Episode 131B – Theseus and the Minotaur

Episode 131B Show Notes

Source: Greek Mythology

This week on MYTH, Theseus will finally face his most famous foe – the Minotaur. You’ll see why you should never trust your uncle, why you should be careful who you give your heart to, and why you should spend more time being a king and less being an adventurer. Then, in Gods and Monsters, Icarus and Daedalus will attempt a daring escape from the tallest tower of Crete. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 131B, “Theseus and the Minotaur”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
Last time, we met young Theseus as he set out for Athens to be reunited with his kingly dad, Aegeus. Along the way, he met and murdered six different deserving assholes (known as the Six Labors of Theseus), which is good even if he did so only to build himself a heroic reputation like his idol Heracles. Alas, our resident asshole Theseus also met and raped at least two different young women (who most decidedly did not deserve it). This mix of selfishly heroic deeds with selfishly terrible ones is going to be kind of a recurring thing. We pick up the tale just as young Theseus enters the great city of Athens, ruled over by a father he has never met. As before, we’ll be leaning heavily on Plutarch’s Life of Theseus for the tale.
You can say a lot of bad things about Theseus, but you can’t say he’s not cautious. This whole journey started with finding out that he had an uncle with 50 sons who all coveted the throne of Athens; they would all be perfectly willing to off some heretofore unknown secret cousin who came between them and power. Thus, Theseus didn’t just announce himself at the city gates and enter with some grand procession as would have been his noble right. Instead, he entered as just another traveler (albeit one who was developing a growing reputation as a bandit killer) and did some reconnaissance.
What he learned proved his caution wise. The city’s affairs were in complete confusion and disarray with the populace divided into numerous different parties and factions who all hated the shit out of each other. Despite their mutual animosity, they all pointed at the same single source for their current troubles – the sorceress Medea. We haven’t met Medea yet, but she plays a major role in the story of Jason and the Argonauts as well as the famous tragedy by Euripides (appropriately known by her name). I won’t get into her whole story (we’ll save that for when we finally cover the Quest for the Golden Fleece), but we’ll hit some of the highlights.
Medea was the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Her father was King Aeetes of Colchis and her mother was usually Idyia, niece of the enchantress goddess Circe who we met back in Episodes 72E and F. In almost every story, she is a powerful enchantress in her own right and usually a priestess of Hecate, goddess of magic. She had left her home for Corinth and then before much longer abandoned that for Athens.
Aegeus had still not had a male heir (to his knowledge, anyway) – indeed, he hadn’t had any other children at all and was pretty much convinced that he was sterile. Medea had heard of the king’s little problem (and his greedy brother’s hopes of putting his own line on the throne), so she had seen her in. The enchantress promised to use her mystical arts to cure the king’s sterility in exchange for a cushy job as his advisor as well as a home in the palace. The story doesn’t say whether she and the king got married or if they just cohabitated, but they were definitely living together (along with Medus, her son by the king). As you might guess from a powerful woman in a Greek myth, Medea was a wicked, treacherous woman and it was her evil machinations that had consumed Athens. It’s a super common trope for a strong, independent woman to be cast as a villain (though admittedly some of Medea’s actions prior to this point are legitimately horrifying). She might be an evil witch, but she does keep her promises – Aegeus did get a son.
Learning that his father was in the clutches of a wicked witch, Theseus doubled down on his plan of keeping his royal lineage a closely held secret. He told no one of his parentage and he hid the sandals and sword from his father. If the vile enchantress found out about him, things could go very bad very quickly. Of course, that whole ‘magic powers’ thing also makes it very difficult to keep secrets from Medea. She heard about the arrival of the local hero from the country and became mildly concerned about how he might shift the balance of power. She looked into it and, thanks to her occult divinations, she soon discovered that this Theseus was the long lost son and heir of King Aegeus. Medea had planned to put her own son Medus on the throne, so Theseus suddenly appearing on the playing field royally fucked up her plans (pun intended). Something needed to be done.
I mentioned earlier that Medea had been fomenting all kinds of discord and dissent in the city, and situations like this were exactly why. Using the king’s justified fear of the various political factions in the city that were very much actually plotting against him and his son, Medea poisoned Aegeus’ mind against this heroic stranger. She convinced him that she had used her prodigious magical arts to learn that he meant to take the throne for himself, which would surely mean the murder of the king and his beloved son (which is a clever lie built on a truth).
The order of the next two events varies from story to story. Plutarch actually has them laid out in the opposite order from what I’m about to use, but I think this version provides a more compelling narrative. In the end, it doesn’t really change things all that much.
So at that time, a dreadful bull was running around outside the city of Marathon (yes, the same city that the race is named after). It was, appropriately enough, known as the Marathonian Bull. Not the most creative name ever, but very direct and to the point. You and I have already met this bull, though it went by a different name: the Cretan Bull. That’s right, this is the very same snow-white bull that had so entranced Queen Pasiphae and sired the dreadful Minotaur. In some versions, this is actually part of the Heracles story instead. It’s also worth noting here (which I forgot to mention last time) that there are two different correct pronunciations of Asterion’s nickname – Mine-o-taur and Mi-nuh-taur. Since I’ve been using the more common pronunciation of King Minos throughout, I’ve gone with the former, but both are accepted. As I mentioned last time, the bull had been driven mad by Poseidon as further punishment for Minos (though this mostly seemed to make everyone else suffer). Given that Poseidon is also Theseus’s father, the sea god may have also been setting up what’s about to happen.
Medea figured she could kill two birds with one stone. Every would-be hero who had tried to end the menace of the Marathonian Bull had met a grisly end. The condition that the bull needed to be captured alive made the task all the more deadly. Theseus was already developing a reputation as a junior hero (according to the rules of Disney’s Hercules, anyway), so he would obviously be eager to take on this legendary creature. If the bull killed the usurper, then the king wouldn’t have to sully his hands ending this particular threat to his power and his son. In the unlikely event that Theseus actually captured the bull, they would be rid of a legitimate menace and could still take a more direct hand in ending the young hero’s life.
The king therefore summoned the young hero to court. Theseus had hidden the sword and sandals marking him as a prince so that he could scope out the situation without giving away his hand. As Medea had expected, the adventurer was all too eager to hunt down the epic boar, ridding the land of another threat and adding to his own legend in the process. Theseus set out immediately on his quest (hoping that his success would make it easier to convince Aegeus that he was indeed his trueborn son and a worthy heir).
He encountered no new robbers with unique torture methods on the road to Marathon, but he did get caught in a torrential downpour. He sought refuge from the fury of the storm in the humble home of an old woman named Hecale. The two talked while the rain fell and they developed something of a friendship. When the weather passed and Theseus was ready to head on to Marathon, Hecale swore that, if Theseus succeeded in capturing the Marathonian Bull, she would make a great sacrifice to Zeus in his honor. Thanking her for her hospitality and her very kind offer, Theseus walked on towards his destiny.
You’re probably expecting some epic tale of their legendary fight here, but no. All of the stories make it clear that capturing the great bull wasn’t much of a struggle for the mighty Theseus. Pretty much all of them simply say he succeeded and move on to more interesting things. He may be an asshole, but he’s exactly as talented a fighter as he thinks he is. Strutting a bit, Theseus returned to Athens along the same route he’d come by and stopped in to see his new friend Hecale. He wanted to tell her the good news and hold her to her offer of a sacrifice in his honor.
Only, when he opened the door to her home, he found the old woman’s corpse instead. She had died alone while he was out fighting. Mourning the death of his too-brief friend, he journeyed on to Athens but he didn’t forget her. Much later, one of the districts (known as demes) of Attica was renamed to Hecale in her honor. The Athenian suburb of Ekali, north of the city, still stands to this day and bears a version of her name.
Having secured the Marathonian Bull (formerly the Cretan Bull), it seemed only fit to hold a great feast in the returning hero’s honor. Theseus would have the honor of sacrificing the captured bull at the festival, though to Apollo rather than to Poseidon as Minos was supposed to. The sea god was much more heavily associated with the island nation of Crete than with the city-state he had lost naming rights for to Athena (a tale we covered back in Episode 26D). Of course, Medea wasn’t done trying to eliminate her political rival. She simply doubled down on poisoning the king’s mind against this hero, who was clearly not only motivated to take the throne but capable of the violence needed to achieve it. The hero must die.
Together, they plotted to use the announced banquet to their benefit. Theseus would be invited as the guest of honor for his heroics and would dine with the king himself. Medea would provide Aegeus with a cup of poisoned wine to offer to Theseus for a toast to his health and a deliciously ironic death. Not only would this be some poetic justice, it would also keep her hands relatively clean in the murder of an invited guest by his family, breaking the taboos of both guestright and filicide.
Theseus gladly accepted this invitation. He wasn’t certain that there were barbs hidden inside it but he was suspicious enough of Medea and her influence on his father to (correctly) suspect them. He knew that if he walked into the audience chamber and pronounced himself a long lost prince, he would be arrested as a would-be usurper without having a chance to explain himself to his father. No, he needed the king to come to that discovery all on his own. He spent the day scheming and by the time the banquet rolled around, he was ready.
They opened with the sacrifice of the monstrous bull and then they socialized while the food was prepared. Knowing that the cunning Medea wouldn’t give him much time before she made her move, Theseus made his first. As soon as dinner was served, he offered to carve the roast bull himself (the meat of the sacrifices often being eaten as part of the sacrificial banquets). While everyone was distracted, Medea handed the king the cup of poisoned wine, which was offered to the hero to toast as he carved the bull. Drawing his sword with the royal crest, Theseus stood and made a great show of cleaning it off and raising it in clear view of everyone to cut the meat for the feast. Aegeus couldn’t help but see his own royal symbol on the sword. His eyes flickered down to Theseus’ feet where he indeed saw his own sandals on the young man’s feet.
With a cry, Aegeus rushed to Theseus and dashed the cup from his hand before he could drink from it. He began to question the boy in earnest as everyone at the feast whispered in confusion and excitement. Theseus’ story lined up perfectly with the king’s memories of his long lost tryst and he embraced the younger man as his long lost son. He realized how the wicked Medea had twisted her words to suspect his own son (and to nearly murder him). She and Medus were promptly banished from Athens forever and fled to Asia. The place where the poisoned wine spilled on the ground is said to be in what became the Delphinion, a temple to Apollo Delphinios or Apollo of Delphi, which was built where Aegeus’ house once stood.
His 50 cousins, all sons of the king’s brother Pallas, were not happy about this development to say the least. They’d figured (perhaps naively) that Medea and her young son Medus would be easy to shove aside after the old king died. In Plutarch’s telling, Medus was adopted by Aegeus, making his claim to the throne extremely weak, especially since, again according to Plutarch, Aegeus was himself adopted by the old king Pandion II. They were extremely resentful that this bastard son of a maybe adopted king would rule instead of any of them, who had proper lineage and upbringing. Refusing to bend the knee to this hillbilly stranger, they instead declared open war against the new prince.
The sons of Pallas, the Pallentides, divided into two camps, one marching on Athens from Sphettus with their father and the other hiding in ambush in the village of Gargettus. The plan was to draw out Theseus and his loyalists, trapping them between two armies and crushing them from both sides at once. A messenger from the town of Agnus named Leos was serving with the usurpers until he decided that he didn’t much care for them. Sneaking out of their camp, he made his way secretly to Athens and revealed this whole plan to Theseus. Forewarned, the loyalist forces snuck out of the city at midnight and were able to encircle the would-be ambushers and massacre them. Hearing this grim news of the butchery of half their number, Pallas fled with his surviving sons. It is said that thereafter, the town of Pallene (where the survivors eventually settled) refused to marry or make alliances with anyone from Agnus. They even refused to let messengers use the proclamation of news used in all other parts of the world – Acouete Leoi or Hear ye people – because it sounded like the treacherous messenger Leos.
I mentioned before that the incident with the Marathonian bull is not always before the feast. In that version (told by Plutarch among others), that story goes here. Instead of being sent on a quest by the conniving Medea to try and kill him, Theseus just gets bored without any violence and decides to go play hero instead of taking an interest in learning the governing of his new city. The banquet that was thrown to poison Theseus was held in the wandering hero’s honor for ridding the city of six murderous thieves rather than for capturing the divine bull. Anyway.
We now need to back up just a bit and head over to Crete and our old friends King Minos and Queen Pasiphae from last episode. The couple had several children together, including the eldest Androgeus. He was a strong, dextrous young man so it only made sense for him to be the one to sail to Athens for the Panathenaic Games, a festival held every four years to honor Athena and her victory in her competition with Poseidon to name the great city. These games were extremely prestigious for the Athenians, but were less important to the wider populace than the Olympic Games or the other Panhellenic Games. All of them included many competitions for people all around Greece, including wrestling, discus, javelin, poetry, music, and performance of Homeric verse.
Being skilled in both physical and mental arts, Androgeus did very well, placing in many events and winning quite a few outright. The envious Pallantides (who were a force to be reckoned with before the arrival of Theseus many years after these games) didn’t like that a foreigner and devotee of Poseidon was winning their games. Thus, the scheming assholes decided to see to it that he stopped winning. You might expect that they’re about to start cheating, but it’s actually way, way worse. They instead decided to straight up murder Androgeus in a dark alley that night. The prince’s body was discovered the next day.
As soon as word reached Crete about the assassination of his son and heir, Minos gathered his fleet and sailed for Athens. At this time in history, the Cretian fleet was unmatched in size and destructive power. No other navy could hope to match these great warships, so when they surrounded Athens, everyone knew the city was fucked. Showing remarkable restraint, Minos demanded only that the vile assassins who had so brutally murdered his son be turned over to him for justice, which would be long and painful. Unfortunately, Aegeus either didn’t know who the assassins were or was unwilling to turn over all of his nephews to a rival king, so he was forced to wage war. It didn’t go well. Not only were the Athenians outnumbered and outfought, the gods themselves laid waste to the countryside. Famine and plague devastated the populace whenever they weren’t busy fighting for their lives. Consulting the oracle, the king learned that the gods would only relent if he surrendered to King Minos, who his people had wronged.
Minos had no interest in ruling over a large city so far from his own base of power. It wouldn’t be a sustainable situation. Instead, he turned the city back over to Aegeus with one very harsh stipulation. At the end of every Great Year, a cycle of seven solar years, the seven most courageous young men and the seven most beautiful young women were to board a ship for Crete as tribute. None who left on this grim voyage were ever seen again. In an alternate version, Minos had successfully invaded Athens for his own reasons, and the conquering invader had demanded this tribute every nine years. Either way, the outcome was essentially the same – every seven or nine years, 14 of the best youths of Athens were picked from many of the best families and sent off to some unnamed and unknown horror.
Theseus’ arrival coincided with the coming of the third of these dark tributes. In some versions, this has been going on for decades. Theseus couldn’t help but notice that the heady celebratory mood of the city following the return of its lost prince and the defeat of the attempted coup soon evaporated into a heavy, bitter depression. Asking around, the young prince soon learned of the awful bargain struck with Crete. By now, rumors had leaked out from the island of the terrifying half-man half-beast dwelling in the dark beneath the palace grounds. Stories said that an impossible Labyrinth had been built by one of the cleverest people in the world (as we covered last time), making it impossible for anyone to escape. People were calling the beast that lived in this maze the Minotaur, which contrary to common conception was not his name. Minotaur is just Greek for Bull of Minos. As we mentioned last time, the creature’s name was actually Asterion. No one knew exactly what this monster did to the 14 sacrificial youths, but rumor said it ate them, raw and screaming. Best case scenario, they wandered alone and scared in the dark until they starved to death or killed themselves.
Plutarch clarifies that the Cretans refused to acknowledge any truth to the stories of the Minotaur. They claimed that the Labyrinth was simply an ordinary if especially secure prison. Minos had apparently instituted his own games in memory of Androgeus. The captive Athenians were given as slaves to the winners of the various events, which is marginally better than a slow death. It didn’t help that one of the only victors we know of was a man named Taurus (hence the bull idea of the Minotaur) who was a cruel man and made the lives of his Athenian slaves a living hell. Aristotle claimed that some of the youths were traded as part of Crete’s offering to Delphi and moved on from there to Italy and Thrace, leaving their descendants scattered about.
As the time neared for the next round of youth sacrifices to be determined from amongst the rich and powerful families, discontent with King Aegeus grew. As the famine and plague faded into distant memory, it was easier and easier to forget just how dire things had been and blame the king for their current woes. To be fair, it was his family that got them into this shit (and it’s unclear whether the information had leaked out about the Pallantides being the assassins) and he was basically exempt from the ramifications of it. Even in the case where Medus is the king’s son, he’s too young to qualify for the death lottery. He was setting up his foreign-born bastard son as his heir, which yet again exempted the king from the punishment he had brought down upon everyone else’s heads. It was unfair!
Theseus was present for many of these conversations, so he was well aware of how the people were feeling about him. He was moved by the words of his adopted people (and more cynically, he knew that starting his reign with a resentful populace would be a bad, bad idea). Theseus therefore went to his father in front of everyone and volunteered to be one of the seven young men. Aegeus tried his damndest to talk his son (who he had only just found after not knowing he existed for many years) out of this foolhardy plan, but Theseus was nothing if not stubborn. He eventually wore his father down and forced him to agree to let the young hero go. The other version of this story says that, instead of drawing random lots for the victims, Minos himself came personally to pick his victims and insisted on Theseus as his first choice.
Either way, the course was set: the prince would be one of the fourteen. The stipulations of the Athenian surrender said that the youths would be given a ship to sail with their Cretian guard to their doom. They were to carry no weapons or other implements of death. The one caveat in their favor was that, if the Athenians could somehow beat the odds and defeat the Minotaur, the tribute would no longer be required. Being an aspiring hero, Theseus was bound and determined to be the one to pull off the impossible.
Pretty much everyone assumed that, just like the last two times, the youths who set sail for Crete would never return. Defeating a bloodthirsty monster with only your bare hands was an impossible task, even for a hero as accomplished as Theseus. As a mark of mourning for those who were about to die, the ships were always fitted with solid black sails. The young man refused to believe this task was impossible. “I can do this, pops. I’ll nip down to Crete, kill the beast, and come right back with everyone safe and sound. Send me with white sails as well as the usual black. If I pull this off, I’ll run the white sails up as a sign so you can know as soon as we cross the horizon.” Other versions say that the alternate sails were the scarlet of the blooming oak tree, but the end result was the same: non-black sails would be the sign of successful heroing.
Before he left, Theseus went to consult the oracle (as one does when something dangerous was in the offering). His advice was much clearer than his father’s had been – he needed to sacrifice a goat to Aphrodite before he left and ask her to be his guide and guardian on this journey. It was an unusual choice for such an adventure, but Theseus trusted the oracle. He brought a she-goat to her temple and, as he was in the process of sacrificing her, she suddenly transformed into a male goat. It was as clear a sign as he could hope for that the goddess was with him.
With the other sacrificial youths, Theseus was stripped of his weapons and herded onto the black ship as it sailed for Crete. He was the only one of the fourteen Athenians on the ship not convinced he was sailing to his certain doom. When they finally arrived on the island, they were led up to the palace for an audience with King Minos himself (this being the version where Minos hadn’t been in Athens to hand-select his victims). According to Philochorus (by way of Plutarch), Taurus – the cruel victor of many games and the deadliest of Minos’ captains – was expected to be the champion of this year’s Cretian games as well. This should have made him a hero but dark rumors were swirling that he had a close relationship with Queen Pasiphae. Too close. Minos wasn’t the only monarch to enjoy the occasional affair. The king was thus inclined to hear Theseus out when he challenged Taurus to combat. It seems far-fetched, but maybe Theseus goaded the arrogant Taurus into wanting to fight. The story doesn’t say.
Either way, the duel was duly set up. Most places, this would probably be single combat with swords or spears, but this was Crete with its unparalleled navy. The two fighters were each given ships to duke it out on the open waves. The mouth of the island’s largest port was closed off and made the field of battle. It was customary in Crete that women were allowed to watch the bloodsport right alongside the men. Thus, KIng Minos and Queen Pasiphae were both there along with some of their royal children, including a princess of about Theseus’ age named Ariadne.
The young princess was instantly smitten by the dashing, handsome young prince as he shouted orders on his small ship. Taurus had spent his entire career roaming the high seas as the deadliest captain of the most devastating navy the world had ever seen, but he was apparently no match for a young prince who had literally never commanded a ship in his life. To be fair, Theseus is a son of Poseidon, which probably gave him a much-needed edge on the waves. Also, he had courted the favor of Aphrodite, which is about to pay off in a big way.
Theseus trounced Taurus and emerged victorious. In one version, Minos is so taken by Theseus’ skill and bravery (and not-so-secretly thrilled that the asshole who’d been fucking his wife was fish food) that he freed the Athenian captives on the spot and ended the tribute requirement as well. In the more common version, Theseus either never challenges Taurus or he wins and is still consigned to the Labyrinth. Thanks to the meddling of Aphrodite however, Ariadne has fallen head over heels in love with the foreign prince.
That night, after everyone else had fallen asleep, Ariadne slipped out of the palace and down to the Labyrinth. This wasn’t terribly weird since her father had placed her in charge of the pit of despair where the human sacrifices to Poseidon and the Minotaur were made. The Athenian youths had been forced inside the unsolvable maze earlier that day, and most had wandered deeper inside; thirst and hunger had forced them to delve deeper into the terrible lair in search of sustenance or escape, but not our mythic hero. Theseus had hung back by the barred gate of the Labyrinth and was using this time to try and plan a way to defeat the dread Minotaur lurking somewhere inside these dark passages.
At Ariadne’s fervent whispers, Theseus met her at the barred gate. The secret to opening the Labyrinth’s entrance was not one the princess was privy to (or maybe the key was kept somewhere she couldn’t get to sneakily), so she wasn’t able to free her beloved prince. Theseus was just as taken with the beautiful princess as she was with him, especially since she had come to see him in his darkest hour and provide a bright light for the proverbial darkness. They whispered together there in the night, sharing words of love and promises of escaping the island together. Of course, that could only happen if Theseus survived his ordeal.
She might not have been able to procure the key, but Ariadne hadn’t come here empty handed. “Here, my beloved Theseus – I bring gifts. Take this bright sword to slay the dreadful monster that prowls these horrid corridors. And take also this skein of thread. Tie one end to the bars here at the entrance and play it out behind you as you walk. That way, once you have felled the beast, you can find your way back out to present a trophy from your victory and be released alive.” She handed over the sword and the ball of thread. As a fun little aside here, this is where we get the word ‘clue’ from. In the Middle Ages, such a ball of yarn was known as a clew – C L E W – and the poet Geoffery Chaucer (of Canterbury Tales fame) wrote a poem called The Legend of Good Women, which featured the story of Ariadne. Thanks to this poem, the phrase ‘clew of thread’ became commonly used to mean any guidance leading to the solution of a puzzle or problem. Eventually, the spelling changed slightly and the word clue as we know it today was born.
Thus armed and provided with a vital clue to this otherwise unsolvable maze, Theseus set out boldly into the unknown. In some versions, the other youths haven’t gone far and follow their braver (and better armed) leader. In others, Theseus wanders alone, the others lost to the windings of Daedalus’ cunning trap. As Ariadne had suggested (thanks to Aphrodite’s tugging on her heartstrings in support of her chosen champion), Theseus wound the clew of thread out behind him as they went. Naturally, the Minotaur had set up its lair at the very center of the maze. Being the wily genius that he was, Daedalus had constructed the Labyrinth such that a person’s natural wanderings would almost always send them into the center where the monster lurked. In some versions, Ariadne had shared a secret from Daedalus himself that the fastest way in was to always take the path that went forward and down, never turning left or right (though it would not be so simple to follow that path back thanks to the clever way it had been constructed).
In many versions, Theseus came upon the Minotaur as it lay sleeping, unaware that fresh prey had been delivered to it earlier that day. Living underground in the darkened depths probably made it hard to keep up with what time it was, let alone what day, month, or year. Being a survivor more than an honorable fighter, Theseus tiptoed up and attacked the sleeping beast. It didn’t go down that easily, however. The prince’s first strike served only to enrage the Minotaur, and it rose to its feet with an ear-shattering bellow. The battle was long and brutal with both sides drawing plenty of blood until Theseus finally managed to maneuver the beast into a wild charge, head lowered, to try and impale him on the Minotaur’s wicked horns.
As it raced towards him, Theseus executed a daring leap over the beast’s head, landing directly behind Asterion. It was a move taken directly from the Cretian tradition of bull-leaping, which was part of a religious ritual (I mentioned that the people of Crete, often known as the Minoans after the mythic king and father of the Minotaur). Frescoes have survived of people boldly leaping over the backs of running bulls. It is widely hypothesized that the leaper would grab the horns of the bull as he leapt, causing the bull to throw his head in a violent jerk that threw the athlete even higher to do acrobatic stunts. Theseus used this maneuver (which he may have witnessed on the island) to get behind the Minotaur and slit its throat with his sword. According to Pindar, Theseus had no sword and instead strangled the monster to death with his bare hands after his daring leap.
Asterion fell to his knees and then collapsed into a spreading pool of his own blood. Taking his sharp sword in hand, Theseus beheaded the dead beast as proof of his victory. In the version where he is unarmed, he instead uses a broken piece of Asterion’s own horns. Clutching his bloody trophy, the prince began painstakingly following the thread back out of the Labyrinth. Theseus and his fellow captives successfully returned to the entrance and an anxiously waiting Ariadne. Somehow, they were able to leave the maze behind. Maybe Ariadne summoned a guard to let them out since they had the Minotaur’s head as proof that the requirements of the tribute had been met? The stories are not clear. In some versions, Minos lets them leave since the young hero had won the day. In others, Theseus, Ariadne, and the other 13 youths fled for the port in a desperate bid for escape before word reached Minos that his captives had killed the Minotaur thanks to his own daughter’s aid. We’ll stick with the latter version since it fits more neatly with the rest of the story.
According to Phercydes (by way of Plutarch), we learn that on his way out, Theseus bored holes in the bottom of the Minoan ships to slow them down and make escape easier. In some versions, this is actually the point at which Theseus and Taurus have their naval battle (though it obviously couldn’t have been the thing that caused Ariadne to fall desperately in love with a man she had never spoken to in that case). In every version, Theseus, Ariadne, her younger sister Phaedra (who had joined the party at some unspecified point for reasons that are not explained) and the other Athenians make good on their escape from Crete and sail back towards Athens well ahead of any pursuit.
They sailed as far as they could that day before putting in for the night at the small island of Naxos (though Homer calls it Dia) in search of fresh water. There are, as usual, many versions of what exactly went down on that little island. The one from Hesiod, that is echoed in most other versions, is that Theseus was an asshat. Being a trained hero, the prince awoke with the sun the next morning. He went around quietly waking his other companions until he came last of all to Princess Ariadne. They had sworn eternal love for each other just yesterday and she had betrayed her father and her kingdom for that love, helping her country’s sworn enemies to escape. Perhaps Theseus’ heart belonged to another woman or, more likely, he was just an ungrateful jerk who had used and abused this poor woman for his own gain. Either way, he left Ariadne sleeping there on Naxos while everyone else boarded a ship and sailed away, leaving her stranded on an uninhabited island with no supplies. It was essentially a slow death sentence. In at least one version, Ariadne wakes up later to realize that her beloved Theseus had betrayed and abandoned her, takes the thread she had used to save him with, and hangs herself with it from the nearest tree.
Of course, the Athenians didn’t much like having their great cultural hero showing his whole ass like that, so they added other variations to make him seem less guilty. One version says that Ariadne was pregnant when they were forced to put ashore on the island of Cyprus instead of Naxos thanks to a raging storm. Theseus left her there only long enough to return to the ship to try and repair it from the damage done by the thundering waves, but another storm sprang up and drove his ship far from the island. Cyprus wasn’t uninhabited, and the local women took in the accidentally abandoned Ariadne and tried to alleviate her depression at being abandoned (because she didn’t know it wasn’t his fault in this case). They faked letters from Theseus and pretended they had been delivered to the island for her to try and cheer her up as the time approached for her to give birth. Theseus did finally repair the ship and come back for her, only to find that she had died due to complications from the pregnancy along with the unborn baby.
The most common version has Ariadne, alone and weeping on barren Naxos, catching the eye of the youngest god Dionysus. As we learned back in Episode 72A, the god of wine knew all too well what it was like to be alone and suffering on a distant sea far from home. Moved to pity by the tears of the beautiful princess, he came to Naxos personally to comfort her. As they spoke, the god realized that Theseus had thrown away a great treasure. He fell deeply in love with the mortal woman and, in short order, she loved him as well. The two were soon wed and lived happily ever after. Her wedding diadem was eventually set into the heavens as the constellation Corona Borealis (possibly after the hero Perseus turned her to stone with the head of Medusa as part of his war with Dionysus (which we’ll get to some day).
In some versions, Ariadne was already married to Dionysus before Theseus had entered the picture, and it was only because of Aphrodite’s meddling that she had ever fallen in love with him at all. On Naxos, Athena had sent him a dream warning the prince that he must leave Ariadne behind on Naxos so that her divine husband could reclaim her without drawing his wrath. Or maybe it was Dionysus himself who had warned the sleeping hero to abandon Ariadne so that he could be reunited with his beloved wife. In the Odyssey, Homer claims that Artemis slew her on the island for reasons that are not entirely clear. Given everything we know about Theseus’ adventures so far, I’m inclined to believe that Ariadne’s love was genuine but his had always been a calculated ploy, and he left her on Naxos to die because she was no longer useful to his plans. Maybe Dionysus arrived in time to save her, or maybe she hanged herself before he could. In at least one version, Dionysus is so moved by her tragic tale that he journeys down into Hades to rescue her shade (along with that of his mother Semele) and carries them both to Mount Olympus to become goddesses.
However it went down, Theseus and company left Ariadne behind and sailed on for Athens without her in the ship that had originally carried them away in the first place. As they neared the coast of Attica, everyone on board the black ship was jubilant and celebrating. They had done it! They’d beaten the odds, killed a legendary monster, and escaped from an inescapable doom. Perhaps you remember that Theseus had promised his father something very important at this point, but the young prince certainly didn’t. Drunk on victory (and maybe on wine as well), Theseus forgot to order the ship’s black sails be replaced with the white one he had brought along with him. No one else remembered either (although none of them had made a promise about it, so it’s more forgivable on their parts), so the ship crossed the horizon under the black sails of doom.
Aegeus had been beside himself with worry for weeks. Every day, he went out to the cliffs above what is now Cape Sounion to peer out over the ocean and watch for the return of the black ship that would either bring his son or word of his death. He had not forgotten. Aegeus was there on the cliffs watching and waiting when the black ship, still flying the black sails, drew into port. Thrown into a deep despair over the death of the son he had only just rediscovered, Aegeus hurled himself over the edge of the cliff and into the sea, where he drowned. Thus did the Oracle’s prophecy of doom for loosening his proverbial wineskin inside Theseus’ mom come to pass. To this day, it is known as the Aegean Sea in his honor.
Theseus only remembered his promise once he had come ashore in Athens and discovered that his father was nowhere to be found. Members of the palace staff told him about Aegeus’ habit of going up to the cliffs to watch and wait for Theseus’ return, and the young prince realized too late his mistake. He mourned the loss of his father even as he took up the crown and became king of Athens. The ship he had escaped from Crete on was kept in Athens and always made seaworthy. In thanks for the return of their hero king, the Athenians pledge to honor Apollo every year from then on (why Apollo and not Aphrodite, who knows). The ship, which became the royal galley, would sail to the holy island of Delos each year as part of a religious ritual so sacred that no executions were permitted during the several weeks that the ship was away. Any rotted boards were replaced with new boards until, as the decades went by, every piece of the ship had been replaced, leading to what is now known as the Ship of Theseus paradox: namely, is the ship still the same one that Theseus escaped on if literally none of the parts are the same? At what point in repairing and replacing boards does it become a different ship?
Leaving that conundrum aside, we’ve reached the point where Pirithous, king of the Lapiths of Thessaly enters the picture. Pirithous had heard tales by now of the young Athenian king’s courage and battle prowess, and he decided he needed to see this for himself. Sneaking into Marathon under the cover of darkness, he rounded up a bunch of Theseus’ sheep and drove them away from the city. Theseus was soon informed of the sheep rustling and set off in hot pursuit. He caught up to the foreign king quickly and the two took up arms to do battle for the sheep. They faced each other one on one, and both proved to be epic-level fighters. They were evenly matched and both couldn’t help but be impressed with the grace, courage, skill, and beauty of the other. They each laid down their arms and swore an oath of friendship.
The two soon journeyed together to take part in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, one of the great mythic events of the generation before the Trojan War. It was a massive undertaking which included almost every great hero of the day except, notably, Heracles who was busy with his own pig-related problems. King Oeneus of Calydon had forgotten to include Artemis of the golden throne in his annual harvest sacrifice and, insulted, the goddess of the hunt had sent an enormous, ferocious boar to ravage the countryside. It was the heroine Atalanta (the only woman in the hunt) who eventually drew first blood on the boar, but the male heroes didn’t like being shown up and the hunt turned into a bloodbath (thus further avenging Artemis’ honor). Theseus and Pirithous were there, but didn’t do much of note in the hunt, so let’s move on.
We have now, at last, reached the events that we covered back in Episode 26B. As a very quick refresher, Theseus and Pirithous, being sons of Poseidon and Zeus respectively, decided that only the daughters of Zeus himself would be fit as a bride for their heroic selves. This definitely undercuts the idea that Theseus abandoned Ariadne because he was in love with someone else. Theseus picked Helen of Sparta, who would soon be known as Helen of Troy. If you’ve been keeping track of timelines, I mentioned that Theseus was of the generation before the Trojan War. Since he is not yet an old man here, that means that – you guessed it – Helen is still a young girl here. Gross. Seriously, fuck Theseus. He’s maybe the least heroic hero imaginable. Pirithous decided that his bride would be Persephone, never mind the fact that she was very much married to Hades, god of the underworld.
They successfully kidnapped Helen and stashed her with Theseus’ mother Aethra at Aphidna to wait and groom for Theseus until she was exactly old enough for him to marry her. Then, he and Pirithous headed down into the Underworld through one of the six entrances we mentioned last episode. As they crept through the outskirts of Tartarus, Theseus sat down on a rock to rest. As he did so, he felt his limbs grow stiff and unmoving. Terrified, he tried to stand but found that his body would not obey him. He was now fixed to the rock in the depth of Hades and forced to listen to the cries of terror of Pirithous as the awful Furies swarmed out of the darkness to attack him. He quailed before their terrible, righteous rage, the snakes in their hair hissing and spitting as their long whips cracked around him, herding him deeper into Tartarus for his eternal punishment. Do not fuck with Hades.
And now, for the second time, we’re going to leave Theseus trapped in the darkness awaiting rescue. Alas, he does eventually escape, though that tale will be part of another story as it centers on the third of the three important myths that come together for this moment. After making it back to Athens. Theseus found that Helen had been rescued and gave up on his ‘daughter of Zeus’ plan. He instead married Ariadne’s sister Phaedra (who had either been convinced or forced to leave her sister behind on Naxos), which is especially icky since he was directly responsible for Ariadne’s suicide.
She and Theseus had two sons, Demophon and Acamas. Both were still infants (or at most toddlers) when Phaedra met and fell in love with Hippolytus. This is another layer of incestuous grossness because Hippolytus was the son of Theseus himself by the Amazonian queen Hippolyta, who he had met and raped in his travels. So yeah, this is a mythical version of the stepmom/stepson thing. In some versions, Hippolytus had scorned Aphrodite’s service to become a devoted and chaste follower of Artemis, so the goddess of love had cursed his father’s hot new wife to fall in love with him. She knows it’s wrong and tries to purge it from her body, starving herself for three days. Phaedra confesses to her nurse that she is in love with her husband’s son and so she will starve herself until she either dies with dignity or she stops having these terrible feelings.
Despite being sworn to secrecy, the nurse rushes to Hippolytus and spills the beans. She urges the young man to consider throwing his stepmom a pity fuck to spare her life. He gets understandably disgusted and furious at this and threatens to tell Theseus the whole shameful thing, but is sworn to secrecy. To try and die with dignity, Phaedra writes a note to her husband claiming that Hippolytus raped her and then she hangs herself. Hippolytus tries to defend himself but, bound by his promise, can’t reveal what the nurse told him and so Theseus is understandably not convinced. He believes his dead wife and prays to his father Poseidon for a boon. Poseidon grants Theseus’ wish and curses Hippolytus’ horses to be frightened by a sea monster (usually a bull emerging from the waters) and drag the poor man, trapped in the reins, to an agonizing, watery doom. Too late, the nurse broke her promise and revealed the truth to Theseus. He found his son just in time to have Hippolytus die in his arms.
In some versions, Phaedra is actually his second wife. His first was the Amazon Antigone, sister of Hippolyta (who he raped, remember). Theseus was supposed to be on Lemnos for a diplomatic mission, instead kidnapping Antigone and carrying her away to be his wife. Maybe she was into it or maybe she was forced into it. Her sister and the other Amazons didn’t take this abduction lying down and launched an attack on Athens. Antigone was apparently into Theseus and her new life enough to fight her former people in the ensuing war, only to die in the battle. Theseus won and forced Hippolyta to surrender but he lost his wife in the process.
This series of tragedies proved to be too much for Theseus. It didn’t help that his constant bullshittery around kidnapping women and starting wars had made him a lot less popular with Athens. Rebellions were beginning to spring up against his rule, so he abdicated the throne and exiled himself to the island of Skyros to mourn in peace. Lycomedes, king of Skyros, was understandably concerned that Theseus might have secret plans to overthrow the current regime and set himself on the throne. Pretending to befriend the exiled Athenian, Lycomedes led Theseus up to a cliff as part of a tour of the island. As they neared the edge, Lycomedes shoved the disgraced former king over the edge to plunge to his death on the rocks below (echoing the death of his own father years before). Thus did Theseus meet the ignoble end he deserved. There is still one part of the story that hasn’t been addressed, but for that, we’ll turn to Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s tragic figure is Icarus.
Theseus might have escaped the clutches of King Minos and the island of Crete, but our friend Daedalus from last episode has not. There is one version of the story where the Athenian prince takes the clever inventor with him when he flees, but in most versions, he never spares a thought for the imprisoned Daedalus or his son Icarus. To be fair, Daedalus fled Athens ahead of a well-deserved murder charge so maybe Theseus didn’t figure it was worth risking everyone to spring a child murderer. Either way, Daedalus and Icarus were left behind on Crete, trapped in either a tall tower overlooking the ocean or inside the Labyrinth itself with only the open sea as a potential escape route. For simplicity sake, we’ll go with the tower version. It’s worth noting that in some versions, the father and son are only imprisoned after Theseus makes good on his escape as Minos becomes convinced that Daedalus must have revealed the secret of the Labyrinth to the Athenian prince (or perhaps to Ariadne since he didn’t think her clever enough to come up with the string idea herself).
The bulk of this story comes from Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Daedalus looked out over the island of Crete spread out beneath the open window in his tower prison cell. Breaking out of the tower and either stealing a boat or sneaking aboard one had always been a longshot, but after the daring escape of the Athenian prisoners, Minos was being even more cautious than ever. He pondered. “Land and sea are closed to us, which leaves only the sky.” His clever mind working, Daedalus observed the soaring seabirds for a time and then got to work.
There were plenty of birds soaring around the tall tower and nesting on its craggy balconies, so Theseus was able to gather thousands of feathers of all different sizes. He laid them out carefully from shortest to longest, overlapping them the way that they grew on actual birds’ wings. These he bound together with fine thread and melted beeswax, since neither alone would be strong enough to resist the stresses of flight. In some versions, he makes metal feathers that he binds to a leather frame with beeswax, but I find the found feathers version more believable and interesting. I doubt very much that Minos would give the world’s greatest inventor a forge to tinker with. That’s just begging for a jailbreak.
Flexing the wings into a gentle arc to match real wings as closely as possible, Daedalus gave them a test flap. They held together nicely and provided excellent wind resistance. These might just work. Of course, the only way to know for sure was to test them and that would prove very fatal if he’d made even a single mistake. Daedalus was confident in his own skills and, even more so, certain that this was their only chance of escape. Minos was enraged by all that had happened, so he and Icarus would never be freed.
There was no time like the present and besides, the longer they waited, the greater the chance that some guard would discover Daedalus’ wings and confiscate them. Fitting one pair on young Icarus’ shoulders and the other on his own, Daedalus explained to the boy how this was all going to work out. The story is never really clear on exactly how old Icarus is; in my mind, he’s usually around fifteen – old enough to have the strength to use the wings but young enough to be reckless with them. Daedalus knew his son well and so cautioned him to follow where Daedalus himself flew and not stray from the path. “Listen closely, my son, and heed my words. You must stick to the middle path. Fly too low and the salty spray of the ocean will weigh you down until you crash; fly too high, and the heat of the sun will melt the beeswax holding your wings together until you plummet out of the sky. I will go first, so just follow me, Icarus! Be careful.” His cheeks were wet with tears of concern and regret that his son would have to brave such a dangerous task due to his father’s mistakes.
With a last hug and kiss for his beloved son, Daedalus stepped out onto the balcony, shifted the wings on his shoulders one last time, and then leapt. For a heartstopping second, the wind rushed past his ears and he feared he’d miscalculated but then the wings caught the breeze and Daedalus soared out and away from the tower. With a whoop of joy, he circled once to encourage his son to follow after. They couldn’t risk lingering or some eager archer might try to shoot them down. The fearless Icarus didn’t hesitate. With a running jump, he leapt into the sky and caught himself on his wings. Father and son were free!
Thrilled at his overwhelming success, Daedalus began winging straight for the mainland and safety, trusting that Icarus would follow behind him as instructed. And at first, he did. They soared together on the air currents for many miles until Crete was far behind them, heading towards the island of Samos. The farther they went though, the safer Icarus felt and the more he longed to see what these wings of his could really do. Forgetting the warnings of his father, Icarus began to beat his wings harder to soar higher and higher, giddy with the sheer joy of being the first humans to fly. It was intoxicating, and he kept rising higher and higher. As he did, the heat of the sun grew stronger and stronger, softening the wax of Icarus’ wings.
In the scholia on Euripides (scholarly notes written into the margins of various works), it is said that Icarus shouted out that he was more glorious than Helios the sun god himself. “I am a golden god! Bow before me, puny mortals!” In most versions, the boy is simply reckless and in his hubris, forgets caution. Either way, the wax on his wings melted exactly as Daedalus had warned and the feathers fell away from the wings. In mere moments, there weren’t enough left to hold Icarus aloft and he began to fall. Realizing too late his mistake, Icarus dove down to try and let the remaining wax harden. Alas, he dove too low in his terror and the salty spray of the ocean soaked the remaining feathers, weighing them down and making them no longer flightworthy. With a pitiful scream for help from his father, Icarus crashed into the ocean far from any rescue.
Daedalus could only watch in helpless anguish from on high. His wings would not have survived a dive to the very surface of the sea to try and grab the fallen Icarus and even if he managed it, they were only strong enough for one person. Weeping openly, his salty tears joining the salty sea where his son had drowned, Daedalus flew on. In Ovid’s version, Daedalus actually does manage to recover Icarus’ body, though too late to save him, and buried him in a tomb nearby. The small island nearest to where Icarus fell was renamed Icaria in his honor and the sea where he died is still known as the Icarian Sea. Usually, it is Daedalus who names these after his son, but in the version where Helios is pissed off, it is the sun god who does so after the boy is dead, perhaps realizing he overreacted (because sky gods are assholes).
No longer a father, Daedalus flew on until he reached Camucus or Cumae in Sicily, which was part of the kingdom of Cocalus. He decided to hide out there, far from his old home of Athens since he figured that Minos would be hot on his heels. As it turned out, Daedalus was exactly right. The Cretian king was furious at the escape of another high-profile prisoner right under his nose and immediately began searching for him. When the search parties didn’t find the clever inventor, Minos deduced that the wily man would find some ingenious way to cover his tracks. He couldn’t trust his common soldier to be able to outfox Daedalus, so Minos would just have to outthink him himself.
Minos came up with a plan. He sent word to all of his fellow kings across the known world that he had run across a puzzle that he couldn’t solve and needed help. Surely one of the subjects of one of these many kingdoms would be able to solve this problem; if so, they and the king would be richly rewarded. The test was simple – thread a piece of string through a conch shell without breaking it. Minos figured that only Daedalus would be smart enough to devise a way to achieve this.
Back in the lands of King Cocalus, Daedalus had taken shelter in this foreign court. It didn’t take long at all for the king to realize that this strange refugee was a brilliant inventor and craftsman, so when he received Minos’ puzzle, he knew exactly who to ask for help. Cocalus’ kingdom was small and poor, so a prize from an island as rich as Crete was a big deal. Winning this competition could win his court great renown throughout the world and maybe even the favor of the powerful Minos. Not realizing that Daedalus was a fugitive from Crete, Cocalus didn’t bother to mention that the puzzle came from King Minos.
Daedalus thought for a bit and then got to work. Piercing the center of the shell with a small needle, he smeared the opening with honey. Tying a slender thread around the body of an ant, he placed the insect inside the shell. It was immediately drawn by the honey’s sweetness and walked through the spiraling interior of the conch shell, drawing the thread along as it went. In short order, it popped out of the small hole and boom – Daedalus had a threaded conch shell. Delighted, Cocalus sent the shell back to Minos as proof of their successful completion of the challenge.
Smiling cruelly, Minos set out immediately for Sicily in person. He wanted to apprehend and execute the escaped Daedalus himself. Cocalus realized that he’d been duped and was now in a terrible pickle. He couldn’t stand up to the might of Crete if Minos decided to call upon it, but he also didn’t want to lose the services of his pet inventor. Stuck Cocalus sent word to Minos that he would surrender Daedalus peacefully. Locking his friend up, he showed the foreign king the imprisoned fugitive and promised to turn him over later. First, Cocalus wanted to hold a feast in honor of the visiting Minos, which was only appropriate. He offered Minos a room and a hot bath to rinse the sea salt off himself before the festivities. The bath proved to be a trap. Instead of a pleasant soak, Minos found himself in a boiling bath and died in extreme agony. The whole murder was carefully staged to look like an unfortunate accident, so the Cretian ship bore the body of the dead king back to his now-widowed wife without making trouble for Cocalus and without bothering to kill Daedalus. Thus did Daedalus live out the rest of his days in peace.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth, on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod, and on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, we’re headed to the wild parts of Sweden for a boy who knows no fear. Literally. You’ll learn how to befriend your enemies, how to speak to animals, and how to fry a child. Then, in Gods and Monsters, we’ll meet the brave young boy who’s tired of asking a giant for permission to fish. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.