When he arrived at Crete, as most of the ancient historians as
well as poets tell us, having a clue of thread given him by Ariadne,
who had fallen in love with him, and being instructed by her how to
use it so as to conduct him through the windings of the labyrinth,
he escaped out of it and slew the Minotaur, and sailed back, taking
along with him Ariadne and the young Athenian captives.
Phercydes adds
that he bored holes in the bottom of the Cretan ships to hinder
their pursuit. Demon writes that Taurus, the chief captain of Minos,
was slain by Theseus at the mouth of the port, in a naval combat as he
was sailing out for Athens. But Philochorus gives us the story thus:
That at the setting forth of the yearly games by King Minos, Taurus
was expected to carry away the prize, as he had done before; and was
much grudged the honour. His character and manners made his power
hateful, and he was accused moreover of too near familiarity with
Pasiphae, for which reason, when Theseus desired the combat, Minos
readily complied.
And as it was a custom in Crete that the women
also should be admitted to the sight of these games, Ariadne, being
present, was struck with admiration of the manly beauty of Theseus,
and the vigour and address which he showed in the combat, overcoming
all that encountered with him. Minos, too, being extremely pleased
with him, especially because he had overthrown and disgraced Taurus,
voluntarily gave up the young captives to Theseus, and remitted the
tribute to the Athenians.
Clidemus gives an account peculiar to
himself, very ambitiously, and beginning a great way back: That it was
a decree consented to by all Greece, that no vessel from any place,
containing above five persons, should be permitted to sail, Jason only
excepted, who was made captain of the great ship Argo, to sail about
and scour the sea of pirates. But Daedalus having escaped from
Crete, and flying by sea to Athens, Minos, contrary to this decree,
pursued him with his ships of war, was forced by a storm upon
Sicily, and there ended his life. After his decease, Deucalion, his
son, desiring a quarrel with the Athenians, sent to them, demanding
that they should deliver up Daedalus to him, threatening upon their
refusal, to put to death all the young Athenians whom his father had
received as hostages from the city.
To this angry message Theseus
returned a very gentle answer excusing himself that he could not
deliver up Daedalus, who was nearly related to him, being his
cousin-german, his mother being Merope, the daughter of Erechtheus. In
the meanwhile he secretly prepared a navy, part of it at home near the
village of the Thymoetadae, a place of no resort, and far from any
common roads, the other part by his grandfather Pittheus's means at
Troezen, that so his design might be carried on with the greatest
secrecy. As soon as ever his fleet was in readiness, he set sail,
having with him Daedalus and other exiles from Crete for his guides;
and none of the Cretans having any knowledge of his coming, but
imagining when they saw his fleet that they were friends and vessels
of their own, he soon made himself master of the port, and immediately
making a descent, reached Gnossus before any notice of his coming,
and, in a battle before the gates of the labyrinth, put Deucalion
and all his guards to the sword.
The government by this means
falling to Ariadne, he made a league with her, and received the
captives of her, and ratified a perpetual friendship between the
Athenians and the Cretans, whom he engaged under an oath never again
to commence any war with Athens.
There are yet many other traditions about these things, and as
many concerning Ariadne, all inconsistent with each other. Some relate
that she hung herself, being deserted by Theseus. Others that she
was carried away by his sailors to the isle of Naxos, and married to
Oenarus, priest of Bacchus; and that Theseus left her because he
fell in love with another
a verse which Hereas, the Megarian, says was formerly in the poet
Hesiod's works, but put out by Pisistratus, in like manner as he added
in Homer's Raising of the Dead, to gratify the Athenians, the line
Others say Ariadne had sons also by Theseus, Oenopion and Staphylus;
and among these is the poet Ion of Chios, who writes of his own native
city:
But the more famous of the legendary stories everybody (as I may
say) has in his mouth. In Paeon, however, the Amathusian, there is a
story given, differing from the rest. For he writes that Theseus,
being driven by a storm upon the isle of Cyprus, and having aboard
with him Ariadne, big with child, and extremely discomposed with the
rolling of the sea, set her on shore, and left her there alone, to
return himself and help the ship, when, on a sudden, a violent wind
carried him again out to sea. That the women of the island received
Ariadne very kindly, and did all they could to console and alleviate
her distress at being left behind. That they counterfeited kind
letters, and delivered them to her, as sent from Theseus, and, when
she fell in labour, were diligent in performing to her every needful
service; but that she died before she could be delivered, and was
honourably interred.
That soon after Theseus returned, and was greatly
afflicted for her loss, and at his departure left a sum of money among
the people of the island, ordering them to do sacrifice to Ariadne;
and caused two little images to be made and dedicated to her, one of
silver and the other of brass. Moreover, that on the second day of
Gorpiaeus, which is sacred to Ariadne, they have this ceremony among
their sacrifices, to have a youth lie down and with his voice and
gesture represent the pains of a woman in travail; and that the
Amathusians call the grove in which they show her tomb, the grove of
Venus Ariadne.
Differing yet from this account, some of the Naxians write that
there were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, one of whom, they say, was
married to Bacchus, in the isle of Naxos, and bore the children
Staphylus and his brother; but that the other, of a later age, was
carried off by Theseus, and, being afterwards deserted by him, retired
to Naxos, with her nurse Corcyna, whose grave they yet show. That this
Ariadne also died there, and was worshipped by the island, but in a
different manner from the former; for her day is celebrated with
general joy and revelling, but all the sacrifices performed to the
latter are attended with mourning and gloom.
Now Theseus, in his return from Crete, put in at Delos, and having
sacrificed to the god of the island, dedicated to the temple the image
of Venus which Ariadne had given him, and danced with the young
Athenians a dance that, in memory of him, they say is still
preserved among the inhabitants of Delos, consisting in certain
measured turnings and returnings, imitative of the windings and
twistings of the labyrinth. And this dance, as Dicaearchus writes,
is called among the Delians the Crane. This he danced around the
Ceratonian Altar, so called from its consisting of horns taken from
the left side of the head. They say also that he instituted games in
Delos, where he was the first that began the custom of giving a palm
to the victors.
When they were come near the coast of Attica, so great was the joy
for the happy success of their voyage, that neither Theseus himself
nor the pilot remembered to hang out the sail which should have been
the token of their safety to Aegeus, who, in despair at the sight,
threw himself headlong from a rock, and perished in the sea. But
Theseus being arrived at the port of Phalerum, paid there the
sacrifices which he had vowed to the gods at his setting out to sea,
and sent a herald to the city to carry the news of his safe return.
At
his entrance, the herald found the people for the most part full of
grief for the loss of their king; others, as may well be believed,
as full of joy for the tidings that he brought, and eager to welcome
him and crown him with garlands for his good news, which he indeed
accepted of, but hung them upon his herald's staff; and thus returning
to the seaside before Theseus had finished his libation to the gods,
he stayed apart for fear of disturbing the holy rites; but, as soon as
the libation was ended, went up and related the king's death, upon the
hearing of which, with great lamentations and a confused tumult of
grief, they ran with all haste to the city.
And from hence, they
say, it comes that at this day, in the feast of Oschophoria, the
herald is not crowned, but his staff, and all who are present at the
libation cry out eleleu, iou, iou, the first of which confused
sounds is commonly used by men in haste, or at a triumph, the other is
proper to people in consternation or disorder of mind.
Having thus performed his devotion, he went to sea, the sixth day of
Munychion, on which day even to this time the Athenians send their
virgins to the same temple to make supplication to the gods. It is
farther reported that he was commanded by the oracle of Delphi to make
Venus his guide, and to invoke her as the companion and conductress of
his voyage and that, as he was sacrificing a she goat to her by the
sea-side, it was suddenly changed into a he, and for this cause that
goddess had the name of Epitragia.
"For Aegle's love was burning in his breast;
"Theseus, Pirithous, mighty son of gods."
"Which once Oenopion, son of Theseus built."