Aethra of Troezen lay with both Aegeus and Poseidon on the same night, giving Theseus dual paternity — mortal king and sea god. Aegeus left sword and sandals under a rock for the boy to claim.
Theseus married Phaedra, daughter of Minos and sister of the Ariadne he had abandoned. They had two sons, Acamas and Demophon, who later fought at Troy and rescued their grandmother Aethra from the fallen city.
Theseus took the Amazon queen Hippolyta as his consort, and she bore him Hippolytus, the chaste hunter devoted to Artemis whose rejection of Aphrodite brought his tragic death at his own father's curse.
⚠ The Amazon mother's identity is disputed: Apollodorus (Epitome 1.16) names her Antiope, while Plutarch (Theseus 26-28) discusses both Hippolyta and Antiope as traditions for the same figure.
After slaying the bandit Sinis on the road to Athens, Theseus took Sinis's daughter Perigune as his first lover. She bore him a son, Melanippus, whose descendants revered the asparagus plants where Perigune once hid.
Ariadne fled Crete with Theseus after helping him survive the Labyrinth, but their union ended when he abandoned her sleeping on the shore of Naxos.
⚠ Plutarch (Life of Theseus 20) and some later sources attribute children to Theseus and Ariadne, but the dominant tradition in Homer and Apollodorus ends the relationship at Naxos without offspring.
Heracles and Theseus were bound by mutual aid; Heracles freed Theseus from the Chair of Forgetfulness in the underworld.
Theseus and Athens gave sanctuary to Hyllus and the Heraclidae when they were driven into exile by Eurystheus. In Euripides' Children of Heracles, the Athenians fought and defeated Eurystheus on behalf of Heracles' children.
Theseus granted the exiled Oedipus sanctuary at Colonus near Athens, defying Theban attempts to reclaim him. In return, Oedipus's mysterious death blessed Athenian soil with divine protection.
Pirithous and Theseus became inseparable companions after testing each other in battle. Together they abducted Helen and descended to the underworld to seize Persephone.
The Centaurs attacked the Lapiths at Pirithous's wedding to Hippodamia, driven to frenzy by wine and attempting to carry off the women. Theseus fought alongside his friend Pirithous and the Lapiths to drive them off in the bloody Centauromachy.
Hades trapped Theseus and Pirithous in the Chairs of Forgetfulness after they descended to the underworld to abduct Persephone. Heracles later freed Theseus, but Pirithous remained bound forever.
Theseus abducted the Amazon queen Antiope, provoking the Amazons to invade Attica and besiege Athens itself in a war that raged to the foot of the Acropolis before Theseus drove them back.
⚠ The abducted Amazon is called Antiope by Apollodorus (Epitome 1.16) and Hippolyta by other sources. Plutarch (Theseus 26-28) discusses both traditions.
The Dioscuri invaded Attica and captured Aphidnae to rescue their sister Helen, whom Theseus and Pirithous had abducted. They freed Helen and took Theseus's mother Aethra captive as a slave.
Theseus volunteered to end Athens's tribute to Minos and slew the Minotaur in the Cretan king's Labyrinth. Minos had imposed the tribute after his son Androgeus was killed in Athens.
Theseus captured the Marathonian Bull that was terrorizing Attica and sacrificed it to Apollo Delphinios. The beast was the same Cretan Bull Heracles had brought to the mainland as his seventh labor.
Aphrodite destroyed Hippolytus for his devoted chastity and rejection of her worship, inflaming Phaedra with forbidden desire for her stepson. When the catastrophe unfolded, Theseus cursed his own son using one of Poseidon's granted wishes, and the sea god sent a monstrous bull that wrecked the young hunter's chariot and killed him.
Theseus slew the Minotaur in the depths of the Labyrinth at Knossos, ending Athens's tribute of youths to Crete. He followed Ariadne's thread to escape the maze.
Theseus killed Procrustes by fitting him to his own iron bed, cutting him down to size as the rogue smith had done to countless travelers on the road to Athens.
Theseus slew Sinis the Pine-Bender at the Isthmus of Corinth, his first kill on the road to Athens, bending the same pines the bandit had used to tear apart his victims.
Theseus, exiled from Athens and seeking refuge on Skyros, was pushed from a cliff by King Lycomedes, who feared the hero's fame or coveted his lands. So ended the unifier of Attica, far from the city he had built.
Theseus unified the scattered villages of Attica into one city under Athens, abolished the local governments, and established himself as king — the mythological founder of Athenian civic identity.
Aegeus recognized Theseus by the sword he had hidden under the rock at Troezen. He later threw himself into the sea upon seeing Theseus's ship return with black sails, giving the Aegean its name.
Theseus rescued Antigone and Ismene from Creon's men at Colonus, protecting them and their father Oedipus under Athenian hospitality in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus.
Ariadne fled Crete with Theseus after helping him slay the Minotaur, but he abandoned her sleeping on the shore of Naxos, where Dionysus found and claimed her.
⚠ Homer (Odyssey 11.321-325) says Artemis killed Ariadne on Naxos at Dionysus's testimony. Plutarch (Theseus 20) catalogues multiple traditions: Theseus forgot her, was commanded by Dionysus in a dream, or deliberately abandoned her.
Theseus and Pirithous abducted the young Helen from Sparta before the Trojan War. Her brothers the Dioscuri later invaded Attica to rescue her while Theseus was trapped in the underworld.
Theseus entered the Labyrinth at Knossos to slay the Minotaur, navigating its impossible passages by unspooling Ariadne's thread from the entrance to find his way back out.
Medea, then wife of Aegeus, recognized Theseus as a threat to her son's inheritance and tried to poison him at a feast. Aegeus dashed the cup away, and Medea fled Athens.
After Phaedra hanged herself leaving a tablet accusing Hippolytus of rape, Theseus believed the accusation and used one of Poseidon's three granted wishes to curse his own son to death.
Pittheus raised his grandson Theseus at Troezen, educating him in wisdom and rhetoric. When the boy came of age, Pittheus revealed his royal parentage and the sword and sandals Aegeus had hidden beneath a stone.
After Creon forbade burial of the fallen Seven against Thebes, Theseus led an Athenian force against Thebes to recover their bodies, as dramatized in Euripides's Suppliants.
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