At Athens the bards sing of their first kings, but no one now knows all their names or stories. The earliest kings of whom we know something were these five: Cecrops, Erichthonius, Pandion, Erechtheus, and Aegeus, who was the father of Theseus.
Cecrops is remembered as the original founder of Athens. In his time, a dispute arose between Poseidon and Athena as to which of them should be the guardian of the city. Mighty Poseidon took up the challenge and struck the solid rock of the Acropolis with his trident, and a fresh-water spring burst forth, a great boon for the city. But Athena caused the first olive tree to sprout, and the olive is the foundation of Athenian prosperity. The prize was hers, and in her honor the city came to be called Athens, though the earth-shaker too is held in high esteem there.
Like Cecrops and all the early Athenian kings, Erichthonius was born from the earth and the lower half of his body was serpentine. He was born, as we have seen, when Hephaestus, lusting after Athena, spilled his seed on the receptive ground. Athena, however, gathered up the strange infant and kept him safe in a chest, and set a guard of two snakes over the baby, which coiled their lengths around his infant limbs. Athena gave the chest to the dew-bright daughters of Cecrops for safekeeping, and warned the young women—Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosus—not to look inside. But curiosity got the better of them, and after one glance they became deranged and threw themselves off the Acropolis to their deaths. After this, Athena brought Erichthonius up herself, until he was ready to take up his kingdom.
The three daughters of Cecrops disobeyed Athena and opened the box containing baby Erichthonius.[42]
Pandion, who succeeded Erichthonius as king, had two daughters, Procne and Philomela. Procne was married to Tereus, king of Thrace, and lived there with him, and bore him a son, Itys. But when Philomela, her beloved sister, came to visit, Tereus violated her and, to make sure she wouldn’t tell anyone, cut out her tongue and locked her away in a hovel deep in a gloomy forest, telling Procne that her sister had unexpectedly fled. For it was fated that he should die at the hands of close kin, and Tereus had already killed his brother out of fear. But Philomela was undefeated: she wove the story into a tapestry and, using sign language, told the servant who attended her to take the work to her sister. Procne understood the tale spun by her sister’s loom, but patiently bided her time.
The time came for the women of Thrace to celebrate the mysteries of Dionysus in the countryside, away from the restricting conventions of populated places. Procne seized the opportunity to rescue her sister from the forest, and she brought her back to the palace and hid her in her quarters. The two sisters plotted ghastly revenge: they killed young Itys, cooked him, and gave him to Tereus to eat. Too late Tereus realized what meat had been laid before him, and in a murderous frenzy he chased the women through the palace.
But the gods intervened and transformed them into birds to escape him. Procne became the nightingale, and ever mourns her dead son at night; while the swallow Philomela, trying to tell of her sorrow with her tongueless beak, succeeds only in producing an incoherent gurgle. Tereus, however, with his high-crested helmet and his sword, became a hoopoe.
Pandion, as we have seen, the devotee of Dionysus, was killed by drunken peasants. The fate of Erechtheus, Pandion’s son and heir, was scarcely better. In his time, baneful war first came to Athena’s city, wielded by Eumolpus, son of Poseidon and king of Eleusis. And the gods told Erechtheus that the city would fall, unless he sacrificed one of his daughters. Erechtheus and his wife, crushed by the terrible burden of their duty, gave their consent, so that the Furies would have no pretext for persecuting them. In the ensuing battle, Erechtheus himself killed Eumolpus, but for his pains was killed in his turn by Poseidon, who cracked open a chasm in the earth with his trident and hurled him inside. From the earth came this half-snake king, and to the earth he returned.
Erechtheus had three other daughters of whom stories are told. Oreithyia was loved by Boreas, but his suit was rejected: Erechtheus had no desire to ally himself and his city with the cold north wind. But Boreas was true to his violent nature. He found the fair maiden gathering flowers on the banks of the Cephisus, and whisked her away to his mountain fastness in Thrace, for all that her sisters tried to hold her back. There she bore him Zetes and Calaïs, sons who did justice to the noble lineages of both their parents: as Argonauts, they drove off the Snatchers, and, at the funeral games of Pelias, they were the celebrated winners of the long footrace.
Another daughter, the bewitching Procris, was wedded to Cephalus, the son of Herse by Hermes, and they loved each other so truly that they swore never to have sex with anyone else. But saffron-robed Eos, the dawn’s faery twilight, was in love with Cephalus, and persuaded him to test his wife’s fidelity. “I would not have you break your vow to your wife,” she said, “unless she breaks hers first.” And she disguised Cephalus as a stranger, burdened him with precious gifts, and sent him to seduce his own wife.
Each day he increased his offer to her, and each day she faithfully refused to lie with him. But his stupid persistence was duly paid. When she eventually gave in to the “stranger,” he revealed himself, and in shame she ran away to Crete, to the court of King Minos. And Minos too fell in love with the enchanting young woman. But Minos had been cursed by his wife Pasiphae, so that whenever he had sex he would emit foul little snakes and tiny scorpions. Procris cured him, however, and in return he gave her gifts that Artemis had given him: a javelin that never missed its mark and flew back to the thrower’s hand, and a hound that always caught its quarry.
With the hound at her heels, and the javelin in hand, Procris returned to Athens disguised as a young nobleman, a fanatical hunter. She and her husband became friends, and spent many days together in the mountains, searching for game.
Naturally, Cephalus began to covet the remarkable hound and the incredible javelin. Daily he offered more wealth in exchange for them, and each time Procris refused to trade. But at last she said, “Give me what’s between your legs!” Cephalus was somewhat taken aback by his friend’s suggestion, but his longing for the hound and the javelin was such that he would do anything.
In the bed chamber all was revealed, and husband and wife were reconciled. But secret distrust was still rotting the foundation of their marriage. Cephalus used to go out hunting with his lady’s infallible javelin, and after the heat of the chase he would lie down and beg any clouds in the sky to hurry his way, to give him shade. But an attendant took him to be calling for a woman called Nephele—the name means “cloud”—and confided his suspicions to Procris. The next time Cephalus went out hunting, she secretly followed him, and hid close by in the bushes while he took his rest. But a twig-snap alerted the keen hunter to the presence of an animal, or so he thought. Without a moment’s hesitation he hurled the unerring javelin at the bush, and the javelin, which pierced the heart of its target, returned with bloodied head to Cephalus’ hand.
Cephalus banished himself from Athens for the slaying of his wife and went to live in Thebes for the period of purification. When he arrived there, with his hound, he found that the Thebans were being harassed by a fearsome man-eating fox, too crafty and too fast for any of their hounds to catch. “Watch this!” said Cephalus. But the magical fox could not be caught. Round and round they went, the hound endlessly closing in on the endlessly elusive fox … As we shall see, it took Zeus to resolve the stalemate, and he did so in order to enable his favorite son Heracles to be born.
Another daughter of Erechtheus was Creusa, who was ravished and abandoned by Apollo, but bore him a son, Ion. Not wanting her father to know that she had a child out of wedlock, she left Ion to die in a remote cave, but Apollo cared for his son, and sent Hermes to rescue him and take him as a foundling to Delphi, where he worked in the holy precinct as a humble servant. Years later, Creusa and her husband Xuthus, son of Hellen, came to Delphi to inquire about their childlessness, and Xuthus was told by the god to take as his son the first person he met as he left the temple. And so Ion returned to Athens and became the revered ancestor of Ionian-speaking Greeks.
Next among the legendary kings of Athens was Aegeus. He and his wife had as yet no heir for the kingdom, so he went, as is usual, to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, to ask whether he would have children, and what he should do about it. The oracle’s reply was oblique and puzzling: “Leave the wineskin’s mouth unopened until you get home.”
On the way back from Delphi to Athens Aegeus stayed for a while with Pittheus, king of Troezen. At an evening’s banquet Aegeus shared with his friend the confusing message he’d received from the god. Pittheus thought for a while, and then ordered his servants to see that every wine cup remained full, especially that of his noble guest. And once Aegeus was good and drunk, he bedded him down with his own daughter Aethra. But on the same night that Aethra lay with Aegeus, she lay also with the god Poseidon, and so her child was the son of both the earth-shaker and the king of Athens.
Before leaving Troezen, Aegeus instructed Aethra that, if she bore a male child, she was to bring him up without telling anyone who the father was, and send him to Athens when he was able to raise a certain rock by himself. Under the rock Aegeus had hidden a pair of sandals and an ivory-hilted sword, as tokens by which he would be able to recognize his son. In due course of time Theseus was born, and the birds fell silent in awe at his birth.
The years passed, and red-haired Theseus grew to young manhood, skilled in the ways of battle and council chamber. One day he was out hunting in the hills near Troezen, and he thought that a hare he was chasing had taken refuge under a boulder. With some effort, he managed to lift up the boulder—only to find no hare, but, mysteriously, a valuable sword and a pair of sandals. He replaced the heavy stone and went quickly to fetch his mother, to show her the cache. Aethra realized that the time had come for her son to go to his father in Athens. So with the sword at his side and the sandals strapped to his feet, Theseus set off to meet his destiny.
Theseus and Aethra recovered the sword and sandals left by Aegeus.[43]
To reach Athens, Theseus was bound to take the dangerous coast road around the Saronic Gulf. This untamed territory was infested with unscrupulous killers and robbers, who rejected the sacred laws of hospitality toward strangers. This would be an epic journey for the young man, and a test of his mettle as a hero and a future king. First, near Epidaurus, he was set upon by the Man with the Club, as the beetle-browed brigand Periphetes was called. One blow from the club of this hulking son of Hephaestus was enough to send all those he encountered to the dank halls of Hades, lord of shades. But Theseus dodged the blow, seized the club—and found that one blow from him was enough to crush Periphetes’ skull as well. Then he continued on his way.
The region around the Isthmus was under the sway of Sinis, a son of Poseidon. Gigantic and terrible, he had devised an appalling death for anyone he caught on the road. He would bend down two young pine trees until their tops were close together, tie his captive’s ankles to one tree and his wrists to the other—and then let the saplings spring upright, ripping his victim limb from limb. Theseus gave the Pinebender a taste of his own deadly medicine.
Just west of Megara, in the district of Crommyon, an enormous, man-eating sow, said to be under the control of a witch, was terrorizing the inhabitants. No one dared leave home to work the fields or attend a ceremony at a temple, for fear of becoming the bristling monster’s next meal. Theseus fearlessly hunted the sow down in the low hills and killed it—and as it died, the aged crone who was its keeper faded away to nothingness.
The domain of monstrous Sciron lay a little further on, between Megara and Eleusis. The cliffs here soar high and sheer from the sea, and the road clings tentatively to the precipice. Sciron had the habit of blocking the narrow way and forcing passersby to kneel and wash his feet in a basin of water. As if the humiliation wasn’t enough, while they were crouching down he dealt them a mighty kick that sent them tumbling down the cliff and into the sea below, where a giant turtle ate them. Theseus saw through Sciron’s foul ruse and played the victim, but as he bent down he seized hold of the man’s legs. He flipped him over his shoulders and into the churning sea hundreds of feet below, where the hungry turtle was waiting.
Just beyond Eleusis lived a brigand called Cercyron, a son of Hephaestus. His favorite pastime was to compel travelers to wrestle with him. He claimed falsely that those who beat him were allowed to continue on their way—but in fact none could defeat him, and he fought them to the death. Theseus was the first to out-wrestle him. He picked the huge highwayman up off the ground, held him aloft for a moment, and smashed his body down onto the ground, which bristled with sharp rocks.
Finally, Theseus had to pass crazy Procrustes, whose name means the Stretcher. Not far from Athens, Procrustes had blocked the road with a bed upon which he compelled all travelers to lie. If they were too long for the bed, he took up his ax and chopped them down to size; if they were too short, he took up a mallet, made for him in Hephaestus’ workshop by the Cyclopes, and flattened them into a perfect fit. But Theseus, taking Procrustes’ measure, grabbed the lunatic and pinned him on the bed. It was the killer’s turn to die; Theseus hacked off bits of him until he was just the right size.
On the journey to Athens, Theseus purged the land of lawless brigands and monsters.[44]
Having cleared the coast path of its many dangers, Theseus arrived in Athens and presented himself, as Aethra had suggested, at the royal palace. But it so happened that Aegeus was away at the time, negotiating with potential allies for the forthcoming war with Crete. The young hero was greeted by Medea, who had fled from Corinth to Athens after ruining Jason’s life and killing their children, and was now married to King Aegeus. The sorceress recognized the young man as Aegeus’ son, and realized what a threat he was to her own son. Medus would never inherit the Athenian throne with Theseus around. So she sent Theseus off to certain death on the coastal plain of Marathon.
The fields and low hills of Marathon, north-east of Athens, were being terrorized by an enormous bull. This was the same bull that led to the ruin of Cretan Minos … but we shall have that story soon enough. Many men had fallen beneath the savage hoofs and deadly horns in their failed attempts to subdue the beast. But Theseus wrestled the bull to the ground and hobbled it, and drove it in triumph back to Athens, where he sacrificed it to Apollo. Aegeus was back in Athens by then, and held a banquet to celebrate the capture of the bull. But he hadn’t recognized his son yet, and Medea advised him to do away with this mysterious stranger, lest he try to take the throne. “If you agree,” she said, “I’ll provide you with some wolf’s bane right now, and you can put it in his wine.” But when Theseus lifted his cup to acknowledge his hosts before drinking, his cloak fell away from his shoulder, and Aegeus glimpsed the ivory hilt of his sword. He dashed the poisoned chalice away from Theseus’ hand and, to Medea’s chagrin, amid tears of joy Aegeus publicly recognized Theseus as his son and heir.
Theseus and Aegeus were together at last, and they spent their days getting to know each other during a brief time of peace. But before long Athens was attacked by King Minos of Crete, one of the sons Europa had borne for Zeus. Prior to Theseus’ arrival, Minos’ son Androgeos had paid a visit to Athens, and had mightily impressed everyone with his athletic prowess. But Aegeus suspected that Androgeos had secret dealings with Pallas, Aegeus’ ambitious brother, who sought the Athenian throne for himself and his sons. The Athenian king had therefore sent Androgeos off to test his strength against the Marathonian bull, and the bull had, as expected, gored and trampled the young man to death. In retaliation, grief-stricken Minos launched an invasion.
He landed first at Megara, where Aegeus’ other brother Nisus was king. Now, Nisus had a bright lock of immortal hair growing on his head, and as long as it was there Megara would be safe. But his daughter Scylla had offended queenly Hera, and in retaliation the cow-eyed goddess sent Eros to make the girl fall in love with her enemy. As Scylla looked out from the walls of the town, her eyes fell on Minos, and Eros’ arrow pierced her heart. A trusted servant delivered her message to the Cretan king, and he sent her in return a false token of his love, a many-stranded necklace of weighty gold. Knowing what she had to do to win her man, she cut off her father’s magic lock while he slept and sent it to her purported lover. But Minos ruthlessly rejected her, sacked the city, killed Nisus, and then sailed off for Athens.
It didn’t take Minos long to subdue Athens, and, as recompense for the murder of his dear son, he imposed a heavy penalty on the city. Every year, seven noble youths and seven noble maidens were to be chosen by lot and sent to Minos’ palace in Cnossus. Once there, they were to enter the amazing labyrinth that Daedalus had built under the palace. At its heart lived the fearsome Minotaur; none who entered the labyrinth ever returned.
* * *
What was the Minotaur? A horrid hybrid, with the legs and body of a man, but the shoulders and massive head of a bull. It was, indirectly, a member of Minos’ family. In order to help Minos carry out his obligatory annual sacrifice to Poseidon, the sea-god himself had sent him a bull from the sea—all white, flawless, and massive. So perfect was the bull that it seemed to Minos a waste to do away with it, and in his folly he selected a less perfect sacrifice for the earth-shaker’s altar.
This had angered Poseidon, and he cursed Minos’ wife Pasiphae, daughter of the sun, with a perverse lust for the gorgeous bull. She called on the skilled craftsman Daedalus to find a way to allow her to couple with the creature, and he constructed a hollow cow of wood. He covered the frame with hide to fool the bull, and Pasiphae squirmed herself into position inside the dummy cow. Soon the handsome bull came and fulfilled her twisted fantasy. The result was the Minotaur.
Daedalus’ invention allowed Pasiphae to fulfill her god-induced lust for Poseidon’s bull.[45]
Minos was so disgusted and ashamed of his wife’s behavior and the offspring of her foul union that he had Daedalus construct an elaborate labyrinth under the palace, and the mazy multitude of winding ways was so confusing that even its maker was hard put to find his way around it. And at the heart of the maze lived the Minotaur, chained and hungry, raging in its squalor.
The ingenious Daedalus was a cousin of Aegeus, from a minor branch of the Athenian royal family, but he had fled Athens after killing a nephew, and had fetched up in Crete, along with his son Icarus. Endowed by the gods with a clever mind and hands to match, he was the most skilled inventor and craftsman of this or any other age. The statues he sculpted were so lifelike that you would swear they breathed and moved; he built temples and altars, and he invented all the basic tools of carpentry and building to help him and his successors in their work. For his part in helping Pasiphae to consummate her obscene lust, Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son. But the prison walls had not been built that could contain the master. “Minos may control the land,” said Daedalus to Icarus, “and he may control the seaways; but the sky is beyond his reach.”
Within his cell, Daedalus fashioned for himself and his son strong wings. Great eagle feathers covered a light wooden frame, which could be strapped to the arms. The feathers were coated with wax, both to glue them to the frame and to make them strong enough to bear the weight of a human being. When all was ready, the two of them, man and boy, perched on the window ledge of their lofty prison and launched themselves into the air.
Daedalus’ latest invention was astounding: human beings could fly! As they began to flap and glide their easy way toward Sicily, Daedalus warned Icarus to steer a middle course. “The peril stands equal, my son,” he said. “If you fly too low, the hungry waves may lick up and drown you; but if you fly too high, the sun may melt the wax which binds your wings together. Fly not too high, my son!”
Again and again the anxious father had to warn his son about the danger, and every time Icarus obeyed at first, but soon began to experiment, as teenagers will, with the limits of his father’s marvelous invention. He swooped and soared to his heart’s delight, and Daedalus was pleased to see that the wings were sturdy enough to stand this much stress. But in such hazardous ventures, one mistake is all that is needed. Icarus rose too high in the sky, preparing for a joyous dive. The wax melted, the feathers fell off, and the boy plummeted headlong to his death in the sea.
When Icarus flew too high the waxen wings melted and he plummeted to his death.[46]
But Daedalus was revenged on Minos. Shortly after the time of our story, Minos went to Sicily to recover Daedalus and punish him. Daedalus went into hiding, but Minos cunningly took with him to Sicily a conch shell, and he offered a princely reward to anyone who could pass a thread all the way through the windings of the shell.
Now, the only one who could do it was Cocalus, king of Acragas, and the way he did it was to tie the thread to an ant, which then worked its way through the tortuous channels of the shell. But this was a trap: Minos knew that only Daedalus could have thought up the business with the ant, and so he knew that the fugitive prince was in Acragas. When Minos confronted Cocalus, the king greeted him kindly, and suggested a bath to wash the dust of his journey from his royal body, with his own fair daughters in attendance. And when Minos stepped into the bath, Cocalus had his daughters pour boiling water over the Cretan king, who died in horrible agony.
* * *
At the time in question, Minos defeated the Athenians and imposed the indemnity of the seven youths and seven maidens, to be sent into the labyrinth as a sacrifice to the Minotaur. Young Theseus was grieved to see his new-found father humbled so, and was enraged by the city’s loss. The people of the kingdom were assembled, and fourteen names were read out amid the cries and wails of heartbroken parents and siblings. But while all the other young men and women had been chosen by lot, Minos chose Theseus himself, for he wanted Aegeus to suffer the loss of his newly discovered son. But Theseus was glad to go, for he intended to do away with the Minotaur and rid Athens once and for all of the indemnity.
The fourteen victims were hustled onto the black-sailed flagship of Minos’ victorious war fleet and set sail on a favorable breeze. In the course of the voyage, Minos began to lust after one of the young Athenian women, but Theseus stood up to him and protected the terrified virgin. “And who are you,” thundered Minos, “to prevent a son of Zeus from having his way?” “A son of Poseidon,” Theseus snapped back, and challenged Minos to prove that Zeus really was his father. “I will if you will,” said Minos, and he called upon Zeus to send thunder, as a sign that he recognized him as his son. A massive peal of thunder rumbled and shook the heavens, and then Minos hurled a ring into the depths of the sea, challenging Theseus to recover it, if he truly was the son of Poseidon.
Nothing daunted, Theseus leapt into the foaming waves; for heroes recognize no limits. None expected to see him again, but dolphins came and bore him to the undersea palace of his father Poseidon, where the brother of almighty Zeus sat on his throne with Amphitrite at his right hand. Amphitrite presented her stepson with Minos’ ring, and gave him a beautiful cloak and a crown that Aphrodite had once given her. And Theseus, endowed thereby with the aura of Aphrodite, was escorted back to Minos’ ship by Poseidon’s assistant Triton, whose massive, scaly bulk belied his gentle nature. Theseus clambered back on board, miraculously dry. If Minos was concerned, he kept his fears to himself. No sooner had the ships docked at the harbor of Cnossus than Ariadne, the Cretan king’s beautiful daughter, hurried down to greet her father. But as soon as she cast eyes on Theseus, standing tall and proud on the prow of the flagship, she fell in love with him. Ariadne crept out after dark and whispered her love to Theseus through the barred window of the rough quarters shared by the young Athenian captives. The hero eagerly returned her words, for she was surpassingly fair—and potentially useful.
Theseus’ greatest problem was this. Even though he was unarmed, he was confident that he could kill the Minotaur—after all, nothing had been able to resist him so far—but first he had to find it. The maze was famously complex, designed to baffle the human mind and heart. A man could get lost in there forever, and wander futilely and in increasing terror until death overtook him. So when the time came for him and the other young Athenians to enter the labyrinth and confront the Minotaur, Ariadne secretly slipped him a spool of shining thread, which he could unwind as he worked his way through the maze, and rewind on the way back.
The fourteen young men and women stepped into the gloom of the labyrinth, but their sinking hearts recovered when they saw the confidence of their champion’s stride. He led the way, and they crept through the maze behind him. Time and again they found that they had come to a dead end, so they rewound the thread back to the last junction and tried a different route. At last, by eliminating all the dead ends, they drew closer and closer to the center, until they could hear the snuffling and stamping of the monster and let the noise pull them fearfully forward in the gloom. The closer they came, the worse the stench that assailed their nostrils—the miasma of the Minotaur’s rotting victims and waste.
As soon as the beast caught their scent, it raised its muzzle and blasted the stale air with hot breath, that issued like a wet cloud from its red-rimmed nostrils. It began to tug at the leg-irons that chained it to the solid rock and prevented escape to the world above. When the beast caught sight of them, it seized some of the massive boulders that were lying about the floor of the cavern and began to hurl them at the terrified youngsters. But Theseus told the rest to stay well behind, while he boldly advanced and fought the creature singlehandedly, man against monster. Before long the Minotaur was gasping out its final breaths in a pool of blood on the rocky ground, battered by the same rocks it had hurled at Theseus.
It was a simple matter to escape the foul dankness of the labyrinth: all they had to do was follow Ariadne’s thread back to the entrance, where she anxiously awaited them. Gulping sweet life into their lungs along with the clean, bright air, they sprinted for the harbor. After scuttling all the rest of Minos’ ships to prevent pursuit, they leapt aboard the black-winged flagship in which they had come, and set sail safely for Athens. Everyone had reason for joy, and Ariadne anticipated soon being Theseus’ royal bride.
“Theseus boldly advanced and fought the creature singlehandedly, man against monster.”[47]
The fugitives spent the first night on the island of Naxos. But Athena appeared to Theseus in a dream, and commanded him to continue his voyage immediately, and to leave Ariadne there on the island. For she was destined for a higher station. Theseus did so, but reluctantly, with a last lingering look at the fair maiden; but the orders of the gods are not to be disobeyed. When Ariadne awoke in the morning, she was frightened and bewildered, but the god Dionysus appeared before her and said that she was destined to be his wife, and promised her fidelity. And Father Zeus made her immortal, so that she would never know death or age, and could live for all eternity with her husband. The veil between mortality and immortality is fine, but so strong that only Father Zeus, king of gods and men, can part it for an instant.
So the young Athenians continued their voyage home. Now, on the day Minos took him and the others from Athens to become fare for the Minotaur, Theseus had promised his father that, if he managed to destroy the beast and return, he would hoist white sails on the ship, to replace the morbid black ones which had carried him away on his deadly mission. But caught up in the joy and anticipation of a victorious homecoming, Theseus forgot to change the sails. Day after day, Aegeus had climbed to the highest point of the Athenian Acropolis to keep an anxious but hopeful vigil and watch for the sign of his son’s safe return. And at last he saw the ship on the horizon—but black sails, not white, snapped in the wind.
His son was dead; he had no reason to go on living. Aegeus cast himself to his death off the Acropolis. But others say that he saw the black sails from the cliffs of Sunium, and there threw himself into the sea which now bears his name, the Aegean.
By this unhappy accident, Theseus gained the throne of Athens, but it was not a smooth succession. Aegeus had long been feuding with his brother Pallas, and now Pallas gathered a mighty force to seize the throne. With his sons as his generals, he prepared to attack Athens. But Theseus got wind of his plans, launched a surprise counterattack, and eliminated the threat once and for all. So Theseus protected his people, and they prospered under his wisdom.
Theseus’ best friend was Pirithous, king of the Lapiths in Thessaly. Pirithous was a son of Ixion, and also of Zeus, who had mounted Ixion’s wife in the form of a noble stallion. Pirithous and Theseus became friends when the Thessalian tried to rustle some of Theseus’ cattle. Theseus set out in pursuit and caught up with the thief—but Pirithous turned and offered him friendship instead of enmity. From then on the two were inseparable, and shared a number of adventures. Usually, but not always, their concern was to tame the earth, to make it a place where human civilization and culture could flourish.
Together they led an expedition against the Amazons, who dwell in distant Scythia, on the edge of the world, and they abducted the Amazon queen Antiope, who bore Theseus a son, Hippolytus. But then Theseus cast Antiope aside and chose Phaedra, daughter of Cretan Minos, to be his lawful wife. No one treats a proud Amazon queen like that and gets away with it! Antiope summoned her sisters and they attacked Athens in force; but the Amazons were repulsed, and Antiope died from her wounds.
Artemis, the divine huntress, with the tools of her craft.[48]
Hippolytus grew up fair and strong in his father’s halls, and became a devotee of Artemis. He loved nothing better than running with hounds and other hunters, bare-chested and sweat-soaked in the hills; and he swore that he would remain chaste all his life, in imitation of his goddess. But Phaedra’s heart was filled with an abominable love for her stepson, and then, when he refused her, with cold fury. She went to Theseus and told him that Hippolytus had tried to rape her. Theseus called on his father Poseidon to destroy Hippolytus, and a bull emerged from the surf of the sea and attacked the young man as he was driving his chariot. The horses bolted and Hippolytus was dragged along the ground to his death. At the sight of his mangled body, Phaedra killed herself for shame—but Hippolytus was miraculously resurrected by Asclepius, and for this unnatural act Asclepius was blasted by Zeus the cloud-gatherer.
Poseidon called forth a bull from the sea to destroy Hippolytus, in answer to Theseus’ misguided prayer.[49]
Now, Pirithous was betrothed to Hippodamia, daughter of Atrax of Hestiaeotis, and the time came for the wedding to be celebrated. Pirithous arranged a splendid wedding feast, and invited not only all his fellow Lapiths, but his distant kin the Centaurs as well, who dwelled nearby in the mountains of Thessaly. The servants, obeying orders, served the shaggy Centaurs milk to drink; but the tempting scent of the sweet wine the Lapiths were drinking inflamed the wild half-men, and they pushed their milk aside and seized flagons of wine instead.
At first, the Centaurs became boisterous, then unruly, and finally they tried to rape the Lapith women. Tables were overturned, women were being dragged off by the hair. Their screams mingled with the confused cries of the Lapiths and grunts of the Centaurs as they hauled their reluctant victims away. The Lapiths armed themselves with whatever they could grab—cups, cushions, knives—while the Centaurs wielded trees that they uprooted, and boulders that they snatched up in their powerful arms.
The Lapith wedding feast descended into chaos after the Centaurs’ drunkenness ignited violence.[50]
The conflict that broke out at the wedding spilled out of the house and became more formal warfare, to be resolved by battle only when Theseus came to help. In the course of the fighting many heroes fell, including the noble Lapith Caeneus, the brother of Hippodamia. He had been born as Caenis, a girl, but she granted her favors to Poseidon, who in return granted her a wish. And her wish was to become a man, and immortal. But despite his immortality, the Centaurs hammered Caeneus into the ground with tree trunks, and sealed him inside forever with a massive boulder.
Even the noblest heroes can act like fools under the influence of Eros. The most notorious escapade which Theseus and Pirithous got up to involved two bungled abductions. The young men set their hearts on making daughters of Zeus their own. Theseus chose Helen, daughter of Zeus and Leda, while Pirithous aimed even higher, for Persephone, wife of Hades. They succeeded in abducting Helen from Sparta—she was just a young girl at the time, and they found her dancing naked by the Eurotas river with her friends—but Theseus left her in Athens and immediately set out to help his friend with Persephone. Helen’s brothers, the divine twins Castor and Polydeuces, took advantage of his absence to regain their sister—and at the same time they kidnapped Aethra, Theseus’ mother, to be Helen’s handmaid.
Pirithous’ attempt on Persephone was even more of a disaster, though he foolishly entertained the idea that, since he and Persephone shared Zeus as their father, the cloud-gatherer would look kindly on the endeavor. When they arrived in Hades’ palace, the dark-cowled god made them welcome, but his heart spoke other words, for he knew their designs. And so he bade them be seated—but as soon as Pirithous took his seat on an intricately carved bench, the stone softened and molded itself around him, and then hardened again, so that he was utterly trapped. Theseus’ help was as vain as Pirithous’ struggle. The Athenian king was compelled to leave his friend forever in the underworld, as one of the dead, condemned to an eternity of grief and remorse.
Back in Athens, his adventures over, Theseus proved to be a wise and good king—but such qualities do not make one immune from treachery. By such means his cousin Menestheus usurped the throne of Athens and banished Theseus to the island of Scyros, where in due course he died. His body was found broken at the bottom of a cliff, and no one knew whether he had fallen or been pushed.
