariadne is a poem by the Roman poet Catullus, written in the first century BCE, a generation before Ovid wrote the\u00a0Metamorphoses<\/em>. This poem is commonly called \"Catullus 64,\" as it is ordered 64th in the collection of his surviving poems. It is an epithalamium, meaning a wedding poem.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nHere are seen the wave-echoing shores of Naxos,\r\n\r\nTheseus, aboard his ship, vanishing swiftly, watched\r\n\r\nby [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary], ungovernable passion in her heart,\r\n\r\nnot yet believing that she sees what she does see,\r\n\r\nstill only just awoken from deceptive sleep,\r\n\r\nfinding herself abandoned wretchedly to empty sands.\r\n\r\nBut uncaring the hero fleeing strikes the deep with his oars,\r\n\r\ncasting his empty promises to the stormy winds.\r\n\r\nThe Minoan girl goes on gazing at the distance,\r\n\r\nwith mournful eyes, like the statue of a [pb_glossary id=\"887\"]Bacchante[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\ngazes, alas, and swells with great waves of sorrow,\r\n\r\nno longer does the fine turban remain on her golden hair,\r\n\r\nno longer is she hidden by her lightly-concealing dress,\r\n\r\nno longer does the shapely band hold her milk-white breasts\r\n\r\nall of it scattered, slipping entirely from her body,\r\n\r\nplays about her feet in the salt flood.\r\n\r\nBut, not caring now for turban or flowing dress, the lost girl\r\n\r\ngazed towards you, Theseus, with all her heart, spirit, mind.\r\n\r\nWretched thing, for whom bright [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Venus[\/pb_glossary] reserved the thorny\r\n\r\ncares of constant mourning in your heart,\r\n\r\nfrom that time when it suited warlike Theseus,\r\n\r\nleaving the curving shores of Piraeus,\r\n\r\nto reach the Cretan regions of the unbending king.\r\n\r\nFor then forced by cruel plague, they say,\r\n\r\nas punishment, to absolve the murder of [pb_glossary id=\"1735\"]Androgeus[\/pb_glossary]\r\n\r\nten chosen young men of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] and ten unmarried girls\r\n\r\nused to be given together as sacrifice to the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\nWith which evil the narrow walls were troubled until\r\n\r\nTheseus chose to offer himself for his dear [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary]\r\n\r\nrather than such Athenian dead be carried un-dead to Crete.\r\n\r\nAnd so in a swift ship and with gentle breezes\r\n\r\nhe came to great [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] and his proud halls.\r\n\r\nAs soon as the royal girl cast her eye on him with desire,\r\n\r\nshe whom the chaste bed nourished, breathing\r\n\r\nsweet perfumes in her mother\u2019s gentle embrace,\r\n\r\neven as Eurotas\u2019 streams surround a myrtle\r\n\r\nthat sheds its varied colours on the spring breeze,\r\n\r\nshe did not turn her blazing eyes away from him,\r\n\r\ntill she conceived a flame through her whole body\r\n\r\nthat burned utterly to the depths of her bones.\r\n\r\nAh sadly the Boy [ [pb_glossary id=\"158\"]Cupid[\/pb_glossary] ] incites inexorable passion\r\n\r\nin chaste hearts, he who mixes joy and pains for mortals,\r\n\r\nand she [ [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Venus[\/pb_glossary] ] who rules Golgos and leafy Idalia,\r\n\r\neven she, who shakes the mind of a smitten girl,\r\n\r\noften sighing for a blonde-haired stranger!\r\n\r\nHow many fears the girl suffers in her weak heart!\r\n\r\nHow often she grows pale: more so than pale gold.\r\n\r\nAs Theseus went off eager to fight the savage monster\r\n\r\neither death approached or fame\u2019s reward!\r\n\r\nPromising small gifts, not unwelcome or in vain,\r\n\r\nshe made her prayers to the gods with closed lips.\r\n\r\nNow as a storm uproots a quivering branch of oak,\r\n\r\nor a cone-bearing pine with resinous bark, on the heights\r\n\r\nof Mount Taurus, twisting its unconquered strength\r\n\r\nin the wind (it falls headlong, far off, plucked out\r\n\r\nby the roots, shattering anything and everything in its way)\r\n\r\nso Theseus upended the conquered body of the beast\r\n\r\nits useless horns overthrown, emptied of breath.\r\n\r\nThen he turned back, unharmed, to great glory,\r\n\r\nguided by the wandering track of fine thread,\r\n\r\nso that his exit from the fickle labyrinth of the palace\r\n\r\nwould not be prevented by some unnoticed error.\r\n\r\nBut what should I recite, digressing further\r\n\r\nfrom my poem\u2019s theme: the girl, abandoning\r\n\r\nher father\u2019s sight, her sisters\u2019 embraces, and lastly\r\n\r\nher mother\u2019s, she wretched at her lost daughter\u2019s joy\r\n\r\nin preferring the sweet love of Theseus to all this:\r\n\r\nor her being carried by ship to Naxos\u2019 foaming shore,\r\n\r\nor her consort with uncaring heart vanishing,\r\n\r\nshe conquered, her eyes softening in sleep?\r\n\r\nOften loud shrieks cried the frenzy in her ardent heart\r\n\r\npoured out from the depths of her breast,\r\n\r\nand then she would climb the steep cliffs in her grief,\r\n\r\nwhere the vast sea-surge stretches out to the view,\r\n\r\nthen run against the waves into the salt tremor\r\n\r\nholding her soft clothes above her naked calves,\r\n\r\nand call out mournfully this last complaint,\r\n\r\na frozen sob issuing from her wet face:\r\n\r\n\u2018False Theseus, is this why you take me from my father\u2019s land,\r\n\r\nfaithless man, to abandon me on a desert shore?\r\n\r\nIs this how you vanish, heedless of the god\u2019s power,\r\n\r\nah, uncaring, bearing home your accursed perjuries?\r\n\r\nNothing could alter the measure of your cruel mind?\r\n\r\nNo mercy was near to you, relentless man,\r\n\r\nthat you might take pity on my heart?\r\n\r\nYet once you made promises to me in that flattering voice,\r\n\r\nyou told me to hope, not for this misery\r\n\r\nbut for joyful marriage, the longed-for wedding songs,\r\n\r\nall in vain, dispersed on the airy breezes.\r\n\r\nNow, no woman should believe a man\u2019s pledges,\r\n\r\nor believe there\u2019s any truth in a man\u2019s words:\r\n\r\nwhen their minds are intent on their desire,\r\n\r\nthey have no fear of oaths, don\u2019t spare their promises:\r\n\r\nbut as soon as the lust of their eager mind is slaked\r\n\r\nthey fear no words, they care nothing for perjury.\r\n\r\nSurely I rescued you from the midst of the tempest\r\n\r\nof fate, and more, I gave up my half-brother,\r\n\r\nwhom I abandoned to you with treachery at the end.\r\n\r\nFor that I\u2019m left to be torn apart by beasts, and a prey\r\n\r\nto sea-birds, unburied, when dead, in the scattered earth.\r\n\r\nWhat lioness whelped you under a desert rock,\r\n\r\nwhat sea conceived and spat you from foaming waves,\r\n\r\nwhat Syrtis [shoals], what fierce [pb_glossary id=\"1832\"]Scylla[\/pb_glossary], what vast [pb_glossary id=\"1833\"]Charybdis[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nyou who return me this, for the gift of your sweet life?\r\n\r\nIf marriage with me was not in your heart,\r\n\r\nbecause you feared your old father\u2019s cruel command,\r\n\r\nyou could still have led me back to your house,\r\n\r\nwhere I would have served you, a slave happy in her task,\r\n\r\nwashing your beautiful feet in clear water,\r\n\r\ncovering your bed with the purple fabric.\r\n\r\nBut why complain to the uncaring wind in vain?\r\n\r\nIt is beyond evil, and without senses, unable\r\n\r\nto hear what is said, without voice to reply.\r\n\r\nIt is already turning now towards mid-ocean,\r\n\r\nand nothing human appears in this waste of weed.\r\n\r\nSo cruel chance taunts me in my last moments,\r\n\r\neven depriving my ears of my own lament.\r\n\r\nAll-powerful [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jupiter[\/pb_glossary], if only the Athenian ships\r\n\r\nhad not touched the shores of Knossos, from the start,\r\n\r\ncarrying their fatal cargo for the ungovernable bull,\r\n\r\na faithless captain mooring his ropes to Crete,\r\n\r\nan evil guest, hiding a cruel purpose under a handsome\r\n\r\nappearance, finding rest in our halls!\r\n\r\nNow where can I return? What desperate hope\r\n\r\ndepend on? Shall I seek out the slopes of [pb_glossary id=\"187\"]Ida[\/pb_glossary]?\r\n\r\nBut the cruel sea with its divisive depths\r\n\r\nof water separates me from them.\r\n\r\nOr shall I hope for my father\u2019s help? Did I not leave him,\r\n\r\nto follow a man stained with my brother\u2019s blood?\r\n\r\nOr should I trust in a husband\u2019s love to console me?\r\n\r\nWho hardly bends slow oars in running from me?\r\n\r\nMore, I\u2019m alive on a lonely island without shelter,\r\n\r\nand no escape seen from the encircling ocean waves.\r\n\r\nNo way to fly, no hope: all is mute,\r\n\r\nall is deserted, all speaks of ruin.\r\n\r\nYet still my eyes do not droop in death,\r\n\r\nnot till my senses have left my weary body,\r\n\r\ntill true justice is handed down by the gods,\r\n\r\nand the divine help I pray for in my last hour.\r\n\r\nSo you [pb_glossary id=\"157\"]Eumenides[\/pb_glossary] who punish by avenging\r\n\r\nthe crimes of men, your foreheads crowned\r\n\r\nwith snaky hair, bearing anger in your breath,\r\n\r\nhere, here, come to me, listen to my complaints,\r\n\r\nthat I, wretched alas, force, weakened, burning,\r\n\r\nout of the marrow of my bones, blind with mad rage.\r\n\r\nSince these truths are born in the depths of my breast,\r\n\r\nyou won\u2019t allow my lament to pass you by,\r\n\r\nbut as Theseus left me alone, through his intent,\r\n\r\ngoddesses, by that will, pursue him and his with murder.\u2019\r\n\r\nWhen these words had poured from her sad breast,\r\n\r\nthe troubled girl praying for cruel actions,\r\n\r\nthe chief of the gods nodded with unconquerable will:\r\n\r\nat which the earth and the cruel sea trembled\r\n\r\nand the glittering stars shook in the heavens.\r\n\r\nNow Theseus\u2019 mind was filled with a dark mist\r\n\r\nand all the instructions he had held fixed in memory\r\n\r\nbefore this, were erased from his thoughts,\r\n\r\nfailing to raise the sweet signal to his mourning father,\r\n\r\nwhen the harbour of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary] safely came in sight.\r\n\r\nFor they say that when [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary] parted from his son,\r\n\r\nas the goddess\u2019s ship left the city, he yielded him\r\n\r\nto the wind\u2019s embrace with these words:\r\n\r\n\u2018Son, more dear to me than my long life,\r\n\r\nson, whom I abandoned through chance uncertainty,\r\n\r\nlately returned to me in the last days of my old age,\r\n\r\nsince my fate and your fierce virtue tear you away\r\n\r\nfrom me, against my will, whose failing eyes\r\n\r\nare not yet sated with my dear son\u2019s face,\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t send you off happily with joyful heart,\r\n\r\nor allow you to carry flags of good fortune,\r\n\r\nbut start with the many sorrows in my mind,\r\n\r\nmarring my white hairs with earth and sprinkled ashes,\r\n\r\nthen hang unfinished canvas from the wandering mast,\r\n\r\nso the darkened sail of gloomy Spanish flax\r\n\r\nmight speak the grief and passion in my mind.\r\n\r\nBut if the one who dwells in sacred Iton [ [pb_glossary id=\"173\"]Athena[\/pb_glossary] ], who promised\r\n\r\nto defend the people and city of Erectheus,[footnote]See footnote 1[\/footnote] allows you\r\n\r\nto wet your hand with the blood of the bull,\r\n\r\nthen make sure this command is done, buried in your\r\n\r\nremembering heart, not to be erased by time:\r\n\r\nthat as soon as you set eyes on our hills,\r\n\r\nstrip the dark fabric fully from the yards,\r\n\r\nand hoist white sails with your twisted ropes,\r\n\r\nso that seeing them from the first, I\u2019ll know joy\r\n\r\nin my glad heart, when a happy time reveals your return.\u2019\r\n\r\nThese words to Theseus, once held constantly in mind,\r\n\r\nvanished like clouds of snow struck by a blast of wind\r\n\r\non the summits of high mountains.\r\n\r\nBut when his father, searching the view from the citadel\u2019s height,\r\n\r\nendless tears flooding his anxious eyes,\r\n\r\nfirst saw the sails of dark fabric,\r\n\r\nhe threw himself head first from the height of the cliff,\r\n\r\nbelieving Theseus lost to inexorable fate.\r\n\r\nSo fierce Theseus entered the palace in mourning\r\n\r\nfor his father\u2019s death, and knew the same grief of mind\r\n\r\nthat he had caused neglected [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nshe who was gazing then where his ship had vanished\r\n\r\npondering the many cares in her wounded heart.\r\n\r\nBut bright [pb_glossary id=\"370\"]Bacchus[\/pb_glossary] hurries from elsewhere\r\n\r\nwith his chorus of [pb_glossary id=\"372\"]Satyrs[\/pb_glossary] and [pb_glossary id=\"218\"]Sileni[\/pb_glossary] from [pb_glossary id=\"607\"]Nysa[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nseeking you, [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary], burning with love for you.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.poetryintranslation.com\/PITBR\/Latin\/Catullus.php#anchor_Toc531846789<\/a>\r\n\r\nTranslated by A. S. Kline \u00a9\u00a0Copyright<\/a> 2001 All Rights Reserved\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/a>Ovid,\u00a0Metamorphoses<\/em>, Book 8 (trans. A. S. Kline, adapted by L. Zhang)<\/h3>\r\n
Latin narrative poem, 1st century CE<\/h4>\r\n
In his\u00a0Metamorphoses<\/em>, Ovid gives a poetic version of Theseus' slaying of the Minotaur. Contrary to the account in Pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheca<\/em>, where Dionysus steals Ariadne away from Theseus while they are resting on the island of Naxos, in Ovid's version, Theseus actually abandons Ariadne on Naxos, sailing back to Athens without her. As Ariadne weeps on the shores of the island, Dionysus (here \"Bacchus,\" his Roman name), comes to rescue her.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n[152-182] When [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] reached Cretan soil he paid his dues to [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jove[\/pb_glossary], with the sacrifice of a hundred bulls, and hung up his war trophies to adorn the palace. The scandal concerning his family grew, and the queen\u2019s unnatural adultery was evident from the birth of a strange hybrid monster. [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] resolved to remove this shame, the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary], from his house, and hide it away in a labyrinth with blind passageways. [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary], celebrated for his skill in architecture, laid out the design, and confused the clues to direction, and led the eye into a tortuous maze, by the windings of alternating paths. No differently from the way in which the watery Maeander deludes the sight, flowing backwards and forwards in its changeable course, through the meadows of Phrygia, facing the running waves advancing to meet it, now directing its uncertain waters towards its source, now towards the open sea: so [pb_glossary id=\"1444\"]Daedalus[\/pb_glossary] made the endless pathways of the maze, and was scarcely able to recover the entrance himself: the building was as deceptive as that.\r\nIn there, [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] walled up the twin form of bull and man, and twice had it nourished on Athenian blood. But the third repetition of the tribute, which happened every nine-years and was chosen by lot, caused the monster\u2019s downfall. When, through the help of the virgin princess, [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary], by rewinding the thread, Theseus, son of [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary], won his way back to the elusive threshold, that no one had previously regained, he immediately set sail for Dia, stealing the daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary] away with him, then cruelly abandoned her on that shore. Deserted and weeping bitterly, as she was, [pb_glossary id=\"370\"]Bacchus[\/pb_glossary]-[pb_glossary id=\"371\"]Liber[\/pb_glossary] brought her help and comfort. So that she might shine among the eternal stars, he took the crown from her forehead, and set it in the sky. It soared through the rarefied air, and as it soared its jewels changed to bright fires, and took their place, retaining the appearance of a crown, as the Corona Borealis, between the kneeling Hercules and the head of the serpent that Ophiuchus holds.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.poetryintranslation.com\/PITBR\/Latin\/Metamorph8.php#anchor_Toc64106496<\/a>\r\n\r\nTranslated by A. S. Kline \u00a9\u00a0Copyright<\/a> 2000 All Rights Reserved\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/a>Ovid,\u00a0Ars Amatoria<\/em>, Book 1 (trans. A. S. Kline, adapted by L. Zhang)<\/h3>\r\n
Latin elegy, 1st century CE<\/h4>\r\n
[content warning for the following source: sexual assault]<\/h5>\r\n
In his\u00a0Ars Amatoria,<\/em> a set of three long elegiac poems in which he claims to teach the art of love to young men and women, Ovid explains how Ariadne's grief made her attractive to Bacchus, causing the god to abduct the abandoned girl.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n[15] Ah, [pb_glossary id=\"370\"]Bacchus[\/pb_glossary] calls to his poet: he helps lovers too,\r\n\r\nand supports the fire with which he is inflamed.\r\n\r\nThe frantic Cretan girl wandered the unknown sands,\r\n\r\nthat the waters of tiny sea-borne Dia showed.\r\n\r\nJust as she was, from sleep, veiled by her loose robe,\r\n\r\nbarefoot, with her yellow hair unbound,\r\n\r\nshe called, for cruel Theseus, to the unhearing waves,\r\n\r\nher gentle cheeks wet with tears of shame.\r\n\r\nShe called, and wept as well, but both became her,\r\n\r\nshe was made no less beautiful by her tears.\r\n\r\nNow striking her sweet breast with her hands, again and again,\r\n\r\nshe cried: \u2018That faithless man\u2019s gone: what of me, now?\r\n\r\nWhat will happen to me?\u2019 she cried: and the whole shore\r\n\r\nechoed to the sound of cymbals and frenzied drums.\r\n\r\nShe fainted in terror, her next words were stifled:\r\n\r\nno sign of blood in her almost lifeless body.\r\n\r\nBehold! The [pb_glossary id=\"887\"]Bacchantes[\/pb_glossary] with loose streaming hair:\r\n\r\nBehold! The wanton [pb_glossary id=\"372\"]Satyrs[\/pb_glossary], a crowd before the god:\r\n\r\nBehold! Old [pb_glossary id=\"218\"]Silenus[\/pb_glossary], barely astride his swaybacked mule,\r\n\r\nclutching tightly to its mane in front.\r\n\r\nWhile he pursues the [pb_glossary id=\"887\"]Bacchae[\/pb_glossary], the [pb_glossary id=\"887\"]Bacchae[\/pb_glossary] flee and return,\r\n\r\nas the rascal urges the mount on with his staff.\r\n\r\nHe slips from his long-eared mule and falls headfirst:\r\n\r\nthe [pb_glossary id=\"372\"]Satyrs[\/pb_glossary] cry: \u2018Rise again, father, rise,\u2019\r\n\r\nNow the God in his chariot, wreathed with vines,\r\n\r\ncurbing his team of tigers, with golden reins:\r\n\r\nthe girl\u2019s voice and colour and Theseus all lost:\r\n\r\nthree times she tried to run, three times fear held her back.\r\n\r\nShe shook, like a slender stalk of wheat stirred by the wind,\r\n\r\nand trembled like a light reed in a marshy pool.\r\n\r\nTo whom the god said: \u2018See, I come, more faithful in love:\r\n\r\nhave no fear: Cretan, you\u2019ll be bride to [pb_glossary id=\"370\"]Bacchus[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\nTake the heavens for dowry: be seen as heavenly stars:\r\n\r\nand guide the anxious sailor often to your Cretan Crown [the Corona Borealis].\u2019\r\n\r\nHe spoke, and leapt from the chariot, in case she feared\r\n\r\nhis tigers: the sand yielded under his feet:\r\n\r\nclasped in his arms (she had no power to struggle),\r\n\r\nhe carried her away: all\u2019s easily possible to a god.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.poetryintranslation.com\/PITBR\/Latin\/ArtofLoveBkI.php#anchor_Toc521049271<\/a>\r\nTranslated by A. S. Kline \u00a9\u00a0Copyright<\/a>\u00a02001 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n
\r\n<\/a>Ovid,\u00a0Heroides\u00a0<\/em>10, \"Ariadne to Theseus\" (trans. A. S. Kline, adapted by L. Zhang and P. Rogak)<\/h3>\r\n
Latin epistolary poem, 1st century BCE<\/h4>\r\n
Finally, one of Ovid's\u00a0Heroides<\/em>, his fictional, poetic letters written from the point of view of mythic heroines, features Ariadne writing a letter to Theseus, detailing her grief at his abandonment of her.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nEven now, left to the wild beasts, she might live, cruel Theseus.\r\n\r\nDo you expect her to have endured this too, patiently?\r\n\r\nThe whole tribe of creatures contrive to be gentler than you:\r\n\r\nnot one have I had less confidence in than you.\r\n\r\nTheseus, what you read has been sent to you from this land,\r\n\r\nfrom which your sails carried your ship without me,\r\n\r\nin which my sleep, and you, evilly betrayed me,\r\n\r\nconceiving your plans against me while I slept.\r\n\r\nIt was the time when the earth\u2019s first sprinkled with glassy frost,\r\n\r\nand the hidden birds lament in the leaves:\r\n\r\nwaking uncertainly, and stirring languidly in sleep,\r\n\r\nhalf-turning, my hand reached out for Theseus:\r\n\r\nthere was no one there. I drew back, and tried again,\r\n\r\nand moved my arm across the bed: no one there.\r\n\r\nFear broke through my drowsiness: terrified, I rose\r\n\r\nand hurled my body from the empty bed.\r\n\r\nStraight away my hands drummed on my breast, and tore at my hair,\r\n\r\njust as it was, on waking, from my confused sleep.\r\n\r\nThere was a moon: I looked and saw nothing but the shore:\r\n\r\nwherever my eyes could see, there was nothing but sand.\r\n\r\nI ran here and there without any sense of purpose,\r\n\r\nthe deep sand slowing a girl\u2019s feet.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile I called: \u2018Theseus!\u2019 over the whole beach\r\n\r\nyour name echoing from the hollow cliffs\r\n\r\nand as often as I called you, the place itself called too:\r\n\r\nthe place itself wished to give aid to my misery.\r\n\r\nThere was a hill: a few bushes were visible on its summit:\r\n\r\na crag hangs there hollowed out by the harsh waves.\r\n\r\nI climbed it: courage gave me strength: and I scanned\r\n\r\nthe wide waters from that height with my gaze.\r\n\r\nThen I saw \u2013 now the cruel winds were also felt \u2013\r\n\r\nyour ship driven before a fierce southerly gale.\r\n\r\nEither with what I saw, or what I may have thought I\u2019d seen:\r\n\r\nI was frozen like ice and half-alive.\r\n\r\nBut grief allowed no time for languor. I was roused by it,\r\n\r\nand roused, I called to Theseus at the top of my voice.\r\n\r\n\u2018Where are you going?\u2019 I shouted \u2018turn back, wicked Theseus!\r\n\r\nWork your ship! You\u2019re without one of your number!\u2019\r\n\r\nSo I called. When my voice failed I beat my breast instead:\r\n\r\nmy blows were interspaced with my words.\r\n\r\nIf you could not hear at least you might still see:\r\n\r\nI made wide signals with my outstretched hands.\r\n\r\nI hung a white cloth on a tall branch,\r\n\r\nhoping those who\u2019d forgotten would remember me.\r\n\r\nNow you were lost to sight. Then finally I wept:\r\n\r\ntill then my cheeks were numb with grief.\r\n\r\nWhat could my eyes do but weep at myself,\r\n\r\nonce they had ceased to see your sails?\r\n\r\nEither I wandered alone, with disheveled hair,\r\n\r\nlike a [pb_glossary id=\"887\"]Maenad[\/pb_glossary] shaken by the Theban god [ [pb_glossary id=\"370\"]Bacchus[\/pb_glossary] ]:\r\n\r\nor I sat on the cold rock gazing at the sea,\r\n\r\nand I was as much a stone as the stones I sat on.\r\n\r\nOften I seek again the bed that accepted us both,\r\n\r\nbut it shows no sign of that acceptance,\r\n\r\nand I touch what I can of the traces of you, instead of you,\r\n\r\nand the sheets your body warmed.\r\n\r\nI lie there and, wetting the bed with my flowing tears,\r\n\r\nI cry out: \u2018We two burdened you, restore the two!\r\n\r\nWe came here together: why shouldn\u2019t we go together?\r\n\r\nFaithless bed, where\u2019s the better part of me now?\r\n\r\nWhat am I to do? Why endure alone? The island\u2019s unploughed:\r\n\r\nI see no human beings: I can\u2019t imagine there\u2019s an ox.\r\n\r\nThe land\u2019s encircled by the sea on every side: no sailors,\r\n\r\nno ship to set sail on its uncertain way.\r\n\r\nSuppose I was given companions, winds and ship,\r\n\r\nwhere would I make for? My country denies me access.\r\n\r\nIf my boat slid gently through peaceful waters,\r\n\r\ncalmed by Aeolian winds, I\u2019d be an exile still.\r\n\r\nI could not gaze at you, Crete, split in a hundred cities,\r\n\r\na land that was known to the infant [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jove[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\nBut my father and that land justly ruled by my father,\r\n\r\nthose dear names, were both betrayed by me.\r\n\r\nwhile you, the victor who retraced your steps, would have died\r\n\r\nin the winding labyrinth, unless guided by the thread I gave you,\r\n\r\nThen, you said to me: \u2018I swear by the dangers overcome,\r\n\r\nthat you\u2019ll be mine while we both shall live.\u2019\r\n\r\nWe live, and I\u2019m not yours, Theseus, if you still live,\r\n\r\nI\u2019m a woman buried by the fraud of a lying man.\r\n\r\nClub that killed my brother, the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary], condemn me too!\r\n\r\nThe promise that you gave should be dissolved by death.\r\n\r\nNow I see not only what I must endure,\r\n\r\nbut what any castaway would suffer.\r\n\r\nA thousand images of dying fill my mind,\r\n\r\nand I fear death less than delay in that penalty of death.\r\n\r\nAt every moment I dream it, coming from here or there,\r\n\r\nas if wolves tore my entrails with eager teeth.\r\n\r\nPerhaps this land breeds tawny lions?\r\n\r\nWho knows if this island harbours savage tigers?\r\n\r\nAnd they say that the ocean throws up huge sea-lions:\r\n\r\nand who could prevent some sword piercing my side?\r\n\r\nIf only I might not be a captive, bound with harsh chains,\r\n\r\nnor draw out endless threads with a slave\u2019s hand,\r\n\r\nI whose father is [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], whose mother [ [pb_glossary id=\"1730\"]Pasiphae[\/pb_glossary] ] is the [pb_glossary id=\"876\"]Sun[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s daughter,\r\n\r\nbecause of that I remember the more, that I was bound to you!\r\n\r\nIf I see the ocean, the land and the wide shore,\r\n\r\nI fear many things on land, many on the waves.\r\n\r\nThe sky remains: I fear visions from the gods:\r\n\r\nI\u2019m forsaken, a prey and food for swift beasts.\r\n\r\nIf men live here and cultivate this place, I distrust them:\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve thoroughly learned to fear wounds from strangers.\r\n\r\nI wish my brother [pb_glossary id=\"1735\"]Androgeus[\/pb_glossary] lived and you [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], land of [pb_glossary id=\"1585\"]Cecrops[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nhadn\u2019t paid with your children\u2019s deaths for his impious murder:\r\n\r\nand that you, Theseus hadn\u2019t killed the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary], half human, half bull,\r\n\r\nwielding a knotted club in your strong hand:\r\n\r\nand that I hadn\u2019t given you the thread that marked your way back,\r\n\r\nthe thread so often received back into the hand that drew it.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m not surprised that victory was yours, and the monster,\r\n\r\nprone, lay groaning on the Cretan earth.\r\n\r\nHis horns could not pierce your iron heart:\r\n\r\nthough you might fail to shield it, your breast would be safe.\r\n\r\nThere you revealed flints and adamants,\r\n\r\nthere you\u2019ve a Theseus harder than flint.\r\n\r\nCruel sleep, why did you hold me there, senseless?\r\n\r\nRather I should have been buried forever in eternal night.\r\n\r\nYou too cruel winds, you gales, all too ready\r\n\r\nand overzealous in bringing tears to me:\r\n\r\ncruel right hand that causes my death, and my brother\u2019s,\r\n\r\nand offered the promise I asked, an empty name:\r\n\r\nSleep, the breeze, the promise conspired against me:\r\n\r\none girl, I\u2019m betrayed by three causes.\r\n\r\nSo it seems I\u2019ll die without seeing my mother\u2019s tears,\r\n\r\nand there\u2019ll be no one to close my eyes.\r\n\r\nMy unhappy spirit will vanish on a foreign breeze,\r\n\r\nno friendly hand will anoint my laid-out body.\r\n\r\nThe seabirds will hover over my unburied bones:\r\n\r\nthese are the ceremonies fit for my tomb.\r\n\r\nYou\u2019ll be carried to [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], and be received by your homeland,\r\n\r\nwhere you\u2019ll stand in the high fortress of your city,\r\n\r\nand speak cleverly of the death of man and bull,\r\n\r\nand the labyrinth\u2019s winding paths cut from the rock:\r\n\r\nspeak of me also, abandoned in a lonely land:\r\n\r\nI\u2019m not to be dropped, secretly, from your list!\r\n\r\nYour father\u2019s not [pb_glossary id=\"1575\"]Aegeus[\/pb_glossary]: [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary], daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"1770\"]Pittheus[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nis not your mother: your creators were stone and sea.\r\n\r\nMay the gods have ordained that you saw me from the high stern,\r\n\r\nthat my mournful figure altered your expression.\r\n\r\nNow see me not with your eyes, but as you can, with your mind,\r\n\r\nclinging to a rock the fickle sea beats against:\r\n\r\nsee my disheveled hair like one who is in mourning\r\n\r\nand my clothes heavy with rain-like tears!\r\n\r\nMy body trembles like ears of wheat struck by a north wind\r\n\r\nand the letters I write waver in my unsteady fingers.\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t entreat you by my kindness, since that has ended badly:\r\n\r\nlet no gratitude be owed for my deeds.\r\n\r\nBut no punishment either. If I\u2019m not the cause of your health,\r\n\r\nthat\u2019s still no reason why you should cause me harm.\r\n\r\nThese hands weary of beating my sad breast for you,\r\n\r\nunhappily I stretch them out over the wide waters:\r\n\r\nI mournfully display to you what remains of my hair:\r\n\r\nI beg you by these tears your actions have caused:\r\n\r\nturn your ship, Theseus, fall back against the wind:\r\n\r\nif I die first, you can still bear my bones.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.poetryintranslation.com\/PITBR\/Latin\/Heroides8-15.php#anchor_Toc524696647<\/a>\r\n\r\nTranslated by A. S. Kline \u00a9\u00a0Copyright<\/a>\u00a02001 All Rights Reserved\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nAthens and Later Life<\/h1>\r\n
\r\n Sections & Primary Sources<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n\r\nTheseus in Athens<\/a>\r\n\r\nTheseus' Pursuits of Women<\/a>\r\n- \r\n \t
- Plutarch,\u00a0Parallel Lives<\/em>, \"Life of Theseus,\"<\/a>6, 7, 10, 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 35<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nPhaedra and Hippolytus<\/a>\r\n
- \r\n \t
- Ovid,\u00a0Heroides\u00a0<\/em>4, \"Phaedra to Hippolytus\"<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
<\/a>Theseus in Athens<\/h2>\r\n
After the death of his father Aegeus, Theseus inherited kingship of Athens. He was credited with creating many political institutions, and unifying Attica as the democratic state of Athens.<\/p>\r\n
For further discussion of the foundation of Athens, see chapter 36<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n
After abandoning Ariadne, Theseus embarked on a mission, alongside his friend Pirithous, to find a wife.<\/p>\r\n
Like Heracles, Bellerophon, Achilles, and other Greek heroes, his adventures included an encounter with the Amazons. Theseus (either with Heracles or alone) went to the Amazons and kidnapped their queen, called either Hippolyte or Antiope. Theseus and Hippolyte had a son, Hippolytus (see \"Phaedra and Hippolytus,\" below).<\/p>\r\n
Additionally, Theseus and Pirithous attempted unsuccessfully to kidnap Helen of Sparta and the goddess Persephone.<\/p>\r\nFor further discussion of the Amazons, see chapter 23<\/a>.\r\n\r\nFor further discussion of Theseus' descent to the Underworld to capture Persephone, see chapter 41<\/a>.\r\n\r\n \r\n
\r\n<\/a>Plutarch, Parallel <\/em>Lives\u00a0<\/em>1, \"Life of Theseus,\" Chapters 6, 7, 10, 15, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 35 (trans. W. W. Skeat, B. Perrin, adapted by L. Zhang and P. Rogak)<\/h3>\r\n
Greek biography, 2nd century CE<\/h4>\r\n
[content warning for the following source: suicide]<\/h5>\r\n
Plutarch was a Greek author from the 2nd century CE.\u00a0 Among his many works are the \u2018Parallel Lives,\u2019 biographies of famous Greeks and Romans that paralleled one another.\u00a0 His \u2018Life of Theseus\u2019 was the counterpart to his \u2018Life of Romulus.\u2019\u00a0 Although Plutarch tended towards the rationalizing or euhemerizing<\/em> versions of stories, he couldn\u2019t resist slipping in some fantastical tales as well.<\/div>\r\n \r\nChapter 6<\/h5>\r\nDuring the rest of the time, then, [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary] kept his true birth concealed from Theseus, and a report was spread abroad by [pb_glossary id=\"1770\"]Pittheus[\/pb_glossary] that he was begotten by Poseidon.<\/a> For Poseidon<\/a> is highly honored by the people of Troezen, and he is the patron god of their city; to him they offer first fruits in sacrifice, and they have his trident as an emblem on their coinage. [2] But when, in his young manhood, Theseus displayed, along with his vigor of body, prowess also, and a firm spirit united with intelligence and sagacity, then [pb_glossary id=\"1734\"]Aethra[\/pb_glossary] brought him to the rock, told him the truth about his birth, and bade him take away his fathers tokens and go by sea to Athens. [3] Theseus put his shoulder to the rock and easily raised it up, but he refused to make his journey by sea, although safety lay in that course, and his grandfather and his mother begged him to take it. For it was difficult to make the journey to Athens by land, since no part of it was clear nor yet without peril from robbers and miscreants. [4]\r\n\r\nFor verily that age produced men who, in work of hand and speed of foot and vigor of body, were extraordinary and indefatigable, but they applied their powers to nothing that was fitting or useful. Nay rather, they exulted in monstrous insolence, and reaped from their strength a harvest of cruelty and bitterness, mastering and forcing and destroying everything that came in their path. And as for reverence and righteousness, justice and humanity, they thought that most men praised these qualities for lack of courage to do wrong and for fear of being wronged, and considered them no concern of men who were strong enough to get the upper hand. [5] Some of these creatures Heracles<\/a> cut off and destroyed as he went about, but some escaped his notice as he passed by, crouching down and shrinking back, and were overlooked in their abjectness. And when Heracles<\/a> met with calamity and, after the slaying of [pb_glossary id=\"1441\"]Iphitus[\/pb_glossary], removed into Lydia and for a long time did slave\u2019s service there in the house of Omphale, then Lydia indeed obtained great peace and security; but in the regions of Hellas the old villainies burst forth and broke out anew, there being none to rebuke and none to restrain them. [6]\r\n\r\nThe journey was therefore a perilous one for travelers by land from Peloponnesus to Athens, and [pb_glossary id=\"1770\"]Pittheus[\/pb_glossary], by describing each of the miscreants at length, what sort of a monster he was, and what deeds he wrought upon strangers, tried to persuade Theseus to make his journey by sea. But he, as it would seem, had long since been secretly fired by the glorious valor of Heracles<\/a>, and made the greatest account of that hero, and was a most eager listener to those who told what manner of man he was, and above all to those who had seen him and been present at some deed or speech of his. [7] And it is altogether plain that he then experienced what Themistocles many generations afterwards experienced, when he said that he could not sleep for the trophy of Miltiades. In like manner Theseus admired the valor of Heracles<\/a>, until by night his dreams were of the hero\u2019s achievements, and by day his ardor led him along and spurred him on in his purpose to achieve the like.\r\n
Chapter 7<\/h5>\r\nRegarding the voyage he made by sea, Major, Philochorus, and some others are of the opinion that he went there with [pb_glossary id=\"1591\"]Hercules[\/pb_glossary] to fight against the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazons[\/pb_glossary]: and that to honour his valiantness, Hercules gave him [pb_glossary id=\"1869\"]Antiopa[\/pb_glossary] the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary]. But most of the other historiographers, namely Hellanicus, Pherecides, and Herodotus, write that Theseus went there alone, after Hercules' voyage, and that he took this [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary] prisoner; which is more likely to be true. For we do not find that any other, aside from Theseus, who went this journey or took any [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary] prisoner. Bion, also a historiographer, despite this claim, says that he brought her away by deceit and stealth.\r\n\r\nFor the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazons[\/pb_glossary] (he states) naturally loved men and did not flee at all when they saw them land in their country, but sent them presents, and Theseus enticed the one who had brought him a present\u00a0 to come aboard his ship. And when she was on board, he hoisted his sail and carried her away. Another historiographer Menecrates, who wrote the history of the city of Nicea in the country of Bithynia, said that Theseus, having this [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary] [pb_glossary id=\"1869\"]Antiopa[\/pb_glossary] with him, remained a certain time on those coasts, and that he had in his company three younger brethren of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], Euneus, Thoas, and Solois (among others).\r\n\r\nThis last one, Solois, was marvelousIy in love with [pb_glossary id=\"1869\"]Antiopa[\/pb_glossary], and never told any of his companions, except one with whom he was most familiar and whom he trusted best, so that he reported this matter to [pb_glossary id=\"1869\"]Antiopa[\/pb_glossary]. But she utterly rejected his advances, though otherwise she handled it wisely and courteously, and did not complain to Theseus of him.\r\n\r\nHowever, the young man, despairing about his love, took it so personally that, desperately, he leaped into the river and drowned himself. Which, when Theseus understood the reason for his demise, was very angry and full of regret. Then he remembered a certain oracle of [pb_glossary id=\"1870\"]Pythia[\/pb_glossary], by whom he was commanded to build a city in the place in a foreign country where he was most regretful, and should leave some of the people who were with him at that time to govern the place.\r\n\r\nFor this reason, therefore, he built a city in that place, which he named Pythopolis, because he built it only by the commandment of the priestess [pb_glossary id=\"1870\"]Pythia[\/pb_glossary]. He called the river, in which the young man was drowned \u201cSolois\u201d, in memory of him, and left his two brethren for his deputies and as governors of this new city, with another gentleman of [pb_glossary id=\"4669\"]Athens[\/pb_glossary], called Hermus.\r\n
Chapter 10<\/h5>\r\nTheseus and [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] went together to the city of Lacedaemon [Sparta], where they took away [pb_glossary id=\"1663\"]Helen[\/pb_glossary] (who was still very young) even as she was dancing in the temple of [pb_glossary id=\"180\"]Diana[\/pb_glossary] Orthia, and they fled for their lives. The Lacedaemonians chased after her; but those that followed went no further than the city of Tegea. When they had escaped of the Peloponnesus, they agreed to draw lots together to determine which of the two of them should have her, on the condition that whoever had her should take her to be his wife and would be bound to also to help his companion to get him another.\r\n\r\nIt was Theseus' luck to win the lot and he carried her to the city of Aphidnae because she was still too young to be married. He had his mother to come raise her to adulthood and gave his friend, Aphidnus, guardianship of them both. He placed [pb_glossary id=\"1663\"]Helen[\/pb_glossary] in his good care and tasked him to keep it so secret that nobody should know what had happened to her.\r\n\r\nBecause he would do the same for [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] (according to the agreement made between them) he went into Epirus with him to steal the daughter of [pb_glossary id=\"880\"]Aidoneus[\/pb_glossary], king of the Molossians, who had named his wife Proserpina, his daughter Proserpina, and his dog (with whom he made those who came to ask for his daughter in marriage fight) Cerberus.[footnote]In some accounts (as here), the names of Hades (Aidoneus) and Persephone (Proserpina) are transposed onto mortal human characters to create a euheumerized version of the myth of the abduction of Persephone (see chapter 10<\/a>). Cerberus, too, refers not to the three-headed dog of the Underworld, but rather to the king Aidoneus' normal dog.[\/footnote] He promised to give her to whoever defeated his Cerberus. But the king knew that [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] came not to request his daughter in marriage, but to steal her away, so he took him prisoner with Theseus. He had [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] torn to pieces by his dog, and shut Theseus up in a secure prison.\r\n
Chapter 15<\/h5>\r\nNot long afterwards there came from Crete for the third time the collectors of the tribute. Now as to this tribute, most writers agree that because Androgeos was thought to have been treacherously killed within the confines of Attica, not only did Minos harass the inhabitants of that country greatly in war,1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0but Heaven also laid it waste, for barrenness and pestilence smote it sorely, and its rivers dried up; also that when their god assured them in his commands that if they appeased Minos and became reconciled to him, the wrath of Heaven would abate and there would be an end of their miseries, they sent heralds and made their supplication and entered into an agreement to send him every nine years a tribute of seven youths and as many maidens. [2] And the most dramatic version of the story declares that these young men and women, on being brought to Crete, were destroyed by the Minotaur in the Labyrinth, or else wandered about at their own will and, being unable to find an exit, perished there; and that the Minotaur, as Euripides says, was\r\n\r\n\u201cA mingled form and hybrid birth of monstrous shape,\u201d\r\n\r\nand that\r\n\r\n\u201cTwo different natures, man and bull, were joined in him.\u201d\r\n
Chapter 16<\/h5>\r\nPhilochorus, however, says that the Cretans do not admit this, but declare that the Labyrinth was a dungeon, with no other inconvenience than that its prisoners could not escape; and that Minos instituted funeral games in honor of Androgeos, and as prizes for the victors, gave these Athenian youth, who were in the meantime imprisoned in the Labyrinth and that the victor in the first games was the man who had the greatest power at that time under Minos, and was his general, Taurus by name, who was not reasonable and gentle in his disposition, but treated the Athenian youth with arrogance and cruelty. [2] And Aristotle himself also, in his\u00a0Constitution of Bottiaea<\/em>,<\/u>\u00a0clearly does not think that these youths were put to death by Minos, but that they spent the rest of their lives as slaves in Crete. And he says that the Cretans once, in fulfillment of an ancient vow, sent an offering of their first-born to Delphi, and that some descendants of those Athenians were among the victims, and went forth with them; and that when they were unable to support themselves there, they first crossed over into Italy and dwelt in that country round about Iapygia, and from there journeyed again into Thrace and were called Bottiaeans; and that this was the reason why the maidens of Bottiaea, in performing a certain sacrifice, sing as an accompaniment \u2018To Athens let us go!\u2019\r\n\r\nAnd verily it seems to be a grievous thing for a man to be at enmity with a city which has a language and a literature. [3] For Minos was always abused and reviled in the Attic theaters, and it did not avail him either that Hesiod2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0called him \u2018most royal,\u2019 or that Homer3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0styled him \u2018a confidant of Zeus,\u2019 but the tragic poets prevailed, and from platform and stage showered obloquy down upon him, as a man of cruelty and violence. And yet they say that Minos was a king and lawgiver, and that Rhadamanthus was a judge under him, and a guardian of the principles of justice defined by him.\r\n
Chapter 23<\/h5>\r\nThe ship on which Theseus sailed with the youths and returned in safety, the thirty-oared galley, was preserved by the Athenians down to the time of Demetrius Phalereus.1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0They took away the old timbers from time to time, and put new and sound ones in their places, so that the vessel became a standing illustration for the philosophers in the mooted question of growth, some declaring that it remained the same, others that it was not the same vessel. [2]\r\n\r\nIt was Theseus who instituted also the Athenian festival of the Oschophoria. For it is said that he did not take away with him all the maidens on whom the lot fell at that time, but picked out two young men of his acquaintance who had fresh and girlish faces, but eager and manly spirits, and changed their outward appearance almost entirely by giving them warn baths and keeping them out of the sun, by arranging their hair, and by smoothing their skin and beautifying their complexions with unguents; he also taught them to imitate maidens as closely as possible in their speech, their dress, and their gait, and to leave no difference that could be observed, and then enrolled them among the maidens who were going to Crete, and was undiscovered by any. [3] And when he was come back, he himself and these two young men headed a procession, arrayed as those are now arrayed who carry the vine-branches. They carry these in honor of Dionysus and Ariadne, and because of their part in the story; or rather, because they came back home at the time of the vintage. And the women called Deipnophoroi, or supper-carriers, take part in the procession and share in the sacrifice, in imitation of the mothers of the young men and maidens on whom the lot fell, for these kept coming with bread and meat for their children. And tales are told at this festival, because these mothers, for the sake of comforting and encouraging their children, spun out tales for them. At any rate, these details are to be found in the history of Demon. Furthermore, a sacred precinct was also set apart for Theseus, and he ordered the members of the families which had furnished the tribute to the Minotaur to make contributions towards a sacrifice to himself. This sacrifice was superintended by the Phytalidae, and Theseus thus repaid them for their hospitality.\r\n
Chapter 24<\/h5>\r\nAfter the death of Aegeus, Theseus conceived a wonderful design, and settled all the residents of Attica in one city, thus making one people of one city out of those who up to that time had been scattered about and were not easily called together for the common interests of all, nay, they sometimes actually quarrelled and fought with each other. [2] He visited them, then, and tried to win them over to his project township by township and clan by clan. The common folk and the poor quickly answered to his summons; to the powerful he promised government without a king and a democracy, in which he should only be commander in war and guardian of the laws, while in all else everyone should be on an equal footing. [3] Some he readily persuaded to this course, and others, fearing his power, which was already great, and his boldness, chose to be persuaded rather than forced to agree to it. Accordingly, after doing away with the townhalls and council-chambers and magistracies in the several communities, and after building a common town-hall and council-chamber for all on the ground where the upper town of the present day stands, he named the city Athens, and instituted a Panathenaic festival. [4] He instituted also the Metoecia, or Festival of Settlement, on the sixteenth day of the month Hecatombaeon, and this is still celebrated. Then, laying aside the royal power, as he had agreed, he proceeded to arrange the government, and that too with the sanction of the gods. For an oracle came to him from Delphi, in answer to his enquiries about the city, as follows:\u2014 [5]\r\n\r\n\u201cTheseus, offspring of Aegeus, son of the daughter of Pittheus,\r\nMany indeed the cities to which my father has given\r\nBounds and future fates within your citadel\u2019s confines.\r\nTherefore be not dismayed, but with firm and confident spirit\r\nCounsel only; the bladder will traverse the sea and its surges.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd this oracle they say the Sibyl afterwards repeated to the city, when she cried:\u2014\u201d\u2018Bladder may be submerged; but its sinking will not be permitted.\u2019\u201d\r\n
Chapter 25<\/h5>\r\nDesiring still further to enlarge the city, he invited all men thither on equal terms, and the phrase \u2018Come hither all ye people,\u2019 they say was a proclamation of Theseus when he established a people, as it were, of all sorts and conditions. However, he did not suffer his democracy to become disordered or confused from an indiscriminate multitude streaming into it, but was the first to separate the people into noblemen and husbandmen and handicraftsmen. [2] To the noblemen he committed the care of religious rites, the supply of magistrates, the teaching of the laws, and the interpretation of the will of Heaven, and for the rest of the citizens he established a balance of privilege, the noblemen being thought to excel in dignity, the husbandmen in usefulness, and the handicraftsmen in numbers. And that he was the first to show a leaning towards the multitude, as Aristotle says, and gave up his absolute rule, seems to be the testimony of Homer also, in the Catalogue of Ships,1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0where he speaks of the Athenians alone as a \u2018people.\u2019 [3]\u2026\r\n
Chapter 26<\/h5>\r\nHe also made a voyage into the Euxine Sea, as Philochorus and sundry others say, on a campaign with Heracles against the Amazons, and received Antiope as a reward of his valor; but the majority of writers, including Pherecydes, Hellanicus, and Herodorus, say that Theseus made this voyage on his own account, after the time of Heracles, and took the Amazon captive; and this is the more probable story. For it is not recorded that any one else among those who shared his expedition took an Amazon captive. [2] And Bion says that even this Amazon he took and carried off by means of a stratagem. The Amazons, he says, were naturally friendly to men, and did not fly from Theseus when he touched upon their coasts, but actually sent him presents, and he invited the one who brought them to come on board his ship; she came on board, and he put out to sea\u2026\r\n
Chapter 27<\/h5>\r\nWell, then, such were the grounds for the war of the Amazons, which seems to have been no trivial nor womanish enterprise for Theseus. For they would not have pitched their camp within the city, nor fought hand to hand battles in the neighborhood of the Pnyx and the Museum, had they not mastered the surrounding country and approached the city with impunity. [2] Whether, now, as Hellanicus writes, they came round by the Cimmerian Bosporus, which they crossed on the ice, may be doubted; but the fact that they encamped almost in the heart of the city is attested both by the names of the localities there and by the graves of those who fell in battle.\r\n
Chapter 29<\/h5>\r\nThere are, however, other stories also about marriages of Theseus which were neither honorable in their beginnings nor fortunate in their endings, but these have not been dramatized. For instance, he is said to have carried off Anaxo, a maiden of Troezen, and after slaying Sinis and Cercyon to have ravished their daughters; also to have married Periboea, the mother of Aias, and Phereboea afterwards, and Iope, the daughter of Iphicles; [2] and because of his passion for Aegle, the daughter of Panopeus, as I have already said,1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0he is accused of the desertion of Ariadne, which was not honorable nor even decent; and finally, his rape of Helen is said to have filled Attica with war, and to have brought about at last his banishment and death, of which things I shall speak a little later. [3]\r\n\r\nOf the many exploits performed in those days by the bravest men, Herodorus thinks that Theseus took part in none, except that he aided the Lapithae in their war with the Centaurs; but others say that he was not only with Jason at Colchis,2<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0but helped Meleager to slay the Calydonian boar, and that hence arose the proverb \u2018Not without Theseus\u2019; that he himself, however, without asking for any ally, performed many glorious exploits, and that the phrase \u2018Lo! another Heracles\u2019 became current with reference to him.\r\n
Chapter 30<\/h5>\r\nThe friendship of Peirithous and Theseus is said to have come about in the following manner. Theseus had a very great reputation for strength and bravery, and Peirithous was desirous of making test and proof of it. Accordingly, he drove Theseus\u2019s cattle away from Marathon, and when he learned that their owner was pursuing him in arms, he did not fly, but turned back and met him. [2] When, however, each beheld the other with astonishment at his beauty and admiration of his daring, they refrained from battle, and Peirithous, stretching out his hand the first, bade Theseus himself be judge of his robbery, for he would willingly submit to any penalty which the other might assign. Then Theseus not only remitted his penalty, but invited him to be a friend and brother in arms; whereupon they ratified their friendship with oaths. [3]\r\n\r\nAfter this, when Peirithous was about to marry Deidameia, he asked Theseus to come to the wedding, and see the country, and become acquainted with the Lapithae. Now he had invited the Centaurs also to the wedding feast. And when these were flown with insolence and wine, and laid hands upon the women, the Lapithae took vengeance upon them. Some of them they slew upon the spot, the rest they afterwards overcame in war and expelled from the country, Theseus fighting with them at the banquet and in the war.\r\n
Chapter 35<\/h5>\r\nBut when he desired to rule again as before, and to direct the state, he became involved in factions and disturbances; he found that those who hated him when he went away, had now added to their hatred contempt, and he saw that a large part of the people were corrupted, and wished to be cajoled into service instead of doing silently what they were told to do. [3] Attempting, then, to force his wishes upon them, he was overpowered by demagogues and factions, and finally, despairing of his cause, he sent his children away privately into Euboea, to Elephenor, the son of Chalcodon, while he himself, after invoking curses upon the Athenians at Gargettus, where there is to this day the place called Araterion,1<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0sailed away to the island of Scyros, where the people were friendly to him, as he thought, and where he had ancestral estates.\r\n\r\nTaken from: http:\/\/www.perseus.tufts.edu\/hopper\/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0078%3Atext%3DThes.<\/a>\r\n\r\nand\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/penelope.uchicago.edu\/Thayer\/E\/Roman\/Texts\/Plutarch\/Lives\/Theseus*.html<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
<\/a>Phaedra and Hippolytus<\/h2>\r\n
[content warning for the following section: mention of rape, suicide]<\/h5>\r\nThe following content is adapted by T. Mulder from Mythology Unbound<\/a> <\/em>and is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA<\/a> license.\r\n
Many years later, Theseus married Minos\u2019 youngest daughter, Phaedra, to smooth over relations with Crete. But when he brought Phaedra back to Athens, she fell in love with Hippolytus, his son by the Amazon queen, Hippolyte, who was now about nineteen or twenty years old (and much closer to Phaedra in age than Theseus was). Some say that Aphrodite had caused Phaedra fall in love because Hippolytus was a devotee of the virgin goddess Artemis. Since Artemis was a virgin, Hippolytus had vowed to remain a virgin as well, and Aphrodite took this as a personal affront. In any case, Phaedra was sick with love for the handsome young man. But despite her personal pain, she vowed never to breath a word of her feelings to anyone.<\/p>\r\n
But Phaedra's nurse, who was an astute observer, figured out what was going on. She contrived to bring Phaedra and Hippolytus together, but he was aggressively opposed to this idea. Out of shame, Phaedra decided to kill herself. Before she did, she addressed a note to Theseus, falsely claiming that Hippolytus had tried to rape her. Despite Hippolytus' protestations, Theseus believed what he read in the note. He banished Hippolytus from Athens and called upon his own father, Poseidon, to punish the young man.\u00a0As Hippolytus was driving his chariot out of Athens along the seashore, a terrifying bull emerged from the water. The horses were so frightened that they all reared up and ran in different directions. Hippolytus got tangled in the reins of his chariot and was eventually pulled apart by his horses. After this happened, Artemis told Theseus the truth.<\/p>\r\n
The whole myth is most famously told by the Greek playwright Euripides, in his tragic play,\u00a0Hippolytus<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>which won first place in the theatre contest at the Festival of Dionysus in Athens in 428 BCE.<\/p>\r\n \r\n
\r\n<\/a>Ovid,\u00a0Heroides\u00a0<\/em>4, \"Phaedra to Hippolytus\" (trans. A. S. Kline, adapted by L. Zhang)<\/h3>\r\n
Latin epistolary poem, 1st century BCE<\/h4>\r\n
Ovid dramatizes the myth in his fourth\u00a0Heroides<\/em>, an imagined latter from Phaedra to Hippolytus, written in Latin in the 1st century BCE.<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe Cretan girl, who lacks health unless he grants it to her,\r\n\r\nwishes good health to the man who\u2019s the [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s son.\r\n\r\nRead what is here. How could reading a letter harm you?\r\n\r\nThere might even be something in it that pleases you.\r\n\r\nMy secrets are carried, by these letters, over land and sea:\r\n\r\neven enemies read letters received from their enemies.\r\n\r\nI\u2019ve tried to speak to you three times, three times my tongue\r\n\r\nclung to my mouth, three times the sound died on my lips.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s right and natural that shame is mingled with love:\r\n\r\nlove ordered me to write, to say what shames me.\r\n\r\nWhatever love commands cannot be wholly denied:\r\n\r\nHe [ [pb_glossary id=\"158\"]Cupid[\/pb_glossary] ] rules and is a law among the gods.\r\n\r\nHe told me to pen words, in my first confusion:\r\n\r\n\u2018Write! Having conquered, he\u2019ll give his cruel hand.\u2019\r\n\r\nHe helps me, and, seeing that he heats my marrow with greedy fire,\r\n\r\nhe may also fix your affections as I wish.\r\n\r\nI would not break my marriage contract through sin \u2013\r\n\r\nyou can enquire \u2013 my reputation\u2019s free of any stain.\r\n\r\nLove that comes late is deeper. We burn within; we burn,\r\n\r\nand our feelings suffer the secret wounds.\r\n\r\nI suppose that, as a young ox is chafed by the yoke,\r\n\r\nand a horse captured from the herd scarcely tolerates the harness,\r\n\r\nso with great difficulty, with rawness, the heart suffers new love.\r\n\r\nand this burden does not lie easy on my spirit.\r\n\r\nWhen guilt\u2019s fully learnt in early years, it becomes an art:\r\n\r\nlove that comes with the claims of time, loves less easily.\r\n\r\nYou will enjoy a new libation, one that has been guarded from sin,\r\n\r\nand both of us will become equally guilty.\r\n\r\nWhat\u2019s plucked from the loaded branches in the orchard\r\n\r\nis valuable, and the rose first gathered by slender fingers.\r\n\r\nBut even if that first purity, that I bring you free of sin,\r\n\r\nwere to be marked by this unaccustomed stain,\r\n\r\nthen I would still accept being burnt by a worthy fire:\r\n\r\na vile adulterer is more harmful than the adultery.\r\n\r\nIf [pb_glossary id=\"185\"]Juno[\/pb_glossary] yielded me [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jupiter[\/pb_glossary], her husband and brother,\r\n\r\nI\u2019d consider [pb_glossary id=\"1739\"]Hippolytus[\/pb_glossary] preferable to [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jove[\/pb_glossary]!\r\n\r\nNow too \u2013 you\u2019ll scarcely believe this \u2013 I take up new arts:\r\n\r\nI have the urge to be among wild creatures:\r\n\r\nnow my chief goddess is [pb_glossary id=\"180\"]Diana[\/pb_glossary], known for her curved bow:\r\n\r\nin following her I follow your preference:\r\n\r\nI love to pass through the woods and drive deer into my nets,\r\n\r\nurging my swift hounds over the tops of the hills,\r\n\r\nor launch a quivering spear from my trembling arm,\r\n\r\nor throw my body down on the grassy earth.\r\n\r\noften I delight in driving a light chariot through the dust,\r\n\r\nand twisting the bit in the mouth of a fleeing horse,\r\n\r\nNow I\u2019m swept away, like the [pb_glossary id=\"887\"]Maenads[\/pb_glossary] roused by Bacchic frenzy,\r\n\r\nlike those who beat their drums on the slopes of [pb_glossary id=\"187\"]Mount Ida[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nor those semi-divine [pb_glossary id=\"1766\"]Dryads[\/pb_glossary], and twin-horned [pb_glossary id=\"372\"]Fauns[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nwho are stunned, touched by his power.\r\n\r\nAnd then others relate it all, when the madness abates:\r\n\r\nI silently burn, conscious of love.\r\n\r\nPerhaps by my fate I\u2019m paying for the passions of my race,\r\n\r\nand [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Venus[\/pb_glossary] may be seeking a tribute from all the tribe.\r\n\r\n[pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jupiter[\/pb_glossary] loved [pb_glossary id=\"1423\"]Europa[\/pb_glossary], as a bull, hiding his godhead,\r\n\r\n\u2013\u2003she was the first origin of our people.\r\n\r\nA burden and a reproach was born from the womb\r\n\r\nof my mother, [pb_glossary id=\"1730\"]Pasiphae[\/pb_glossary], mounted by a bull she tricked.\r\n\r\nTreacherous Theseus, following the guiding thread\r\n\r\nescaped the labyrinth with the help of [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary], my sister.\r\n\r\nIndeed, I now, lest I might be thought no child of [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary],\r\n\r\nam the latest to be subject to the common rules of my tribe.\r\n\r\nThis was destined too: one House pleased both of us:\r\n\r\nyour beauty captivated me, your father\u2019s my sister.\r\n\r\nTheseus and his son have seized on two sisters:\r\n\r\nbuild twin memorials to us then in your house!\r\n\r\nAt the time when I entered [pb_glossary id=\"351\"]Ceres[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s [pb_glossary id=\"779\"]Eleusis[\/pb_glossary] \u2013\r\n\r\nthe soil of Crete should have held me back \u2013\r\n\r\nthen you above all pleased me (though you had before):\r\n\r\nfierce love clung to me in the depths of my bones.\r\n\r\nYou were clothed in white, your hair surrounded by flowers,\r\n\r\na modest blush tinged your golden cheeks:\r\n\r\nothers call your face grim and severe,\r\n\r\nin [pb_glossary id=\"1740\"]Phaedra[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s judgment that severity is strength.\r\n\r\nlet men who are adorned like women stay far from me:\r\n\r\nbeauty loves the masculine, adorned in moderation.[footnote]In the Late Republic and early Augustan period (when Ovid wrote), \"severity\" was an attribute equated with manliness and highly praised, often apparent in art.[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nThat severity of yours suits you, hair placed without art,\r\n\r\nand the light dust on your distinguished face.\r\n\r\nI admire it if you struggle with the arched necks of fiery horses,\r\n\r\nforcing them to turn their hooves in a tight circle:\r\n\r\nor if you calmly hurl the javelin with your strong arm,\r\n\r\nyour warlike face turned towards your shoulder:\r\n\r\nor grasp the wide-bladed hunting spear of cornel wood \u2013\r\n\r\nin the end whatever you do delights my eyes.\r\n\r\nOnly expend your harshness on the wooded hills:\r\n\r\nI\u2019m not a fit subject to be destroyed by you.\r\n\r\nWhy delight in the study of high-girt [pb_glossary id=\"180\"]Diana[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s occupation,\r\n\r\nand avoid what you owe to [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Venus[\/pb_glossary]?\r\n\r\nWhat lacks rest now and then, will not last:\r\n\r\nrest renews the powers, and restores weary limbs.\r\n\r\nThe bow (indeed, your weapons imitate [pb_glossary id=\"180\"]Diana[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s)\r\n\r\nwhich never ceases to be strung, grows slack.\r\n\r\n[pb_glossary id=\"1769\"]Cephalus[\/pb_glossary] was distinguished in hunting, and many creatures\r\n\r\nwere killed, among the grasses, by his blows:\r\n\r\nyet he didn\u2019t do badly in yielding to [pb_glossary id=\"215\"]Aurora[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s lovemaking:\r\n\r\nthe discreet goddess went to him from her aged husband.\r\n\r\nThe grass beneath the oak trees often held\r\n\r\n[pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Venus[\/pb_glossary] and [pb_glossary id=\"1768\"]Adonis[\/pb_glossary], both, lying there relaxed.\r\n\r\nAnd [pb_glossary id=\"1231\"]Meleager[\/pb_glossary] was on fire for Arcadian [pb_glossary id=\"1662\"]Atalanta[\/pb_glossary]:\r\n\r\nshe had the wild boar\u2019s hide as a token of his love.\r\n\r\nWe too could soon be numbered in this throng!\r\n\r\nIf you take Love away your woods are uncivilised.\r\n\r\nI\u2019ll come myself as your companion, the hidden rocks\r\n\r\ndon\u2019t worry me, nor fear of the boar\u2019s curving tooth.\r\n\r\nTwo seas pound the Isthmus with their waves,\r\n\r\nand the slender stretch of land hears both their waters.\r\n\r\nThere I might live with you, in Troezen, [pb_glossary id=\"1770\"]Pittheus[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s kingdom:\r\n\r\nit\u2019s now a country dearer to me than my own.\r\n\r\nTheseus, [pb_glossary id=\"182\"]Neptune[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s son, has been away a while, and will be, longer,\r\n\r\n[pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] keeps him there in his country.\r\n\r\nTheseus, unless we deny what\u2019s obvious,\r\n\r\nprefers [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] to [pb_glossary id=\"1740\"]Phaedra[\/pb_glossary], and [pb_glossary id=\"1742\"]Pirithous[\/pb_glossary] to you.\r\n\r\nThat is not all: injury comes to us from him:\r\n\r\nwe have both been wounded deeply, in fact.\r\n\r\nBreaking my brother\u2019s [ the [pb_glossary id=\"1733\"]Minotaur[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s ] bones with his three-knotted club,\r\n\r\nhe scattered them over the soil: left my sister [ [pb_glossary id=\"1632\"]Ariadne[\/pb_glossary] ] a prey to wild beasts.\r\n\r\nYour mother, worthy, by her energy, of her son, bore you,\r\n\r\nshe the most courageous of the axe-wielding [pb_glossary id=\"1207\"]Amazon[\/pb_glossary] girls.\r\n\r\nIf you ask where she is, Theseus pierced her body with his sword:\r\n\r\nnot even such a child as you guaranteed her safety!\r\n\r\nIndeed she was not even a bride, experiencing the wedding torch \u2013\r\n\r\nwhy, if not that you, a bastard, mightn\u2019t hold your father\u2019s kingdom?\r\n\r\nBrothers he took from me, he gave to you. Yet I was not\r\n\r\nthe reason for taking them all away, he was.\r\n\r\nO I wish the harm done you, in your heart\u2019s core,\r\n\r\nmight be ended by the most beautiful of actions!\r\n\r\nCome now, show your respect for your worthy father\u2019s bed like this:\r\n\r\nhe who fled, and himself disowned his deeds.\r\n\r\nNor, because I\u2019d be seen as a stepmother coupling with her stepson,\r\n\r\nshould you let your mind fear those empty names.\r\n\r\nThat old morality was held to be dying, as far as future ages,\r\n\r\nwere concerned, by [pb_glossary id=\"169\"]Saturn[\/pb_glossary], in his primitive kingdom.\r\n\r\nWhatever might give [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jupiter[\/pb_glossary] pleasure he declared lawful,\r\n\r\nand divine law allows any sister to be married to her brother.\r\n\r\nThe tie is firm that\u2019s made by procreation,\r\n\r\nthose bonds that [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Venus[\/pb_glossary] herself imposes.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s no effort to hide them, though! Seek the gift from her\r\n\r\nof being able to mask guilt by known kinship.\r\n\r\nLet someone see us embrace: we\u2019ll both be praised,\r\n\r\nI\u2019ll be said to be a stepmother loyal to her stepson.\r\n\r\nNot for you the unbarring of a harsh husband\u2019s gate,\r\n\r\nin the shadows, nor the deceiving of a guardian:\r\n\r\nthe house will hold as one, what it held as two.\r\n\r\nOpen kisses you gave, open kisses you\u2019ll give.\r\n\r\nYou\u2019ll be safe with me, and guilt will earn praise,\r\n\r\neven if you are observed in my bed.\r\n\r\nRid yourself of delay, and join quickly in a compact!\r\n\r\nLove will spare you, then, that which rages in me now!\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t scorn to be a suppliant, or beg humbly of you.\r\n\r\nAh! Where are pride and noble words now? Lost!\r\n\r\nAnd I was certain I\u2019d struggle for a long time \u2013\r\n\r\nif [pb_glossary id=\"158\"]Love[\/pb_glossary] can be certain \u2013 and not submit to sin.\r\n\r\nConquered, I beg you, and clasp your knees with royal arms.\r\n\r\nNo lover thinks about what\u2019s fitting.\r\n\r\nI have no shame, and shame, fleeing, relinquishes its standards.\r\n\r\nAcknowledge the favour given and conquer your hard heart!\r\n\r\nFor [pb_glossary id=\"1424\"]Minos[\/pb_glossary], who is my father, rules the seas,\r\n\r\nthe lightning comes from one grandfather, [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jupiter[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s raised hand,\r\n\r\nthe other, [pb_glossary id=\"876\"]Sol[\/pb_glossary], his forehead fenced with sharp rays,\r\n\r\ndrives his gleaming chariot through the heat of day \u2013\r\n\r\nNobility lies here subject to love: pity my forefathers\r\n\r\nand if your power cannot spare me, spare them!\r\n\r\nThe land of Crete, [pb_glossary id=\"172\"]Jupiter[\/pb_glossary]\u2019s island, is my dowry:\r\n\r\nall my kingdom would serve [pb_glossary id=\"1739\"]Hippolytus[\/pb_glossary].\r\n\r\nCruel man, change your mind! My mother could seduce a bull:\r\n\r\nwill you be more savage than that wild bull?\r\n\r\nSpare me, I beg you, by [pb_glossary id=\"882\"]Venus[\/pb_glossary] who\u2019s closest to me:\r\n\r\nand so may you never love, what scorns you:\r\n\r\nmay the nimble goddess [ [pb_glossary id=\"180\"]Diana[\/pb_glossary] ] be with you in secret glades,\r\n\r\nmay the deep woods offer you creatures for plunder:\r\n\r\nmay the [pb_glossary id=\"372\"]Satyrs[\/pb_glossary] and the [pb_glossary id=\"344\"]Pans[\/pb_glossary], mountain gods, favour you,\r\n\r\nand the wild boar fall, pierced by your opposing spear:\r\n\r\nmay the [pb_glossary id=\"217\"]nymphs[\/pb_glossary], though you\u2019re said to hate the girls,\r\n\r\ngive you that water which quenches parching thirst!\r\n\r\nI add tears also to these prayers. You who read\r\n\r\nwords of prayer, imagine that you can also see my tears!\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTaken from: https:\/\/www.poetryintranslation.com\/PITBR\/Latin\/Heroides1-7.php#anchor_Toc523806688<\/a>\r\nTranslated by A. S. Kline \u00a9\u00a0Copyright<\/a>\u00a02001 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nDeath<\/h1>\r\n
Theseus now had to live with the terrible truth that he had killed his own son, and for no good reason. He continued on as king of Athens, but life was never the same. He became moody and sullen, and he neglected his duties as king. The Athenians asked him to leave, and Theseus agreed. He decided to go to the island of Scyrus, Aegeus\u2019 homeland, and Lycomedes, the king of Scyrus, agreed to give Theseus some land that had once belonged to Aegeus. But deep down, Lycomedes felt threatened by the presence of such a great hero. As Theseus was walking with Lycomedes along the cliffs at the edge of the island, somehow Theseus tripped (or did Lycomedes push him?) and he fell to his death.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n<\/a>Art and Symbolism<\/h1>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1898\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1199\"]
![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/1200px-Kylix_57.1.jpg\")
Theseus and the bull of Marathon, silver kylix, ca. 445 BCE (Vassil Bojkov Collection, Sofia)[\/caption]\r\nTheseus was the most popular Athenian hero, so his image is particularly prominent in Athenian art. He was usually represented as a young man, often beardless, sometimes wearing a wide-brimmed hat (petasos<\/em>), and carrying a sword. As his appearance is not immediately distinctive, it is easier to recognize Theseus from the mythical episodes in which he was involved.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1892\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"322\"]
![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/183-Thesee-tuant-le-Minotaure_MNA.jpg\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, black-figure amphora, ca. 480 BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1901\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"314\"]![\"Theseus](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/DP116930-scaled.jpg\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, black-figure amphora, ca. 540 BCE (Metropolitan Museum, New York)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1906\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1042\"]![\"Theseus](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Theseus_Castellani_Louvre_E850_-_modification.jpg\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, black-figure amphora, ca. 575 BCE (Louvre Museum, Paris)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3857\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"2170\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/08\/theseus-and-minotaur.png\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, tracing from red-figure hydria from ca. 480 BCE (accessed via Jason Brooks<\/a>)[\/caption]\r\nThe most common scene depicting Theseus is the slaying of the Minotaur. The hero usually uses a sword to kill the monster; Athena or Ariadne are sometimes present.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1893\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"310\"]
![\"The](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/558px-Asia_minore_anello_con_gemma_di_teseo_e_il_minotauro_II-I_secolo_ac_ca.jpg\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, ring, ca. 100 BCE (Detroit Institute of Arts)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1903\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"333\"]![\"Theseus](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Metope_Treasury_of_Athenians_Theseus_and_Minotaur_500_BC_AM_Delphi_Dlfm409.jpg\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, Delphi Athenian Treasury, ca. 500 BCE (Archaeological Museum, Delphi)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1904\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"291\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Minotaur.jpg\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, black-figure vase, 6th century BCE[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1909\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"357\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Theseus_Minotaur_Louvre_F33_n2.jpg\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, black-figure amphora, ca. 540 BCE (Louvre Museum, Paris)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1902\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"675\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Getty_Villa_-_Collection_3150392251.jpg\")
Theseus and the Minotaur, black-figure amphora, ca. 550 BCE (Getty Villa, Los Angeles)[\/caption]\r\nAnother set of episodes often represented in art was that of the killing of various brigands on the way from Troezen to Athens, as well as the taming of the Bull of Marathon.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1910\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"272\"]
![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Theseus_Sinis_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen_8771.jpg\")
Theseus and Sinis, red-figure kylix, ca. 490 BCE (Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1900\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"363\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Altes_Teseo_Esciron.TIF_.jpg\")
Theseus fighting Sciron, red-figure kylix, ca. 500 BCE (Altes Museum, Berlin)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1907\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1163\"]![\"Centre:](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Theseus_deeds_BM_E_84.jpg\")
Deeds of Theseus. Centre: Theseus and the Minotaur. Clockwise from top: Cercyon, Procrustes, Sciron, the bull of Marathon, Sinis, the Crommyonian sow. Red-figure kylix, ca. 440 BCE (British Museum, London)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1896\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1102\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/1102px-Theseus_bull_Marathon_Met_56.171.48.jpg\")
Theseus and the bull of Marathon, red-figure krater, ca. 440 BCE (Metropolitan Museum, New York)[\/caption]\r\nTheseus was also often portrayed kidnapping of the queen of the Amazons, Antiope, or that of young Helen.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1895\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"271\"]
![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/800px-The_abduction_of_Antiope_by_Theseus_5th_cent._B.C._EAM_1-16-2020.jpg\")
Theseus and Antiope, Greek statue, 5th century BCE (Archaeological Museum of Eretria)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1905\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"367\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/Theseus_and_Antiope.jpg\")
Theseus and Antiope, Delphi Athenian Treasury metope, ca. 500 BCE (Archaeological Museum, Delphi)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1894\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"795\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/795px-Euthymides_ARV_27_4_Theseus_abducting_Helena_09.jpg\")
Theseus abducting Helen, red-figure amphora, ca. 510 BCE (Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1899\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1200\"]![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/1200px-\u05d0\u05de\u05e4\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea_\u05e6\u05d5\u05d5\u05d0\u05e8_\u05d0\u05d8\u05d9\u05ea_\u05d0\u05d3\u05d5\u05de\u05ea-\u05d3\u05de\u05d5\u05d9\u05d5\u05ea_\u05d4\u05de\u05ea\u05d0\u05e8\u05ea_\u05d0\u05ea_\u05ea\u05e1\u05d0\u05d5\u05e1_\u05ea\u05d5\u05e7\u05e3_\u05d0\u05de\u05d6\u05d5\u05e0\u05d4_6.jpg\")
Theseus fighting the Amazons, red-figure amphora, 5th century BCE (Israel Museum, Jerusalem)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nMedia Attributions and Footnotes<\/h1>","rendered":"
![\"Theseus,](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/greekromanmyth\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1141\/2021\/06\/1200px-Copa_de_Aison_-_M.A.N._02-e1625154211926.jpg\")
Athena, Theseus, and the Minotaur, red-figure kylix (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\nBirth and Early Adventures<\/h1>\n
\n\n Sections & Primary Sources<\/p>\n<\/header>\n
- Ovid,\u00a0Heroides\u00a0<\/em>4, \"Phaedra to Hippolytus\"<\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
- Ovid,\u00a0Metamorphoses<\/em>, 8.152-182<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Plutarch,\u00a0Parallel Lives<\/em> 1, \"Life of Theseus,\" 15-19<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t
- Bacchylides,\u00a0<\/em>Odes<\/em>, \"Ode 18\"<\/a><\/li>\r\n \t