Aethra- Greek FigureMortal

Mother of Theseus

Aethra was the daughter of Pittheus, the wise king of Troezen in the northeastern Peloponnese. When Aegeus, king of Athens, visited seeking counsel about his childlessness, Pittheus recognized an opportunity and arranged for his daughter to lie with the Athenian king. That same night, Aethra visited a nearby island to make offerings to Athena, where Poseidon came upon her. The double union gave her son Theseus the ambiguous status of having both a mortal king and a god as potential fathers.

Aegeus departed before learning of the pregnancy, but he left instructions: if Aethra bore a son, she should raise him in secret until he was strong enough to lift a heavy rock beneath which Aegeus had hidden his sword and sandals. When the boy could retrieve these tokens, he should travel to Athens and claim his birthright. Aethra raised Theseus with the help of her father, and when the boy came of age, he lifted the rock, took the sword and sandals, and chose the dangerous land route to Athens — beginning his heroic career.

Captivity and Liberation

Aethra's later life was one of reversal. When Theseus and his friend Pirithous abducted the young Helen from Sparta, they left the girl in Aethra's care at Aphidna while they descended to the underworld to kidnap Persephone. Helen's brothers, the Dioscuri Castor and Polydeuces, invaded Attica to rescue their sister and captured Aethra in the process, taking her back to Sparta as Helen's slave.

Aethra accompanied Helen to Troy when Paris abducted her, serving as an attendant through the ten-year war. When the city finally fell, she was recognized by her grandsons Demophon and Acamas, sons of Theseus who had come with the Greek army. They petitioned Agamemnon for her release, and Helen consented. Aethra returned to Greece after decades of servitude — Polygnotus depicted her among the captive women in his great painting of Troy's fall at Delphi.