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The Great Athenian Hero
 He
was the son of Athenian King, Aegeus.
 He spent his youth in his mother’s homeland
in southern Greece.
 Aegeus left for Greece before his son was
born.
 Aegeus
placed a sword and a pair of shoes in
a hollow and covered them with a large rock.
He told his wife that whenever the boy grew
strong enough to roll the stone away and get
the things, she could send him to Athens to
claim him as his father.
 A daughter would not have had this option.
 Theseus
was strong, and he wanted to
become a great hero like his cousin, Heracles
(Hercules).
 He
always avoided the “easy way,” and
refused to use his grandfather’s ship to seek
his father.
 He
had to travel a long road which was
plagued by bandits. He killed them all.
 His idea of justice was simple: what each had
done to others, Theseus did to them.
 Sciron
made those he captured kneel to wash
his feet then he kicked them into the sea.
Theseus hurled him off a precipice.
 Sinis
killed people by fastening them to two
pine trees bent to the ground then letting
the trees go.
 Theseus killed him the same way.
 Procrustes
placed victims on an iron bed,
tied them to it, then made them fit it by
either chopping off whatever made them too
long or stretching them to make them longer.
 By some method, Procrustes met his end at
Theseus’s hands.
 When
Theseus reached Athens he was invited
to a banquet by the King because Theseus
was an acknowledged hero.
 The king did not know Theseus was his son,
so he planned to poison him to eliminate
some competition. This was Medea’s idea.
 As
Medea handed the poisoned cup to
Theseus, he pulled out his sword, his father
recognized it, the king knocked the cup to
the ground, and Medea ran away to Asia.
(She already knew Theseus was the King’s son,
she just didn’t bother to tell the King.)
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Many years ago the son of the ruler of Crete,
King Minos, died while visiting the Athenian
King.
Prince Androgeus went on a dangerous
expedition to kill a dangerous bull.
Minos invaded Athens and required a tribute
of seven youths and seven maidens every
nine years. They were going to be Minotaur
snacks.
 The
Minotaur was half man and half bull. He
was the offspring of Minos’ wife Pasiphae and
a wonderfully handsome bull.
 Poseidon gave Minos a bull to sacrifice to
him, but Minos couldn’t bear to sacrifice it so
he kept it for himself.
 To
punish him for disobeying him, Poseidon
made Pasiphae fall madly in love with the
bull.
 Can you say, “YUCK!”
 When
the Minotaur was born, (again,
“YUCK!”) Minos did not kill him.
 King Minos had Daedalus, the great architect
and inventor, construct the Labyrinth. This is
where the tributes were sent every nine
years.
 Of
course, Theseus volunteered to be one of
the tributes.
 Everybody thought this was a brave thing to
do.
 Everybody
did not know Theseus intended to
kill the Minotaur.
 Theseus
promised his father that, upon his
return, he would hoist a white sail instead of
the black sail the tribute ship usually flew.
 His father looked for the white sail daily.
As soon as Theseus arrived in Crete, he and the
other young Athenians were marched into
the Labyrinth.
King Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, took one look
at Theseus and fell in LOVE.
She went to Daedalus and asked him to help
her get Theseus safely through the Labyrinth.
Daedalus
gave Ariadne a
ball of string.
 Why would he do this?
 Ariadne
went to Theseus and promised to
help him ecape if he would only promise to
take her to Athens and make her his wife.
 He
said, “Yes.”
 He
left her on the island of Naxos for some
reason.
 She was heartbroken. She did eventually find
love, though. She married Dionysus.
 Theseus
forgot to change the sail from black
to white. His father saw the black sail on
the horizon and threw himself off a cliff into
the sea.
 The
Aegean Sea is named in honor of Aegeus.
 He
decided he would prefer a people’s
government where all citizens are equal. He
turned Athens into a commonwealth, and all
villages in the territory became part of the
Athenian state.
 Theseus was the commander-in-chief.
 Athens prospered under his leadership.
 He
attacks the Amazons and marries their
queen.
 They
had a son named Hippolytus.
 Amazons
invaded Athens, but were
unsuccessful. No one else invaded as long as
Theseus lived.
 Son
of the Aegeus-King of Thebes
 Rock test
 Bandits and Minotaur
 Pasiphae/Crete
 Daedalus/Labyrinth
 Sails
 Amazon wife
 Ariadne