Theseus Exile and Death

Theseus and Pirithous were good friends.
The famous friendship between Theseus and Perithous began as follows:

The fame of Theseus had spread throughout Greece, and Perithous decided to steal some cattle from around Marathon so that Theseus would come after him. When these two warriors faced each other, each of them admired the strength and courage of the other, and lost all desire to fight. Perithous was the first to reach out his hand, and he said: "I make you the judge of any damage caused by my invasion, and with all my heart I promise to pay what you decide."  Theseus not only pardoned Perithous but also proposed that they become brothers-in-arms. Then and there, they took the oath.

Soon afterwards, Perithous married Deidama, and Theseus went to the wedding. At the wedding feast, some Centaurs got drunk and started molesting the women, so Theseus joined with Perithous and his people and chased the Centaurs out of that region.

When he was fifty years old, Theseus and Perithous decided that it would suit them perfectly to marry daughters of Zeus. So they went to Sparta, where they saw Helen dancing in the temple of Artemis (Diana). Although Helen was still just a girl, and too young for marriage, they abducted her and ran. Armed men chased Theseus and Perithous as far as Tegea, but they managed to escape with Helen. Once they were out of danger, Theseus and Perithous agreed to let luck decide who would get to keep Helen, on condition that the winner would have to help the loser get another bride. Theseus won Helen and sent her to live with his mother in Aphidnae. Pirithous had his own choice. He thought that Persephone would fit as his wife. So both friends went tp Epirus and descended to Hades in order to fetch her.

Pluto was the god of the underworld, where souls of mortals went after death of the body. Pluto kept a dog called Cerberus. Cerberus, was a three-headed dog who guarded the entrance to Hades, the dismal abode of the dead and of Pluto. He had proclaimed that anyone who wanted to marry his daughter would first have to fight the dog. When Pluto understood that the intention of his visitors was not to woo his daughter but to steal her, he threw Theseus into prison and let Cerberus tear Perithous to pieces.

While Theseus was absent on his adventures, Menestheus, one of the nobles of Athens, began to ingratiate himself with the multitude, stirring up trouble. To the nobles, he complained that Theseus had taken away the power they used to have in the country, and had shut them up in the city, where now he was treating them as his slaves. To the poor people, he complained that Theseus was not a native Athenian, and this foreigner was only dangling the delusion of liberty in order to boss them around.

While Menestheus was thus infecting the minds of the Athenians, Helen's brothers Castor and Pollux appeared with an army of Spartans, and demanded the return of their sister. The Athenians replied that they did not know where Helen was, whereupon the Spartans prepared to invade the city.

Menestheus persuaded the Athenians to open their gates and welcome the Spartans as friends, since their quarrel was only with Theseus.  Somehow, the Spartans (DIOSCURI, brothers of Helen) found out that Helen was being kept at Aphidnae, and after a battle they managed to get her back. They also took Theseus' mother to be Helen's servant where she ended up in Troy.

After Theseus had been a prisoner of Pluto for some time, Hercules on his final labor descented in the infernall kingdom to capture Cerberus.  In the course of his conversation with Pluto, he casually mentioned what had happened to Theseus and Perithous. Horrified, Hercules asked Pluto to do him the favor of releasing his cousin Theseus, which Pluto did.

Back in Athens, Theseus found that things had changed. The minds of the people were so corrupted that they expected to be sweet-talked into obedience. The new factional spite, aggravated by demagogues, overpowered his authority. Those who had been against Theseus before now added contempt to the hatred they already felt.

Finally Theseus gave up trying to recover leadership. After solemnly cursing the Athenians, he sailed away to Scyros, where later he died.  Menestheus quietly took over as king in Athens. At that time, no one cared about Theseus' death.

At the Battle of Marathon [490 B.C.], many of the soldiers believed they saw Theseus running ahead of them against the Persians. The oracle at Delphi commanded the Athenians to bring home the bones of Theseus and give them an honorable burial in the city. But at that time, the hostile inhabitants of Scyros made it impossible even to find where these old bones might be.  When Cimon captured Scyros many years later, he saw an eagle clawing at the ground, and suddenly it came into his mind to dig there and search for the bones of Theseus. He found there a coffin of a man more than the ordinary size, and a bronze spearhead and sword. Cimon loaded these on board his ship and transported them back to Athens.

The Athenians, greatly delighted, went out to meet and receive these relics with splendid processions and sacrifices, as

if their founder had returned alive.
They buried him in the middle of Athens, where his tomb became a sanctuary for slaves and poor people who ran from men of power, in memory that Theseus was a protector of the weak, and always helped the people in trouble who fled to him.

This was Theseus, the second big mythical hero of the Greeks after Hercules. His memorial temple "Thission" stands next to Acropolis untill today.