LP0009 - The Labors of Theseus - Plutarch's Life of Theseus -

Legendary Passages #0009 - The Labors of Theseus - Plutarch's Life of Theseus -

Last time we got an overview of the stories of Theseus from his journey from Troezen to Athens and eventually his quest to slay the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. This passage continues Plutarch's Life of Theseus, and is much more comprehensive, focusing on just his early adventures: Periphetes the club-bearer, Sinis the Pine-bender, Phaea and the Crommyonian Sow, the cliffs of Sciron, the wrestler Cercyon, and Damastes and the Procrustean Bed.

Here Plutarch fully reveals what happened at Athens. Theseus encounters the Phytalidae by the river Cephisus, who cleansed him of all his bloodshed.

When he gets to town, he hears that his father has married Medea, the same woman from the story of Jason and the Argonauts. She wants her son to be heir, so invites Theseus to dinner to poison him. Aegeus recognizes his old sword and prevents his son from drinking the poison.

After proclaiming Theseus to be his son and heir, the sons of Pallas revolt. They split their forces to attack from both sides, but a herald named Leos warns Theseus, who defeats them.

Theseus must then deal with the Marathonian Bull, whom Heracles brought to the mainland for his seventh labor. On his way to Marathon, an old woman named Hecale let him spend the night. She was going to perform a sacrifice for his safe return, but died beforehand. Sacrifices are performed in memory of her hospitality.

http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html

The Labors of Theseus,
a Legendary Passage,
from Plutarch's Life of Theseus,
translated by Bernadotte Perrin.

VIII. - XIV.

And so in the first place, in Epidauria, when Periphetes, who used a club as his weapon and on this account was called Club-bearer, laid hold of him and tried to stop his progress, he grappled with him and slew him.

And being pleased with the club, he took it and made it his weapon and continued to use it, just as Heracles did with the lion's skin. That hero wore the skin to prove how great a wild beast he had mastered, and so Theseus carried the club to show that although it had been vanquished by him, in his own hands it was invincible.

On the Isthmus, too, he slew Sinis the Pine-bender in the very manner in which many men had been destroyed by himself, and he did this without practice or even acquaintance with the monster's device, but showing that valor is superior to all device and practice.

Now Sinis had a very beautiful and stately daughter, named Perigune. This daughter took to flight when her father was killed, and Theseus went about in search of her. But she had gone off into a place which abounded greatly in shrubs and rushes and wild asparagus, and with exceeding innocence and childish simplicity was supplicating these plants, as if they understood her, and vowing that if they would hide and save her, she would never trample them down nor burn them.

When, however, Theseus called upon her and gave her a pledge that he would treat her honorably and do her no wrong, she came forth, and after consorting with Theseus, bore him Melanippus, and afterwards lived with Deioneus, son of Eurytus the Oechalian, to whom Theseus gave her. From Melanippus the son of Theseus, Ioxus was born, who took part with Ornytus in leading a colony into Caria whence it is ancestral usage with the Ioxids, men and women, not to burn either the asparagus-thorn or the rush, but to revere and honor them.

Now the Crommyonian sow, which they called Phaea, was no insignificant creature, but fierce and hard to master. This sow he went out of his way to encounter and slay, that he might not be thought to perform all his exploits under compulsion, and at the same time because he thought that while the brave man ought to attack villainous men only in self defence, he should seek occasion to risk his life in battle with the nobler beasts.

However, some say that Phaea was a female robber, a woman of murderous and unbridled spirit, who dwelt in Crommyon, was called Sow because of her life and manners, and was afterwards slain by Theseus.

He also slew Sciron on the borders of Megara, by hurling him down the cliffs. Sciron robbed the passers by, according to the prevalent tradition; but as some say, he would insolently and wantonly thrust out his feet to strangers and bid them wash them, and then, while they were washing them, kick them off into the sea.

Megarian writers, however, taking issue with current report, and, as Simonides expresses it, “waging war with antiquity,” say that Sciron was neither a violent man nor a robber, but a chastiser of robbers, and a kinsman and friend of good and just men. For Aeacus, they say, is regarded as the most righteous of Hellenes, and Cychreus the Salaminian has divine honors at Athens, and the virtues of Peleus and Telamon are known to all men.  Well, then, Sciron was a son-in-law of Cychreus, father-in-law of Aeacus, and grandfather of Peleus and Telamon, who were the sons of Endeis, daughter of Sciron and Chariclo. It is not likely, then, they say, that the best of men made family alliances with the basest, receiving and giving the greatest and most valuable pledges. It was not, they say, when Theseus first journeyed to Athens, but afterwards, that he captured Eleusis from the Megarians, having circumvented Diocles its ruler, and slew Sciron. Such, then, are the contradictions in which these matters are involved.

In Eleusis, moreover, he out-wrestled Cercyon the Arcadian and killed him and going on a little farther, at Erineus, he killed Damastes, surnamed Procrustes, by compelling him to make his own body fit his bed, as he had been wont to do with those of strangers.

And he did this in imitation of Heracles. For that hero punished those who offered him violence in the manner in which they had plotted to serve him, and therefore sacrificed Busiris, wrestled Antaeus to death, slew Cycnus in single combat, and killed Termerus by dashing in his skull.  It is from him, indeed, as they say, that the name “Termerian mischief” comes, for Termerus, as it would seem, used to kill those who encountered him by dashing his head against theirs.

Thus Theseus also went on his way chastising the wicked, who were visited with the same violence from him which they were visiting upon others, and suffered justice after the manner of their own injustice.

As he went forward on his journey and came to the river Cephisus, he was met by men of the race of the Phytalidae, who greeted him first, and when he asked to be purified from bloodshed, cleansed him with the customary rites, made propitiatory sacrifices, and feasted him at their house. This was the first kindness which he met with on his journey.

It was, then, on the eighth day of the month Cronius, now called Hecatombaeon, that he is said to have arrived at Athens. And when he entered the city, he found public affairs full of confusion and dissension, and the private affairs of Aegeus and his household in a distressing condition.

For Medea, who had fled thither from Corinth, and promised by her sorceries to relieve Aegeus of his childlessness, was living with him. She learned about Theseus in advance, and since Aegeus was ignorant of him, and was well on in years and afraid of everything because of the faction in the city, she persuaded him to entertain Theseus as a stranger guest, and take him off by poison.

Theseus, accordingly, on coming to the banquet, thought best not to tell in advance who he was, but wishing to give his father a clue to the discovery, when the meats were served, he drew his sword, as if minded to carve with this, and brought it to the notice of his father.  Aegeus speedily perceived it, dashed down the proffered cup of poison, and after questioning his son, embraced him, and formally recognized him before an assembly of the citizens, who received him gladly because of his manly valor.

And it is said that as the cup fell, the poison was spilled where now is the enclosure in the Delphinium, for that is where the house of Aegeus stood, and the Hermes to the east of the sanctuary is called the Hermes at Aegeus's gate.

Now the sons of Pallas had before this themselves hoped to gain possession of the kingdom when Aegeus died childless. But when Theseus was declared successor to the throne, exasperated that Aegeus should be king although he was only an adopted son of Pandion and in no way related to the family of Erechtheus, and again that Theseus should be prospective king although he was an immigrant and a stranger, they went to war.

And dividing themselves into two bands, one of these marched openly against the city from Sphettus with their father; the other hid themselves at Gargettus and lay in ambush there, intending to attack their enemies from two sides. But there was a herald with them, a man of Agnus, by name Leos. This man reported to Theseus the designs of the Pallantidae.  Theseus then fell suddenly upon the party lying in ambush, and slew them all. Thereupon the party with Pallas dispersed. This is the reason, they say, why the township of Pallene has no intermarriage with the township of Agnus, and why it will not even allow heralds to make their customary proclamation there of “Akouete leo!” (Hear, ye people!) For they hate the word on account of the treachery of the man Leos.

But Theseus, desiring to be at work, and at the same time courting the favour of the people, went out against the Marathonian bull, which was doing no small mischief to the inhabitants of the Tetrapolis. After he had mastered it, he made a display of driving it alive through the city, and then sacrificed it to the Delphinian Apollo.

Now the story of Hecale and her receiving and entertaining Theseus on this expedition seems not to be devoid of all truth. For the people of the townships round about used to assemble and sacrifice the Hecalesia to Zeus Hecalus, and they paid honors to Hecale, calling her by the diminutive name of Hecaline, because she too, when entertaining Theseus, in spite of the fact that he was quite a youth, caressed him as elderly people do, and called him affectionately by such diminutive names.  And since she vowed, when the hero was going to his battle with the bull, that she would sacrifice to Zeus if he came back safe, but died before his return, she obtained the above mentioned honors as a return for her hospitality at the command of Theseus, as Philochorus has written.

http://www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html