Pittheus, wise as he famously was, understood it perfectly, but chose to use the knowledge to his benefit: wishing for a nephew with Aegeus’ blood, he got his guest drunk and then introduced him to his daughter Aethra Aegeus slept with her, a few hours before Poseidon, the mighty god of the sea, did the same. On his way to Athens, however, he did make one stop: calling at Troezen, he didn’t miss the chance to ask its king Pittheus if he would help him decipher the Oracle’s ambiguous reply. As always, the advice was all but straightforward: “The bulging mouth of the wineskin, o best of men, loose not until thou hast reached the height of Athens.” Aegeus didn’t understand any of this and sorrowfully set out on a journey back home. Fearing the intentions of his three brothers, he headed off to Pythia to learn from the Oracle if he will ever produce a male heir. The Story of Theseus’ BirthĮven after two wives – Meta and Chalciope – Aegeus, the esteemed king of Athens, was still childless. Soon after Theseus reached adulthood, Aethra sent him to Athens.
Whoever his father had been, Theseus’ exceptional parentage was evident even in his early years. The night Theseus was conceived, his mother Aethra slept with Aegeus, the king of Athens, and Poseidon, the god of the sea. Theseus in Troezen: Foreshadowings of a Hero There he ruled admirably for many years before an unsuccessful attempt (taken with his friend Pirithous) to abduct Persephone from the Underworld resulted in his deposition and, consequently, treacherous murder by Lycomedes of Scyros. With the help of Ariadne who gave him a ball of thread to navigate himself inside the maze, Theseus managed to find and slay the Minotaur, after which he set sail back to Athens. In Athens, after thwarting Medea’s attempts to eliminate him and capturing the Marathonian Bull, he volunteered to be one of the fourteen young Athenians sent to Crete as a sacrifice to the Minotaur so as to be able to kill the monster inside his Labyrinth. Upon reaching adulthood and finding out the identity of his father, he set out on a journey to Athens, during which he managed to outwit and overpower few notorious brigands: Periphetes, Sinis, Phaea, Sciron, Cercyon, and Procrustes. Son of either Aegeus, the king of Athens, or Poseidon, the god of the sea, and Aethra, a princess, Theseus was raised by his mother in the palaces of Troezen. The son of either Poseidon or Aegeus and Aethra, Theseus was widely considered the greatest Athenian hero, the king who managed to politically unify Attica under the aegis of Athens.
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