The Greek Myths, Page 44

  h. This Leos must be distinguished from the other Leos, Orpheus’s son, and ancestor of the Athenian Leontids. Once, in a time of famine and plague, Leos obeyed the Delphic Oracle by sacrificing his daughters Theope, Praxithea, and Eubule to save the city. The Athenians set up the Leocorium in their honour.7

  1. Pausanias: i. 37. 3 and 19. 1; Plutarch: Theseus 12.

  2. Euripides: Medea 660 ff.; Apollodorus: i. 9. 28.

  3. Plutarch: Theseus 12; Apollodorus: Epitome i. 6; Ovid: Metamorphoses vii. 402 ff.

  4. Plutarch: loc. cit.; Ovid: loc. cit.

  5. Ovid: loc. cit.; Apollodorus: loc. cit.; Diodorus Siculus: iv. 55. 6; Hellanicus, quoted by Pausanias: ii. 3. 7.

  6. Plutarch: Theseus 13.

  7. Pausanias: i. 5. 2; Suidas sub Leos; Aristides: Panathenian Oration; Jerome: AgainstJovinianus p. 185, ed. Mart; Suidas sub Leocorium; Aelian: Varia Historia xii. 28.

  1. This artificial romance with its theatrical dénouement in the poisoning scene recalls that of Ion (see 44. a); and the incident of the ox tossed into the air seems merely a crude imitation of Heracles’s feats. The masons’ question is anachronistic, because in the heroic age young women went about unescorted; neither could Theseus have been mistaken for a girl if he had already dedicated his hair to Apollo and become one of the Curetes. Yet the story’s weaknesses suggest that it has been deduced from an ancient icon which, since the men on the temple roof were recognizably masons, will have shown a sacrifice performed on the day when the temple was completed (see 84. 1). It is likely that the figure, taken for Theseus, who unyokes the sacrificial white ox from a cart, is a priestess; and that, because of its dolphin decorations, the temple has been misread as Apollo’s, though the dolphin was originally an emblem of the Moon-goddess. The beast has not been tossed into the air. It is the deity in whose honour the sacrifice is being offered: either a white moon-cow, the goddess herself, or the white bull of Poseidon (see 88. c), who shared a shrine on the Acropolis with Athene and to whom, as Sea-god, dolphins were sacred; Apollo’s priests, Plutarch not the least, were always zealous to enhance his power and authority at the expense of other deities. A companion icon, from which the story of the poisoned cup will have been deduced – aconite was a well-known paralysant – probably showed a priest or priestess pouring a libation to the ghosts of the men sacrificed when the foundations were laid, while Persephone and Cerberus stand by. Plutarch describes Aegeus as living in the Dolphin Temple rather than a private house; and this is correct since, as sacred king, he had apartments in the Queen’s palace (see 25. 7).

  2. Medea’s expulsion first from Corinth, and then from Athens, refers to the Hellenic suppression of the Earth-goddess’s cult – her serpent chariot shows her to be a Corinthian Demeter (see 24. m). Theseus’s defeat of the Pallantids similarly refers to the suppression of the original Athene cult (see 9. 1 and 16.3), with its college of fifty priestesses – pallas can mean either ‘youth’ or ‘maiden’. Still another version of the same story is the sacrifice of Leos’s three daughters, who are really the goddess in triad. The Maiden is Theope (‘divine face’), the New Moon; the Nymph is Praxithea (‘active goddess’), the Queen-bee. Cecrops’s mother bore the same name in Euboea (Apollodorus: iii. 15. 1 and 5); the Crone is Eubule (‘good counsel’), the oracular goddess, whom Eubuleus the swineherd served at Eleusis.

  3. That Pallantids and Agnians refrained from inter-marriage may have been a relic of exogamy, with its complex system of group-marriage between phratries, each phratry or sub-phratry consisting of several totem clans: if so, Pallantids and Agnians will have belonged to the same sub-phratry, marriage being permitted only between members of different ones (see 80. 5). The Pallantid clan probably had a goat for its totem, as the Agnians had a lamb, the Leontids a lion, and the Erechtheids a serpent. Many other totem clans are hinted at in Attic mythology: among them, crow, nightingale, hoopoe, wolf, bear, and owl.

  4. To judge from the Theseus and Heracles myths, both Athene’s chief priestess at Athens, and Hera’s at Argos, belonged to a lion clan, into which they adopted sacred kings; and a gold ring found at Tiryns shows four lion-men offering libation vessels to a seated goddess, who must be Hera, since a cuckoo perches behind her throne (see 12. 4). Despite the absence of lions in Crete, they figured there too as the Goddess’s beasts. Athene was not associated with the cuckoo but had several other bird epiphanies, which may be totemistic by origin. In Homer she appears as a sea-eagle (Odyssey iii. 371) and a swallow (ibid. xxii. 239); in company with Apollo, as a vulture (Iliad vii. 58); and in company with Hera, as a dove (ibid v. 778). In a small Athenian vase of 500 B.C. she is shown as a lark; and Athene the diver-bird, or gannet, had a shrine near Megara (Pausanias: i. 5. 3. and 41. 6 – see 94. c). But the wise owl was her principal epiphany. The owl clan preserved their ritual until late Classical times: initiates in owl-disguise would perform a ceremony of catching their totem bird (Aelian: Varia Historia xv. 28; Pollux: iv. 103; Athenaeus: 391a–b and 629f).

  5. Plutarch’s story of Akouete leoi is plausible enough: it often happened in primitive religions that words were banned because they sounded like the name of a person, object, or animal, which could not be safely mentioned; especially words suggesting the names of dead kinsmen, even if they had come to a natural end.

  6. The Pallantids’ denial that Aegeus and Theseus were true Erechtheids may reflect a sixth-century protest at Athens against the usurpation of the immigrant Butadae (who refurbished the Theseus legend) of the native Erechtheid priesthood (see 95. 3).

  98

  THESEUS IN CRETE

  IT is a matter of dispute whether Medea persuaded Aegeus to send Theseus against Poseidon’s ferocious white bull, or whether it was after her expulsion from Athens that he undertook the destruction of this fire-breathing monster, hoping thereby to ingratiate himself further with the Athenians. Brought by Heracles from Crete, let loose on the plain of Argos, and driven thence across the Isthmus to Marathon, the bull had killed men by the hundred between the cities of Probalinthus and Tricorynthus, including (some say) Minos’s son Androgeus. Yet Theseus boldly seized those murderous horns and dragged the bull in triumph through the streets of Athens, and up the steep slope of the Acropolis, where he sacrificed it to Athene, or to Apollo.1

  b. As he approached Marathon, Theseus had been hospitably entertained by a needy old spinster named Hecale, or Hecalene, who vowed a ram to Zeus if he came back safely. But she died before his return, and he instituted the Hecalesian Rites, to honour her and Zeus Hecaleius, which are still performed today. Because Theseus was no more than a boy at this time, Hecale had caressed him with childish endearments, and is therefore commonly called by the diminutive Hecalene, rather than Hecale.2

  c. In requital for the death of Androgeus, Minos gave orders that the Athenians should send seven youths and seven maidens every ninth year – namely at the close of every Great Year – to the Cretan Labyrinth, where the Minotaur waited to devour them. This Minotaur, whose name was Asterius, or Asterion, was the bull-headed monster which Pasiphaë had borne to the white bull.3 Soon after Theseus’s arrival at Athens the tribute fell due for the third time, and he so deeply pitied those parents whose children were liable to be chosen by lot, that he offered himself as one of the victims, despite Aegeus’s earnest attempts at dissuasion. But some say that the lot had fallen on him. According to others, King Minos came in person with a large fleet to choose the victims; his eye lighted on Theseus who, though a native of Troezen, not Athens, volunteered to come on the understanding that if he conquered the Minotaur with his bare hands the tribute would be remitted.4

  d. On the two previous occasions, the ship which conveyed the fourteen victims had carried black sails, but Theseus was confident that the gods were on his side, and Aegeus therefore gave him a white sail to hoist on return, in signal of success; though some say that it was a red sail, dyed in juice of the kerm-oak berry.5

  e. When the lots had been cast at the Law Courts, Theseus led his companions to
the Dolphin Temple where, on their behalf, he offered Apollo a branch of consecrated olive, bound with white wool. The fourteen mothers brought provisions for the voyage, and told their children fables and heroic tales to hearten them. Theseus, however, replaced two of the maiden victims with a pair of effeminate youths, possessed of unusual courage and presence of mind. These he commanded to take warm baths, avoid the rays of the sun, perfume their hair and bodies with unguent oils, and practise how to talk, gesture, and walk like women. He was thus able to deceive Minos by passing them off as maidens.6

  f. Phaeax, the ancestor of the Phaeacians, among whom Odysseus fell, stood as pilot at the prow of the thirty-oared ship in which they sailed, because no Athenian as yet knew anything about navigation. Some say that the helmsman was Phereclus; but those who name him Nausitheus are likely to be right, since Theseus on his return raised monuments to Nausitheus and Phaeax at Phalerum, the port of departure; and the local Pilots’ Festival is held in their joint honour.7

  g. The Delphic Oracle had advised Theseus to take Aphrodite for his guide and companion on the voyage. He therefore sacrificed to her on the strand; and lo! the victim, a she-goat, became a he-goat in its death-throes. This prodigy won Aphrodite her title of Epitragia.8

  h. Theseus sailed on the sixth day of Munychion [April]. Every year on this date the Athenians still send virgins to the Dolphin Temple in propitiation of Apollo, because Theseus had omitted to do so before taking his leave. The god’s displeasure was shown in a storm, which forced him to take shelter at Delphi and there offer belated sacrifices.9

  i. When the ship reached Crete some days afterwards, Minos rode down to the harbour to count the victims. Falling in love with one of the Athenian maidens – whether it was Periboea (who became the mother of Ajax) or Eriboea, or Phereboea, is not agreed, for these three bore confusingly similar names – he would have ravished her then and there, had Theseus not protested that it was his duty as Poseidon’s son to defend virgins against outrage by tyrants. Minos, laughing lewdly, replied that Poseidon had never been known to show delicate respect for any virgins who took his fancy.10

  ‘Ha!’ he cried, ‘prove yourself a son of Poseidon, by retrieving this bauble for me!’ So saying, he flung his golden signet ring into the sea.

  ‘First prove that you are a son of Zeus!’ retorted Theseus.

  j. This Minos did. His prayer: ‘Father Zeus, hear me!’ was at once answered by lightning and a clap of thunder. Without more ado, Theseus dived into the sea, where a large school of dolphins escorted him honourably down to the palace of the Nereids. Some say that Thetis the Nereid then gave him the jewelled crown, her wedding gift from Aphrodite, which Ariadne afterwards wore; others, that Amphitrite the Sea-goddess did so herself, and that she sent the Nereids swimming in every direction to find the golden ring. At all events, when Theseus emerged from the sea, he was carrying both the ring and the crown, as Micon has recorded in his painting on the third wall of Theseus’s sanctuary.11

  k. Aphrodite had indeed accompanied Theseus: for not only did both Periboea and Phereboea invite the chivalrous Theseus to their couches, and were not spurned, but Minos’s own daughter Ariadne fell in love with him at first sight. ‘I will help you to kill my half-brother, the Minotaur,’ she secretly promised him, ‘if I may return to Athens with you as your wife.’ This offer Theseus gladly accepted, and swore to marry her. Now, before Daedalus left Crete, he had given Ariadne a magic ball of thread, and instructed her how to enter and leave the Labyrinth. She must open the entrance door and tie the loose end of the thread to the lintel; the ball would then roll along, diminishing as it went and making, with devious turns and twists, for the innermost recess where the Minotaur was lodged. This ball Ariadne gave to Theseus, and instructed him to follow it until he reached the sleeping monster, whom he must seize by the hair and sacrifice to Poseidon. He could then find his way back by rolling up the thread into a ball again.12

  l. That same night Theseus did as he was told; but whether he killed the Minotaur with a sword given him by Ariadne, or with his bare hands, or with his celebrated club, is much disputed. A sculptured frieze at Amyclae shows the Minotaur bound and led in triumph by Theseus to Athens; but this is not the generally accepted story.13

  m. When Theseus emerged from the labyrinth, spotted with blood, Ariadne embraced him passionately, and guided the whole Athenian party to the harbour. For, in the meantime, the two effeminate-looking youths had killed the guards of the women’s quarters, and released the maiden victims. They all stole aboard their ship, where Nausitheus and Phaeax were expecting them, and rowed hastily away. But although Theseus had first stove in the hulls of several Cretan ships, to prevent pursuit, the alarm sounded and he was forced to fight a sea-battle in the harbour, before escaping, fortunately without loss, under cover of darkness.14

  n. Some days later, after disembarking on the island then named Dia, but now known as Naxos, Theseus left Ariadne asleep on the shore, and sailed away. Why he did so must remain a mystery. Some say that he deserted her in favour of a new mistress, Aegle, daughter of Panopeus; others that, while wind-bound on Dia, he reflected on the scandal which Ariadne’s arrival at Athens would cause.15 Others, again that Dionysus, appearing to Theseus in a dream, threateningly demanded Ariadne for himself, and that, when Theseus awoke to see Dionysus’s fleet bearing down on Dia, he weighed anchor in sudden terror; Dionysus having cast a spell which made him forget his promise to Ariadne and even her very existence.16

  o.Whatever the truth of the matter may be, Dionysus’s priests at Athens affirm that when Ariadne found herself alone on the deserted shore, she broke into bitter laments, remembering how she had trembled while Theseus set out to kill her monstrous half-brother; how she had offered silent vows for his success; and how, through love of him, she had deserted her parents and motherland. She now invoked the whole universe for vengeance, and Father Zeus nodded assent. Then, gently and sweetly, Dionysus with his merry train of satyrs and maenads came to Ariadne’s rescue. He married her without delay, setting Thetis’s crown upon her head, and she bore him many children.17 Of these only Thoas and Oenopion are sometimes called Theseus’s sons. The crown, which Dionysus later set among the stars as the Corona Borealis, was made by Hephaestus of fiery gold and red Indian gems, set in the shape of roses.18

  p. The Cretans, however, refuse to admit that the Minotaur ever existed, or that Theseus won Ariadne by clandestine means. They describe the Labyrinth as merely a well-guarded prison, where the Athenian youths and maidens were kept in readiness for Androgeus’s funeral games. Some were sacrificed at his tomb; others presented to the prizewinners as slaves. It happened that Minos’s cruel and arrogant general Taurus had carried all before him, year after year: winning every event in which he competed, much to the disgust of his rivals. He had also forfeited Minos’s confidence because he was rumoured to be carrying on an adulterous affair with Pasiphaë, connived at by Daedalus, and one of her twin sons bore a close resemblance to him. Minos, therefore, gladly granted Theseus’s request for the privilege of wrestling against Taurus. In ancient Crete, women as well as men attended the games, and Ariadne fell in love with Theseus when, three times in succession, she saw him toss the former champion over his head and pin his shoulders to the ground. The sight afforded Minos almost equal satisfaction: he awarded Theseus the prize, accepted him as his son-in-law, and remitted the cruel tribute.19

  q. A traditional Bottiaean song confirms this tradition that not all the victims were put to death. It records that the Cretans sent an offering of their first-born to Delphi, for the most part children of Cretanized Athenian slaves. The Delphians, however, could not support these on the resources of their small city, and therefore packed them off to found a colony at Iapygia in Italy. Later, they settled at Bottiaea in Thrace, and the nostalgic cry raised by the Bottiaean maidens: ‘O let us return to Athens!’, is a constant reminder of their origin.20

  r. An altogether different account is given by the Cypriots and others.
They say that Minos and Theseus agreed on oath that no ship – except the Argo, commanded by Jason, who had a commission to clear the sea of pirates – might sail in Greek waters with a crew larger than five. When Daedalus fled from Crete to Athens, Minos broke this pact by pursuing him with warships, and thus earned the anger of Poseidon, who had witnessed the oath, and now raised a storm which drove him to his death in Sicily. Minos’s son Deucalion, inheriting the quarrel, threatened that unless the Athenians surrendered Daedalus, he would put to death all the hostages given him by Theseus at the conclusion of the pact. Theseus replied that Daedalus was his blood-relation, and enquired mildly whether some compromise could not be reached. He exchanged several letters on the subject with Deucalion, but meanwhile secretly built warships: some at Thymoetidae, a port off the beaten track, and others at Troezen, where Pittheus had a naval yard about which the Cretans knew nothing. Within a month or two his flotilla set sail, guided by Daedalus and other fugitives from Crete; and the Cretans mistook the approaching ships for part of Minos’s lost fleet and gave them a resounding welcome. Theseus therefore seized the harbour without opposition, and made straight for Cnossus, where he cut down Deucalion’s guards, and killed Deucalion himself in an inner chamber of the palace. The Cretan throne then passed to Ariadne, with whom Theseus generously came to terms; she surrendered the Athenian hostages, and a treaty of perpetual friendship was concluded between the two nations, sealed by a union of the crowns – in effect, she married Theseus.21

  s. After long feasting they sailed together for Athens, but were driven to Cyprus by a storm. There Ariadne, already with child by Theseus, and fearing that she might miscarry from sea-sickness, asked to be put ashore at Amathus. This was done, but hardly had Theseus regained his ship when a violent wind forced the whole fleet out to sea again. The women of Amathus treated Ariadne kindly, comforting her with letters which, they pretended, had just arrived from Theseus, who was repairing his ship on the shores of a neighbouring island; and when she died in childbed, gave her a lavish funeral. Ariadne’s tomb is still shown at Amathus, in a grove sacred to her as Aridela. Theseus, on his eventual return from the Syrian coast, was deeply grieved to learn that she had died, and endowed her cult with a large sum of money. The Cypriots still celebrate Ariadne’s festival on the second day of September, when a youth lies down in her grove and imitates a travailing woman; and worship two small statues of her, one in silver, the other in brass, which Theseus left them. They say that Dionysus, so far from marrying Ariadne, was indignant that she and Theseus had profaned his Naxian grotto, and complained to Artemis, who killed her in childbed with merciless shafts; but some say that she hanged herself for fear of Artemis.22