Theseus

Theseus was a Greek demigod, the son of Poseidon and the mortal princess Aethra. He was also the king of Athens, having inherited the throne from his stepfather, Aegeus.
==History==
===Early Life===
Theseus' mother, Aethra, was a princess, daughter of King Pittheus of Troezen. When Aegeus, king of Athens, arrived in Troezen, he confided in Pittheus he did not understand the meaning of a prophecy which he had received from the Oracle of Delphi. (King Aegeus had been unable to sire an heir and sought advice from the Pythia, who gave him a cryptic and vague explanation). Pittheus, having immediately understood the prophecy, soon devised a plan to provide the aging king an heir - he threw a party, and when Aegeus grew drunk (his wine was purposely left unmixed), Pittheus introduced him to his daughter, Aethra, as the two then proceeded to lie with each other. (Aethra would also lie with the god Poseidon later that night). When Aegeus found out that Aethra was pregnant, he told Aethra that should she bear a son, she was to keep his identity a secret. He then placed his sword and sandals under a large rock nearby, and instructed Aethra that when their son grew up, he should retrieve the items under the rock and bring them to Aegeus' court to claim his birthright. Having said so, Aegeus returned to Athens.
Aethra named her son Theseus, who was raised as a prince in his grandfather's house. When Theseus grew up, Aethra told him of his identity and as instructed, had Theseus lift the rock, whereupon he retrieved the items that Aegeus had left for him. The youth then set out to Athens to claim his birthright, deciding to instead journey across the Isthmus of Corinth as opposed to traveling by sea.
On his way to Athens, Theseus encountered and defeated six rogues: Periphetes (the clubber), from whom Theseus took his club, Sinis (the bender of pines), Phaea]] and the Crommyonian Sow (a big pig monster), Sciron (pushed his victims from cliffs and fed them to his turtle), Cercyon (the wrestler), and Procrustes (the stretcher) in that order. He killed all the villains by doing the same thing they did to their victims, except Phaea and her sow. These exploits of his would serve to establish his own credentials as a hero and are referred to collectively as the Six Labors of Theseus.
When he arrived in Athens, Theseus did not introduce himself immediately, and his father was suspicious of the stranger. However, Medea, whom the king had married on believing her empty promises of giving him an heir, recognized him and worried that Theseus would be given the crown instead of her son Medus. She challenged him to capture the Marathonian Bull to prove himself, intending for the youth to be killed. Theseus returned to Athens victorious, whereupon a banquet was thrown in his honor. Medea once more planned to kill the young hero, this time by poisoning his wine cup. At the last second, King Aegeus recognized the sandals, shield and sword that Theseus was wearing as the ones he had left under a boulder for his son. He promptly knocked the poisoned wine out of Theseus' hands, and Medea fled. Father and son were promptly reunited, and Theseus was recognized as Aegeus' son and heir.
===The Minotaur and Ariadne===
Crete and Athens had a really bad relationship with each other because the son of King Minos was once assassinated in Athens. Minos then brought his whole fleet and nearly completely destroyed the city. He promised to spare the city on the condition that Athens would send seven of the most beautiful maidens and seven of he bravest young men as tributes to Crete so that they could be brought into the Labyrinth and killed.
On the third occasion, Theseus volunteered to slay the monster. He took the place of one of the youths and set off with a black sail, promising to his stepfather, Aegeus, that if successful he would return with a white sail. Like the others, Theseus was stripped of his weapons when they sailed. On his arrival in Crete, Ariadne, King Minos' daughter, fell in love with Theseus and, on the advice of Daedalus, gave him a ball of thread. This was so he could find his way out of the Labyrinth. That night, Ariadne escorted Theseus to the Labyrinth, and Theseus promised that if he returned from the Labyrinth, he would take Ariadne with him as she hated it in Crete. As soon as Theseus entered the Labyrinth, he tied one end of the ball of string to the door post and brandished his sword which he had kept hidden from the guards inside his tunic. Theseus followed Daedalus' instructions given to Ariadne; go forwards, always down and never left or right. Theseus came to the heart of the Labyrinth and also upon the sleeping Minotaur. The beast awoke and a tremendous fight then occurred. Theseus overpowered the Minotaur with his strength, tore the Minotaur's horn off and stabbed the beast in the throat with its own horn (according to one scholium, Theseus strangled it on Pindar's Fifth Nemean Ode).
After decapitating the beast, Theseus used the string to escape the Labyrinth and managed to escape with all of the young Athenians and Ariadne as well as her younger sister Phaedra. On the journey home, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos; some myths say because Athena told him to in a dream, where she was eventually found by the god Dionysus who fell in love with her and made her immortal. Ariadne then cursed Theseus to forget to change the black sail to white, though some myths say he forgot all by himself or he was grieving about leaving her behind. Seeing a black sail, Theseus' stepfather Aegeus thought Theseus had died and committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea (hence named Aegean). Theseus and the other Athenian youths returned to Athens safely, with Theseus inheriting the crown. He later claims in The Helm of Darkness that he very much wanted to bring back his stepfather from the Underworld but was unable to do so. Now that he was king, Theseus decided to marry Phaedra.
===Later Adventures===
As king, Theseus is accredited with having implemented the Synoikismos, the unification of the twelve local settlements of Attica, the demes, into a single commonwealth with Athens as its center, abolishing the separate town councils and magistries, and he further divided the citizenry into three classes, the Eupatridæ (nobles), the Geomori (farmers), and the Demiurgi (artisans). Theseus would later defeat wild centaur tribes and fight the Amazons. At one point, he also welcomed the wandering Oedipus into his kingdom.
In his later years, however, Theseus fell into bad company with Pirithous, king of the Lapiths, and became far more reckless and villainous than ever before. He became a tyrannical king, best friends with Pirithous and, seeking to marry a daughter of Zeus, kidnapped a 13-year-old Helen of Sparta (this was long before Paris), deciding to hold onto her until she was old enough to marry him (Helen escaped later however). Theseus once had a relationship with Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons, and they had a son named Hippolytus. Pirithous also wanted a beautiful daughter of Zeus as a wife, but he chose a much more unattainable one - Persephone herself. Leaving Helen with his mother, Aethra, Theseus and Pirithous traveled to the Underworld. An enraged Hades, however, called the Furies to punish both heroes. When they sat down to drink, Pirithous had turned to stone and cracked while Theseus' bottom was stuck to the ground. While Theseus was eventually freed by Heracles a few months later (during the completion of his twelfth labor), Pirithous was condemned to remain there for eternity, since he had committed too great a crime for wanting the wife of one of the Big Three as his own bride.
Even after freedom, Theseus eventually grew unpopular. What caused him to leave Athens and have the gods lose faith in him was killing Hippolytos, his own son, because he was flirting with Phaedra, due to the goddess Aphrodite, who sought to punish the latter for his aromantic asexuality. Then Theseus tried to gain fame in Skyros, but he was brought court and thrown off a cliff where he perished.
Theseus would continue to be revered as a hero in Athens years after his death, revered as the greatest of all heroes in place of Heracles. In 475 BC, allegedly at the command of the Pythia, the Athenian general Cimon recovered Theseus’ bones from Skyros and brought them back to Athens, placing them in a shrine called the Theseion. The Theseia festival was subsequently held in Athens every year on the 8th day of the month of Pyanepsion in honor of him and he was also associated with the 8th day of each month, as tradition stated that that was when the hero first arrived in Athens.
Category:Male characters
Category:Demigods
Category:Kings
Category:Humans
Category:Mortals
Category:Deceased characters
Category:The Dungeon Master's Heroes of Greece characters