Theseus

and besides that Aethra, the mother of Theseus, should set sail with her, being a captive?

So the brothers of Helen went at once to the country of Theseus and sacked the city and recovered their sister.

For they did not go at once against Theseus, a Greek man and the best of the rest, and besides himself ruler of many and a companion of Heracles and Peirithous, and having the Thessalians and Boeotians as allies;

And so among Euripides the words spoken by Theseus are praised;

and Theseus:

Or did Theseus too seize the horns of the Marathonian bull in anger?

Theseus:

Theseus:

Oedipus:

Amphitryon:

He set out for Athens, glad to have escaped from the lower world.

I stayed awhile attempting to bring back Theseus from Hades, father.

Chorus:

Chorus:

Phaedra:

Theseus:

Theseus:

Theseus:

I have now touched upon the nobility of Theseus so far as I could on the present occasion, having formerly with some pains detailed his whole career.

I would give much not to have spoken about the virtue and the achievements of Theseus on a former occasion, for it would have been more appropriate to discuss this topic in my discourse about our city.

And he did this, not after he had grown old and had taken his pleasure in the good things at hand, but in the prime of his manhood, it is said, he gave over the state to the people to govern, while he himself risked his life without ceasing for the benefit of Athens and of the rest of the Hellenes.

Now the facts about our original acquisition both of the district and of the place called Ennea Hodoi, and the story of the sons of Theseus, one of whom, Acamas, is said to have received this district as the dowry of his wife—all this was fitting to the occasion then, and was given with the utmost exactness, but now I suppose I must be brief;

Aristotle records that Theseus, having gone to Scyros on a reconnaissance—reasonably, because of his kinship with Aegeus—died, thrust down from the rocks, Lycomedes who was reigning there having taken fright .

Wishing still further to increase the city, Theseus invited all on equal terms, and the proclamation "Come hither, all you peoples" is said to have been Theseus's, when he was establishing a kind of commonwealth of all.

And since the sequence nowhere appeared, I had to run back again and search out the order, retracing my steps and following along the furrow, as they say Theseus followed the thread of Ariadne.

How great a thing this is the feigned fables of the ancients declare, in which, though they are so many and so various and fetched from the remotest antiquity, scarcely three pairs of friends are found, so that, setting out from Theseus, you come at last to Orestes.

because in those others there had generally been single men, each of whom had established his own commonwealth by his laws and institutions—as Minos among the Cretans, Lycurgus among the Lacedaemonians, and among the Athenians, whose constitution had very often been changed, now Theseus, now Draco, now Solon, now Cleisthenes, now many others;

Theseus, who was the son of Neptune;

And Theseus, being a rival of Heracles, is older than the Trojan matters by one generation.

and to the expedition of the Amazons against Athens and the rape of Helen by Theseus, nine years.

Neither were the Aegeidae ignorant that Theseus, the son of Aegeus, for the first time established equality in the State.

But when Theseus settled the people in one city and established the democracy, and the city became populous, the people none the less continued to elect the king as before, choosing him from among those most distinguished by valor;

Demophon, son of gallant Theseus.

from him sprung Aethra, and from her Theseus thy sire was born.

for I assert, in days gone by, I was with Theseus on the ship, as their father’s squire, when they went to fetch that girdle fraught with death;

next in order, Theseus’ son was stationed at the head of sixty ships from Attica, having the goddess

And there was the strife of the Lapith spearmen gathered round the prince Caeneus and Dryas and Peirithous, with Hopleus, Exadius, Phalereus, and Prolochus, Mopsus the son of Ampyce of Titaresia, a scion of Ares, and Theseus, the son of Aegeus, like the deathless gods.

Never again can I behold such men as Peirithoos and Dryas shepherd of his people, or as Kaineus, Exadios, godlike Polyphemus, and Theseus son of Aegeus, peer of the immortals.

"Then I saw Phaedra, and Procris, and fair Ariadne daughter of the magician Minos, whom Theseus was carrying off from Crete to Athens, but he did not enjoy her, for before he could do so Artemis killed her in the island of Dia on account of what Bacchus had said against her.

And I should have seen still other of them that are gone before, whom I would fain have seen - Theseus and Peirithoos glorious children of the gods, but so many thousands of ghosts came round me and uttered such appalling cries, that I was panic stricken lest Persephone should send up from the house of Hades the head of that awful monster Gorgon.

” King Theseus himself in Euripides speaks in very different terms of the Athenian Republic;

His courage Theseus displayed in these perilous exploits which he hazarded alone;

The fairest praise that I can award to Theseus is this—that he, a contemporary of Heracles,won a fame which rivalled his.

For surely we shall never have a more trustworthy witness or more competent judge of Helen’s good attributes than the opinion of Theseus.

This it is easy to learn from the labors of Heracles and the exploits of Theseus, whose excellence of character has impressed upon their exploits so clear a stamp of glory that not even endless time can cast oblivion upon their achievements.