Plutarch, Lives: Caius Martius Coriolanus: Julius Caesar: Marcus Brutus: Marcus Antonius: Octavius Caesar Augustus: Theseus: Alcibiades (ed. Thomas North)

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[p. 278]

Extracts from the Life of Theseus

Argument.

(The lineage of THESEUS. AEGEUS the father of THESEUS. AETHRA, daughter of PITHEUS, was the mother of THESEUS. THESEUS visits the oracle at Delphi. He hears of the robbers infesting the way from Troezen to Athens, and, remembering how HERCULES had destroyed many such, resolves to imitate him.)

• 1. THESEUS destroys the robber named PERIPHETES CORYNETES, and spares the life of PERIGOUNA. (He destroys the wild sow named PHEA. He slays CERCYON the Arcadian in a wrestling match.)
• 2. He arrives at Athens, where MEDEA endeavours to persuade AEGEUS to poison him; but AEGEUS, recognising him, acknowledges him as his son. (THESEUS destroys the Pallantides, and takes the bull of MARATHON alive.)
• 3. Why the Athenians paid tribute to MINOS of Crete. The Cretan labyrinth. THESEUS sails to Crete, and overcomes TAURUS.
• 4. ARIADNE falls in love with THESEUS. THESEUS slays DEUCALION, and deserts ARIADNE. Various accounts of ARIADNE'S fate.
• 5. Death of AEGEUS.
• 6. THESEUS strengthens the city of Athens. (He coins money stamped with oxen, and institutes the Isthmian games.)
• 7. Death of SOLOIS.
• 8. He wars with the Amazons, concludes peace, and marries HIPPOLYTA; or, as others say, ANTIOPA. (The son of THESEUS and ANTIOPA was named HIPPOLYTUS. Various accounts of his many marriages.)
• 9. His friendship with PIRITHOUS.
• 10. How THESEUS and PIRITHOUS carried off HELEN and PROSERPINA, (War between the Tyndarides and Athenians.)
• 11. THESEUS delivered from prison by HERCULES. (The Athenians rebel against THESEUS. Various accounts of his death.)

VI.

Desire of fame pricketh men forward to great enterprises.

Theseus and Hercules near kinsmen.

The wonderful admiration which Theseus had of Hercules' courage made him in the night that he never dreamed but of his noble acts and doings) and in the daytime, pricked forwards with emulation and envy of his glory, he determined with himself one day to do the like' and the rather, because they were near kinsmen, being cousins removed by the mother's side. For Aethra was the daughter of Pitheus, and Alcmena (the mother of Hercules) was the daughter of Lysidices, the which was half sister to Pitheus, both children of Pelops and of his wife Hippodamia So he thought he should be utterly shamed and disgraced, that Hercules, travelling through the world in that sort, [p. 279] did seek out those wicked thieves, to rid both sea and land of them: and that he, far otherwise, should fly occasion that might be offered him, to fight with them that he should meet on his way....

Cross references from Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898):
theseus [Thēseus]

This text is based on the following book(s):
Plutarch. Rev. Walter W. Skeat. Shakespeare's Plutarch: being a selection from the lives in North's Plutarch which illustrate Shakespeare's plays. Macmillan and Co. 1875. London.