Epitome
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Third, he slew at Crommyon the sow that was called Phaea after the old woman who bred it;
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that sow, some say, was the offspring of Echidna and Typhon.
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Fourth, he slew Sciron, the Corinthian, son of Pelops, or, as some say, of Poseidon. He in the Megarian territory held the rocks called after him Scironian, and compelled passers-by to wash his feet, and in the act of washing he kicked them into the deep to be the prey of a huge turtle.
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But Theseus seized him by the feet and threw him into the sea.
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Fifth, in
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Eleusis
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he slew Cercyon, son of Branchus and a nymph Argiope. This Cercyon compelled passers-by to wrestle, and in wrestling killed them. But Theseus lifted him up on high and dashed him to the ground.
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Sixth, he slew Damastes, whom some call Polypemon.
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He had his dwelling beside the road, and made up two beds, one small and the other big; and offering hospitality to the passers-by, he laid the short men on the big bed and hammered them, to make them fit the bed; but the tall men he laid on the little bed and sawed off the portions of the body that projected beyond it.
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So, having cleared the road, Theseus came to
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Athens
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.
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But Medea, being then wedded to Aegeus, plotted against him
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and persuaded Aegeus to beware of him as a traitor. And Aegeus, not knowing his own son, was afraid and sent him against the Marathonian bull.
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And when Theseus had killed it, Aegeus presented to him a poison which he had received the selfsame day from Medea. But just as the draught was about to be administered to him, he gave his father the sword, and on recognizing it Aegeus dashed the cup from his hands.
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And when
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Theseus was thus made known to his father and informed of the plot, he expelled Medea.
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And he was numbered among those who were to be sent as the third tribute to the Minotaur; or, as some affirm, he offered himself voluntarily.
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And as the ship had a black sail, Aegeus charged his son, if he returned alive, to spread white sails on the ship.
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And when he came to Crete, Ariadne, daughter of Minos, being amorously disposed to him, offered to help him if he would agree to carry her away to Athens and have her to wife. Theseus having agreed on oath to do so, she besought Daedalus to disclose the way out of the labyrinth.
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And at his suggestion she gave Theseus a clue when he went in; Theseus fastened it to the door, and, drawing it after him, entered in.
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And having found
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the Minotaur in the last part of the labyrinth, he killed him by smiting him with his fists; and drawing the clue after him made his way out again. And by night he arrived with Ariadne and the children
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at
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Naxos
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. There Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off;
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and having brought her to
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Lemnos
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he enjoyed her, and begat Thoas, Staphylus, Oenopion, and Peparethus.
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In his grief on account of Ariadne, Theseus forgot to spread white sails on his ship when he stood for port; and Aegeus, seeing from the acropolis the ship with a black sail, supposed that Theseus had perished; so he cast himself down and died.
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But Theseus
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succeeded to the sovereignty of
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Athens
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, and killed the sons of Pallas, fifty in number;
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likewise all who would oppose him were killed by him, and he got the whole government to himself.
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On being apprized of the flight of Theseus and his company, Minos shut up the guilty Daedalus in the labyrinth, along with his son Icarus, who had been borne to Daedalus by Naucrate, a female slave of Minos. But Daedalus constructed wings for himself and his son, and enjoined his son, when he took to flight, neither to fly high, lest the glue should melt in the sun and the wings should drop off, nor to fly near the sea, lest the pinions should be detached by the damp.
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But the infatuated Icarus, disregarding his father's injunctions, soared ever higher, till, the glue melting, he fell into the sea called after him Icarian, and perished.
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But Daedalus made his way safely to
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Camicus in
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Sicily
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.
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And Minos pursued Daedalus, and in every country that he searched he carried a spiral shell and promised to give a great reward to him who should pass a thread through the shell, believing that by that means he should discover Daedalus. And having come to Camicus in Sicily, to the court of Cocalus, with whom Daedalus was concealed, he showed the spiral shell. Cocalus took it, and promised to thread it, and gave it to Daedalus;
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and Daedalus fastened a thread to an ant, and, having bored a hole in the spiral shell, allowed the ant to pass through it. But when Minos found the thread passed through the shell, he perceived that Daedalus was with Cocalus, and at once demanded his surrender.
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Cocalus promised to surrender him, and made an entertainment for
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Minos; but after his bath Minos was undone by the daughters of Cocalus; some say, however, that he died through being drenched with boiling water.
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Theseus joined Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons and carried off Antiope, or, as some say, Melanippe; but Simonides calls her Hippolyte.
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Wherefore the Amazons marched against
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Athens
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, and having taken up a position about the Areopagus
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they were vanquished by the Athenians under Theseus. And though he had a son Hippolytus by the Amazon,
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Theseus afterwards received from Deucalion
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in marriage Phaedra, daughter of Minos; and when her marriage was being celebrated, the Amazon that had before been married to him appeared in arms with her Amazons, and threatened to kill the assembled guests. But they hastily closed the doors and killed her. However, some say that she was slain in battle by Theseus.
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And Phaedra, after she had borne two children, Acamas and Demophon, to Theseus, fell in love with the son he had by the Amazon, to wit, Hippolytus, and besought him to lie with her. Howbeit, he fled from her embraces, because he hated all women. But Phaedra, fearing that he might accuse her to his father, cleft open the doors of her bed-chamber, rent her garments, and falsely charged Hippolytus with an assault.
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Theseus believed her and prayed to Poseidon that Hippolytus might perish. So, when Hippolytus was riding in his chariot and driving beside the sea, Poseidon sent up a bull from the surf, and the horses were frightened, the chariot
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dashed in pieces, and Hippolytus, entangled in the reins, was dragged to death. And when her passion was made public, Phaedra hanged herself.
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Ixion fell in love with Hera and attempted to force her; and when Hera reported it, Zeus, wishing to know if the thing were so, made a cloud in the likeness of Hera and laid it beside him; and when Ixion boasted that he had enjoyed the favours of Hera, Zeus bound him to a wheel, on which he is whirled by winds through the air; such is the penalty he pays. And the cloud, impregnated by Ixion, gave birth to Centaurus.
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And Theseus allied himself with Pirithous,This passage concerning the fight of Theseus with the centaurs at the marriage of Pirithous does not occur in our text of Apollodorus, but is conjecturally restored to it from Zenobius, Cent. v.33, or rather from his interpolator, who frequently quotes passages of Apollodorus without acknowledgment. The restoration was first proposed by Professor C. Robert before the discovery of the Epitome; and it is adopted by R. Wagner in his edition of Apollodorus. See C. Robert, De Apollodori Bibliotheca, pp. 49ff.; R. Wagner, Epitoma Vaticana ex Apollodori Bibliotheca, p. 147. As Pirithous was a son of Ixion (see above, Apollod. 1.8.2), the account of his marriage would follow naturally after the recital of his father's crime and punishment. As to the wedding of Pirithous, see further Diod. 4.70.3; Plut. Thes. 30; Paus. 5.10.8; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xxi.295; Hyginus, Fab. 33; Ov. Met. 12.210-535; Serv. Verg. A. 7.304; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 51, 111 (First Vatican Mythographer 162; Second Vatican Mythographer 108). The wife of Pirithous is called Deidamia by Plutarch, but Hippodamia by Diodorus Siculus, Hyginus, and the Second Vatican Mythographer, as well as by Hom. Il. 2.742. Ovid calls her Hippodame. The scene of the battle of the Lapiths with the centaurs at the wedding of Pirithous was sculptured in the western gable of the temple of Zeus at Olympia; all the sculptures were discovered, in a more or less fragmentary state, by the Germans in their excavations of the sanctuary, and they are now exhibited in the museum at Olympia. See Paus. 5.10.8, with my commentary ( Frazer, Paus. vol. iii. pp. 516ff.). when he engaged in war against the centaurs. For when Pirithous wooed Hippodamia, he feasted the centaurs because they were her kinsmen. But being unaccustomed to wine, they made themselves drunk by swilling it greedily, and when the bride was brought in, they attempted to violate her. But Pirithous, fully armed, with Theseus, joined battle with them, and Theseus killed many of them.
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Zenobius, Cent. v. 33.
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Caeneus was formerly a woman, but after that Poseidon had intercourse with her, she asked to become an invulnerable man; wherefore in the battle with the centaurs he thought scorn of wounds and killed many of the centaurs; but the rest of them surrounded him and by striking him with fir trees buried him in the earth.
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Having made a compact with Pirithous that they would marry daughters of Zeus, Theseus, with the help of Pirithous, carried off Helen from
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Sparta
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for himself, when she was twelve years old,
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and in the endeavor to win Persephone as a bride for Pirithous he went down to Hades. And the Dioscuri, with the Lacedaemonians and Arcadians, captured
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Athens
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and carried away Helen, and with her Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, into captivity;
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but Demophon and Acamas fled. And the Dioscuri also brought back Menestheus from exile, and gave him the sovereignty of
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Athens
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.
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But when Theseus arrived with Pirithous in Hades, he was beguiled; for, on the pretence that they were about to partake of good cheer, Hades bade them first be seated on the Chair of Forgetfulness, to which they grew and were held fast by coils of serpents. Pirithous, therefore, remained bound for ever, but Hercules brought Theseus up and sent him to
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Athens
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.
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Thence he was driven by
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Menestheus and went to Lycomedes, who threw him down an abyss and killed him.
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