Term 2 - Lec 10 (Theseus)

Question 1

What does Theseus (and Jason) share with Heracles?

What characteristic of this is different from Perseus?

Answer 1

• divine parentage
• raised away from home
• pursuit of impossible quests
• problems with women
• political problems as hero + king roles converge
• non-heroic deaths
• Perseus didn’t have problems with women, therefore had a more happy life

Question 2

How are Heracles and Theseus different in their pursuit of a daughter of Zeus?

Answer 2

• Heracles only achieves this after his death

- Theseus kidnaps Helen as a child

Question 3

What kind of hero was Theseus?

Answer 3

a local Athenian hero

Question 4

How did Theseus have both divine and political inheritance?

Answer 4

King Aegeus sleeps with Aethra on the same night that Poseidon sleeps with her

Question 5

Describe the conception of Theseus

Answer 5

• King Aegeus (of Athens) consults an oracle on why he hasn’t had a wife yet
• but oracle is confusing so he goes to King Pittheus of Troezen to decode it
• King Pittheus understands it to mean that if Aegeus sleeps with Pittheus’ daughter, she will give birth to the next King of Athens
• Aegeus + Aethra have sex
• Aethra goes down to the sea to have bathe, Poseidon then sleeps with her and impregnates her

Question 6

What does Aegeus leave behind as he leaves for Athens?

Answer 6

• he puts his shoes and sandal under a rock
• tells Aethra that when their son is old enough to lift the rock and get the stuff, to send him to Athens to claim his inheritance

Question 7

On his way to Athens, he rids the road of threats to travellers? What are these threats?

Of what nature are these threats? (Compare to Heracle’s labours)

Answer 7

• a robber who beats his victims with a bronze club
• ties victims to a pair of bent pine trees, then releases –> tears victims in half
• pushes victims over a cliff to be eaten by a giant sea turtle
• wrestles travellers to death
• Procrustes who tortures his victims with an iron bed

**these are all more realistic, normal threats than the labours

Question 8

what is an identical adventure that Theseus and Heracles accomplish?

Answer 8

• capturing Cretan bull

- katabasis (but for different reasons, Theseus goes for hubristic reasons, Heracles goes as part of an atonement)

Question 9

What are adventures Theseus and Heracles share?

Answer 9

• Argonauts
• Amazonomachy
• Centauromachy
• Rescue of Theseus from Underworld

Question 10

Who is King Aegeus’ new wife? How does she try and prevent Theseus from becoming king?

Answer 10

• Medea, from Crete

1. convinces Aegeus to send Theseus to kill the Cretan Bull
2. when successful with the bull, she tries to kill him by poison wine but then Aegeus realizes and banishes her

Question 11

Origin of the Cretan Bull

Answer 11

• Europa + Zeus (in bull form) –> Minos = first King of Crete
• Minos + Pasiphae –> Ariadne and Phaedra
• Minos says he will give Poseidon his finest animal if he were allowed to rule Greece
• but Minos can’t bring himself to sacrifice his finest bull, therefore sacrifices his second best
• Poseidon’s revenge: make Pasiphae fall in love with the Bull
• Pasiphae gets Daedalus to make her a cow costume and she sleeps with the Bull
• Pasiphae + Cretan Bull –> Minotaur

Question 12

How are Heracles and Theseus both involved in capturing the Cretan Bull?

Answer 12

• one of Heracle’s labours
• Minos gives the Bull to Heracles, who brings it back
• but Eurystheus lets the Bull go, it rampages along the Peloponnese
• Theseus slays the Cretan Bull at Marathon
• this is Medea’s idea

Question 13

What was the cause of the annual Athenian youth sacrifices to the Minotaur?

Answer 13

• Androgeus, son of Minos, went to Athens and won all the athletic games
• King Aegeus kills Androgeus out of shame
• War between Minos vs. Athens
• Minos wins, demands the annual sacrifice of 14 Athenian youths to the Minotaur

Question 14

How does Theseus slay the Minotaur?

Answer 14

• Theseus volunteers to go as a sacrifice to Crete
• Ariadne falls in love with him at first sight
• helps Theseus by giving him the thread idea to navigate the labyrinth (which was given to her by Daedalus)
• Theseus agrees to take her as his bride for her help

Question 15

Tragedy of Ariadne

Answer 15

• they take a break on island of Naxos
• Theseus forgets sleeping Ariadne (now she’s left with no one and no home)
• she then either undergoes sparagmos or becomes the bride of Dionysus

Question 16

What is Ariadne’s curse?

Answer 16

= that Theseus suffers from his forgetfulness as much as she has

• Aegeus tells Theseus that if he’s successful to change the black sails of the ship to white when he returns home
• Theseus forgets to change this due to curse
• Aegeus sees this and commits suicide: throws himself off a cliff

Question 17

What is the cause of the Amazonomachy?

Who were the Amazons compared to in depictions of this?

Symbolic importance of Amazonomachy?

Answer 17

• Theseus kidnaps the Amazon Queen, Hippolyte (with the help of Pirithous
• Theseus + Hippolyte –> Hippolytus
• amazons invade Athens
• battle on the Aeopagus (Hill of Ares)
• Amazons like the Persians (in the attire they wore)
• Amazonomachy, Centauromachy, Titanomachy = triumph of Greek civilization over savage/disordered threats to culture –> leading to more civilized order

Question 18

Who was Theseus’ bff? In which quests did he help?

Answer 18

Pirithous (king of the Lapiths, son of Ixion [first to kill his own kin])

• kidnapping hippolyte
• kidnapping Helen

Question 19

What is the symbolic nature of Theseus’ Cretan adventures?

Answer 19

• an explanation (via myth) for the signs of historical shift of power centre from Crete to Athens
• story is very Athenocentric (Theseus is civilized hero vs. Cretan other that participates in crazy things like bestiality and human sacrifice)
• create and Other that then allow the Greeks to distance themselves them from

Question 20

Tragedy of Phaedra

where was this written?

Answer 20

• Theseus marries Phaedra
• Hippolytus only devoted to Artemis, rejects others
• Aphrodite’s revenge: make Phaedra fall in love with Hippolytus
• Hippolytus says no
• she kills herself in shame
• Phaedra’s revenge: left a note saying Hippolytus raped her
• Theseus calls on Poseidon to curse his son
• Poseidon sends a bull-shaped tsunami that destroys Hippolytus’ carriage, he gets mangled
• later revealed to Theseus the truth (but too late then)

Question 21

What is the danger of a foreign bride?

Answer 21

• technically all brides are somewhat foreign though
• often have problematic erotic desires that they act upon –> disruptive to patriarchal order represented by heroes
  (don’t just act like objects of exchange)
• lots of personal/political anxiety related to this

Question 22

What is Pericle’s citizenship law? What year?

Answer 22

• 450/451 BCE

- only sons of Athens with both fathers AND mothers from Athens could become Athenian citizens

Question 23

What was the purpose of Theseus’ databases? What did it end up in?
Who comes to the rescue?

Answer 23

• Theseus and Pirithous decide to marry daughters of Zeus
• kidnap child Helen from Sparta for Theseus
• go to Underworld to kidnap Persephone for Pirithous
• Hades’ trick: welcomes them, but then they get stuck to chair and can’t leave
• Heracles later saves only Theseus

Question 24

How did Theseus die?

Answer 24

• comes back to Start to discover Spartans attacked (b/c of Helen)
• goes to island of Skyros to arrange alliances with King Lycomedes
• falls/pushed from a cliff (replays his father’s death)

Question 25

What great things did Theseus do for Athens?

Answer 25

• synoikism (unified the scattered towns of Attica into a single government
• portrayed as ideal ruler in late archaic + classical athens
• granted lots of refuge to exiles and suppliants
• founder of democracy and Panathenaic festival

Question 26

Who was Cimon? How was he involved?

Answer 26

= a statesmen

- advanced his political career by brining the bones of Theseus back to Athens

Question 27

What happened to Theseus after his death?

Answer 27

• hero cult for him

- worshipped