In heaven, Athene received the immortal hero and led him into the circle of the gods. Now that his earthly course was run, even Hera became reconciled with him. She gave him her daughter Hebe to wife, the goddess of everlasting youth, who on the shining peak of Olympus bore him children, beautiful and deathless.
BELLEROPHON
SISYPHUS, the son of Aeolus, craftiest of all mortals, built and governed the beautiful city of Corinth on the narrow isthmus between two seas and two countries. Because of the many deceitful deeds he had done, his punishment in the underworld was to roll a great block of marble from the plain up a hill, straining against its weight with hand and foot. Whenever he thought that now surely he had reached the top, his load escaped from him, and the knavish stone plunged back down the hill. And so this evildoer had to labor uphill with his burden again and again, until he doubled over in anguish and the sweat flowed from his limbs in streams.
His grandson was Bellerophon, the son of Glaucus, king of Corinth. Because of a murder committed by chance, the youth had been compelled to flee and took refuge in Tiryns, where Proetus ruled. The king received him with kindness and purified him of his crime. Now the immortals had given Bellerophon beauty of form and all manly virtues, and Anteia, the wife of Proetus, conceived a guilty passion for him and tried to tempt him to evil. But Bellerophon met her seductions with coldness, and her love turned to hate. She cast about for a lie that would bring about his ruin, appeared before her husband, and said: “Slay Bellerophon, if you yourself would escape an inglorious death! Your guest has confessed that he loves me, and tried to make me break faith with you.”
When the king heard this, he seethed with blind fury. But because he had loved this grave and eager youth, he put from him the thought of slaying him and pondered some other means to destroy him. He sent his guiltless guest to Iobates, his father-in-law, king of Lycia, and gave Bellerophon a sealed tablet he was to present as an introduction on his arrival. But in reality the tablet contained a command to slay the bearer. Unsuspectingly Bellerophon started on his journey, but the all-powerful gods accorded him their protection.
When he had crossed the sea over to Asia and reached Xanthus, the golden river, he sought out Iobates in Lycia. This kind and hospitable king, following an ancient rule of courtesy, received the stranger without asking who he was or whence he came. His form, his fair face, and his noble bearing were enough to convince him that he was dealing with no common guest. He conferred all possible honors upon the youth, arranged fresh feasts for him day after day, and sacrificed a bullock to the gods every morning. In this way nine days passed, and not until the tenth morning streaked the sky with rose did Iobates ask his guest his name and his purpose in coming. Bellerophon told him that Proetus, Iobates’ son-in-law, had sent him, and handed over his tablet as a token of the truth of his words. When Iobates had read the contents, calling for murder, he was filled with horror, for he had come to love this youth. Yet he could not believe that his son-in-law had condemned him without weighty cause, and so was forced to conclude that Bellerophon had committed a crime deserving death. But he could not decide to kill in cold blood one who had been his guest for so long and whose poise and grace had won his affection.
To escape this unwelcome predicament he resolved to send him on quests that would necessarily result in his death. The first of these was to slay the Chimaera, which was bringing ruin upon Lycia. This monster was of divine origin, begotten by awful Typhon and borne by the giant snake Echidna. Its forepart was a lion, its hindpart a dragon, and the middle a goat. The jaws breathed fire and blasts of searing heat. Even the gods themselves had pity on the innocent youth, launched on so dangerous a mission, and sent him as aid the winged horse Pegasus, sprung from the union of Poseidon and Medusa. But how could Pegasus be of help? This deathless horse had never borne mortal rider on his back. He could neither be caught nor tamed. Exhausted by his vain efforts, Bellerophon fell asleep near the well of Pirene, where he had found the horse. And there in a dream he saw Athene, his patron goddess. She stood before him, holding in her hands a beautiful bridle buckled with gold, and said: “Why do you sleep, O descendant of Aeolus? Take this; it will serve you well. Offer a fine bullock up to Poseidon, and then use the bridle.” So the goddess spoke in his dream, and when she had ended, she shook her dark aegis and vanished. He awoke from his sleep and started up. He reached out, and lo! the bridle given him in his dream was really there, though he was fully awake!
Bellerophon now went to the seer Polyidus and told him his dream and the miracle that had come to pass, whereupon the soothsayer bade him do Athene’s command without delay, slaughter a bullock for Poseidon, and rear an altar to his patron goddess. When all was done, Bellerophon tamed the winged horse with the greatest ease, slipped the golden bridle over his head, and mounted him in his armor. Then, while Pegasus climbed the wind, he shot at the Chimaera, and his arrows, soaring through the air, killed the monster.
After this, Iobates sent him forth against the Solymi, a warlike nation who lived near the borders of Lycia, and when, counter to all expectations, he prevailed in combat with them, the king ordered him off to the Amazons. From this adventure also he returned an unwounded conqueror. And now the king thought it was time to do what his son-in-law had asked of him, and so he laid an ambush for Bellerophon. For this he had chosen the bravest and strongest men in the land, but not one of them returned, for Bellerophon destroyed those who had fallen upon him, to the last man. This proved to the king that the youth could not be an evildoer but must rather be the darling of the gods. Far from persisting in his persecutions, he kept Bellerophon in his realm, shared the throne with him, and gave him his lovely daughter Philonoë in marriage. The Lycians made him gifts of their most fertile lands and most fruitful orchards. His wife bore him three children, two sons and a daughter.
But this was the end of Bellerophon’s good fortune. His eldest son Isander did, indeed, become a mighty hero, but fell in battle with the Solymi. His daughter Laodamia bore Zeus a son, Sarpedon, but died of an arrow shot by Artemis. Only his younger son, Hippolochus, lived to glorious old age and sent a noble son to take part in the war against Troy—Glaucus, who, accompanied by his cousin Sarpedon, came to the aid of the Trojans with a host of valiant men from Lycia.
Bellerophon himself grew insolent and proud because he possessed the winged horse, and he tried to ride it up to Olympus, for though he was mortal, he wanted to mingle in the assemblage of the gods. But the divine horse rebelled against this bold ambition, reared in the air, and threw his human rider down to earth. Bellerophon recovered from his fall, but from that time on the immortals hated him. Shunning his kind, he wandered lonely through many lands, avoiding the abodes of men, and his old age was inglorious and bleak with cares.
THESEUS
HIS BIRTH AND HIS YOUTH
THESEUS, king of Athens, was the son of Aegeus and of Aethra, daughter of King Pittheus of Troezen. On his father’s side he was descended from King Erechtheus and those Athenians who, according to the legend of that country, had sprung directly from the earth itself. His maternal ancestor was Pelops, whose many sons had made him the mightiest king on the Peloponnesus.
Aegeus, the childless king of Athens, who reigned about twenty years before Jason’s journey on the Argo, was once visiting one of these sons, Pittheus, founder of the city of Troezen, because he was bound to him by ties of hospitality. Aegeus was very much afraid of the fifty sons of his brother Pallas, for they were hostile to him and held him in contempt because he had no children of his own. And so he conceived the idea of marrying again, secretly, without the knowledge of his wife, in the hope thus to beget a son who would be the comfort of his old age and the heir to his kingdom. He confided his plan to Pittheus, his host, and, as luck would have it, the king of Troezen had just received an oracle foretelling that his daughter would not make a splendid marriage in the eyes of the world but would bear a son whose name would become famous. This swayed Pittheus to marry his daughter
Aethra, in a secret ceremony, to a man who already had a wife. Aegeus remained in Troezen for only a few days after this and then journeyed back to Athens. When he bade his new-wedded wife farewell at the seashore, he laid his sword and sandals under a block of stone, saying: “If the gods favor our marriage, into which I have not entered lightly, but in order to raise up an heir for my house and my realm, if they grant you a son, rear him in secret and tell no one the name of his father. When he is old enough and strong enough to roll away this rock, lead him to this place, let him fetch out the sword and shoes, travel to Athens, and bring them to me.”
And Aethra had a son. She named him Theseus and put him in the care of her father Pittheus. In obedience to her husband’s wish, she never told who the child’s true father was, and his grandfather spread the rumor that he was a son of Poseidon, for the sea-god was the patron of that city. The people of Troezen paid him honor by offering the first fruits of their fields to him, and the trident was the emblem of Troezen. In that country, therefore, it was anything but a disgrace that the king’s daughter had been found worthy to bear this god a child. When the boy had become not only strong and beautiful but brave and steadfast, and showed an inborn knowledge of things, his mother took him to the block of stone, on the seashore, revealed his true origin, and bade him fetch forth the objects which would serve to identify him to his father, and travel to Athens. Theseus pressed his weight against the stone and pushed it aside without difficulty. The sandals he bound to his feet and the sword he strapped to his side.
He refused to go by way of the sea, although his grandfather and his mother pleaded with him to do so, since the land route to Athens was in those days beset with robbers and other evildoers. For that age produced men who, though powerful in body and strong of arm, did not use their strength to do deeds helpful to man but only to abuse and destroy whatever came their way and to revel in mischief and crime. Some of these Heracles had slain on his quests. At this time he was the slave of Queen Omphale in Lydia, but while he was ridding that country of lawlessness, violence broke out afresh in Greece, because there was no one to curb it That was why journeying to Athens by land was a perilous undertaking, and the young man’s grandfather gave him vivid accounts of every one of these robbers and murderers and the particular cruelties they were reputed to inflict upon strangers.
But Theseus had long ago taken Heracles as his model. When he was only seven years old, this hero had visited his grandfather, and while he sat at the king’s board and ate the feast prepared for him, little Theseus, among other boys of Troezen, had been allowed to watch him. At the banquet, Heracles had laid aside his lion’s skin. When the other boys saw it, they ran away, but Theseus went fearlessly forward, snatched an axe from the hands of one of the servants, and brandishing it ran at the skin, which he took for a real Hon. Ever since this visit of Heracles, Theseus had been so full of admiration for him that he had dreamed of him by night, and by day thought only of how he would perform feats like his in years to come. Besides, Heracles was his kinsman, for their mothers were cousins. So now sixteen-year-old Theseus could not endure the thought that while Heracles was seeking out evildoers and putting an end to their wickedness, he himself should avoid any conflicts he might chance upon. “What would the god they call my father think of a cowardly journey over the safe expanse of his waters?” he asked fretfully. “What would my real father think if as tokens I brought him sandals that were not grayed with dust and a sword unstained with blood?” These words pleased his grandfather, who had himself been a brave hero. His mother gave her blessing, and Theseus set out on his way.
HI8 JOURNEY TO HIS FATHER
The first person he met was the robber Periphetes, who went armed with an iron club, to which he owed his name of Club-Bearer. With this he dashed to the ground all who came his way.
When Theseus reached the region of Epidaurus, this ruthless and savage man rushed at him out of the dark woods and blocked his path. But the youth called to him in a ringing voice: “Miserable rogue, you come in the very nick of time! Your club will be just the thing for one who intends to become a second Heracles in a world of rascals!” With these words he hurled himself upon the robber and, after brief combat, slew him. Then he took the club from the dead man and bore it away as a trophy and weapon.
On the isthmus of Corinth he came upon another evildoer, Sinnis, the Pine-Bender, so called because when anyone crossed his path he bent down the tops of two pines with his mighty hands, bound his captive to them, and then released the trees, so that his victim was torn in two. Theseus broke in his club by slaying that monster of cruelty. Sinnis had a lithe and lovely daughter, Perigune. Theseus had seen her flee into the forest when he was killing her father, and now he looked for her everywhere. The girl had hidden in a grove thick with shrubs, and in her childish innocence, pleaded with the bushes, as though they could understand, that never, never would she harm them or burn them if only they would conceal and rescue her. When Theseus called her back and assured her that he not only intended no harm but would take care of her, she came out of hiding and, from that time on, was under his protection. Later he married her to Deioneus, the son of Eurytus, king of Oechalia, and all her descendants kept her promise and never burned a single plant of the species which had given shelter to their ancestress.
But Theseus did not merely clear the road he travelled of destructive men. Always mindful of Heracles, he considered it his duty to wage war upon harmful animals as well. Among other brave deeds, he approached Megara and met with Sciron, a third notorious robber, who had chosen his abode on a high cliff between Megara and Attica. This insolent ne’er-do-well had the habit of thrusting his feet out at strangers and commanding them to wash his soles. While they did what he asked, he would give them a kick that plunged them into the sea. Now Theseus punished him with the same death he had inflicted on others. When he was already in Attica, near the city of Eleusis, he met Cercyon, who was in the habit of waylaying all who crossed his path, to challenge them to a wrestling match, and kill them after he had won the victory. Theseus accepted his challenge, was himself the winner, and rid the world of this plague. When he had gone a little farther, he came to the last and most cruel of the highway robbers, Damastes, who was better known by his nickname Procrustes, the Stretcher. This scoundrel had two beds, one very short and one very long. If a stranger who was small of stature came his way, he conducted him to the long bed, saying: “You can well see that my bed is much too big for you; let me arrange a better fit!” And with this he would stretch him on the rack until the man breathed his last. But if he had a tall guest for the night, he took him to the short bed, saying: “I am sorry, friend, but this bed was never made for you. It is much too small, but we can do something about that!” And with this he would lop off his feet and that part of his legs which protruded from the bed. Since Procrustes was a large man, Theseus forced him to lie in his own short bed and hacked him into shape until he died a miserable death. Thus Theseus made the punishment of most of these evildoers fit their crimes.
Up to this point, our hero had not come across anything of a pleasant nature on his journey. But now, when he reached the river Cephissus, he found men from the race of the Phytalides, who received him hospitably. At his request, they first purified him of the blood he had shed, with the rites proper to this service, and then set food and drink before him. After he had refreshed himself in their house and given them thanks in warm and courteous words, he turned in the direction of his father’s home.
THESEUS IN ATHENS
In Athens, the young hero did not find the peace and happiness he had expected. The city was in confusion, the citizens were at civil war among themselves, and conditions in the house of his father Aegeus were not of a kind to favor his coming. Medea, who had left Corinth and unhappy Jason on her dragon-drawn chariot and taken refuge in Athens, had tricked old Aegeus into receiving her, by a promise to restore his strength and youth with one of her magic charms. The king and she were livin
g in wedlock. Because she was a sorceress, she knew that Theseus had arrived in Athens before the news of his coming reached the palace. She persuaded Aegeus, whom the party strife in his city had made suspicious of every newcomer, that the stranger, whom he did not recognize as his son, was a dangerous spy and that it would be wise to treat him as a welcome guest and then do away with him by means of poison.
Theseus came to the morning meal without having revealed his identity, glad in the thought that his father would discover for himself who it was he had before him. The cup with the poisoned potion was at his place, and Medea waited impatiently for the new arrival, who she feared would drive her from the palace, to take the first sip, for she had seen to it that even a few drops would be enough to close his young and watchful eyes forever. But Theseus, who longed to feel his father’s arms about him more than to drink of the cup, drew his sword, the one that had been left under the stone for him, seemingly to cut his meat, but actually that Aegeus might see it and know that this was his son. No sooner had the king laid eyes on the weapon, which he instantly recognized, than he dashed the cup to the ground. A few questions convinced him that this youth was, indeed, the son he had begged of Destiny, and he clasped him to his heart. Theseus was made known to the assembled populace, whom he told of the adventures he had met with on his journey. Joyful acclaim welcomed the youth, who had proved his hardihood so early and so often. But treacherous Medea was driven out of the land, for King Aegeus now felt only loathing for this cruel sorceress, who had almost succeeded in depriving him of his newfound happiness.
Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece Page 22