Theseus (
Greek T?se??) was a
legendary king of
Athens, son of
Aethra, and fathered by
Aegeus and
Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like
Perseus,
Cadmus or
Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were identified with an archaic religious and social order. As Heracles was the
Dorian hero, Theseus was the
Ionian founding hero, considered by Athenians as their own great reformer. His name comes from the same root as
?esµ?? ("thesmos"), Greek for
institution. He was responsible for the
synoikismos ("dwelling together")—the political unification of
Attica under Athens, represented in his journey of labours. Because he was the unifying king, Theseus built and occupied a palace on the fortress of the
Acropolis that may have been similar to the palace excavated in
Mycenae.
Pausanias reports that after the synoikismos, Theseus established a cult of
Aphrodite Pandemos ("Aphrodite of all the People") and
Peitho on the southern slope of the Acropolis.
In The Frogs, Aristophanes credited him with inventing many everyday Athenian traditions. If the theory of a Minoan hegemony[1] is correct he may have been based on Athens' liberation from this political order rather than on an historical individual.
In Plutarch's vita of Theseus, he makes use of varying accounts of the death of the Minotaur, Theseus' escape and the love of Ariadne for Theseus. Plutarch's sources, not all of whose texts have survived independently, included Pherecydes (mid-sixth century), Demon (ca 300), Philochorus and Cleidemus (both fourth century).[2]
Aegeus, one of the primordial kings of Athens, found a bride, Aethra who was the daughter of Troezen's king Pittheus, at Troezen, a small city southwest of Athens. On their wedding night, Aethra waded through the sea to the island Sphairia that rests close to the coast and lay there with Poseidon (god of the sea, and of earthquakes). By the understanding of sex in antiquity, the mix of semen gave Theseus a combination of divine as well as mortal characteristics in his nature; such double fatherhood, one father immortal, one mortal, was a familiar feature of Greek heroes.[3] When Aethra became pregnant, Aegeus decided to return to Athens. But before leaving, he buried his sandals and sword under a huge rock and told her that when their son grew up, he should move the rock, if he were hero enough, and take the weapons for himself as evidence of his royal parentage. At Athens, Aegeus was joined by Medea, who had fled Corinth after slaughtering the children she had borne Jason, and had taken up a new consort in Aegeus. Priestess and consort together represented the old order at Athens.
