Source Verification: Theseus
Every claim below is either what a named ancient source attests, in its own line or section, or a point where the sources themselves disagree.
What the Sources Attest
Was Theseus the son of Aegeus or of Poseidon?
Sources disagree, and some hold both accounts at once. Aegeus lay with Theseus's mother Aethra the same night Poseidon did, in the version Apollodorus records, which lets Theseus be raised as Aegeus's heir while still carrying divine parentage that explains his exceptional strength and the sea's frequent aid to him.
Source: Apollodorus, Library, Epitome 1.7-1.9
How did Ariadne help Theseus escape the Labyrinth?
She gave him a ball of thread before he entered, which he unwound as he went and followed back out after killing the Minotaur. Plutarch attributes the idea to the engineer Daedalus, who had built the Labyrinth for Minos and told Ariadne how to solve it, making the escape a matter of engineering knowledge rather than luck.
Source: Plutarch, Life of Theseus 19
Why did Theseus abandon Ariadne on Naxos?
Plutarch admits the sources disagree and lists several explanations current in his own day: that Theseus had fallen for another woman, that Ariadne was pregnant and left behind for practical reasons, or that the god Dionysus appeared and claimed her, leaving Theseus no real choice but to sail on without her.
Source: Plutarch, Life of Theseus 20
Why did Aegeus kill himself when Theseus returned from Crete?
Theseus had agreed to swap his ship's black sail for a white one if he survived the Minotaur, but forgot to do so on the return voyage. Seeing the black sail from a cliff and assuming his son was dead, Aegeus threw himself into the sea, which was afterward named the Aegean in his memory.
Source: Plutarch, Life of Theseus 22
What did Theseus do for Athens besides kill the Minotaur?
Later writers credit him with the synoikismos, uniting the independent villages of Attica into a single Athenian state with one government, and with founding or reorganizing the Panathenaic festival. Plutarch treats these political achievements as at least as important to Theseus's status as his monster-slaying, which is why Athenians ranked him alongside Heracles rather than beneath him.
Source: Plutarch, Life of Theseus 24-25
Where Accounts Differ
- parentage variant
- why Ariadne was left on Naxos
- Parentage variant: some sources name Poseidon rather than Aegeus as Theseus's father; Apollodorus holds both by having Aethra sleep with each on the same night.
- Plutarch himself records at least three competing explanations for why Theseus left Ariadne on Naxos and does not choose between them.
Sources
- Plutarch, Life of Theseus 19
- Plutarch, Life of Theseus 20
- Plutarch, Life of Theseus 22
- Plutarch, Life of Theseus 24-25
- Apollodorus, Library, Epitome 1.7-1.9
- Ovid, Metamorphoses
- Henry J. Walker, Theseus and Athens (1995)
- Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth (1993)