page_title: Theseus
section_title: The Six Labours
hierarchical_section_title: Theseus / The Six Labours
caption_attribution_description: English: Theseus fighting the Crommyonian Sow. Surround of the tondo of an Attic red-figured kylix, ca. 440-430 BC. Said to be from Vulci. Français&#160;: Thésée et la Truie de Crommyon. Détail de l'intérieur d'un kylix attique à figures rouges de 440-430 av. J.-C. Provenance présumée&#160;: Vulci.
context_page_description: Theseus was the mythical king and founder-hero of Athens. Like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, Theseus battled and overcame foes that were identified with an archaic religious and social order. His role in history has been called "a major cultural transition, like the making of the new Olympia by Hercules."
  Theseus was a founding hero for the Athenians in the same way that Heracles was the founding hero for the Dorians. The Athenians regarded Theseus as a great reformer; his name comes from the same root as θεσμός, meaning "rule" or "precept". The myths surrounding Theseus—his journeys, exploits, and friends—have provided material for fiction throughout the ages.
  Theseus was responsible for the synoikismos —the political unification of Attica under Athens—represented emblematically in his journey of labors, subduing ogres and monstrous beasts. Because he was the unifying king, Theseus built and occupied a palace on the fortress of the Acropolis that may have been similar to the palace that was excavated in Mycenae. Pausanias reports that after the synoikismos, Theseus established a cult of Aphrodite Pandemos and Peitho on the southern slope of the Acropolis.
context_section_description: At the first site, which was Epidaurus, sacred to Apollo and the healer Asclepius, Theseus turned the tables on the chthonic bandit, Periphetes, the Club Bearer, who beat his opponents into the Earth, taking from him the stout staff that often identifies Theseus in vase-paintings.
  At the Isthmian entrance to the Underworld was a robber named Sinis, often called "Pityokamptes" (Greek: Πιτυοκάμπτης, lit. "he who bends Pinetrees"). He would capture travelers, tie them between two pine trees that were bent down to the ground, and then let the trees go, tearing his victims apart. Theseus killed him by his method. He then had sex with Sinis's daughter, Perigune, fathering the child Melanippus.
  In another deed north of the Isthmus, at a place called Crommyon, he killed an enormous pig, the Crommyonian Sow, bred by an old crone named Phaea. Some versions name the sow herself as Phaea. The Bibliotheca by Pseudo-Apollodorus described the Crommyonian Sow as an offspring of Typhon and Echidna.
  Near Megara, an elderly robber named Sciron forced travelers along the narrow cliff-face pathway to wash his feet. While they knelt, he kicked them off the cliff behind them, where they were eaten by a sea monster (or, in some versions, a giant turtle). Theseus pushed him off the cliff.
  Another of these enemies was Cercyon, king at the holy site of Eleusis, who challenged passers-by to a wrestling match and, when he had beaten them, killed them. Theseus beat Cercyon at wrestling and then killed him instead.
  The last bandit was Procrustes the Stretcher, who had two beds, one of which he offered to passers-by in the plain of Eleusis. He then  made them fit into it, either by stretching them or by cutting off their feet. Since he had two beds of different lengths, no one would fit. Theseus turned the tables on Procrustes, cutting off his legs and decapitating him with his ax.
caption: Theseus and the Crommyonian Sow, with Phaea (detail of a kylix)
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