Theseus

National hero-king of Athens, son of Aegeus by Aethra of Troezen — or, in Bacchylides's older variant, of Poseidon himself. Travelling from Troezen to Athens by the Saronic land-road he cleared away six monstrous bandits (Periphetes, Sinis, the Crommyonian sow, Sciron, Cercyon, Procrustes) on the model of the Heraclean labour-cycle. Reaching Athens he volunteered for the Cretan tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, descended into the Labyrinth at Knossos with Ariadne's thread, killed the Minotaur, and on his return ascended the throne. Later kings of Athens cited him as the *synoecist* who fused the villages of Attica into a single polis.

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