Theseus Information Sheet

Theseus: hero, synoikist, incarnation of values, civilizer, protector, liberator, nation builder, symbol.

Periods of Greek History
Heroic Age: 2200BC?-1200; 1400-1200 Bronze Age/ Mycenaean: centres= southern mainland greece: Mycenae, Argos, Pylos. technology: Linear B script, an early form of Greek (in the palaces); highly centralized power, aristocratic societies. 1200 sudden cataclysmic end to this period, destruction of the palace fortresses.
Dark Ages 1200-800 Writing disappears; arrival of iron; birth Greek World= Hellas/ Hellenes, not politically or territorially united but abstractly. Extensive Mediterranean diaspora, scatttered Greek presence throughout. An Age of invasions, upheavals, refugees. Composition Iliad & Odyssey? projected, archaizing visions of a Mycenaen world that had passed away and only survived residually.
Archaic 800/750 to 500: from the time when the political geography of the Greek Peninsula and the Greek coastline of Asia Minor had become reasonably fixed to the era initiated by the Persian Wars. From circa 800 use of adapted Phoenician alphabet. Literature=poetry: personal, contemporary, some exceptions in archaic heroic style; Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Lyric Poets.
Classical the 5th & 4th centuries independent city states, cultural zenith.

Transformation of Greek Communal Structure:
Archaic Age: Established communities, more so than in world of Homeric poems, less so than the flower of the fully developed city state of the Classical period.
Archaic communities small and independent- large scale building returns with temple, then city walls, not palaces- small isolated communities because after Mycenaean collapse a world of insecurity and flux [remember the labours of Theseus, who cleans up the country roads, brings law, the rule of right, security]; also fragmenting geography of Greek world means a division into many small independent communities. Athens, however does succeed in overcoming this tendency and unites large of area of attica into one city state with Athens as its capital. Thebes failed in this, Greek communities carried abroad retaining individual cast. The tenaciously independent community, ineradicable habit of self-organization, social structure amongst the Greeks.
Urbanization: residential clusterings and demarcated community spaces for gathering and religious rites- agora [central meeting place later market place];
Town & Country: no antagonism, one community bound by common cult and tradition both mythical & historical so the Athenians a political unity, Athens an urban capital.
The Greeks then= Hellens not barbarians & more locally groups and sub-groups within Hellas: Thebes, Theban, Boeotian, Greek, each term its own myth informed inflection, thus complex structure of memberships & loyalties in being Greek.
Beware of anachronistic narrowly national concept of Ancient Greece.
Political Power: individual communities ruled not by chiefs & kings but by aristocratic family groups who monopolized land & ruled through institutions, councils, magistracies; as an established prder through marriage & kinship connections; through the authority of ancestry, they produced genealogies that extended to the Heroes & even gods.
Thus a nobility & a larger population: tensions & open conflict- because of 1.scarce resources, overpopulation; 2 land tenure system and debt laws benefitting the owners, worked by free men who constitued the labour force; 3 new class of military man inevitably a new political force: the aristocratic homeric warrior replaced by the heavily armed infantryman ‘hoplite’ soldier, men of some means, middle stratum, [similar to the Roman equites class].
Colonies: two waves of emigration west & east; colonies ‘apoikoi’ independent greek communities not colonies in the modern sense of economice satellites but both politically and economically independent.
Tyrants & Lawgivers: class conflict, political tensions & resolutions “Redistribute the land & cancel debts”
594 Athenian class struggle comes to a head, Solon chosen by agreement by the Athenians. Benevolent lawgiver.
Solon= codifier, lawgiver; his achievements summed up by Aristotle: abolition of enslavement for debt; creation of right of 3rd party to seek justice in court on behalf of another agrieved; introduction of appeals to a popular tribunal.
Tyrant
Peisistratus= “He wished to govern according to the laws without giving himself any prerogatives.” Aristotle. In power 545-527, a period of peace, prosperity, growing power and deepening sense of community spirit: public works & religious festivals.

The 6th Century a phase of increased political sophistication, the gestation period of Athenian democracy.

Theseus’ Life:
Birth & Lineage
Labours
Arrival at Athens
Crete
Unification & Extension of Attica
War with Amazons
Dishonourable traditions
Friendship with Peirithous, fights Lapiths & Centaurs, meets Herakles
Menestheus
Death of Theseus
Canonization

The Career Of Theseus
Herakleian
Unites Autochthonous Athenians
Heroic Synoikist
Fights abroad on behalf of his people
Stands against foreign otherness
Similarities with other lordly heroes
Civilization: justice, persuasion, grace, strength,
Institutionalized: festival; moments of community expression; establishes common identity
Theseus is monumental: he is worthy of emulation; his myth organizes the past; explains the present; prepares for the glories that will come. Myth & the inevitability of the polis, of Athens the flower of culture and law, the sanctuary of Hellas.

Kirk p.152-156
Thes. owes persona to desire of Athenians, especially Peisistratos 6th Cent. to make him a hero:
2 ways- association of him with beau ideal Herakles & ascribing to him various political acts benevolence beginning Athenian Democracy.
No doubt Thes myth much elaborated recently: 6th & 5th – by pisistrato & sons/ authors of various Theseis (sub epics)/ various Athenian local historians 5th Cent.
But part Thes myth much older, how distinguish with any precision?
152-154 good synopsis of Thes. life
p.155 ‘hotch potch: solemn mysterious-Labyrinth, Ariadne very holy... to trivial derivative Helen & underworld adventure- political parts “barely mythical”- Amazon queen/ Phaedra & Hippolytus= romanticdevelopment.
Herakles modelling seem from literary & artistic evidence 7th & 6th creations
Lapiths? Peisitratos had Thessalian allies could thus his innovation
black white sail folk tale element
Cretan Adventure
Homeric hesiodic era poss. earlier
Later Bronze Age:
‘labyrinthos’ pre-greek word based on ‘double axe’ a symbol carved on several of the surviving stones of the palace
bull: bull worship & games prominent part Minoan culture
athens as tributary of Crete plausible in Late Bronze but not in any other Age
‘Achaean Greeks gained control Crete 1500BC, myth may reflect that, though with special emphasis Athens
Ceos Is. off Attic coast once a minoan colony, conceivably parts Attica once under Minoan control.
Rape Helen & attempt on Persephone not recent- found represented in works of art described by Pausanias- already trad by 6th or 7th . Assoc with Peirithous son of famous sinner and unabridges delinquencies suggest those elements too trad by 7th & 6th to be expurgated.

Theseus Myth complex. Certain: main development in literary period.
only quest against crete undeniably ancient
‘interstingly it seems to reflect, and perhaps to justify, some dimly remembered historical event, and so provide a model for the political elaborations to which many other parts of the Theseus story owe their existence’

Theseus Myth complex. Certain: main development during literary period.
only quest against Crete undeniably ancient. Cretan episode:
‘interstingly it seems to reflect, and perhaps to justify, some dimly remembered historical event, and so provide a model for the political elaborations to which many other parts of the Theseus story owe their existence’