Heroes: Volume II of Mythos

T HE C ALYDONIAN H UNT Oeneus held nine nights of feasting and revelry to welcome and thank the brave heroes, huntsmen and warriors who had answered his call. On the morning of the tenth day they gathered outside the palace, hounds streaming at their feet, pages buckling armour, grooms tightening girths, stewards offering up cups of hot wine. The cheers of the citizens safe within the walls of Calydon grew to a great roar of gratitude, encouragement, admiration and pride as the party made its way out through the main gate. Carts loaded with spare javelins, axes, maces and arrows brought up the rear of the train as it headed into the deserted and despoiled countryside. No boar this gigantic had ever been seen or even rumoured of, let alone tracked down and killed. As the hunting party proceeded they witnessed ever fouler scenes of horror. Every field of corn was trampled, every vineyard uprooted, every chicken, cat, dog, calf, goat and sheep lay with its throat torn open and innards exposed to the sun – whether the poor creatures had been massacred for food or fun, the shocked huntsmen did not know. A hundred wild boars of natural size could never have created such destruction. Meleager and his uncles had formed a plan. Some miles to the north there stood a ruined barn. If the party were to spread themselves into a line, shouting, stamping their feet and shaking burning torches, they could slowly funnel the boar in that direction and use nets, fire and clamour finally to trap it in the angle of the two remaining walls of the barn. That would be their killing ground. ‘It will be like a stage and the pig will be our doomed hero,’ said Meleager. The uncles and senior huntsmen nodded their assent. It took all morning and much of the afternoon to encircle the boar and flush it from cover. They made as much noise as they could – a great hullaballoo and smashing of spears onto shields – but no one there felt that the boar, forced though it was in the direction of the barn, was in any way frightened. From time to time it would turn, break cover and charge at one part of the line, scaring everyone in it half to death, and then canter back towards the barn, tusks down, squealing out what seemed like a laugh of triumph and derision. ‘Whenever it does that, it is vital that the line holds!’ commanded Oeneus. ‘Simple for him to say, up on a horse and well behind the line,’ Atalanta said to herself. She watched with disdain as the king swigged from a horn of wine. Meleager, by her side, seemed to guess what she was thinking. ‘The old man is no warrior, but he is a fine administrator,’ he said. ‘He has brought this region peace and prosperity.’ ‘Until he forgot the great goddess Artemis,’ said Atalanta. ‘Well, yes … Look, up ahead! It’s working, the plan is working!’ Sure enough, the boar seemed to be edging in fits and starts slowly backwards towards the ruined barn. They could hear its trotters scrape and slide as they met the stone flags of its floor. The front row of hounds, growing in confidence, thrust their snarling heads at it, teeth bared and slavering. It was a sound and sight to put the fear of Hades into anyone, but in the boar it seemed merely to awaken it to its situation. With sudden and unimagined speed it rushed forward with its head down. It jerked up under the jaw of the lead hound and its left tusk went straight through the throat and out of the dog’s skull. Down went the boar’s head again. And up, ripping open the sides of the second hound. The third, fourth and all the other hounds in the pack needed no further invitation to set up a great howl of fright and flee in panic to hide, quivering, between the legs of their masters. The hunters now braced themselves to face the boar. Flesh and fur hung from the points of the boar’s tusks and blood soaked its bristles. Its eyes, everyone swore afterwards, burned like bright coals. The fierce orange and red light of them was trained in turn on every man, and the one woman, who crowded in on it. ‘Now, now is the time!’ cried Meleager, throwing a hunting net over the boar. It was half enmeshed but angered enough to roll over and thrash its feet and jerk its head to free itself. This was the first time it had shown any vulnerability and the sight pricked the courage of the hunters. With great whoops and hollers, one hero after another hurled himself with axe, sword, spear and dagger at the enraged beast. Its instinct was to gore at groin and belly. Gonads and guts were torn open to the air. Blood was everywhere. Piteous were the screams of the brave heroes who threw themselves to their deaths. None were more fearless than PELAGON, HYLEUS, HIPPASUS and ENAESIMUS, the first to engage and be instantly ripped to pieces for their troubles. Peleus flung a javelin from his cover in a thicket only for it to find and fatally wound EURYTON, King of Phthia, one of the most loyal of the Argonauts. It was, in both the literal as well as the more common sense, a shambles. Already disheartened by the sight of so many good men killed, the huntsmen saw the accidental death of Euryton as an ill omen and began to think of turning tail. The boar, sensing victory, raised its head, sniffed the air and charged at Nestor, King of Pylos, who even in his middle age was reputed to be the wisest man in the known world. Certainly he was wise enough to know that wailing and screaming would achieve nothing and so he stood still and raised his eyes to the heavens. Atalanta stepped forward from behind him and called out, ‘Drop down, Nestor! Down – now!’ Nestor threw himself to the ground at the same time as an arrow flew from Atalanta’s bow, passed through the place where Nestor’s heart had been but a moment earlier, and pierced the throat of the charging boar. ALCON, a hot-headed son of both King Hippocoön of Amykles and Ares, the god of war, rose to his feet and waved his spear. Facing his comrades he yelled, ‘For shame, brothers. This is no work for a woman. Let’s show the world what a man can do!’ He turned back in time to see the boar, Atalanta’s arrow dangling from its neck, lowering its head for a charge. By the time Alcon had set his spear, the beast was on him. Both tusks entered his stomach. Now the boar raised its head and performed a kind of gruesome dance, pulling Alcon round and round, the tusks tearing open more and more of his guts until all the poor young man’s bowels and innards had fallen out to make a red and slimy circle on the stone floor of the barn. Only Meleager stood firm as the monstrous animal tossed Alcon’s corpse from its tusks and scraped at the ground ready for another charge. As the boar hurtled forward, Meleager slid down onto his left side; lying back, he took aim with his right arm. The boar saw the movement and gave a roar of fury. Meleager launched his javelin sideways and upwards – straight into the boar’s open mouth. The tip of the spear pierced the upper skull, bursting its way out again coated in gore and brain matter. The great beast shuddered and fell dead to the ground, slipping and skidding on the blood and entrails of its victims. Oeneus clambered down half drunk from his horse and embraced his son. ‘Meleager, my boy. What honour you have done our house! Yours is the kill, yours the trophy. Come, skin the creature, take its tusks, then bring it back to the palace and we will feast and toast your triumph in wine!’ Meleager turned to face the surviving huntsmen who even now were cupping and drinking the blood that gushed from the boar’s wounds. ‘The hide and tusks are to go to Atalanta!’ he declared. ‘It was she who struck the first blow. Without her true aim the monster would still be at large and we would be carrion for the crows and foxes. The trophies are hers.’ Meleager’s uncles came forward. The Thestiades had not been conspicuously in the forefront of the hunt, but their sense of family honour and male pride now spurred them on. ‘That witch is an outsider,’ said Toxeus. ‘A deranged virgin who took one lucky shot,’ said Eurypylus. ‘The honour of the kill must go to the house of Thestios,’ said Evippus. ‘A woman’s place is the hearth, harem or home, not the hunt,’ said Plexippus. ‘I tell you, the prize is Atalanta’s,’ said Meleager. ‘It is my decision to make, not yours.’ Plexippus approached the body of the boar. He took out a knife and began to gouge his way to the root of the tusk. ‘Leave it!’ shouted Meleager. Toxeus raised his bow.fn11 ‘Stand aside, nephew. If you do not present the trophy to the family, the family will take the trophy.’ With a roar of anger Meleager flicked a knife from his belt. It flew straight into Toxeus’s eye. Before Toxeus was dead on the ground, Meleager had thrust a sword into the side of Plexippus and slit the throat of Eurypylus. Only Evippus was now left alive. At the sight of the blood-maddened fire in Meleager’s eyes, Evippus dropped the sword he had been struggling to draw. ‘Spare me, dear nephew!’ he pleaded. ‘Think of your mother. My sister. You cannot deprive her of four –’ Meleager, crazed by his love for Atalanta and crazed by the killing, had no time for mercy. He brought up his knee into the older man’s groin. Evippus doubled up in pain, as Meleager took his head and twisted it once, twice, three times before the sound of the neck cracking assured him that the last of his uncles was dead. Atalanta sighed in sorrow and turned away. The women, children, priests, cowards, merchants and older men from the city and the palace were streaming out to view the body of the boar. Queen Althaea arrived in time to see her son Meleager standing in dazed triumph over the bodies of her four brothers. Demented with sorrow and raging for revenge, Althaea ran back to the palace. Down to the cellars she went until she came at last to the deserted chamber in whose floor she had buried the log on the day her son was born. Meleager would live, Atropos and her fellow Moirai had proclaimed, for as long as that log was not consumed by fire. But Althaea was now inexorable: after killing her beloved brothers, Meleager had forfeited the right to live one moment longer. She scrabbled at the earth and brought out the log, still wrapped in what was left of the woollen blanket she had swaddled it in all those years ago. Meleager’s life will end in a flash When his log of fate is turned to ash Althaea hurried into the kitchens, where a great open fire roared all day and all night. She looked up and saw that across the opening in the floor of the feasting room above a great spit had been suspended directly over the flames. On this the skinned and gutted carcass of the boar would be transfixed and slowly roasted for the evening’s banquet. Still engulfed by her fury, Althaea unwrapped the log and hurled it into the heart of the fire. The instant she saw the old log spark and bloom into flames Althaea regretted what she had done. She tried to find a way to pull it out, but the heat was too intense. She could not reclaim the log without burning up herself. But perhaps, she told herself, she had only dreamed the whispered conversation between the three Fates all those years ago. She had long convinced herself that this was probably so. The proclamations of the Moirai were not for mortal ears. They would never have talked to each other if there had been a chance of being overheard. It had all been imagination. Surely! She stroked her cheek with the tattered blanket. Surely? Althaea turned and ran outside, drawn by a sense of deep and terrible foreboding towards the shouts of horror that came from the ruined barn where lay the corpses of the Calydonian Boar and so many heroes, including her brothers. She arrived in time to see her son Meleager running, jumping and screaming in pain, his voice sounding horribly like the squealing of the monstrous boar. ‘I’m burning! I’m burning!’ he screeched. ‘Help me, mother! Help me!’ Everyone pulled back in confusion and apprehension to see this brave young man so suddenly overtaken by madness. No flames leapt from him, yet he howled and writhed back and forth, falling to the ground and rolling over and over as if he were being consumed by living, scorching flame. Finally his screams turned to sobs, his sobs to a great shuddering sigh and he fell silent, quite dead. His body, as the soul left it, blackened, charred and disintegrated into grey ashes that were whipped away by the wind, leaving behind nothing but a memory of the proud and handsome Meleager’s mortal remains. With a grief-stricken wail Althaea ran blindly into the woods. They found her some hours later, suspended from the branch of a tree, remnants of an old blanket clutched in her hands. Before she hanged herself she had torn out her own cheeks in the wild throes of her anguish. This whole sorry train of events came about, you may recall, because King Oeneus had failed properly to worship Artemis. Her punishment was first to send a boar that ravaged the countryside and nearly brought ruin to Oeneus’s kingdom, then to despatch Atalanta to sow discord amongst his family and the warriors who gathered to his aid. The hunt itself resulted in the deaths of dozens of fine heroes before the outbreak of enmities that caused the slaughter of Oeneus’s brothers-in-law, the uncanny seizure and death of his son Meleager and the frightful suicide of his wife Althaea. But Artemis didn’t stop there. She transformed the Meleagrids – Meleager’s grieving sisters Melanippe, Eurymede, Mothone and Perimede – into guinea fowl, who clucked and mourned their brother for eternity.fn12 Two other daughters of Althaea and Oeneus were spared by Artemis, however. They were Gorge and Deianira, whom Moros, fate, had marked out for important contributions to the heroic years to come.fn13 Atalanta, her task complete, left the bitter and blighted kingdom of Calydon, never to return.

T HE F OOT RACE Atalanta’s triumphant role in the Calydonian Boar Hunt caused her name to be sounded far and wide. It came to the ears of her father King Schoeneus. He had cruelly left her to die exposed on a mountainside, but now he was only too keen to welcome her back to his palace. He may have been the first cruel, abusive and unfit parent to reclaim a child once they became famous or rich, but he would certainly not be the last. ‘My darling child,’ he said, spreading his arms wide to show the breadth of his kingdom, ‘this will all be yours.’ ‘Really?’ said Atalanta. ‘Well, your husband’s, naturally,’ said Schoeneus. Atalanta shook her head. ‘I will never marry.’ ‘But consider! You are my only child. If you do not marry and have children, the kingdom will go to outsiders.’ Atalanta’s devotion to Artemis and her lifelong objection to marriage had not altered. ‘I will only a marry a man,’ she said, ‘who can …’ She considered. She was a superb shot with a bow, but it was conceivable that the man might live who was better. It was the same with her skill with javelin, discus and on horseback. What was there that no man could ever best her at? Ah! She had it. ‘I will only a marry man who can run faster than me.’ ‘Very well. So let it be.’ Atalanta was safe. Her speed could never be matched.fn14 ‘Oh, and any suitor who takes the challenge and fails must die,’ she added. Schoeneus grunted his assent and arranged for the word to be put out. Great was Atalanta’s fame and beauty, great the value of Schoeneus’s kingdom and great the conviction of many fine, fit and fast young fellows that no woman could ever best them. Many made the journey to Arcadia: all were defeated and all were killed. The crowds loved it. In amongst the spectators one day was a young man called HIPPOMENES. He watched a prince from Thessaly run against Atalanta, lose and be taken off to be beheaded. The crowd cheered as his head rolled in the dust but all Hippomenes could think of was Atalanta. Her impossible swiftness. Those long striding legs. The hair streaming behind. The stern frown on that beautiful face. He was in love and he meant to win her. But how could he do it? He was no runner – the prince who had just lost his head was much faster, and had been nowhere in sight when Atalanta crossed the finish line. Hippomenes made his way to a temple of Aphrodite, knelt before the statue of the goddess and prayed his heart out. The statue seemed to move and he heard a voice whisper in his ear. ‘Look behind the altar and take the things you see. Use them to win the race.’ Hippomenes opened his eyes. Fragrant incense was burning strongly. Had wreaths of its smoke snaked into his head and made him imagine Aphrodite’s voice? He was alone in the temple; surely there was no harm in looking behind the altar. Something gleamed in the shadows. He reached out a hand and pulled out one, two, three golden apples. ‘Thank you, Aphrodite, thank you!’ he whispered. The following day Atalanta looked at the next young man foolish enough to challenge her to a race, the next young lamb to the slaughter. ‘What a pity,’ she thought to himself, ‘he’s rather good-looking. A young Apollo. But he’s stupid enough to have a satchel slung over his shoulder. Doesn’t he know how much that will slow him down? Ah well …’ she crouched and waited for the starting signal. Hippomenes set off after her as fast as he could. His running style was poor at best, but hampered by the bag of apples swinging from his shoulder it was preposterous enough to cause the crowd to hoot with laughter. They howled even louder when he started fumbling with the bag. ‘He’s decided to have his lunch, now!’ Hippomenes took out one of the apples and rolled it along the ground ahead of him. It shot along the track and overtook Atalanta, who sprinted after it and picked it up. How beautiful, she thought, turning it round in her hand. A golden apple! Like the apples Gaia gave Zeus and Hera as a wedding gift. The apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. Or perhaps this one came from Aphrodite’s sacred apple tree in Cyprus? She glanced up to see Hippomenes flailing past her. ‘I’ll soon reel him in,’ she muttered to herself, shooting off again. Indeed, it wasn’t long before she had passed him. She was just feeling the heft of the apple in her hand when another one rolled past her. Once again she stopped to pick it up; once again Hippomenes overtook her; once again she regained her position ahead of him with ease. The third apple Hippomenes deliberately rolled at an angle, so that as it shot past Atalanta it veered off the track. Atalanta saw it flash by and took off in hot pursuit. The damned thing was stuck in an acacia bush. Its thorns scratched her and caught in her hair as she plucked it out. She now had three golden apples. How marvellous. But there was that damned boy racing past her again. She turned and streaked after him. It was too late! Unbelievable, but true. The crowd roared as the exhausted Hippomenes crossed the line arms aloft and staggered, doubled up, hands on hips, sobbing and panting from the exertion. Atalanta came through in a creditable but shocked second place. She was too honourable to go back on her word and she and Hippomenes were soon married. You can say it was the work of Aphrodite, you can say it was love – it amounts to the same thing – but Atalanta found herself growing fonder and fonder of Hippomenes until it could safely be said that she loved him with an ardour equal to his for her. They had a son, PARTHENOPAEUS, who grew up to be one of the Seven against Thebes.fn15 Their married life, though, was to end strangely. It seems that Hippomenes neglected to thank Aphrodite properly for her aid in winning Atalanta. As a punishment, she visited great lust upon the couple while they were visiting a temple sacred to the goddess CYBELE fn16. Unable to resist the urge, they made furious love on the floor of her temple. The outraged Cybele transformed the pair into lions. This might not seem so terrible a punishment, lions being kings of the jungle and high up the food chain; but to the Greeks it was the worst fate that could befall lovers, for they believed that lions and lionesses were unable to mate with each other. Lion cubs, they thought, came exclusively from the union of lions and leopards. And so Atalanta and Hippomenes were doomed to live out their lives drawing Cybele’s chariot, closely harnessed to each other but eternally denied the pleasure of sex.

OEDIPUS

T HE O RACLE S PEAKS The Greeks believed that the first city state, or polis, to appear in the world was Thebes in Boeotia, the first polis or city state.fn1 The family of its founder hero Cadmus could claim amongst its members the only Olympian god with mortal blood in his veins. It was notorious for internecine dynastic wars, curses and homicides that for catastrophic generational ruin matched even those of Tantalus and the doomed house of Atreus. If they weren’t casseroling their children they were sacrificing them; while those who made it to adulthood, if they weren’t committing incest with their parents were murdering them.fn2 To be biblical, Cadmus and HARMONIA begat Semele, who exploded and begat Dionysus, her son by Zeus. Cadmus and Harmonia also begat Agave, Autonoë and Ino. Agave begat PENTHEUS, who was torn to pieces by all three of the sisters, his mother included – a fate arranged by the god Dionysus as punishment for the women’s failure to honour his mother, their sister Semele.fn3 Ino, as we saw in the preamble to the story of Jason, begat Learchus and Melicertes, tried to get Phrixus and Helle sacrificed and was finally transformed into Leucothea, the white goddess of the sea. As well as their four daughters, Cadmus and Harmonia also begat a son, POLYDORUS, who begat LABDACUS, who begat LAIUS,fn4 who – as if the enmity of Ares and Dionysus was not enough to blight the fortunes of the house of Cadmus – attracted a new curse.fn5 Without going into too much detail, when Laius was still a baby, his father Labdacus had been overthrown by the twins AMPHION and ZETHUS.fn6 His life in peril, the infant Laius had been smuggled out of Thebes by Cadmean loyalists keen to ensure that the royal line could one day be restored. Laius grew up as the guest of King Pelops of Pisafn7. It seems he fell in love with Pelops’s illegitimate son CHRYSIPPUS, taught him chariot driving and took him to the Nemean Games, where the youth competed in the races. Instead of returning him safely home to Pelops, Laius brought Chrysippus with him when he went on from the games to Thebes to reclaim his throne. Chrysippus, who did not consent to this abduction and was ashamed of his public position as a kept lover, committed suicide.fn8 When news of this reached Pelops he cursed Laius and his line for ever. Whether as a result of the curse or slack sperm motility, or both, Laius – who had reclaimed the throne that was his birthright and married a Theban noblewoman called JOCASTA – found that he was unable to father a child. Not for the first time we follow a king without an heir as he visits the Delphic oracle for advice. The son of Laius and Jocasta shall kill his father. Well, that would never do. The prophecy that had told Acrisius of Argos he would be killed by his grandson was bad enough, but this … Acrisius had indeed died at the hand of his grandson, the hero Perseus, even if it was an accident; but Acrisius, Laius thought to himself, had been a fool. He would have found a surer way to beat the oracle than throwing the infant in a wooden chest and casting him into the sea. He would have had the brat’s head chopped off and there would have been an end to it. Nonetheless, perhaps it might be safer to stay away from the marriage bed. But Laius was a man, wine was wine and Jocasta was beautiful. The morning following a great feast, he barely remembered having spent a night of passion with her; but when, nine months later, she presented him with a baby son, he began to understand Acrisius’s dilemma. To kill his own son would be to invite the certain fury of … the Furies. He sat on his throne and pulled on his beard. At last he sent for his most trusted servant, Antimedes. ‘Take this baby and expose it on the highest point of Mount Cithaeron.’ ‘Yes, my lord.’ ‘And, Antimedes, just to be sure, stake him to the hillside. I don’t want him crawling away, you understand?’ Antimedes bowed and did as he was told, piercing the infant’s ankles with iron staples and shackling them to a peg that he drove deep into the ground. It was not long before a shepherd called PHORBAS came on the scene, attracted by the loud wails. ‘Oh my good gods,’ he cried, smashing the fetters with a rock and cradling the bawling infant in his arms. ‘Who can have done such a terrible thing?’ The baby screamed and screamed. ‘Shush, now, little one. It’s no good me keeping you. Plain country people don’t treat babies this way. Only a great and powerful ruler can have done a thing so cruel. No, I daren’t be found with you.’ It happened that Phorbas had a friend from Corinth staying with him, another herdsman. This friend, Straton by name, was happy enough to take the abandoned foundling home with him. Back in Corinth, Straton presented the baby to his king and queen, POLYBUS and MEROPE. Long childless themselves, they adopted the infant and brought him up as their own son. On account of the scars from the shackles that had staked him to the ground, they called him Oedipus, which means ‘swollen foot’. So Oedipus grew up far away from Thebes, wholly ignorant of his true origins. His life might have turned out like that of any attractive, intelligent, proud princeling – especially one so much indulged by loving parents – were it not for the spite of a drinking companion who had always been jealous of his popularity and casual air of superiority. One evening the sight of beautiful young women queuing up for Oedipus’s attentions maddened the young man past enduring. ‘They only go for you because they think you’re a prince,’ he blurted out, deep in wine. ‘Well,’ said Oedipus with a smile, ‘I know it’s unfair, but as it happens I am a prince, and there isn’t much I can do about it.’ ‘You may think you are,’ jeered the friend. ‘But you’re not.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘You’re a peasant orphan bastard, nothing more.’ The others in the group tried to silence him, but the drink and malice had taken hold. ‘Queen Merope was always infertile, everyone knows that. Barren as the Libyan desert. You were adopted, mate. You’re no more a royal prince than I am. Less probably. Ask your so-called parents how you got those scars on your feet.’ Other friends rushed to undo the damage. ‘Don’t listen, Oedipus. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. You can see how drunk he is.’ But Oedipus read the fear in their eyes plain enough. After a sleepless night he went to the king and queen for reassurance. ‘Of course you’re our son! What makes you think otherwise?’ ‘The scars on my ankles?’ ‘You were a breech birth. They had to pull you out of my womb with pincers.’ So outraged and indignant were Polybus and Merope that Oedipus believed them. Almost believed them. There was a certain way to settle the question once and for all. He made his way to the oracle at Delphi. He did not know what he expected in reply to the simple, bald question, ‘Who are my true parents?’ but it was not the simple, bald answer he received. Oedipus will kill his father and mate with his mother That was all he could get out of the Pythia. As ever with oracles, all supplementary questions were met with silence. Oedipus left Delphi in a daze, striking out on a road that took him in the exact opposite direction from Corinth. He must never see Polybus and Merope again. The risk of harming Polybus through some accident was too great. And as for the second part of the prophecy … the idea made him feel physically sick. He was very fond of his mother, but in that way? One thing was certain, the greater the distance he put between himself and Corinth, the better.

W HERE T HREE R OADS M EET Oedipus was beginning to enjoy his wanderings. As a prince of Corinth he had become accustomed to being escorted everywhere by stewards, pages and bodyguards. He found life on the road as a free and unaccompanied traveller full of interest. He took pleasure in finding ways to make the small supply of coins in his purse go further. He slept in hedgerows, offered himself up in each village and town he came to as a gardener, schoolteacher, minstrel, baker’s assistant or whatever might be needed. He was good with his hands, fast on his feet and matchlessly quick with his wits. Mental arithmetic, languages, accounting, the memorising of long lines of poetry – they all came easily and quickly to his supremely agile brain. One afternoon, in the countryside outside the small town of Daulis, he found himself at a place where three roads met. While he stood debating with himself which one to take, an opulent chariot sped towards him. The old man driving stood up in his seat and tried to force him out of the way. ‘Move, peasant!’ he shouted and struck down with a whip. This was more than the proud Oedipus could bear. He snatched at the whip and pulled, jerking the old man out of the chariot. Four armed men jumped down from the back and ran towards him, shouting. Oedipus wrested a sword from one and in the fight that followed killed three. The fourth ran away. When Oedipus stooped to examine the old man, he discovered that he had fatally broken his neck in the fall. Oedipus covered the four corpses with earth and commended their spirits to the underworld. Uncoupling the horses from the chariot, he slapped their hindquarters and sent them skittering down the road. Once again he debated which way he should take. In his head he named the choices ‘Road One’, ‘Road Two’ and ‘Road Three’, plucked a branch from an olive tree and picked off the leaves one by one, counting as he did so. ‘One, two, three … one, two, three … one, two, three … one, two! So be it. I take Road Two.’ What might have happened had one more leaf – or one fewer – grown on that branch we can never know. Matters of immense import may depend on such issues, but we can never do more than guess the outcomes of the roads we do not take. Oedipus walked cheerfully down Road Two and that was that. His fate was sealed.

T HE R IDDLE OF THE S PHINX The province of Boeotia through which Oedipus had been walking was a land of pleasant fields, gentle valleys and sparkling rivers. He found that the path he had chosen rose up towards a mountain pass. A voice called to him. ‘Wouldn’t go that way, if I were you.’ Oedipus turned to see an old man leaning on a stick. ‘No? Why not?’ ‘That’s Mount Phicium, is that.’ ‘So?’ ‘Haven’t you heard tell of the Sphinx?’ ‘No. What is a “Sphinx”?’ ‘I’m a poor man.’ Oedipus sighed and dropped a coin into the man’s outstretched palm. ‘Thankee kindly, sir.’ The old man wheezed and crinkled his eyes. ‘Some say the Sphinx was sent by the Queen of Heaven herself as a punishment to King Laius. You’ve heard of him, at least?’ Oedipus had always paid attention in the schoolroom. He had been obliged to commit to memory endless lists of dull provincial kings, princes and tribal chiefs. ‘Laius, King of Thebes. Son of Labdacus, son of Polydorus, son of Cadmus.’ ‘You’ve got him. Great-grandson of the sower of the dragon’s teeth himself. Husband to Queen Jocasta and a mighty powerful king and lord.’ ‘So why would Hera wish to punish him?’ ‘Ah, well now. He raped Chrysippus of Pisa, so they say. The lad killed himself, at any rate.’ ‘I heard the story. But surely that was ages ago?’ ‘Twenty years or more. But what’s that to the gods?’ ‘And so she sent this sphincter …?’ ‘Ha! You’re a funny one. Sphinx, I said. Terrible creature, head of a mortal woman, but the body of a lion and the wings of a bird. You don’t want to mess with her. She stands at the top of the pass there, just where you was headed. She stops every traveller with a riddle. If they can’t answer it right, she throws them down to their deaths on the rocks below. Nobody’s answered the riddle yet. Trade nor traffic from the north can’t get through to Thebes. You want to go there, you’d best go all the way round the mountain to avoid her.’ ‘I’m good at riddles,’ said Oedipus. The old man shook his head. ‘See the buzzards circling in the air? They’ll be picking the flesh from your broken bones.’ ‘Or from the sphincter’s.’ ‘Sphinx, boy. That’s a Sphinx, and don’t you forget it.’ Oedipus left him cackling, wheezing and tutting, and walked on. It was true that he was good at riddles. He had invented a whole new style of word game in which you rearranged the letters of one word to make another.fn9 He had stumbled across the idea as a child when told the story of Python, the great snake that Gaia – Mother Earth – had sent up to guard the Omphalos, the navel stone of Greece at Pytho, now called Delphi.fn10 Oedipus had excitedly pointed out to his mother that Typhon, another of Gaia’s great monster sons, shared the same letters as Python. ‘And Hera is the same as her mother Rhea!’ he had cried. ‘Very good, dear. But it doesn’t mean anything.’fn11 No, he supposed that it didn’t. But it was fun. Conundrums, puzzles and codes continued to delight him and bore most other people. Now the prospect of a life-or-death riddle appealed to his intellectual vanity. The mountain pass was narrowing as he ascended. The old man had been right about the buzzards, a full dozen wheeled above him, screeching in anticipation. ‘Halt!’ He looked up and saw a winged figure crouching on a ledge above him. It leapt down and landed softly on the path in front of him, opening and closing its wings. A human face, the body of a lion, just as the old man had said.fn12 ‘Good morning, sir,’ said Oedipus. ‘Sir? Sir? Are you blind?’ ‘Forgive me. Hard to tell. I can’t even be sure which is your face and which your arse.’ ‘Oh, I am going to enjoy watching you die,’ said the Sphinx, her lion’s fur bristling. ‘You’ll have quite a wait,’ said Oedipus. ‘I don’t plan on doing that for years yet. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get through.’ ‘Not so fast! No one passes me unless they can answer my riddle.’ ‘Oh, I see. The riddle being why your mother didn’t strangle you at birth? No?’ The Sphinx, who thought herself exceptionally fine-looking – as indeed she was – spat with rage. ‘You will answer the riddle or die!’ She indicated the sheer face of the cliff below her. Oedipus looked down. Hundreds of bleached human bones lay scattered on the rocks beneath. ‘Ooh. Nasty. Right then, fire away. Haven’t got all day. Have to be in Thebes before night.’ The Sphinx settled herself down and tried to compose herself. She had never met anyone quite like Oedipus before. ‘Tell me this, traveller. What walks on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon and three in the evening?’ ‘Hm … four feet in the morning, two at noon, three in the evening?’ ‘Just give me the answer to that,’ purred the Sphinx, ‘and you may freely pass.’ Oedipus sucked in through his teeth. ‘Man, oh man,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘that’s a teaser and no mistake.’ ‘Ha! You can’t solve it, then?’ ‘But I did,’ said Oedipus raising his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ The Sphinx stared. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I just told you. “Man, oh man,” I said. And “man” is the answer. When Man is born, in the morning of his existence, he crawls on all fours; in his prime, the noontime of his day, he goes upright on two legs; but in the evening of his life he has a third – a stick to help him on his way.’ ‘B-but … how …?’ ‘It’s called “intelligence”. Now let me try one out on you. Let me see … What has the face of a hag, the body of a sow, the wings of a pigeon and the brains of a pea? No?’ The Sphinx reared up with a screech and before she had time to open her wings, fell backwards off the cliff’s edge, claws thrashing the air, down onto the rocks below. With screams of delight, the buzzards swooped. Oedipus passed on and began to make his own, more gentle, descent from the mountain. The city of Thebes lay spread out in the valley below, threaded through by the waters of Lake Copais. As he went he encountered shepherds, goatherds and a body of soldiers who were all amazed to see someone coming down from the mountain pass. By the time he reached the gates of Thebes, the story of his defeat of the Sphinx had spread throughout the city. He was welcomed by an ecstatic populace, who carried him shoulder-high to the palace and the presence of their ruler, Creon. ‘You have rid us of a quite terrible problem, young man,’ said Creon. ‘That creature not only choked off an important commercial route, her presence caused many to believe that Thebes lay under a curse. Other cities and kingdoms were refusing to trade with us. My sister, the queen, wishes to thank you personally.’ Queen Jocasta welcomed the hero with a sweet smile. Oedipus smiled back. She was older than him by some years, but remarkably beautiful. ‘You are in mourning, majesty,’ he said bowing low and holding her hand for a little longer than many might have thought suitable. ‘My husband, the king,’ Jocasta replied. ‘He was ambushed and killed by a gang of robbers. My brother Creon has been ruling as regent ever since.’ ‘My sincere condolences, madam.’ What a very attractive woman, Oedipus thought to himself. What a very attractive young man, Jocasta thought to herself.

L ONG L IVE THE K ING Oedipus stayed on in the royal palace of Thebes, an honoured guest. He had quickly proved himself invaluable to Creon. His grasp of the intricacies of commerce, taxation and governance astounded the older man. Jocasta, meanwhile, adored his company. They played games together, sang songs and composed poetry. One afternoon Oedipus approached Creon and asked if he might have a private word with him. ‘It’s your sister Jocasta,’ he said. ‘We’ve fallen in love. I know she is older than me, but –’ ‘My dear fellow!’ Creon grasped him warmly by the hand. ‘Do you think I’m blind? I saw from the first that there was something between you. Eros shot from his bow the moment you met. I couldn’t be happier. And Oedipus … if you are to marry the queen, why, you must be crowned king.’ ‘Sir, I wouldn’t for a moment wish to usurp your –’ ‘ “Usurp” poppycock. And no “sirs”, brother. A young king is just what the city needs. The people love you. You were sent by the gods, who can doubt it?’ And so, to widespread rejoicing, Oedipus married Jocasta and was crowned King of Thebes in a grand ceremony on the Cadmeia. The Thebans loved Oedipus. Aside from the great victory over the Sphinx, his arrival seemed to have brought the city luck. In the opinion of Creon and the council of Theban elders, their new king was strikingly modern. Oedipus rarely conferred with priests. He was negligent in his attendance at the temples on all but the most important holy days. He was almost blasphemous in his casual approach to prayer and sacrifice. But he was remarkably energetic, efficient and effective. He drew up mathematical tables and charts connected to everything from taxation to population, he instituted laws on household and palace management, on justice and on trade. The money from taxation and tariffs rolled in like never before, of which a proportion was expended on schools and gymnasia, asclepiafn13 and roads. Oedipus’s name for this radically new style of government was logarchy, ‘rule by reason’. Every Theban agreed that they had been ruled over by no wiser a king since the days of their great founder Cadmus. King Oedipus and Queen Jocasta had four children: two boys, ETEOCLES and POLYNICES, and two girls, ANTIGONE and ISMENE. It was a happy family. With the city continuing to prosper and flourish so that it became the envy of the Greek world, onlookers predicted a long and successful reign. And so it might have been, were it not for the outbreak of a terrible epidemic. Rumours were heard of a family struck down with a disease that had made them vomit and flame with fever for a day before dying. Soon the sickness was smouldering through the streets of the poorer quarter of the city; then it burned like a wildfire through all of Thebes. Scarcely a household was unaffected. The calm logic and reason that Oedipus espoused as the answer to all ills now looked insufficient. Frightened citizens crowded the temples and the air was soon filled with sacrificial smoke. Petitions reached the king, who turned to Creon. ‘I have to admit that I am stumped,’ said Oedipus. ‘I try to tell the people that plagues are part of the natural order of things, and will naturally pass in time, but they insist on believing they betoken some kind of divine punishment or cosmic retribution.’ ‘Let me travel to the Delphic oracle and see if it offers any advice,’ said Creon. ‘What harm can it do?’ Oedipus was sceptical, but he consented. While Creon was away, Oedipus and Jocasta’s own daughter Ismene fell ill and nearly died. She was still recovering when Creon returned, grim-faced. ‘Delphi was crowded,’ he said. ‘I queued up as an ordinary citizen. When my turn came at last I asked the Pythia one question, “Why is Thebes suffering from plague?” ’ ‘Not “How do we get rid of it?” ’ asked Oedipus. ‘It amounts to the same thing, surely?’ said Creon. ‘Anyway, this was the Pythia’s answer: “Thebes will be relieved when the murderer of King Laius is named and found.” ’ Jocasta gasped. ‘But that’s absurd. Laius was killed by a gang!’ Oedipus thought hard. ‘If it was a gang, one of them must have dealt the fatal blow. The truth can always be uncovered if you go about it systematically. But let me first say this. Make it known that whoever dares house or protect the killer of Laius will be punished. As for the killer himself – my curse is on him. He will wish he’d never been born. He will be identified, hunted down and justice served on him without mercy. I’ll see to it personally. So let it be proclaimed.’ ‘Very good,’ said Creon. ‘And there’s always Tiresias. All the way home, I was thinking “Why on earth didn’t we consult Tiresias?” ’ ‘Surely he can’t still be alive?’ Oedipus had heard of the great Theban seer. Everyone had. ‘He must be ancient.’ ‘He is not young, certainly, but he still has his wits. We can send for him.’ Messengers were despatched to Tiresias. Oedipus was curious to meet the prophet who had undergone so much at the hands of the gods. As a young man, Tiresias had aroused the wrath of Hera, who turned him into a woman. He served in her temple as a priestess for seven years before she restored him to male form. Then he had the misfortune to attract her ire again and this time she struck him blind. Out of pity Zeus gave him inner sight, the gift of prophecy.fn14 For generations his wisdom and prophetic powers had been at the service of the Theban royal house, but now he lived in secluded retirement. Tiresias was not pleased to be hauled to the palace in the middle of the night and summoned before a man a quarter of his age. The interview did not go well. Oedipus expected all the deference due to a king and especially to the great ruler and Sphinx-slayer who had transformed the fortunes of Thebes and its people. Instead he was treated with grumpy insolence. ‘I am blind,’ said Tiresias, leaning on his long staff. ‘But it is you who cannot see. Or perhaps you refuse to see. Those who curse are most accursed. Those who look out are those who most need to look in.’ ‘No doubt the unlettered and the credulous are fooled by your mystical drivel and portentous riddles,’ said Oedipus, ‘but I am not. Riddles just happen to be my speciality.’ ‘I am not talking in riddles,’ said Tiresias, fixing his blind eyes on a spot just above Oedipus’s head. ‘I speak clearly. You want to find the polluter of Thebes, then look in the mirror.’ Oedipus could get no more out of him and sent him back to his villa in the country. ‘And put him in the most uncomfortable cart you can find. Let his mad old bones have some sense shaken into them as he goes.’ ‘Damn such people,’ Oedipus said to Jocasta when he reported on the interview later. ‘The oracle at Delphi we know to be truthful. It is directed by Apollo and the ancient powers of Gaia herself, but this Tiresias is nothing but a fraud. Full of all that “You will not find the truth but the truth will find you”, “Seek not to know, but know to seek”, “You don’t make mistakes, mistakes make you”, rubbish. Anyone can do it, you just turn sentences upside down and inside out. Horse shit. Meaningless. He must think I’m an idiot.’ ‘Sh …’ said Jocasta, ‘take wine and calm yourself.’ ‘Ah,’ said Oedipus wagging his finger, closing his eyes and giving a fair imitation of Tiresias. ‘Take wine, but do not let wine take you.’ Jocasta laughed. ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t set too much store even by the oracle at Delphi. It foretold that Laius would be killed by his son, not by a gang of robbers.’ ‘Yes, I meant to ask you again about the death of Laius,’ said Oedipus. ‘If he and his party were all killed, how can we find out anything about the gang responsible?’ ‘Oh, but they weren’t all killed. Antimedes, one of Laius’s servants, escaped. He ran back to Thebes to tell us what had happened.’ ‘And what exactly did he say?’ ‘He said it had been an ambush. There were more than a dozen of them, all armed with clubs and swords. They sprang out at a place where three roads met. They pulled Laius out of his chariot …’ Oedipus stared at her. ‘Say that again.’ ‘They pulled him out of his chariot –’ ‘No. Before that. “Where three roads met”?’ ‘So Antimedes said.’ ‘Where is this Antimedes now?’ ‘He lives near Ismenos, I think.’ ‘And he’s truthful?’ ‘My husband trusted him above all his servants.’ ‘He must be fetched.’ Oedipus was thinking furiously. An old man pulled from a chariot where three roads met. A coincidence, surely. After all, this Antimedes had described a murderous gang, bristling with weapons, not one unarmed young man. All the same, it was disturbing. He paced the palace grounds and waited for the arrival of Antimedes. The plague continued to claim dozens of lives a day. ‘I can’t solve this without more information,’ he said to himself. ‘Without fresh facts, the brain just churns round and round, like a wheel stuck in mud.’ The next morning Oedipus was sitting with Jocasta when a page came forward. ‘A messenger, sire.’ ‘News from Antimedes?’ ‘No, majesty, this man is from Corinth.’ ‘Can’t it wait?’ ‘He says it is urgent, sire.’ ‘Oh well, send him in.’ ‘Corinth,’ said Jocasta as the page withdrew. ‘Isn’t that where you grew up?’ ‘Yes. I haven’t thought about the place for years. Now, sir. What brings you here?’ A weather-beaten and sunburnt old man had entered and was bowing low. ‘Great majesty.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ said Oedipus, peering at him with some surprise. ‘You look exhausted.’ ‘I came by foot, sire.’ ‘I don’t know who chose you as a messenger, but it was unkind to send someone so past their prime of life on such a long journey. I hope you will stay with us and rest before returning.’ ‘You are considerate and kind, sire,’ said the messenger. ‘As for the journey, I myself begged to be the one chosen to come to you.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘I wanted to look with my own eyes on the face of the famous King Oedipus.’ Oedipus, never impervious to flattery, smiled. ‘As the queen will tell you, I’m just an ordinary man,’ he said. ‘Never that, my dear,’ said Jocasta. She smiled at the messenger. ‘Your news is urgent, we are told. Rest your legs and tell us.’ ‘I will stand, majesty,’ said the messenger, declining the offered stool, ‘for the news I bear is heavy. You father, sire, King Polybus …’ ‘What of him?’ ‘His life’s course is run.’ ‘Dead?’ ‘It must come to us all, sire. His life was long and filled with blessings.’ ‘How did he die?’ ‘In his bed, sire. Queen Merope held his hand as he breathed his last. He was well beyond his eightieth year. It was his time.’ ‘Ha!’ said Oedipus, clapping his hands. ‘So much for oracles. Don’t look shocked,’ he added quickly. ‘I am filled with sorrow to hear of the death of my father. He was a fine man and a wise king.’ Jocasta pressed his hand and murmured her sympathy. ‘May I hope, majesty,’ said the messenger, ‘that you will return to Corinth with me for the funeral ceremony? And that you will take up the throne? Queen Merope yearns for it.’ ‘How is my mother?’ ‘Full of grief for the loss of her husband, and for the loss of her son, too. The young man who walked out one day and never returned.’ ‘I have written to her many times,’ said Oedipus. ‘But there are deep and secret reasons why I may never set foot in Corinth again.’ ‘The people long for you, majesty.’ ‘Surely there is no reason why you cannot reign in Thebes and Corinth?’ said Jocasta. ‘Double kingdoms have been known. Look at Argolis. It would be a wonder and a glory for you to reign over two great cities.’ ‘Not while my mother is alive,’ said Oedipus. Jocasta’s look of puzzlement provoked an explanation. ‘Since we were talking earlier about oracles, you should know this. When I was young, I visited Delphi and was told that it was my destiny to kill my father and … share a bed with my mother. The part about killing my father is obviously untrue, but I cannot risk returning to Corinth and somehow fulfilling the second part of the prophecy. Can you imagine anything so vile?’ ‘But you are always telling me that reason is a greater guide to action than prophecy.’ ‘I know, I know, and reason tells me it’s all nonsense; but even if the probability of it coming true is unimaginably low, the crime itself is so unimaginably monstrous that it is worth doing anything to avoid it.’ ‘But sire, sire!’ The messenger astonished them both by jumping up and down, clapping his hands and beaming with joy. ‘Forgive me, but I have wonderful news that will relieve your mind. You are safe, quite safe from such a crime. For Merope is not your mother!’ ‘Not my mother?’ Oedipus stared. His mind rushed back to the drunken oaf whose jeers all those years ago had pricked him on his way to Delphi: ‘You’re no more a royal prince than I am … You were adopted, mate.’ ‘No, sire,’ said the messenger. ‘I can explain. Who better? There’s a good reason why I wanted to be the one to bring you news of King Polybus’s death, why I wanted to look upon your features. You see, I was the one who found you.’ ‘Who found me? Explain yourself.’ ‘My name is Straton, sire, and in earlier times I was a herdsman. Many years ago I was visiting Phorbas, a shepherd I knew who tended flocks on Mount Cithaeron, on the border with Attica. One afternoon Phorbas happened on a terrible sight. A baby left on the mountain to die.’ Jocasta gave a moan. ‘Aye, majesty. Well you might cry out. For this poor child had been staked to the hillside. Shackled. Pierced through the ankles …’ Jocasta clutched at her husband’s arm. ‘Don’t listen to this, Oedipus. Don’t listen! Go away, sir. Leave us. This story is nothing. How dare you tell such disgusting lies?’ Oedipus pushed Jocasta away. ‘Are you mad? It’s what I’ve waited all my life to know. Go on …’ Jocasta, with a wild cry, ran from the room. Oedipus paid no attention, but grabbed Straton by his tunic. ‘This baby, what happened to it?’ ‘Phorbas gave him to me to look after. When it was time for me to return to Corinth, I took him with me. King Polybus and Queen Merope heard about it and asked that they might have him. I gladly gave him … you …’ ‘Me? That baby was me?’ ‘None other, sire. The gods put you into my hands and guided you to Corinth. The wounds on your ankles healed and you grew up to be a fine boy, a noble prince. I was always so proud of you, so very proud.’ ‘But who were my real parents?’ Oedipus’s hands twisted Straton’s tunic until the old man almost choked. ‘I never knew, sire! No one knows. They cannot have been good people, for they staked you to a mountainside and left you to die.’ ‘What about this friend of yours? Could he be my father?’ ‘Phorbas? No, sir. Oh no. He’s a good man. Whoever had you shackled and left to die was unworthy to be called a parent. You deserved better and the gods made sure you were given better. They led Phorbas to you and Phorbas to me. Now come back home to Corinth with me, my boy, and rule as our king.’ Oedipus let go of him. It was true that he could now safely return to Corinth. He need never have left. But he had to know who he was. Who had left him to die so cruel a death? Why had he been unwanted? Oedipus clapped his hands and summoned his page. ‘Take this fine old gentleman through to the kitchens and feed him well. Find him a chamber in which he can rest.’ He turned back to Straton. ‘I will send for you again when I have thought this thing through, sir.’ The page bowed. ‘And I was to tell you, sire, that Antimedes of Ismenos has arrived and awaits your pleasure.’ Damn. Oedipus wasn’t sure he wanted to see Antimedes now. He was far more concerned with getting to the truth of his birth and abandonment on Mount Cithaeron. Still, Antimedes might have information that would bring them all closer to discovering who killed Laius. With the plague still ravaging Thebes, he could not in all decency ignore that opportunity. Besides, he was Oedipus. He could follow ten complex lines of investigation at once, if he put his mind to it. ‘Send him in.’ Why had Jocasta run off moaning like that? The image of a baby having its ankles pierced with iron staples must have upset her. Women feel things like that. Ah well. Ah, this must be Antimedes now, Oedipus said to himself. Shifty-looking individual. Won’t meet my eyes. He’s afraid of something. ‘Stand before me, Antimedes, and tell me the truth of what happened the day Laius was killed.’ ‘I’ve told it a hundred times before,’ grumbled Antimedes, staring down at the floor. ‘There will be a report in your archives, won’t there?’ ‘Any more of that sulky manner and I’ll have you flogged, for all your white hairs,’ snapped Oedipus. ‘I want to hear the story from you. Look me in the eye and tell me what happened. If you lie, I shall know. And the deaths of hundreds of Thebans will be upon your conscience.’ Antimedes stared. ‘How can that be?’ ‘The oracle has told us that the disease scourging our people has been sent by the gods because the killer of Laius lives amongst us and pollutes our kingdom.’ ‘Well, that is indeed the truth of the matter,’ said Antimedes, gazing steadily at Oedipus. ‘The killer is here in Thebes.’ ‘He is?’ Oedipus’s eyes shone with excitement. ‘The killer of Laius is in this very room.’ ‘Ah!’ Oedipus became grave. ‘It is as well that you are honest. Tell me all truthfully and it may be that your only punishment will be exile. How did you come to kill your king?’ Antimedes gave a thin smile. ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened, my lord king,’ he said, and something in the way he said the last three words struck Oedipus as offensive. ‘We were travelling, King Laius, his three bodyguards and me. Near Daulis we came to a place where three roads meet … There was some clod of a vagrant standing there, right in our way.’ ‘But you were ambushed by a gang, surely?’ Oedipus’s heart felt as if it had been seized by an icy hand and his whole body began to tremble. ‘You wanted the truth, I’m now telling it. A lone traveller it was, a young man who looked as though he’d been on the road many a month. Laius ordered him out of the way. The man snatched at his whip and pulled him out of the chariot, like a fisherman landing a fish. The bodyguards, they sprang out … But why am I telling you this? You already know.’ In his agony of soul Oedipus wanted to hear it all. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You wrenched the sword out of the hand of one of them and killed all three.’ ‘And you ran away …’ Antimedes bowed his head. ‘And I ran away. But what business did you have to kill the king after that?’ ‘I didn’t! That is … he was dead when he hit the ground. His neck broke. I never meant for him to die. He struck first, with his whip.’ ‘If you say so,’ said Antimedes. ‘Well, I made my way to Thebes and yes, I did tell them it was a gang that set upon us. Maybe I was ashamed to have run away. Ashamed that we could all have been set upon by one unarmed man.’ Oedipus was the man who had killed Laius. Oedipus had proclaimed a curse upon the killer of Laius. A curse upon himself. ‘And then?’ ‘Nothing more to say. I left Thebes. I didn’t want to serve under Creon. My loyalty was always to Laius and Jocasta. When I heard a young man had come to rule in Laius’ place – you – I thought perhaps you were his son found at last, but then I heard you married the queen and knew that couldn’t be.’ ‘His son?’ said Oedipus. ‘But Laius and Jocasta had no children.’ ‘Ah, she told you that did she? They had one son, but they couldn’t keep it.’ ‘What are you saying?’ Oedipus shook Antimedes by the shoulder. ‘What are you saying?’ ‘I might as well tell it all,’ said Antimedes. ‘I’m not long for this life and I don’t want to face the Judges of the Underworld with an unclean soul. The oracle warned Laius that any son of his would kill him; so when a boy was born to Jocasta, he gave the child to me and bid me peg him to the hillside on Mount Cithaeron and … Oh, by the gods!’ It was Antimedes’ turn to stare. ‘Never say it. No, no –’ Loud screams came from another part of the palace. The moment Straton had told his story of taking the baby Oedipus from Mount Cithaeron to Corinth, Jocasta had understood the terrible truth and taken her own life. When Oedipus followed the screams to her bedchamber, he saw her body hanging from the ceiling and his daughters weeping beneath it. He sent them from the room. It was all clear. He was the killer of Laius who had brought the plague to Thebes. That would have been terrible enough on its own. Now he knew that the whole truth was deeper, darker and more unbearable still. Laius had been his father. He had taken his mother Jocasta to be his wife, and had four children by her. He had loudly and publicly hunted for the truth and boasted that he would find it but – as blind Tiresias had warned him – he had not been able to see. He was a pollutant. A contaminant. He was the disease. He wanted to kill himself, but how could he? Suppose he met his mother-wife Jocasta in the underworld? And the father that he had killed? He could not face that. Not yet, at least. Not until he had been punished for his unspeakable crime. He reached up, pulled the long gold brooch pins from Jocasta’s dress and thrust them into his own eyes.

T HE A FTERMYTH If the preceding scene sounds like something from a drama, that is because I have freely (too freely, some may think) drawn the narrative from Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King,fn15 probably the best known of all the classical Greek tragedies. As with almost every myth, there are variant storylines, but the version that has come down through Sophocles is the most often told and retold. Creon took over the throne and blind Oedipus tapped his wayfn16 into self-banishment and exile, his faithful daughter Antigone by his side. Two more plays, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, constitute what is known as Sophocles’ ‘Theban Cycle’ telling the story of the further episodes in the life of Oedipus and his family. In Oedipus at Colonus, the blind king is looked after by Theseus and dies in Athens, bestowing the place of his death upon the Athenian people as a blessing which will grant them victory in any future wars with Thebes. Sophocles’ two great rivals, Aeschylus and Euripides,fn17 found themselves equally unable to resist dramatising this beguiling and perplexing story. Aeschylus wrote his own Theban Cycle consisting of three separate trilogies: the Laius and Oedipus are lost, but the Seven Against Thebes (which chronicles the struggle between Oedipus’s sons Eteocles and Polynices for the throne of Thebes after their father’s death) is extant, if rarely performed, being generally considered dramatically underpowered and overladen with stodgy dialogue.fn18 The prodigiously profuse, prolific and productive Euripides wrote an Oedipus that is lostfn19 while his Phoenician Women treats the same episode that Aeschylus covers in the Seven against Thebes. It has been inferred that in the Oedipus of Euripides, Jocasta does not commit suicide and Oedipus is blinded not by himself, but by vengeful Thebans loyal to the memory of Laius. In other versions of the myth, Oedipus marries Jocasta but has no children by her. After he discovers the truth about himself he divorces her and marries EURYGANEIA (who may have been Jocasta’s sister) and it is by her that he has his four children. In this telling Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone and Ismene are clean of the taint of incest. However they were conceived, the main lines of the story tell us that, after Oedipus went into exile, his sons Eteocles and Polynices assume the throne of Thebes, each ruling in alternate years. Naturally, brothers being brothers, it all goes wrong. Eteocles refuses to give up the throne when it is his brother’s turn to take over. In a huff, Polynices storms off to Argos to raise an army led by seven champions, the so-called Seven against Thebes, but they perish during a botched assault on the city walls. Polynices and Eteocles kill each other in battle and Creon now takes over as king in his own right, ruling that the body of Polynices, whom he considers to have been the guiltier of the pair, be denied proper burial. Antigone, distraught at the idea of her brother’s soul being denied rest, attempts to cover the corpse but is caught in the act. Creon sentences her to death for her disobedience and has her sealed up in a cave. Although he changes his mind at the last minute and commands her to be set free, it is too late. She has hanged herself. By the end of Sophocles’ dramatisation of this myth, Antigone and her fiancé HAEMON (Creon’s own son) have both committed suicide. At the news of this so too does Creon’s wife, EURYDICE. The curse on the Theban royal house was relentless and the Greeks seemed endlessly to be fascinated by it. Sigmund Freud notably saw in the Oedipus myth a playing out of his theory that infant sons long for a close and exclusive relationship with their mothers, including an (unconscious) sexual one, and hate their fathers for coming between this perfect mother–son union. It is an oft-noted irony that, of all men in history, Oedipus was the one with the least claim to an Oedipus Complex. He left Corinth because the idea of sex with his mother Merope (as he thought) was so repugnant. Not only was his attraction to Jocasta adult (and the incestuous element wholly unwitting), but it came after the killing of his father Laius, which itself was accidental and entirely unconnected to any infant sexual jealousy. None of which put Freud off his stride. Aside from the encounter with the Sphinx, there is little in Oedipus to connect him to the common run of Greek heroic figures. He strikes us today as a modern tragic hero and political animal; it is hard to picture him shaking hands with Heracles or joining the crew of the Argo. Many scholars and thinkers, most notably Friedrich Nietzsche in his book The Birth of Tragedy, have seen in Oedipus a character who works out on stage the tension in Athenians (and all of us) between the reasoning, mathematically literate citizen and the transgressive blood criminal; between the thinking and the instinctual being; between the superego and the id; between the Apollonian and the Dionysian impulses that contend within us. Oedipus is a detective who employs all the fields of enquiry of which the Athenians were so proud – logic, numbers, rhetoric, order and discovery – only to reveal a truth that is disordered, shameful, transgressive and bestial.

THESEUS

T HE C HOSEN O NE It’s the archetype of fiction for children, young adults and – let’s be honest – pretend grown-ups like us too. A mysterious absent father. A doting mother who encourages you to believe that you are special. The Chosen One. ‘You’re a wizard, Harry!’ that kind of thing. It goes like this. You grow up in the city state of Troezen in the backwaters of the northeastern Peloponnese. Your mother is Aethra, daughter of the local king, Pittheus.fn1 You are a member of a royal house, yet you are treated differently because you have no father. Who is – or was – he? Your mother is exasperatingly playful on the subject. ‘Perhaps he is a great king.’ ‘Greater than grandfather Pittheus?’ ‘Maybe. But perhaps he is a god.’ ‘My father a god?’ ‘You never know.’ ‘Well, I am faster and stronger than any of the other boys. Cleverer too. Handsomer.’ ‘You’re not good at everything, Theseus.’ ‘I am! What aren’t I good at?’ ‘Modesty.’ ‘Poo! Honesty is more important.’ ‘Let’s just say immodesty is rather unattractive. Your father really wouldn’t approve.’ ‘Which father? The king or the god?’ And so the teasing and the gentle bickering would go on as you grow from boisterous toddler to proud child. One great and happy day your cousin Heracles comes to stay at the palace. He is related to your mother through an important ancestor called Pelops.fn2 You have worshipped him from the first moment you heard stories of his extraordinary adventures. The monsters he has slain, the tasks he has performed. His strength. His courage. When he arrives he slings a lion skin down in front of the fire. The pelt of the Thespian Lion, the first of his great conquests.fn3 All the other palace children scream and run away. You are only six but you run up and seize the lion by its mane. You roll round and round on the floor with it, roaring and roaring. You try to strangle it. A laughing Heracles plucks you up. ‘Here’s a young fellow after my own heart. What’s your name, copper-top?’ ‘Theseus please.’ ‘Well, Theseus Please. Plan to grow up a hero?’ ‘Oh yes, cousin, yes indeed.’ And he laughs and puts you down on the lion skin and from that moment on you know that it is your destiny, even though you are not entirely sure what the word means, to be a hero. On your twelfth birthday your mother takes your hand and leads you out of Troezen and up a path that leads to a promontory with a view over the whole city and surrounding countryside. She indicates a great rock. ‘Theseus, if you can roll that rock away I will tell you all about your father.’ You leap at the rock. You push it with arms stretched out, you turn round and strain against it with your back. You heave, you yell, you swarm all over the rock, but at last you fall exhausted to the ground. The great boulder has not budged by so much as the breadth of your little finger. ‘Come on, little Sisyphus, we’ll try again next year,’ says your mother. And each birthday from then on you go together to the rock. ‘I do believe,’ your mother says some years later, ‘that you are growing the outlines of something approaching a beard, Theseus.’ ‘It will give me strength,’ you say. ‘This is the year.’ But it is not the year. Nor is the next. You grow impatient. No one can match you in a foot race, even if you give them a half stadion start. No one can throw a javelin or discus further. Troezen seems too small for your ambitions. You are not quite sure what they are, but you know that somehow you will shake the world. You are almost weary as you trudge up the hill with your mother this particular birthday. The rock is a fake test. It will never move. But you are wrong.

U NDER THE R OCK Theseus did not feel that he was stronger this birthday than last. The palace guards joked with him that he was now tall enough to be one of their number if he chose. His beard sometimes needed trimming. It was darker than his hair, which was an unusual russety kind of red. He had hated that when he was young, but he was used to it by now. A girl he liked had told him it was attractive. Otherwise he was the same old Theseus. But this time the rock shifted! It really moved. Theseus could have sworn it was not the same rock, but that was nonsense. Perhaps he was not the same Theseus. He braced, dug in his feet and pushed further. With almost comical ease the rock turned one whole revolution towards the edge of the path, then another. ‘Shall I let it roll down the hill?’ ‘No, you can leave it just where it is.’ His mother was smiling. ‘It’s now exactly where it was before your father rolled it to the place it has stood for the last eighteen years.’ ‘But what does it all mean?’ ‘Have a dig in the ground and see if you can find anything.’ The grass was white where the boulder had rested on it all those years. Theseus scrabbled at the earth until his fingers found something and he came up with a pair of sandals, one of which was a little perished or had perhaps been chewed by beetles. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘Just what I wanted for my birthday. Some old leather sandals.’ ‘Keep digging,’ his mother said, smiling. He dug deeper and his fingers closed around something cold and metallic. He pulled up a sword, which gleamed like silver. ‘Whose is this?’ ‘It was your father’s, but now it’s yours.’ ‘Who was he?’ ‘Sit down on the bank and I will tell you.’ Aethra patted the grass. ‘Your father was and is King AEGEUS of Athens.’ ‘Athens!’ ‘He married twice, but neither union was blessed with children. He wanted a son and so he visited the oracle at Delphi. You know how strange her pronouncements can be. This was one of the strangest of all. Aegeus must not loosen the bulging mouth of the wineskin until he has reached the heights of Athens, or he will die of grief. ‘What does that mean?’ ‘Exactly. Now Aegeus happened to be a close friend of my father, good King Pittheus.’ ‘Grandfather?’ ‘Your grandpapa, exactly. So Aegeus went out of his way to stop by here in Troezen while travelling back from Delphi to see if perhaps Pittheus might be able to interpret the words of the oracle for him.’ ‘And could he?’ ‘Well now, Theseus, here you have to admire your grandfather’s cunning. He did understand the prophecy. He understood it perfectly. “The bulging mouth of the wineskin” meant, so far as he could see, Aegeus’s … manhood, let us say. So the prophecy was saying to Aegeus, “Don’t … er … conjoin with any woman until you return to Athens.” ’ ‘Conjoin? That’s a new one.’ ‘Shush. Now, Pittheus thought it might be rather wonderful for me, his daughter, to carry a child by a king of such a great city as Athens. It would allow the baby – you as it turned out – to be king of a united Athens and Troezen. So grandfather pretended he thought the prophecy meant that Aegeus should abstain from drinking wine until he got home to Athens. He then called for me and told me to show Aegeus round the palace and gardens. One thing led to another. We found ourselves in my bedchambers and …’ ‘… I was conceived,’ said a stunned Theseus. ‘Yes, but there’s more,’ sad Aethra, crimson with embarrassment. She had always known this day would come and had rehearsed her telling Theseus the story of his birth many times, but now that the day had come the words seemed to stick in her throat. ‘More?’ ‘That night, after Aegeus, your father, had … had …’ ‘… had loosened his bulging wineskin?’ ‘Yes, that. He rolled off and fell asleep. I couldn’t sleep, though. I went to the spring, the one down there dedicated to Poseidon, to cleanse myself and think. My father had sent me to sleep with a stranger so that he could play at politics. I was angry, but I had found to my surprise I liked Aegeus. He was kindly, manly and … exciting.’ ‘Mother, please …’ ‘But when I washed myself in the waters of the spring, who do you think arose from the pool?’ ‘Who?’ ‘The god Poseidon.’ ‘What?’ ‘And he … he took me too.’ ‘He … he … he …?’ ‘It’s not funny, Theseus …’ ‘I’m not laughing, mother. Believe me, I am not laughing. I’m just trying to understand. Don’t tell me Poseidon loosened his bulging wineskin?’ ‘I swear to you, it’s all true. The very same night that I slept with Aegeus, Poseidon took me too.’ ‘So which one is my father?’ ‘Both, I am quite sure of it. I returned to Aegeus’s bed, and when he awoke in the morning he embraced me and apologised. He was married, you see, so he could hardly take me back to Athens with him. We left the bedchamber before anyone else was awake and he brought me up to this place. He buried his sword and his sandals just there, and rolled the rock over the place. “If our union of last night bears fruit and a boy child is born to you, let him move the rock when he is man enough and tell him who he is. Then he may come to Athens and claim his birthright.” ’ As you can easily imagine, Theseus was thunderstruck by the news. His mother’s teasing over the years had convinced him that the idea that his mysterious father was a king or god was nothing but childish fantasy. ‘So grandpapa knew the prophecy meant that Aegeus, my father, would have a son the next time he … he had sex? And he decided you should be the mother?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘But the prophecy said Aegeus should not loosen his bulging wineskin – where do these oracles get their metaphors from? – before he got to Athens, or he would die of grief.’ ‘Well, yes …’ ‘But he did loosen it before he got to Athens. Has he since died of grief?’ ‘Well, no, he hasn’t,’ Aethra conceded. ‘Oracles!’ They talked and talked until the evening star had risen. Mother and son wound their way home, Theseus swishing the sword at the long grass. When they arrived at the palace, Aethra sought for them an immediate interview with King Pittheus. ‘So, my boy. Now you know your history. A son of Troezen and a son of Athens. Think what this will mean for the Peloponnese! We can unite our fleets and rule Attica. Corinth will be furious. And Sparta! Ha, won’t they spit with envy! Now, what to do first? We’ll equip a ship for you as soon as possible to sail over to Piraeus – tomorrow! why not? – and you can get yourself up to the Athenian court and make yourself known to old Aegeus. He’ll be so tickled! You know he married Jason’s widow, don’t you – Medea of Colchis? Terrifying woman by all accounts fn4. A sorceress and murderer of her own close kin. I’ll hunt out a present for you, a little treasure of some kind you can give them both with my regards. Oh, that was a good night’s work. What a good night’s work that was.’ Pittheus embraced his daughter and punched his grandson playfully on the arm. Theseus had other ideas. He went to his room and wrapped his few possessions in a handkerchief. A Prince of Troezen arriving by ship, holding some jewelled trinket and waving a silver sword with a ‘Hello, daddy, it’s me!’ – how heroic was that? Not heroic at all. Would Heracles have presented himself like that, like an spoiled princeling? Never. Theseus knew that when he entered Athens he should enter as a hero – and he thought he had an idea how that could be achieved. There were only two ways to get to Athens from Troezen. By sea, across the waters of the Saronic Gulf, or by foot, walking around its coastline. The latter was a long and arduous journey, but more than that, it was notoriously dangerous. Some of the most brutal and merciless outlaws, robbers and murderers in all of Greece lay in wait there. Naturally it was the route any self-respecting hero would take. If Theseus arrived in Athens having rid the highway of its legendary brigands, now that would be something … Theseus put on his father’s old sandals, buckled the sword to his belt, wrapped his few other possessions and slipped out. A few moments later he was back. He scribbled a note to his mother and grandfather and left it on the bed. ‘Didn’t like the idea of a sea voyage. Thought I’d go on foot. Love, Theseus.’

THE LABOURS OF THESEUS

1. P ERIPHETES Theseus had hardly been travelling more than an hour before he found his path blocked by a lumbering, shuffling one-eyed giant wielding an enormous club. Theseus knew exactly who this must be: PERIPHETES, a.k.a. CORYNETES, the ‘club man’. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ wheezed the Cyclops. ‘A nice soft head for Crusher, my club. He’s made of bronze, you know. My father is a smith. The smith of smiths my father is.’ ‘Yes, we all know you claim to be a son of Hephaestus,’ said Theseus, affecting boredom. ‘People have fallen for your story because you are ugly and lame. But I cannot believe that an Olympian god would ever have so stupid a child.’ ‘Oh, stupid am I?’ ‘Incredibly so. Claiming that your club is bronze. Who sold it to you? Anyone can see that it’s oak.’ ‘I made him myself!’ hooted Periphetes in outrage. ‘He is not oak! Would an oaken club be so heavy?’ ‘You say it’s heavy, but I can see you swinging it from one hand to the other as easily as if it were made of feathers.’ ‘That’s because I’m strong, cretin! You try. I bet you can’t even hold it.’ ‘Oh my, yes, it is heavy,’ said Theseus, taking it. His hand dropped down almost to the ground, as if unable to take the weight. ‘And I can feel the cold hardness of the bronze.’ ‘See!’ ‘Nice … balance … to it!’ said Theseus suddenly lifting it high and sweeping it round. On the word ‘balance’ it met Periphetes’ thigh-bone with a satisfying crunch. The giant fell with a howl of pain. ‘I … think … I … like … this … club!’ said Theseus, crashing it down on Periphetes’ skull with six splintering blows. In the rocks to the side of the road Theseus found the robber’s hideout. A hoard of gold, silver and stolen valuables had been laid neatly and carefully on the ground in a perfect semicircle around a towering shrine of crushed skulls. Theseus unearthed a leather bag and filled it with the treasure. He felt he had to keep the club too. Heracles always carried a club, so should he.

2. S INIS Further north, the road swung east along the Isthmus of Corinth. As Theseus walked, enjoying the sun on his face and the sea glittering to his right, he encountered plenty of friendly travellers. To those in need he gave coins and precious objects from his satchel. Perhaps the talk of terrifying brigands on this road is exaggerated, he thought to himself. And just as he had decided that this must be the case, he came to a rise in the ground where he saw a man standing between two trees. ‘What’s in that bag, boy?’ ‘That is my affair,’ said Theseus. ‘Oh! Oh, it’s “your affair”, is it? Well, well. I have a special way of dealing with snotty little runts of the litter like you. See these two trees?’ Theseus knew at once this must be SINIS PITYOCAMPTES, Sinis the Pine Bender. Stories of this strange and terrible man were told all around the Peloponnese. He would tie travellers between two pine trees that, with his great strength, he could bend down. After tormenting his victims for a while, Sinis would release his hold on the trees which would would straighten up, pulling the poor travellers apart. A cruel, horrible death. A cruel horrible man. ‘I’ll put down my club,’ said Theseus. ‘I’ll put down my sword and I’ll put down my satchel. Because I want to kneel before your greatness.’ ‘How’s that?’ ‘I’ve been travelling four days on this road and I hear nothing but tales of the marvellous Sinis Pityocamptes.’ ‘Yes, well, that’s fine, but don’t go weird on me.’ ‘Oh gods, I am not worthy to meet so fine a man, so pure a hero.’ Theseus prostrated himself on the grass. ‘Look, just come here, will you!’ ‘I cannot move, I am awestruck. Sinis the Great. Sinis the Marvellous. Sinis the Magnificent. Bender of Pines. Mender of Men.’ ‘You’re soft in the head, you are,’ said Sinis, advancing. ‘Come on, get up.’ But somehow, in the ensuing confusion Theseus and Sinis managed to swap positions. Now Sinis was spread-eagled out on the ground, with Theseus above him, pinning him down. ‘Come, great Sinis. It is not fair that you have given so much pleasure to so many, but received none yourself.’ ‘Let me go!’ ‘No, my lord,’ said Theseus, dragging Sinis by his wrist through the grass, like a child pulling a toy cart. ‘You have done such kindness to so many strangers without any thought for yourself. Now, if I attach your arm to this tree and pull it down like so …’ Sinis sobbed, blubbed and begged as Theseus set to work. ‘Your modesty does you nothing but credit, Sinis,’ he said, reaching for a second pine, ‘but surely it is only right the world should have not one of you, but two.’ ‘I beg you, I beg you. There is treasure buried beneath those bushes. Take it, take it all.’ Theseus now held both pine trees firmly in his grip. ‘You squeal and gibber like a pig, and I note that you wet yourself like a frightened child,’ he said, suddenly very stern. ‘But what mercy did you ever show your terrified victims?’ ‘I’m sorry, truly sorry.’ Theseus thought for a while. ‘Hm. I can see that you truly are. I’ll just go and see if you are telling the truth about your treasure and if you are I’ll spare you.’ ‘Yes, yes! But don’t let go, don’t …’ ‘Let’s see, your treasure if over here, you say?’ Theseus stepped back, releasing his hold. The pines whipped apart, tearing Sinis in two as they shot upright, releasing a shower of needles from their shivering branches. ‘Oops. Clumsy me,’ said Theseus. Theseus only left the place after he had unearthed the treasure and chopped down both the trees with his sword. He lit a fire of pinewood and sent the sweet-smelling smoke in gratitude up to the gods.

3. T HE C ROMMYONIAN S OW Theseus resumed his journey along the Isthmus road as it hugged the coast. Before long he was approaching the village of Crommyon, midway between Corinth and the city of Megara. He was already nearer Athens than Troezen. Increasingly travellers hurrying south, or farmers labouring nervously in the fields, paused briefly to warn Theseus of a fearsome creature ravaging the land, which they called the CROMMYONIAN SOW. From the stories he was told, Theseus wasn’t sure whether the Crommyonian Sow was a real snorting, squealing, snuffling, living pig, or a malicious and murderous old woman going by the name of PHAEA. Some swore they had seen a grey hag transform herself into a pig. Others maintained that Phaea was simply the pig’s keeper. Theseus never saw any grey old hag, but he did encounter a large and aggressive wild pig. The great bronze club was more than a match for it and it was not long before the gods were treated to something even more delicious than fragrant pine smoke – the aroma of freshly roast bacon.fn1

4. S CIRON Further along the coast road, between Megara and Eleusis, there lurked a notorious outlaw called SCIRON or Sceiron. He had been there so long that the cliffs over the bay at that point were known as the Scironian Rocks. Far below them, in the blue waters of the Saronic Gulf, a giant turtle swam about in impatient circles. Sciron and the turtle had an interesting and disturbing relationship. Sciron’s modus operandi was to force travellers to wash his feet, right on the cliff’s edge. The unwitting victims would have their backs to the sea and, when they knelt down to start washing, he would give a great kick and they would tumble down into the waters below, where the greedy turtle was waiting for them, jaws open. ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ said Theseus, after Sciron had leapt out from behind a tree and, at swordpoint, told him to wash his feet. ‘They’re disgusting. I’m not touching those.’ ‘Would you rather be run through with a sword?’ said Sciron. ‘Well, no,’ conceded Theseus. ‘But where’s the bowl of hot water? Where are the scented oils? Where’s the goatskin flannel? If I’m going to clean your feet, I may as well do it properly.’ With a sigh of impatience, Sciron – his sword pointing at Theseus all the time – showed him where he kept all the implements and artefacts necessary for the perfect footbath. Theseus insisted on boiling water in a copper bowl that he found. ‘After all,’ he said cheerfully, ‘if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.’ ‘Now go over yonder,’ growled Sciron, when Theseus at last pronounced that he was satisfied. ‘I’ll sit on this stool, you squat down there.’ ‘It’s very close to the edge,’ said Theseus doubtfully. ‘I like to look out to sea when I’m having my feet washed. No more talking, let’s just get on, shall we?’ Theseus carried the bowl of steaming water carefully towards the spot. He could feel Sciron’s swordpoint in the small of his back, urging him on. ‘Right, so … here?’ ‘Closer to the edge.’ ‘Here?’ ‘Closer still.’ ‘Goodness, that’s steep – whoah!’ Theseus tripped and stumbled forward. Free of the swordpoint against his skin, he turned in an instant and hurled the scalding contents of the bowl into Sciron’s face. The outlaw gave one short scream from the pain and shock, then – after a sudden shove from Theseus – he gave a second longer scream as he tottered wildly on the cliff edge before tumbling down into the blue, blue sea. Theseus looked down and saw the creamy wake of a giant turtle closing in on the thrashing form.

5. C ERCYON AND THE B IRTH OF W RESTLING At the temple of Demeter and Korefn2 at Eleusis, Theseus paused to offer sacrifices and prayers of thanks for his survival thus far. When he set out again on his journey, the coastline began to curl sharply south. For the worthy and indigent there were still plenty of gifts in his satchel, but his mind was now more occupied with how his father would react when they met than with the threat of brigands and outlaws. Theseus was just thinking of finding a place to bivouac and sleep for the night when two tall thin men appeared on either side, seemingly out of nowhere, with their knives pointed at his throat. A third figure then stepped out in front of him. Theseus had never seen someone so big. He would have dwarfed even Periphetes, the first of his adversaries on this journey. Theseus knew perfectly ordinary people who were shorter than this man was broad. ‘Who gave you permission to enter my kingdom?’ the giant roared. ‘Excuse me?’ ‘I am Cercyon, king of this realm. You enter without permission.’ ‘Well, how very wrong of me. Please accept my apologies.’ ‘I offer strangers a fight without weapons. If you win, this kingdom is yours.’ ‘And if I lose?’ ‘Then you die.’ Theseus looked round. ‘Not much of a kingdom, is it? I mean, compared with Corinth, say.’ ‘Do you accept the challenge?’ ‘Oh yes, I accept.’ ‘Then remove your sword and your clothes.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘This is a fight without weapons. Only arms and fists, and legs and feet. Pure fighting.’ Theseus looked at the giant, who had cast off his cloak and other articles of clothing and now stood naked before him. Maybe this was all some elaborate courting ritual. Being embraced by such a huge musclebound man in an act of love was as horrible a prospect as being embraced by him in an act of combat. The tall thin guards with their knives at his throat were not going to go away, and with no other options open to him, Theseus laid down his sword and club with a sigh and stepped out of his tunic. ‘I can crush bones in one hug,’ said Cercyon. ‘Really?’ said Theseus. ‘Your mother must be very proud of you. Tell me …’ he added, leaping nimbly to one side as Cercyon came forward in a rush, ‘if I win, will your men really submit to me?’ ‘If you win,’ chuckled Cercyon, beckoning Theseus forward, ‘they will serve you to the end of their days and you will be their king. Come to me, come to me!’ Theseus ducked between Cercyon’s legs and felt the giant’s balls brushing the top of his head. ‘Revolting,’ he said to himself. ‘But they do present a good target.’ ‘Will you keep still!’ exclaimed Cercyon, infuriated by Theseus’s starts and sideways jumps. ‘You don’t fight like a man, you dance like a girl.’ Slowly Cercyon began to tire. He was too strong for Theseus to allow himself to engage, for it would only take one great bear-hug and his ribs would crack. But the giant’s lunges and swipes were slowing. Every time he made a move, Theseus found a way to turn his strength against him, tiring him further. The next time he ducked between Cercyon’s legs, he leapt onto the giant’s scrotum and hung there, twisting it round and round. Cercyon howled in agony. ‘Stop it! You can’t do that, it’s cheating!’ With one last vicious tug, Theseus dropped to the ground. ‘I’ll get you, I’ll get you!’ thundered Cercyon. He’s lost his temper, Theseus thought to himself. I’ve got him now. Cercyon stamped and lurched forwards, blind to anything but revenge. Theseus nipped at his ankles, snapped at his balls, jumped on his toes, laughed and teased and raced around him until Cercyon was more like an enraged bull than any kind of artful fighter. At last Theseus lured him to a row of jagged rocks and tripped him. Cercyon fell face down on the sharp rocks and Theseus jumped up and down on him like a child bouncing on a bed. The giant’s blood spurted up in a fountain and fell in crimson drops as Cercyon shuddered and gave up his last breath.fn3 Theseus turned to see the two thin guards kneeling on the ground in front of him. ‘Sire!’ ‘Majesty!’ ‘Oh, stop it,’ said Theseus, panting from his exertions. ‘Go away. You’re free. Quick, go! Before I do to you what I did to your king.’ As he watched them scampering down the hillside, Theseus donned his tunic and gathered up his possessions.fn4

6. P ROCRUSTES, THE S TRETCHER Theseus’s last adversary appeared before him in a valley of Mount Korydallos. Unlike the others, he did not leap out from behind a rock or a tree. He did not bar Theseus’s way and he did not threaten him with swords, clubs or knives. Instead he stood in the doorway of a pleasantly appointed stone house and welcomed him with a smile and an offer of hospitality. ‘Hello, stranger! You look as though you have travelled a few leagues.’ ‘That I have,’ said Theseus. ‘You will surely be in need of refreshment and a bed for the night.’ ‘I was thinking of making straight for Athens this evening.’ ‘Oh, it’s a good twelve miles. You’ll never make it before nightfall. And there are thieves and murderers waiting out there, I can assure you. Believe me, much better to stay here and make the final leg of your journey when you’re fresh. We offer cheap, clean lodging at an affordable price.’ ‘Sold,’ said Theseus, thrusting out his hand. ‘Theseus of Troezen.’ ‘PROCRUSTES of Erineus. Make yourself welcome under our roof.’ There was something in the smiling and the bowing that Theseus did not quite like, but he said nothing and entered the small house. A middle-aged woman was busy wiping down the wooden table with mint leaves. She welcomed him with a bobbing curtsy and a beaming smile. ‘A guest, my dear,’ said Procrustes, ducking his head to avoid the lintel as he entered, for he was a tall man. Procrustes’ wife bobbed again. She smiled quite as much as her husband and Theseus found the nature of the smile quite as off-putting. ‘Do you have water somewhere that I might wash myself?’ he asked. ‘Wash yourself? Why would you do that?’ Procrustes asked, amazed. ‘Never you mind, Procrustes. If the young gentleman wants to wash, then let him. Strangers have strange ways and there’s an end to it. There’s a pond out the back where the ducks swim,’ she added to Theseus. ‘Might that serve your needs?’ ‘Perfectly,’ said Theseus and he made his way out. He saw the pond but did not make for it: instead he doubled round to the window at the back under which he crouched, listening. ‘Oh, he’s perfect, my dear,’ the wife was saying. ‘Did you see that bulging satchel he’s carrying? There’ll be silver and gold in there enough.’ ‘He’s neither tall nor short,’ Procrustes put in thoughtfully. ‘When I take him to be fitted to the bed, should he be stretched out, do you think?’ ‘Oh, I love it when you manacle them and stretch them out, Procrustes. The screams, the screams!’ ‘Ah, but there’s fun to be had when they’re too tall for the bed, too. Chopping off their feet … They scream plenty then too.’ ‘Stretch him, Procrustes, rack him! It lasts longer.’ ‘I believe you’re right, my dear. I’ll go to the room now and make the bed long. What’s he doing, anyway? Who ever heard of a man washing himself? He’s not making a sound, neither.’ Theseus quickly picked up a stone and threw it into the pond. It landed with a splash and a chorus of angry quacking. ‘He’s frightening the ducks, at any rate.’ ‘Maybe he’s from Sparta,’ suggested his wife. ‘You hear strange things of Spartans.’ ‘He said he was from Troezen.’ ‘They’re strange too.’ ‘We’ll hear stranger things of him soon enough,’ said Procrustes as he left the room. Theseus came back by way of the pond and was suitably dripping when he came back into the house. ‘You’ll have a cup of wine by the fire,’ said the woman. ‘That water must be making you chilly.’ ‘How kind.’ ‘All right and tight for you,’ said Procrustes, coming back in, with a wink. ‘Just been making sure your room is comfortable.’ ‘That’s so thoughtful of you,’ said Theseus. ‘They say the gods reward hospitality.’ ‘Well, it’s the least we can do,’ said Procrustes. ‘It’s a rough road from Eleusis to Athens. You can meet some nasty customers on the way.’ ‘I’ve certainly encountered plenty of interesting and unusual people on my journey.’ ‘No one who wanted to harm you?’ said the woman with motherly concern. ‘I found most of them to be as polite and friendly as you are,’ said Theseus, with a broad smile. ‘Enough chat, my dear,’ said Procrustes. ‘This gentleman will be wanting to see his room. Make sure the bed fits, that kind of thing.’ ‘A bed?’ said Theseus. ‘Goodness me, I’ve become used to sleeping out in the open. What luxury a bed will be.’ ‘Come along then and I’ll show you.’ It was a pleasant room into which Procrustes ushered his guest. He had gone to the trouble of setting a vase of flowers on the table. The frame of the bed itself seemed to be of bronze. Theseus saw that there were rings built in all around the sides that seemed to be decorative, but could easily serve as manacles or cuffs. ‘How charming,’ said Theseus, surveying the room. ‘Irises. My favourites.’ ‘Now, if you’ll just lie out on the bed, I’ll see if it fits.’ ‘No, no,’ said Theseus. Quick as a flash he executed one of his wrestling moves, which deposited Procrustes face down on the bed. While he was still stunned, Theseus grasped his hands and quickly fixed them to the restraints, then he did the same to Procrustes’ ankles. Procrustes swore loudly, but Theseus shushed him. ‘What a remarkable bed this is,’ he said walking round it slowly. ‘There’s a handle here, I wonder what it does?’ He picked up the crank and fitted it to the mechanism at the end of the bed. When he turned the handle, the bed shortened in length. ‘Language, Procrustes, please! I see you have an axe here. Perhaps that is to fit your guests properly to the bed? I wonder if it works.’ Theseus lopped off Procrustes’ protruding feet at the ankles. The screams were terrible, so Theseus silenced them by chopping off his head too. The body quivered and jerked for a few seconds, blood spouting from each end. As he was detaching Procrustes and rolling him off the bed, he heard the wife coming down the passageway. ‘Oh, you haven’t started without me, have you, my love? I heard the screams, but I had bread in the oven and I –’ She stopped and stared at the sight that met her: Theseus standing cheerfully, axe in hand, her husband dead on the floor and blood everywhere. ‘No, you’re not too late,’ said Theseus. ‘Why don’t you lie down and let me fit you to the bed? No, no, don’t struggle. It’s much easier if you lie still and let me attach you to these clever manacles … like so. Dear me, you are far too short for this bed, you know. Far too short. Let me make you a better fit.’ The woman spat and screamed curses but Theseus took no notice as he turned the handle. ‘You see, now I can stretch you. They say that is very good for the muscles.’ He cranked until he could hear the woman’s shoulders creak as her arms were slowly pulled from the shoulder sockets. ‘Still not quite a fit …’ Now her hips began to click and snap. ‘You were right about the screams,’ said Theseus. ‘Just as well you have no neighbours.’ She died in terrible agony, but Theseus thought of the agony of the many travellers who had had the misfortune to accept hospitality from the couple. He found plenty of stolen jewellery and, behind the duckpond, a macabre midden of bones. More than two hundred had screamed their last in this evil place. Theseus threw lit rushes into the windows of the house and crossed the road to lie down in the field opposite and watch it burn down – Procrustes, wife, bed and all. As the embers died, he curled up and thought to himself how the best beds were to be found in nature, in the hedgerows and under the wise all-seeing stars. In the morning he should stop off at the River Cephissus and cleanse himself. That, he felt, was important.

T HE W ICKED S TEPMOTHER The figure that strode through the morning market in the Athenian agora attracted attention right away.fn5 He was tall, he was handsome, yet despite his youth he was fierce of demeanour and confident in his bearing. The lithe tread and broad shoulders spoke of a warrior or athlete. Such figures were not rare in Athens, but neither were they an everyday sight. It was the club he carried that started the rumours flying. Theseus stopped off at a stall to buy a melon; a small boy saw the club and, intrigued, touched it. ‘Is that … is that … bronze?’ he asked. Theseus nodded gravely. ‘That is what the man I took it from claimed and I have every reason to believe him.’ The stallholder leaned forward. ‘I heard that Periphetes the bandit was killed. He carried a club like this, they say.’ ‘Periphetes Corynetes!’ went the cry. ‘Is this the man we’ve heard tell of?’ ‘The one who tore Sinis apart with his own pine trees?’ ‘The lone traveller who outfought Cercyon …’ ‘… and slew the Crommyonian Sow …’ ‘… and lopped off the legs of Procrustes the Stretcher …’ ‘… and fed Sciron the cliff-killer to the tortoise …’ Theseus found himself being lifted bodily and carried to the palace by a cheering crowd. Here was the nameless hero of the Isthmian Road, the Saviour of the Saronic Coast! His name is Theseus and he is a Prince of Troezen. Hurrah for Troezen! Hurrah for Theseus! Theseus had deliberately set out to make a name for himself and he had succeeded. That is why he chose the footpath of greatest danger over the sea-lane of greater safety. But he was not entirely vain, and he had enough sense to understand that fame and hero-worship cut two ways. They may embolden and excite the populace, but they aggravate and alarm the powerful. He had no wish to alienate his father before they had even met. With smiles and friendly back-slapping, he managed to extricate himself from the cheering crowd. ‘Thank you, friends,’ he said, safely back at street level. ‘Thank you, but I am just a man like any other, and it is as a humble citizen that I beg an audience with your king.’ Such modesty of course served only to increase the adoration of the Athenian citizenry. They understood and respected such humility and allowed him to enter the palace alone and unencumbered by an entourage of admirers. King Aegeus received Theseus in the throne room. Seated beside him was his third wife, Medea. Everyone had heard of Medea and the part she played in ensuring the success of the quest for the Golden Fleece. Stories abounded of her powers as an enchantress and of her implacable will. Her passion as a lover, wife and mother had driven her, they said, to do the most unspeakable things. Child murder, blood murder – there was nothing of which she was not capable, but looking at her you saw only beauty and simple sweetness. Theseus bowed before both. ‘So this is the young man of whom we have heard tell, eh? A Prince of Troezen no less, grandson of my old friend Pittheus. Rid us of our infestation of bandits, did he?’ Aegeus did not, of course, recognise his son. If there was something in the russet of Theseus’s hair that matched his own sparse and greying thatch, it did not cause much comment. The Grecian mainland, Macedonia in particular, was filled with men and women of varying degrees of sandy, ginger, copper and red hair. Theseus bowed again. ‘That’s a lot of killing, young man,’ said Medea, with a smile and flash of her green eyes. ‘I hope you have done something to purge your soul of so much blood?’ ‘Yes, majesty,’ said Theseus. ‘I saw the PHYTALIDES who have a temple beside the River Cephissus and begged for atonement. They purified me.’fn6 ‘That was very clever of you – very proper of you,’ Medea emended her words, but Theseus caught the spark of enmity. Aegeus too, he had to confess to himself, seemed far from pleased to see him. ‘Yes, well, I’m sure we’re very grateful,’ said the king. ‘Please make yourself at home here in the palace. I’m sure we can find something for you to do in the … er … the army, or somewhere … there are many ways a good man may be of service to us.’ Aegeus’s throne was, in truth, far from secure. Being childless (as he and the world thought) his brother PALLAS’s fifty sons – yes, fiftyfn7 – all expected a share in the throne when he was gone. Their aggressive impatience at his refusal to abdicate or die caused Aegeus many sleepless nights. Medea had a son, Medus, whom she hoped would rule Athens after Aegeus’s death. Medea looked at the young man now standing before her with such false modesty and fake charm. She was not fooled for an instant. She looked again more closely and her heart leapt in her breast. She saw the hair, but more than that she noticed a look, a cast of features that she knew from Aegeus. Rumours had abounded of his visit – when was it? Yes, seventeen or eighteen years ago – to the Delphic oracle and thence to Troezen and his friend Pittheus, who had a daughter, Aethra. Yes, this bold youth was the bastard of that union, Medea was certain of it. The searching gaze he was giving Aegeus only confirmed her conviction. Well, she would put an end to this threat. Nothing would come between her and the plans she had for Medus to inherit the throne. ‘Actually, I can think of something he might do for us, if he – excuse me, Theseus was it? What an unusual name – if Theseus might consider …’ She leaned across and whispered into Aegeus’s ear. He nodded brightly. ‘Yes, yes. The queen, as always, is wise. You seek adventure, young man? You would like to help Athens?’ Theseus nodded eagerly. ‘The villagers over near Marathon have been complaining about some terrifying bull that is rampaging around the plain. Terrible – from Crete originally, they tell me. It’s making trade and civil congress in the region all but impossible. If what they say about you and that sow in Crommyon is true … you don’t think …?’ ‘Say no more, sire,’ said Theseus. With his most respectful bow he left on his mission. ‘What a good idea, Medea, m’dear,’ said Aegeus. ‘I didn’t like the cut of that young man. And such popularity is dangerous. Did you hear how the crowd cheered him?’ ‘A dangerous youth, for certain.’ ‘Well, we’ve seen the last of him. That bull breathes fire from its nostrils. It’s untameable. I should know.’ ‘I am not so sure,’ said Medea. ‘I shall make a fire and look into the flames. There’s something about that boy …’

T HE M ARATHONIAN B ULL The news that Aegeus had sent Theseus to kill the bull at Marathon sent shockwaves throughout Attica. For the king had sent a young man on the very same mission before, with disastrous consequences. He had received Prince ANDROGEUS, a son of King Minos of Crete, as a guest, and foolishly sent him on the same errand, to rid Athens of a terrible bull that was devastating the countryside. The bull had promptly killed Androgeus, and as a punishment for such an egregious sin against the laws of hospitality, Minos had invaded Attica and threatened to raze the city to the ground unless … Well, we will come to that soon enough. For the moment, everyone wondered how Aegeus could be making the identical same disastrous mistake, for it was the identical same disastrous bull. We first encountered this prodigiously significant beast when it was known as the Cretan Bull, the very one Heracles had been ordered to capture for his Seventh Labour.fn8 After he let it go, you will recall, it fled from Mycenae and eventually ended up in Marathon, where it had been terrorising the inhabitants ever since. Theseus went to Marathon and once more demonstrated the difference between his brand of heroism and that of Heracles who, if you remember, had planted himself on the ground and let the bull come at him, seizing it by the horns and using his sheer physical strength to subdue it. Theseus approached the problem in his own way. He watched the bull for some time. He saw no flames jetting from its nostrils, but he did see enormous strength and a terrible primal savagery in its furious snorting, bellowing and pawing of the ground. The ravaged countryside, gored livestock and flattened buildings all told him of the animal’s formidable power and instinct to kill. ‘But he’s really no more frightening than Cercyon, whom I wrestled to the ground and dashed on the rocks,’ he said to himself. Sure enough, employing that same subtle art of turning the strength of an adversary against him, Theseus wore the bull out. Theseus was too lithe, nimble and quick for it. Each time the bull came at him, Theseus jumped into the air and the baffled animal found itself charging through vacant space beneath him.fn9 ‘You don’t breathe fire,’ said Theseus, leaping over him for the tenth time, ‘but your breath is hot.’ At last the great beast was too tired to resist any further. Theseus harnessed him and ploughed the Plain of Marathon.fn10 The ploughing demonstrated his mastery of the beast and proved to the delighted inhabitants that they could now grow crops and farm their land in safety. Theseus returned in triumph to Athens with the bull, which he sacrificed to Apollo in the agora.

T HE Q UEEN OF P OISONS Aegeus’s plan could not have backfired more spectacularly. Far from ridding himself of this threat to his peace and security, he had propelled Theseus to even greater heights of popularity and acclaim. All Athens thrilled at the procession through the streets as Theseus led the great bull, once so ferocious, but now as placid and docile as a castrated ox, and made the noble and modest sacrifice to Apollo. The people had never seen such a hero. Aegeus was bound to throw a feast in his honour and it was while he was moodily dressing for this that Medea entered his chamber. ‘This young man bodes nothing but ill for us, my husband.’ ‘I am aware of it.’ ‘See here …’ Medea showed him a small crystal phial. ‘In there is a quantity of wolf’s bane …’ ‘The queen of poisons, they call it, do they not?’ ‘It has many names,’ said Medea coldly. ‘Blue rocket, devil’s helmet, leopard’s fire, aconite.fn11 It is enough to know that it kills. I drop the contents into the popinjay prince’s cup and lo! we are rid of the problem. It will seem as though he has had a fit, a storm in the mind, and we shall put it about so. Hades was greedy for so great a soul to come to the Underworld, we will say, and he sent Thanatos, Lord of Death, to bring Theseus to his eternal rest in paradise.’ ‘You’re a clever little thing,’ said Aegeus, chucking her under the chin. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ ‘No, Medea, m’dear.’ He did not see Medea slip the poison into Theseus’s cup at table, but a sign from her showed that she had managed to do so. She did not go quite so far as to tap the side of her nose and wink, but the slow and meaningful nod she gave Aegeus assured him that all was ready. ‘So now, my people,’ said Aegeus rising with a cup in his hand. ‘I offer a toast to our guest, this prince of Troezen, this slayer of bandits and tamer of bulls, our new friend and protector. Let us drink to the health of Lord Theseus, for so I now name him.’ Enthusiastic murmurs of assent ran round the hall as the guests drank to Theseus, who sat modestly nodding his thanks. ‘And now our guest must reply,’ said Medea. ‘Oh, now, well …’ Theseus rose to his feet, grasping a goblet in nervous hands. ‘I am not much of a fellow for talking. I know the art of speech-making is prized here in Athens and I hope some day to learn. For the most part I let my sword do the talking …’ he opened his cloak slightly and put a hand to the hilt of his sword. A murmur of sympathetic and admiring laughter ran round the hall. ‘But I drink to –’ ‘No!’ To the astonishment of all present King Aegeus suddenly leaned forward and violently struck the cup from Theseus’s hands. ‘That sword,’ he said, pointing to Theseus’s side. ‘I buried that very sword in the ground for my son to find.’ ‘And these rotten old sandals,’ said Theseus with a laugh, pulling one of them from his foot. ‘How I cursed them when I was on the road.’ Father and son fell into each others’ arms. It was a moment before Aegeus called Medea to mind. ‘And as for you, sorceress, witch and –’ But she had gone. She left Athens never to return. Some swore that they saw her flying across the sky in a chariot drawn by dragons, her son Medus by her side.fn12

T HE S TORY OF THE T RIBUTE Aegeus’s next act was to announce that he would one day soon abdicate his throne in favour of Theseus, news received with much joy by the people of Athens. Aegeus was not unpopular, but it was widely accepted that he had been a weak ruler. Fifty strong and angry men contested Theseus’s right to rule, however – the Pallantidae, the fifty sons of Aegeus’s dead brother Pallas. They declared outright war on their unwanted cousin. It is axiomatic in the world of Greek mythology that a hero never knows rest and it was with a good grace and healthy vigour that Theseus prosecuted his war against the fifty. In two groups, each led by twenty-five of the brothers, the enemy planned a surprise pincer attack on Athens. But Theseus had spies in their camp. Informed of their plans by a herald named LEUS, he ambushed each army in turn, massacring every single one of the Pallantidae. Theseus felt he now had time to enjoy the peace and prosperity that had at last come to Athens. Yet he noticed that far from looking happy, the citizenry was going about the town with sullen, downcast looks. He was still popular, he knew that. But he could not account for what he saw in the people’s eyes. He went to Aegeus. ‘I don’t understand it, father. The Pallantidae are no longer a threat. That witch Medea no longer exerts her malign influence over you and the city … trade is booming. Yet there’s a look in everyone’s eyes. A look of fear, of … the only word I can think of is … dread.’ Aegeus nodded. ‘Yes. Dread is the right word.’ ‘But why?’ ‘It’s the tributes, you see. The time has come round again for the tributes.’ ‘Tributes?’ ‘Has no one told you? Well, you’ve been a little occupied since you got here, haven’t you? I suppose what with those fifty nephews of mine … and the Marathonian Bull, of course. Well, it concerns that damned bull, as a matter of fact … Oh dear.’ ‘What about it, father? It’s been dead this year or more.’ ‘We have to go back quite a few years. King Minos sent his son to stay with me. To take part in some games and learn a little Athenian town polish, you know. Manners and style. The Cretans are … well, you know what Cretans are like.’ Theseus did not know what Cretans were like, but he knew that the rest of Greece held them equally in awe, fear and contempt. ‘So he came to us. Androgeus, his name was. Stupid boy, I thought him, not very interesting, and so boastful about his attributes as a fighter and athlete. I should never have encouraged him. It was wrong of me …’ ‘What happened?’ ‘He died, while a guest. His father Minos … er … didn’t take it well. He sailed a fleet here which overwhelmed our navy. Troops poured out from their damned ships and before long he had us where he wanted us.’ ‘But he didn’t occupy Athens?’ ‘Said it wasn’t worth it. “No Cretan would want to live in such a place,” he said. Cheek. He threatened to burn the whole city to the ground unless …’ ‘Unless?’ ‘Well, this is where we come to it. Every year we must send seven maidens and seven youths in a ship to Crete to feed their … their …’ Aegeus dried up at this point and gestured helplessly. ‘Feed their what? Their army? Their sexual appetites? Their curiosity? What?’ ‘I suppose I shall have to tell you a story within a story now. What do you know of Daedalus?’ ‘Never heard of it …’ ‘Daedalus is not an it, he’s a him.’ ‘Never heard of him, then.’ ‘Really? Have you heard of ASTERION and Pasiphae, or the Bull from the Sea?’ ‘Father, you talk in riddles.’ Aegeus sighed. ‘I had better call for wine. You should know these stories.’

T HE B ULL FROM THE S EA Crete is, in many respects (said Aegeus to Theseus, once wine had been brought and they had settled themselves back on couches), a blessed spot. The fruit and vegetables they grow there are bigger, juicier and tastier than from any other lands. The fish they catch on their coastline is the best in the Mediterranean. They are a proud people, a fierce people. For many years King Minos, in his palace at Knossos, has ruled them sternly but fairly. They have prospered under him. But there is a dark secret at the heart of Knossos. For many years Minos has been lucky to have in his court the most gifted inventor, the most skilled artificer outside the Olympian forges of Hephaestus. His name is Daedalus and he is capable of fashioning moving objects out of metal, bronze, wood, ivory and gemstones. He has mastered the art of tightly coiling leaves of steel into powerful springs, which control wheels and chains to form intricate and marvellous mechanisms that mark the passage of the hours with great precision and accuracy, or control the levels of watercourses. There is nothing this cunning man cannot contrive in his workshop. There are moving statues there, men and women animated by his skill, boxes that play music and devices that can awaken him in the morning. Even if only half the stories of what Daedalus can achieve are true then you can be certain that no more cunning and clever an inventor, architect and craftsman has ever walked this earth. They say he is descended from CECROPS, the first King of Attica and ancestor of all Athenians, Cecrops who judged in favour of Athena when she and Poseidon vied for control of the new town he was building. That is why we call the city Athens and bask in the wisdom and warmth of the great goddess’s protection. I only mention this because although he works for Minos, our enemy, I think of Daedalus as Athenian, as one of us. After all, I would hate to think of a Cretan being so clever. As a matter of fact, Daedalus was expelled from Athens. He had a nephew named PERDIX who served as his apprentice and was, they say, even more ingenious and gifted than his brilliant uncle. Before he even reached the age of twenty, Perdix had invented the saw (inspired, they say, by the serrations on the backbone of a fish), compasses for architectural planning and geometry, and the potter’s wheel too. Who knows what he would have gone on to devise had his jealous uncle not thrown him off the Acropolis, where he fell to his death. The goddess Athena turned him into a partridge. If you’ve ever wondered why partridgesfn13 always skim low and never soar into the air and even build their nests on the ground, it is because they recall their terrifying plummet from the heights of Athens. Yes, yes, you are right, Theseus, this is all a little far from the point, but I must tell this story in my own way. Minos has a wife, Pasiphae – she and Daedalus are very close. Some even suggest that they … Well, let us say Minos is a difficult husband and no one would blame Pasiphae for looking elsewhere. She is a proud woman, daughter of the sun god Helios, no less, and imbued with great powers. She is the sister of Circe and Aeëtes and an aunt, therefore, of Medea. There’s a story that she became so annoyed by Minos’s unfaithfulness to her that she secretly added a potion to his wine which caused him, in the act of love-making, to ejaculate only snakes and scorpions, which was most painful for all concerned. But what she did next took everyone by surprise. One day Poseidon sent a white bull from the sea. Oh no, I am still not quite in the right order of things. You know the story of Europa?fn14 Who does not. How Zeus in the form of a bullfn15 carried the girl off from Tyre right under the eyes of Cadmus and her other brothers. They went to Greece to get her back, and in the course of his adventures Cadmus founded Thebes, of course, and his brothers all established dynasties too, Phoenicia, Cilicia and so on, but they never found their sister, who had landed with Zeus on Crete. Well, Europa bore the god a son, Minos, who ruled the island and became, after his death, one of the Judges of the Underworld. His son ASTERION ruled Crete and his son, MINOS II, the current Minos, took over. But Minos had brothers who objected to his claim. Minos, though, insisted that the gods always intended him to be king, and to prove it he offered up a prayer to Poseidon. ‘Send a bull from the sea, my lord Poseidon,’ he cried, ‘so that my brothers may know Crete is mine. I will sacrifice the bull in your name and venerate you always.’ Sure enough, the most beautiful white bull emerged from the waves. So beautiful, in fact, that there were two disastrous outcomes. Firstly, Minos decided it was far too handsome an animal to kill, so he sacrificed a lesser beast from his own herd, which very much enraged Poseidon. And secondly, the bull’s astonishing beauty attracted Pasiphae. She couldn’t take her eyes off it. She wanted it. She wanted it on her, around her and in her – I’m sorry, Theseus, it’s true. I’m telling the story as it is known. There are those who say it was the angry Poseidon who crazed her with this lust – part of his punishment of Minos for failing to sacrifice the bull, but however it came about, Pasiphae became frenzied in her desire for the animal. The bull was, of course, a bull and so had no sense of how to respond to a woman’s advances. In the froth and frenzy of her erotic passion the lovestruck Pasiphae went to her friend, and perhaps ex-lover, Daedalus and asked if he could help her have her way with the bull. Without so much as a second thought Daedalus, excited perhaps by the intellectual challenge, set about manufacturing an artificial heifer. He made it from wood and brass, but he stretched a real cow’s hide over the frame. Pasiphae fitted herself inside, the correct part of her presented to the correct opening. The whole contraption was wheeled to the meadow where the bull was grazing. I know, my boy, it is gross, but I am telling you the story as the world knows it. Astonishingly, the depraved plan worked. Pasiphae screamed in a delirium of joy as the bull entered her. Never had she known such carnal ecstasy. Yes, laugh, mock and snort with derision as much as you like, but this is what happened, Theseus. Still not satisfied that Minos had suffered enough for his disrespect, Poseidon now sent the bull mad. Its untameable terrorizing of the island caused Eurystheus to choose it as the seventh task he set for Heracles, who came to Crete, subdued it and took it to Mycenae. This was of course the bull that escaped from Mycenae, crossed into mainland Greece and tore up the plain of Marathon until you, my splendid boy, tamed it and brought it to Athens, finally, to be sacrificed. Quite a bull, wasn’t it? But its story and the curse of it is not over, for what happened on Crete next was even more dreadful. In due course Pasiphae, the bull’s seed inside her, gave birth. What emerged was – as might be expected and thoroughly deserved – a monstrous aberration, half human and half bull. Minos was disgusted but neither he nor Pasiphae had the heart or stomach to kill the abomination. Instead, Minos commissioned Daedalus to construct a building in which this creature – which they named Asterion after Minos’s father, but which the world called the MINOTAUR – could be safely housed and from which it could never escape. The building Daedalus designed, which he named the Labyrinth, was an annex to his great Palace of Knossos, but so elaborate and complex was its maze-like design of passageways, blank walls, false doors, dead ends and apparently identical corridors, galleries and alcoves that a person could be lost in its interior for a lifetime. Any can enter, but none can ever find their way out. Indeed, the cunning of the labyrinth is that its design leads inevitably to the central chamber that lies in its very heart. It is a stone room where Asterion the Minotaur lives out his wretched, monstrous life. High above is a grating, which lets in some sunlight, and allows food to be thrown down to him. As he grew from infant-calf to man-bull (I should say that his lower half is human and his upper half is bull, complete with a full set of horns) it became clear that his favourite food was flesh. Human flesh for preference. A certain number of thieves, bandits and murderers are likely to be sentenced to death on Crete in the normal course of events and their carcasses go some way to satisfying the Minotaur, but every year he has a special treat. And this, Theseus, is where your father comes into the story – to his everlasting shame and dishonour. Minos and Pasiphae’s elder son Androgeus came to stay with me as a guest, as I told you, here at this palace in Athens. It happened to be around the time the bull that was the Minotaur’s father had escaped from Mycenae and was now terrorizing Marathon. Androgeus was a tediously vain and boastful youth, endlessly going on about how superior to Athenians Cretan men were at running and wrestling and so on. One evening I snapped, and said ‘Well, if you’re so damned brave and athletic why don’t you prove it by ridding Marathon of that damned bull?’ He was brave enough, or foolish enough, to go and of course he was killed. The bull gored him, ripped out his insides then tossed him a full stadion’s length across the plain, so they say. Minos was told, wrongly I assure you, that I sent Androgeus deliberately to his death because I was annoyed at how easily he beat our home-grown Athenian athletes in the games, but that is nonsense. It was the boy’s boasting that provoked me. Well, in his grief and rage Minos raised a fleet and laid siege to Athens. We were totally unprepared. An oracle told us we would die of famine and plague unless we yielded and agreed to his peace terms. And this is where we have got to. Minos’s terms. He would generously forgo burning Athens to the ground if we agreed every year to send seven girls and seven youths by ship to Crete for them to be … there’s no nice way of saying this … for them to be fed to the Minotaur. In return for this tribute, Athens retains its independence and freedom from attack. Yes, I agree, it is a disgrace and certainly, you are right, it shames us all – but what else can we do?

T O C RETE ‘I’ll tell you what we can do,’ said Theseus rising angrily from his couch. ‘We can act less like frightened goats and more like true Athenians!’fn16 ‘That’s all very well for you to say, you weren’t there when Minos’s fleet stood in Piraeus harbour …’ But Theseus was not interested in the past, only the future. It is one of the distinguishing features of heroes that makes them appealing and unappealing at one and the same time. ‘How are these fourteen sacrificial lambs chosen?’ ‘I am proud to say,’ said Aegeus, summoning up what dignity and regal authority he could, ‘that like the true Athenians they are, they volunteer. Hundreds offer themselves willingly every year. We draw lots to choose the final seven for each group.’ ‘One of the seven youths will be me,’ said Theseus. ‘And we shall select the other thirteen not by lots, but by holding games. I want only the most fit, fleet, cunning and clever to accompany me to Crete and end this nonsense …’ ‘But Theseus, my boy – consider!’ wailed Aegeus. ‘The conditions lay down that the fourteen must arrive on Crete unarmed. What hope can you have when you will be under guard from the moment you make landfall? What will it matter how fast, strong or smart you are? Why throw your life away? The system has worked for the past five years. It is not … ideal, and I readily admit that it reflects little credit on us, but defeat is defeat and …’ Not another word would Theseus hear. He left the room and set to work right away on devising the games and tests that would select the cream of Athenian youth for the journey to Crete. Aegeus sighed. He loved his son dearly but he was beginning to wonder if, all those years ago, he had been wrong to let Pittheus persuade him to loosen his bulging wineskin … maybe this is what the oracle had meant about it all ending with grief. On a fine spring morning on the sixth day of the month of Mounichion,fn17 Aegeus sat nervously on his throne, which had been carried in a litter to the harbour wall at Piraeus. A small ship, enough for a crew of five and fourteen passengers, was being provisioned. The king, under a flapping canopy, busied himself issuing commands for the loading of some extra cargo. ‘There’s no harm in offering Minos gifts,’ he told Theseus. ‘He may have softened his heart. If he knows that my own son … my own son …’ Theseus put a hand on his father’s shoulder. ‘Cheer up. The gods favour boldness. We will all be back before you know it.’ He turned and jumped up onto the gunwales of the ship to address those gathered on the quayside to see them off. The families of the thirteen young people hand-picked by Theseus from all those who offered themselves were at the front, easily identifiable by their pale, drawn faces and the black mourning cloaks they wore. ‘People of Athens!’ cried Theseus. ‘Be of good cheer. We young people go with glad hearts and will return to gladden yours.’ The thirteen behind him, all dressed like Theseus in sacrificial white and garlanded with flowers, raised their arms in salute and cheered. The anxious and stricken families on the quay did their best to cheer back. ‘Hoist sails and ho for Crete!’ As black sailcloth was unfurled from the yards, Aegeus came bustling up to his son. ‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘I have given the captain instructions. I will be standing on the top of the Acropolis every day to watch for your return. If the ship returns empty, if disaster has struck and you have failed …’ ‘… never happen …’ ‘… then he is to fly the black sails, but if the gods have been pleased to spare you and the ship returns in triumph …’ ‘… which is a certainty …’ ‘… he is to hoist white sails. So that I will know. You understand?’ The earnestness of the king’s demeanour amused Theseus. ‘Don’t you worry yourself, father. It will be white sails all the way home. Now, grab an olive branch to wave and try to look happy. We are ready to sail.’ ‘May the gods bless you and watch over you always, Theseus my son.’ Prayers to Poseidon were offered up, petals and grains of corn were tossed into the waters and the ship sailed.

T HE D UNGEONS OF K NOSSOS Aegeus had been right to suppose that the moment the party from Athens made landfall in Crete they would be taken prisoner. On the way over, Theseus had tried to imagine ways in which they could overpower any guards set over them and make a fight of it, but no stratagem suggested itself to. Their ship had been met in open water and steered into harbour by an aggressive Minoan fleet before they had even sighted the island. A small knot of jeering Cretans accompanied them from the docks at Heraklion to the palace dungeon where they were to spend the night. A group of children ran alongside hurling stones and insults as they approached the great gates of Knossos.fn18 ‘The bull man awaits!’ ‘He will grind your bones!’ ‘You’ll wet yourselves! You always do!’ ‘He loves the taste of Athenians …’ ‘He’ll fuck you first, then eat you!’ One of the young men started to whimper. ‘Sh!’ said Theseus. ‘They want to see you afraid. Don’t give them that satisfaction. Let’s sing …’ In a voice more admirable for its strength than its musicality Theseus began to sing. It was the old anthem of Attica, the song that told the story of Cecrops and the founding kings of Athens. How Pallas Athena gave the people olive trees and contested with Poseidon over who should be the city’s guardian. Slowly and with gathering confidence the other thirteen joined in. The jeering children were unsure how to cope with this and fell away disappointed. A guard snarled at them to be quiet, but they only sang louder and more lustily. The gates opened and their voices echoed off the ramparts. Into the palace they trooped, tramping their feet in time to their singing. They were stopped at the head of a stairway that led down to the dungeons, but still they sang. The stairhead was protected by a locked iron gate. As the lead guard took out a large key and fitted it to the lock, a door opened in the gallery above and Theseus glanced up. A girl appeared in the doorway, perhaps drawn by the unexpected sound of singing. She looked down and straight into his eyes. Instantly Theseus felt a surge of heat shoot through his whole body. The girl quickly closed the door. Theseus found he could no longer sing. In a daze he let himself be led along with the others, the ship’s crew included, to a large round cell under the palace. By the light of torches in brackets set around the wall, he saw a long table covered in dishes of the most colourful and appealing food. Some of the Athenians cried out in surprised delight as they fell on the feast, but Theseus felt no such pleasure. Naturally the Minotaur would prefer to gorge on well-fed flesh. The captain of the guard banged his spear on the ground. ‘Stop. Girls on the left, boys on the right. His majesty will inspect you.’ The door to the cell opened and the royal party came in. King Minos entered clutching the hand of a young girl whose eyes were cast down. When she looked up, Theseus saw that it was the same girl he had seen in the doorway. Their eyes met again. ‘I shall examine the young men, Ariadne,’ Minos was saying to her. ‘Why don’t you and your mother inspect the maidens?’ Queen Pasiphae stepped out from the shadows and took her daughter’s arm. So this was the woman who mated with a bull and gave birth to the Minotaur. She seemed ordinary and disappointingly domestic to Theseus’s eyes, which were only for her beautiful daughter. Ariadne! What a perfectly delightful name. Theseus lined up with the other six youths. The maidens were ranged opposite so Theseus could only see Ariadne’s back as she walked with her mother down the line, appraising the Athenian girls. ‘Well, they look like virgins,’ he heard Pasiphae saying in a sceptical voice, ‘but how can one tell?’ Ariadne said nothing. Theseus would have loved to know what her voice sounded like. Meanwhile Minos stalked down the line looking the young men up and down with a critical eye. When he arrived at Theseus he prodded him with his ivory sceptre. Theseus restrained an enraged desire to throw a punch right at his arrogant, smirking face. ‘Red hair, eh?’ Minos said. ‘Well-muscled too. Asterion will like that. Very good. Now this is how it works,’ he raised his voice and turned to address both groups. ‘Over the next two weeks you will be given all the food and drink you require. Starting tomorrow a youth will be selected and taken into the labyrinth. The next day it will be a girl. A youth the day after, and so on until the two weeks are over and the last of you has been taken. The ship’s crew will then be released to sail back to Athens under safe passage with the news that the tribute is paid and your kingdom safe for another year. Understood?’ Silence. Theseus looked towards Ariadne who seemed to be examining the stone flags of the cell floor. ‘No snivelling, no sobbing, I admire that,’ said Minos. ‘Keep your heads high and meet your fate proudly and doubtless you will be rewarded in the afterlife. That is all. Come, Pasiphae, Ariadne.’ At the last minute Ariadne glanced up towards Theseus and again his eyes locked with hers for the briefest instant. The briefest instant that contained an entire lifetime of joy, love and explosive bliss. The door clanged shut and the young people turned expectant faces on Theseus. They were thrilled to see that he was smiling. ‘You have a plan?’ they enquired of him. Theseus was jerked from his trance. ‘Plan? Well now … plan …’ He looked about him. Something would occur to him, surely? After the feelings that had swept over him when he looked into the eyes of Ariadne it was impossible to believe that his life and the lives of his companions were going to end. Surely Eros had been at work with his bow? Surely the tumult in his heart was in her heart too? It couldn’t be for nothing. It had to mean something. ‘You all sleep. By morning I shall have my plan.’ ‘But what will it be?’ ‘Sleep. Just sleep. All will be clear.’ The plenteous good food and strong wine had tired them out and it was not long before Theseus was the only one left awake and standing. Silence descended and Theseus found himself sliding to the floor and nodding off too, but HYPNOS never fully took his mind and he was quickly jerked awake by a sound. Someone was coming along the passageway. He stood upright and stepped over to the door. Two murmuring voices grew louder. He could distinguish an older man, who seemed distressed or anguished in some way and the lower murmur of a female voice. The handle of the cell door turned and through the grille he saw to his unnameable joy the face of Ariadne. She opened the door and came in, followed by an old man who nervously closed the door behind him. Theseus approached her. ‘Why are you here?’ She looked steadily into his eyes. ‘You have to ask?’ It seemed natural to take her face in his hands and cover her in kisses. The kisses were returned. ‘Ariadne!’ he breathed. ‘What is your name?’ she asked. ‘Theseus.’ ‘Theseus?’ Her eyes rounded in wonder. ‘Son of Aegeus?’ ‘The same.’ ‘Of course …’ she fell into his arms. The old man tapped her impatiently on the shoulder. ‘Ariadne!’ he whispered. ‘The guards may come at any moment.’ She broke off. ‘You’re right of course, we must hurry. Come with me, Theseus. We’ll leave the island together.’ Theseus stopped. ‘I do not leave without my companions,’ he said. ‘But …’ ‘I have come not to be spirited away, but to kill the Minotaur and free my people of the burden that has been placed upon them.’ She gazed deep into his eyes again. ‘Yes,’ she said at length. ‘We wondered if you might say that.’ She indicated the old man by her side. ‘This is Daedalus. He built the labyrinth where the creature lives.’ The old man nodded at Theseus. ‘Once inside its endless maze of corridors you will never find your way out,’ he said. ‘Is there not a key?’ said Theseus. ‘I have heard that if you take the first right and second left, or some such set sequence, then you can always solve a maze.’ ‘This has no such cheap solution,’ said Daedalus testily. ‘There is one way – Ariadne, tell him.’ ‘The corridors that lead from here through the labyrinth are dark,’ she said. ‘They take you inevitably to the centre. But to escape you will need this ball of thread. From the point where the guard leaves you, attach the end to the doorway and unroll it as you go further in. That way you will always be able to follow it out.’ ‘Suppose I am the last chosen for the Minotaur,’ said Theseus. ‘I cannot let thirteen good young Athenians die. I must be chosen first.’ ‘Don’t you worry about that. I shall bribe the captain of the guard and you will be chosen tomorrow morning, I promise. I can give you no weapon though. You must tackle Asterion on your own.’ ‘I fought his father without weapons and won,’ said Theseus, thinking back to the Marathonian Bull. ‘When you kill him, kill him quickly and mercifully. He is a monstrous mistake, but he is my brother. My half-brother at least.’ Theseus smiled into her eyes. ‘I love you, Ariadne.’ ‘I love you, Theseus.’ ‘When I have killed him, I shall return and release my companions. You will sail with me back to Athens and we shall rule together as king and queen. Now leave, both of you, before we are discovered.’ ‘One last kiss,’ said Ariadne. ‘One last mmmnn …’ said Theseus.

T HE B ULL M AN Fully awake though he remained, the next few hours passed like a fevered dream for Theseus. He had met the woman with whom he was destined to share his life. The gods were good. He had no way of calculating the passage of the hours. The sea-captain was the first of the Athenians to wake. He came over to Theseus and they looked down at the sleeping young people. They lay on the floor, arms encircling one another – the very flower of Athenian youth. ‘They say the monster kills quick,’ said the captain. ‘In with the horns and up with its head, slicing through to the lung and heart. There are worse deaths.’ ‘It is the Minotaur who dies today.’ ‘My lord?’ ‘Let us suppose I am chosen first, but that I return here the way I came. Are you ready to prepare the others for a fight?’ ‘We have no weapons.’ ‘I’ll see what I can do about that.’ ‘It is good of you to plant the seed of hope but – great Zeus, what was that?’ The captain broke off and stared about him, a look of terror on his face. A sound like none that they had ever heard came to their ears from deep within the palace. It had begun as a deep, mournful bellow and was swelling now into a great roar of rage. Theseus put a hand on the sea-captain’s shoulder. ‘Our friend the Minotaur has woken up and is calling for his breakfast.’ As he spoke the door opened and four soldiers marched in followed by an overweight and self-satisfied-looking captain of the guard. ‘Up! Get up, the pack of you!’ he barked, strutting round and kicking the prisoners awake. ‘Let’s see … who shall we pick, eh?’ The young Athenians shrank back and tried to look invisible. ‘You!’ The captain stabbed his forefinger at Theseus. ‘Yes, you. Follow me.’ The other Athenians covered their natural feelings of relief at being spared by offering far from convincing cries of shocked distress. ‘No, no! Not Prince Theseus!’ One even dared to call out ‘Take me! Take me instead!’ Theseus quietened them. ‘Brave friends,’ he said. ‘I go willingly and gladly to meet my fate. Fear not, we shall meet again and laugh at the memory.’ The captain of the guard pushed him towards the door. Theseus pressed the ball of thread into his armpit and trusted that the unnatural way his arm hung could be put down to fear. As they marched away down a dark corridor, the captain gave him a long sideways look. ‘What you do to upset the Princess Ariadne, then? She begged me to make sure the tall one with copper hair be taken to the labyrinth first. What you say to her?’’ ‘I can’t imagine.’ ‘Must have said something.’ ‘Perhaps it’s the way I looked at her.’ ‘Well you’re going to pay the price, sure enough.’ They approached a giant bronze gate into which was set a smaller door which the captain opened. ‘In you go, mate. If you can find your way back to this door, why then … but no one ever has and no one ever will.’ He gave Theseus a push through. ‘Give the bull man my regards.’ The door closed behind him and Theseus was in darkness. It was not total darkness; far above at roof level were gratings that let in enough moonlight to pick out the damp edges and corners of the passageway in which he found himself. He stood for a while, allowing his eyes to accustom themselves to these new conditions. A lick of light showed him the small door he had come through. He tried its handle. It was unlocked! ‘Oh no you don’t, mate,’ came the sneering voice of the captain of the guard. ‘I’m staying here till I know you’ve gone.’ Theseus felt the door being pushed closed against him. Never mind, there was a stud on his side around which he could wind the end of his thread. He turned now and walked away from the door, playing out the thread behind him as he went. It was like no other experience he had known. At first he felt the floor rising, then he turned a corner and it sloped downwards. He started in shock as he made out the shape of a man creeping stealthily towards him. He laughed when he d that it was his own reflection in a panel of polished bronze. This happened four more times as he went on. Corners and blind recesses baffled him. He was sure at one point that he had come full circle and yet he could tell from the smell and the continuing downward slope that this could not be so. He became aware of distant sounds that grew in volume the further he pressed on: snuffling and stamping, baying, grunting and growling. There was a forlorn quality to the way the growls and grunts were being pushed out that reminded Theseus of something. He was on the verge of placing it when he stepped on something that crunched under his feet. He stooped to pick up a human rib bone, and then another and another. ‘Asterion, O Asterion!’ he called. ‘I’m coming for you …’ He leaned against a wall and looked down a long corridor from which came more light than he had seen for the past half hour. A high roof, open to the sky, poured moonlight down into what he believed must be the heart of the labyrinth. He had made so many turns; he had ascended and descended more than he could recall and had almost collided with dozens of mirrors and dead ends. Seemingly he had doubled back and redoubled his course multiple times, looping round and up and along the same passageways, but – if the clue he was leaving, the thread, was to be believed – this was an illusion. The genius of the design seemed to lie as much in the appearance of complexity as in its reality. The labyrinth induced panic and eroded self-belief. As Theseus approached the central room, a smell of rotting flesh, shit and urine met his nostrils. He laid the almost depleted ball of thread down and left it on the ground, coughing at the putrid stench. The stone floor was level here and he could be confident that his lifeline would not roll away. He was delighted to find himself completely unafraid, yet puzzled to feel his heart beating thunderously in his chest nonetheless. Could he be frightened and not aware of it? A shuffling, growling and stamping came from up ahead. So much bright silver light poured down from the open roof high above that Theseus had to open and close his eyes wide to see properly. He was in the Minotaur’s lair. He was treading on bones, clods of manure and damp straw which Theseus guessed had been dropped in from the roof above. Silence but for the thudding of his own heart and the alternate crunching and slushing of his footsteps. But now a new noise, a scraping of horn against stone. Something in the corner was moving. A form arose in the corner and emerged from the shadows. Red eyes burned as they looked towards the mortal man who had dared approach. ‘Hello there …’ said Theseus. He had meant his words to be loud and clear, but they came out as a whisper. The great head was raised and the Minotaur let loose a mighty bellow. The roar echoed off the stone and down the four corridors that ran from this central chamber. Theseus stepped in from the head of his corridor. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘you can’t threaten me with that. Any bull in a field can roar.’ Theseus’s eyes were able to pick out more and more detail. The Minotaur was standing upright now on its two human legs. The head was huge, the horns sharply pointed. The neck widened onto human shoulders, the chest below was matted with fur-like hair or hair-like fur that patched the whole body. A great pizzle swung between the legs, almost reaching the two hoofs that banged and scraped on the stone flags. The creature stopped roaring and looked sideways at Theseus. A long string of drool fell from its chops. ‘You’re a sight, aren’t you?’ said Theseus. ‘Does no one ever wash this place down?’ They both raised their heads at the same time to look at the square of light above. Theseus laughed at the comical synchronization. ‘I really believe you understood me.’ The Minotaur growled, snorted and grunted. Theseus realised with a stab of astonishment what it was that had struck him earlier as so strange about the creature’s voice. It mimicked the rhythms of human speech. He was unaccountably certain that the Minotaur was trying to speak, but that the bovine vocal cords with which he had been born were incapable of fashioning the right sounds. ‘You’re trying to speak, aren’t you?’ The hoarse cry that came from the bull’s head was surely an affirmation. ‘You poor thing. Asterion, that is your name? Asterion, listen to me. I know the way out of this maze. Why don’t you come with me? We will sail for Athens. I will make sure you have a field to yourself.’ Something like a howl emerged and the animal’s great dewlaps shook. ‘No? What then?’ The Minotaur stood tall and screamed. ‘Shush now. Try to help me understand,’ said Theseus, quite unfazed. ‘Surely anything is better than a fight? There can only be one outcome. I will kill you. I wouldn’t want that. Now that I’ve met you I find that I like you.’ Now the Minotaur strained to make a new noise. It summoned all its breath and focussed it into a whine that sounded in Theseus’s ears like ‘Hill he! Hill he!’ Then he understood. ‘Kill me? You’re saying kill me?’ The Minotaur dropped his great head in a form of assent. ‘Kill you? Don’t ask me that.’ The Minotaur reared up. ‘Hill he! hill he!’ Theseus rose to his full height too. ‘Let it be a duel at least,’ he said. ‘You kill me … kill me!’ So saying he aimed a kick at a heap of dung. Thick pieces flew up into the Minotaur’s face. ‘Come on, then!’ The creature gave a roar of outrage as flecks of his own faeces stung his eyes. He stamped his hoofs, shook his head and lunged at Theseus. Theseus stepped left and then right, goading the Minotaur to come at him. It shook its head one way and the other in confusion. ‘Yah! Yah! Come on now,’ shouted Theseus, backing towards a wall. It made up its mind, lowered its horns and charged. Theseus leapt aside at the last moment and the Minotaur crashed headfirst into the stone wall. The left-hand horn snapped with a great crack and hung down loose. Theseus rolled forward in a somersault, wrenched the horn free and before the dazed creature had time to know what was happening, he thrust the sharp point deep into the folds of its throat and pulled viciously across, severing the windpipe. The eruption of blood covered Theseus from head to foot. The creature stamped about in a jerking dance as more and more blood jetted out from its neck in a fountain. Its hoofs slipped on the blood-wet stones and it fell, shuddering to the ground. Theseus knelt beside it and talked gently into its ear. ‘I send you to your eternal rest with all speed and respect, Asterion. The world will know that you died a brave and noble death.’ The act of slashing the creature’s neck must have loosed the tight vocal cords that moments earlier had denied it the power of speech. Now, despite the blood bubbling from the open gash in its throat, it managed to speak. Theseus heard as clearly as from an orator on the Acropolis the words ‘Thank you’ before the creature’s ghost departed its monstrous body. ‘Farewell, bull man,’ breathed Theseus. ‘Farewell, Asterion, son of Pasiphae, son of the Bull from the Sea, the Cretan Bull, the Marathonian Bull. Farewell brother of the beautiful Ariadne. Farewell, farewell.’

A BANDONMENT AND F LIGHT Theseus followed the thread out of the labyrinth. When he emerged through the door inset in the great gate he saw opposite him the captain of the guard asleep in a chair. He crept up to break the man’s neck and take his keys, but found that he had been dead for some time and that the great iron ring at his belt had already been stripped of its keys. Making his way towards the dungeon where his fellow Athenians were imprisoned, he found Ariadne standing outside. Her eyes were shining as she waved keys in front of Theseus’s face. ‘I knew you’d make it,’ she said. Theseus embraced her. She could not but recoil. ‘You’re covered in blood!’ ‘I’ll wash it off when we’re clear of here.’ ‘Was it horrible?’ ‘I gave him a quick death. Did you dispatch the captain of the guard?’ ‘The pig had it coming,’ said Ariadne. ‘The things he tried to do to me when I was little. Now, let’s free your friends.’ The pair of them and the joyful thirteen Athenians stole silently out of the palace by a side gate and made their way to the harbour, where they holed the bottoms of the Cretan ships at anchor before boarding their own vessel and setting sail. Day was breaking as they slipped into the open sea. The six youths and seven girls, Theseus and the crew added oar power to the sails and soon the landmass of Crete was out of sight. Although they had scuttled the Cretan fleet in Heraklion harbour there was still the risk of a patrolling warship, so they did not stop until they reached the island of Naxos where they dropped anchor and waded ashore to spend the night. Theseus, now cleaned of the caked blood of the Minotaur at last lay with Ariadne. They made love three times in the moonlight before falling asleep in each other’s arms. A most terrible dream came to Theseus while he slept. It began as a shouting in his ears. ‘Leave! Leave the island now. Go! Take your Athenians, but leave Ariadne, who is promised to me. Leave or you all die. You all die.’ Theseus tried to resist but the outline of a figure formed out of the mists of the dreams and came towards him. A young man with vine leaves in his hair approached. He was at once both beautiful and terrible to look upon. ‘Three choices. Stay here with Ariadne and you die. Take Ariadne with you and you and all your companions die. Leave with your people and you live. My ships are coming. Nothing can stop them. Go, go, go!’ Theseus knew the young man to be the god Dionysus. He sat up, sweating and breathless. Ariadne lay peacefully asleep beside him. Leaving her he went down to the beach to think. The sea-captain had also been unable to sleep and joined him. They paced up and down the sand in silence for a while. ‘I had a dream,’ said Theseus at last. ‘Just a dream, but it worries me.’ ‘The god Dionysus?’ Theseus stared. ‘Don’t tell me you had it too?’ They silently woke the others. ‘We don’t have a choice,’ the sea-captain said to Theseus time and again. ‘We have to leave her.’ When they were far out to sea Theseus looked back and thought he could see the desolate figure of Ariadne standing on the shore in the moonlight. Approaching the island from the other side they could already see the fleet of Dionysus. Theseus mourned the loss of the girl he had fallen in love with, but he knew that the safety of the young people in his charge overrode everything. He had to sacrifice his own happiness. He had to sacrifice her. That, at least, is the Athenian explanation of the abandonment of Ariadne on Naxos. Other versions maintain that Theseus left her on the island because he had no more use for her. She had served her purpose and could be dispensed with. In some Cretan tellings, Dionysus duly arrived in force on Naxos, married Ariadne (raising her wedding diadem to the heavens as the constellation Corona Borealis), had at least twelve children by her and rewarded her after her death by rescuing her from Hades, along with his own mother Semele, and they all lived happily ever after on Olympus. It is hard for us to like a Theseus who could coldheartedly abandon the girl who had been so instrumental in saving him and his companions, and doubtless that is why the Athenian version of the story lays emphasis on the hard choice that faced him and even goes so far as to suggest that Ariadne was already in some way engaged to Dionysus when she first met Theseus, thus throwing all the blame on her. The Athenians didn’t like to hear anything that showed their favourite hero in a bad light. On their way back to Athens, a gloomy and contemplative Theseus was shaken on the shoulders by the sea-captain. ‘Look up, sir, look up!’ Theseus saw that the entire ship’s complement was staring up at the sun. ‘What is it?’ he said, squinting up in the direction of their gaze. ‘What am I supposed the be looking at?’ And then he saw it. Two of them, flying in the sky above. An older and a younger man. They had wide white wings. The younger man swooped up and then down. Even from their distance it was clear that he was enjoying himself.

F ATHER AND S ON Minos was awakened and told the terrible news. They had looked down through the high grating and seen the Minotaur slain in his chamber. The captain of his guard was dead too. The Athenians were gone and the great Minoan fleet was crippled. What is more Princess Ariadne could not be found. Perhaps she had been taken prisoner, perhaps … Minos knew who to blame. If the Minotaur was dead and his killer had escaped it could only mean that Daedalus had somehow betrayed the secret of the labyrinth. Minos ordered that the inventor and his son Icarus should be imprisoned in his tower room at the top of the palace, a twenty-four-hour guard posted outside. There they could await a sentence of death. Icarus stood at the windows of their prison and looked down at the sea below. ‘I suppose if we jump out far enough we might miss the rocks and land in the water?’ he said. Daedalus did not reply. He was busy. The tower in which they had been imprisoned was filled with roosting birds, their shit and their feathers. ‘What are you doing, dad?’ ‘Pass me those candle stumps.’ ‘Making something?’ ‘Sh! Don’t bother me.’ He always shushed him like that when he was working on something important. Icarus laid himself full length on the floor and went to sleep. He had no idea how much time had passed when his father shook him awake excitedly. ‘Up, Icarus, up! Put these on.’ ‘What are they?’ ‘Wings, boy, wings!’ Icarus rose groggily to his feet and allowed Daedalus to fit leather straps around him. He looked round to see what was happening and why his back and shoulders tickled. ‘Stand back and give yourself space and try to spread them.’ ‘You’ve really done it this time, dad.’ Daedalus was fitting his own set. ‘Stop giggling and give me a hand here.’ Slowly he instructed Icarus in their use. ‘But dad, are you saying we have to jump out the window and trust them to keep us in the air?’ ‘I have spent a lifetime studying birds. The air is not empty space to them, it is as solid as the earth is to us, or water to a fish. It holds them up and it will hold us up. Have faith.’ He adjusted the leather straps on his son’s wings so that they sat square and straight and took him by the shoulders. ‘Now listen to me, Icarus. We are flying over the sea to Athens, where I am sure Theseus will welcome us. But take care as you go. Fly too low and the waves will soak your wings and drag you under. Fly too close to the sun and the heat of its rays will melt the candle wax that is holding the feathers together, you understand?’ ‘Sure,’ said Icarus bouncing up and down with excitement. ‘Not too low, not too high.’ ‘Now, shall I go first?’ ‘Don’t worry, dad,’ cried Icarus rushing to the window, ‘I’ve got this. Whoooooooo!’ He jumped and heard his father’s voice calling behind him. ‘Spread your wings! Spread them! Present them to the air.’ He did as he was told and immediately felt the rush of the air press against the wings and hold him up. He was flying! His wings held in the wind and he knew that they would keep him there. His father was right, the air was a solid thing. He accustomed himself to using his arms to steer this way and that. The smallest movement from him was all that was needed to control his flight. Below him crawled the wrinkled sea, hugging the shoreline of Crete, the only home he had ever known. His father appeared in front of him, his own wings spread out. ‘The pillars of warm air rising from the cliffs below are holding us up for the moment,’ he shouted. ‘Once we’re over open sea we can beat and glide, beat and glide.’ ‘Like the gulls?’ ‘Just like the gulls. Follow me, Athens is this way. And remember …’ ‘I know – not too high, not too low,’ laughed Icarus. ‘And don’t forget it.’ ‘Whoah!’ Icarus cried out in sudden surprise as a seagull flew right in his path. He gathered himself together and dived after his father. From far below Theseus looked up and saw Icarus swooping and soaring, plunging and looping. Icarus was some way from Daedalus now, out of earshot, when he spotted the beak-prowed Athenian ship far below. Haha! he thought to himself, I’ll give them the shock of their lives. But first some height. Up and up he flew, gaining height for his planned dive-bombing. He was so high now he could hardly see Theseus’s ship below, so high that … so high that it was hot. He cried out in alarm as feathers began to fall from his wings. The wax was melting! He rolled over to point his head down and dive down as far from the sun as possible, but it was too late. The feathers were falling like snow all about him and he started to plummet. The air, now cold and hard, banged against him. He heard his father cry out. There was nothing he could do. The sea was rushing up towards him. Perhaps if he narrowed his shoulders he might be able to plunge below the surface and come up safe. Daedalus looked down in impotent despair. He knew that from such a height the sea would be like a bed of granite. He watched the body break on the waves and knew that his son’s bones would be smashed to pieces and the life gone from him. ‘Oh Icarus, Icarus, my beloved boy. Why couldn’t you listen? Why did you have to fly so close to the sun?’ Tragic laments like this, with changes of name, have been heard from generations of fathers ever since. It is the destiny of children of spirit to soar too close to the sun and fall, no matter how many times they are warned of the danger. Some will make it, but many do not.fn19 Daedalus dived down and rescued the broken body of his son, which he buried on a nearby island, called to this day Icaria. They say that a partridge witnessed the burial and flapped its wings, mewing with triumph. Perdix enjoyed the tragic justice of Daedalus’s son falling to his death, just as he had been pushed by Daedalus to his. The grieving father wandered the Mediterranean, finding employment at last in the court of King COCALUS of Camicus, in southern Sicily. The rage of Minos on finding that his birds had, quite literally, flown, was ungovernable. His daughter lost, his reputation as a mighty and unconquerable king severely dented, humiliated by the escape of Daedalus, he vowed that he would have his revenge. Accordingly, he scoured the Greek world for the inventor, taking with him a spiral seashell. At each kingdom, island or province he visited, Minos announced that he would reward with gold anyone who could successfully pass a thread through the shell’s complex helical chambers. He believed that Daedalus was the only man alive clever enough to hit upon a way of doing it. After years of searching, at last Minos arrived in Camicus. King Cocalus accepted Minos’s challenge and took the shell to Daedalus, who quickly solved the problem by tying one end of the thread to an ant, which he coaxed through the shell with drops of honey. King Cocalus triumphantly presented Minos with the threaded seashell and demanded the reward. Minos drew himself up to his full height. ‘Only Daedalus the artificer, Daedalus the inventor, Daedalus the traitor can have done this,’ he declared. ‘Give him up to me or I will leave this instant for Crete and return with a fleet to crush you and conquer your kingdom.’ Minos may have been bested by Theseus, but he was still the ruler of a great naval power. ‘Let me go to my council chamber and consult,’ said King Cocalus. By this he meant, ‘let me ask my daughters.’ He knew that his girls adored Daedalus, who had entertained them when they were growing up by teaching them all kinds of clever tricks. He gathered the girls together and told them about the threat. ‘Tell Minos,’ said the eldest daughter, ‘that you will offer Daedalus up in chains tomorrow. But tonight, let him bathe, eat, drink, listen to music and be royally feasted as befits so great a king.’ Cocalus, as he always did, obeyed his daughters and relayed the message. Minos bowed at the honour done to him. It so happened that the restless and ever inventive Daedalus had designed and installed a heating system for the palace, consisting of a network of pipes which carried hot water from a central boiler, the first of its kind in the world. Minos got into his bath that evening, but he never got out. Down in the hypocaust, the sisters heated the water until it boiled. It burst from the pipes in the bathroom and scalded Minos to an agonising death.

T HESEUS, THE K ING We left Theseus on board ship with his thirteen compatriots, staring up at Daedalus and Icarus in flight. What with his gnawing guilt at the abandonment of Ariadne and feelings of astonishment and dismay at the sight of Icarus falling to his death, Theseus’s mind was fully occupied as the ship sailed homeward towards Athens. So wrapped in thought were he and the sea-captain that even as the ship came within sight of Piraeus harbour something very important slipped both their minds. They entirely forgot their promise to pull down the black sails and hoist white ones to let Aegeus know that they were sailing back in triumph. The king had stood every day on the cliffs waiting for a sight of the ship. Now he saw on the horizon the familiar outline of an Athenian vessel. It was beyond question the ship of his son Theseus, but what colour were the sails? The ship was so far away. Against the white of the sky the sails looked black, but perhaps because they were in silhouette … no … that was too much to hope for. The closer the ship sailed, the clearer it was that its sails were as black as death. His brave, foolish, newly found son was dead. That prophecy from the oracle: Aegeus must not loosen the bulging mouth of the wineskin until he has reached the heights of Athens, or he will die of grief. Aegeus finally understood what it had meant. He should have gone straight from Delphi to Athens all those years ago. Instead he had gone to Troezen where he had somehow found himself in bed with Aethra. He had loosened his bulging wineskin. He had fathered Theseus, who had given him a brief time of joy, but now – it was true, the oracles were always right – he found himself overcome by mortal grief. With a cry of despair Aegeus threw himself to his death in the sea below, the sea that ever since has been called, in his honour, the Aegean. It is hard to know for sure what kind of a king Theseus was. Later, the Athenians, who wrote most of the history that has come down to us, so revered their Founder King that, if we are to believe them, he was the inventor, not only, as we have discovered, of wrestling and bull-leaping, but of democracy, justice and all good government too, as well as being a paragon of intelligence, wit, insight and wisdom – qualities that the Athenians (much to the contempt of their neighbours) believed uniquely exemplified their character and culture. It is generally accepted that he merged the smaller regional and provincial units (known as demes) of Attica under the rule of the central Athenian polis or city state,fn20 a system that served as the model for Ancient Greek administrative government up to the historical period. What is certainly clear is that Theseus was very much a human being, with all the weaknesses, strengths and inconsistencies that the condition confers upon us. Much of what followed in his life after the Minotaur was a result of one of the great male friendships in Greek myth, that between Theseus and Pirithous.fn21 As with the later bromance of Achilles and Patroclus, there is a suggestion in some Greek sources that there may have been a sexual element in the relationship, but if there was it had no effect on the womanizing and philandering propensities of either man. Pirithous, King of the Lapiths, was a son of Dia and Zeus. Dia had been the wife of Ixion. It seems hypocritical that Zeus might bind Ixion to a wheel of fire for attempting to seduce Hera and then set about ravishing the man’s wife, but Zeus was never anything if not Zeus. In the form of a stallion he had his way with Dia who bore Pirithous, who in adulthood earned a reputation for being a fine warrior and, perhaps unsurprisingly, horseman.fn22 Hearing of the equally excellent reputation of Athens’ new king and wanting to test it, Pirithous raided Marathon, coming away with a herd of Theseus’s most prized cattle.fn23 Outraged, Theseus made his way to Larissa, the capital of the Lapith kingdom, and tracked Pirithous down, meaning if not to kill him, at least to teach him a very severe lesson. But the moment they met they decided that they liked each other and instead of fighting swore eternal friendship. The bond was soon tested, for Pirithous was not without challengers to his throne in Thessaly. The centaurs, half-man half-horse, felt that as descendants of Ixion they had a greater right to rule than Pirithous.fn24 They had been given Mount Pelion as a base, but they took this as an insult and demanded more. It all came to a head during the wedding of Pirithous and his bride, Hippodamiafn25. Out of diplomatic necessity Pirithous had made sure that the centaurs were invited, but as milk drinkers they were unused to the wine which flowed during the feast. Its effect caused them to start behaving abominably.fn26 One of them, EURYTION, tried to rape the bride Hippodamia herself while the rest of the centaurs pushed themselves on all the women and boys present. Pirithous and Theseus, an honoured guest at the wedding, fought back. A rather touching side story in this otherwise grim and frenzied fight (sometimes called the Centauromachy or ‘Battle of the Centaurs’fn27) involves the sad end of a Lapith called Caeneus. He had been born a woman, Caenis. She was spotted one day by Poseidon who liked what he saw and took it. Entirely delighted by the experience, the grateful god offered Caenis any wish. She had taken no pleasure at all in the violation and asked that she might be turned into a man and thus avoid any indignity of that kind in the future. Poseidon, perhaps abashed, not only granted this wish but also bestowed invulnerable skin upon her – now him. Caeneus was present at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia and fought the centaurs alongside Pirithous and Theseus. One of the centaurs, Latreus, mocked him for having once been a woman. Caeneus struck Latreus but was himself, due to his invulnerability, unharmed by a furious volley of counterstrikes. The other centaurs, discovering that their arrows and spears were bouncing off Caeneus’s impenetrable hide, resorted to heaping stones over him and hammering him into the ground with pine trees until he died by suffocation in the earth. Despite the loss of Caeneus, Pirithous and his Lapiths finally prevailed. The surviving centaurs galloped away, defeated and dejected. Among the surviving centaurs who galloped away, defeated and dejected, was Nessus, who was fated to be Heracles’ bane. fn28 Peace having now descended on Thessaly, Pirithous was able to help his friend Theseus acquire a wife. They chose the Amazon warrior ANTIOPE, sister of Hippolyta, whose war belt had been fatally wrested from her by Heracles during his Labours.fn29 Although Antiope was forcibly abducted it is generally believed that after Theseus installed her as his queen and wife in Athens she grew to love him. She bore him a son, Hippolytus, whom they named in honour of her sister, the great Amazonian queen. The Amazons had other ideas. Marriage to a man was a betrayal of everything these proud, misandrous warrior women stood for.fn30 They combined forces in a sustained attack on Athens known as the Attic War. The Amazons were defeated at the final battle on the Areopagus, the Hill of Mars.fn31 During that fight Antiope was badly wounded. A fellow Amazon called MOLPADIA, although fighting on the opposite side, put her out of her agony with a swift arrow through the neck. Theseus, seeing this, killed Molpadia. Her tomb, like so many mythic sites, was visited by the traveller Pausanias, whose observations often form a pleasing bridge between myth, legend and something close to history. The Attic war, like Heracles’ ravaging of Hippolyta and her band during the Ninth Labour, is part of the wider Amazonomachy, yet another -machy, yet another taming of the wild in which the Greeks characterised themselves as ridding the world of the more barbarous, monstrous and uncivilised elements that threatened, like encroaching swarms, their sense of harmony and the potential graces of ordered civilisation.fn32 This ‘war with the Amazons’, together with the CENTAUROMACHY (the battle between the Lapiths and centaurs at Pirithous’s wedding), the TITANOMACHY (the war of the Olympian gods against their Titan forebears)fn33 and the GIGANTOMACHY (the war of the gods against the giants, in which Heracles fought so valiantly),fn34 formed some of the favourite subjects of Greek painting and sculpture.fn35 Collectively their themes are best understood in symbolic terms, as representations of the way the Greeks characterised themselves as the champions of order and civilization against the chaotic hordes of barbarism and the monstrous. Which also makes them narrative playings-out of the struggle to tame the savage instincts, the dark and dangerous elements of human nature. The Amazons defeated, a kind of midlife crisis overtook Pirithous and Theseus. They decided to choose new brides for themselves. Their choices were wild and calamitous. His new friend helped Theseus abduct the young Helen of Sparta,fn36 while for himself Pirithous decided it would be amusing to have Persephone, Queen of the Underworld for a wife. When he proposed the insane idea of descending into the realm of the dead and snatching Persephone from under the very nose of her husband Hades, Theseus the hero, Theseus the wise, Theseus the clever, Theseus the great king and counsellor nodded his head vigorously. ‘Why not? Sounds like fun.’ The pair went to the spot that Orpheus had chosen for his descent, Tainaron on the southern tip of the Peloponnese, also called Cape Matapan, and boldly made their way down through the caves, passageways and galleries into the kingdom of the dead. Whether Pirithous imagined that his rough soldierly charm would win Persephone over or whether they planned to take her by force of arms is not known. The expedition was predictably disastrous. An unamused Hades cast them into stone chairs, their naked buttocks stuck to the seats, their legs bound by living snakes. There they would have stayed until the crack of doom had not Heracles, as we have seen, happened past them on his way to parley with Hades for the loan of Cerberus.fn37 In order to release Theseus, Heracles had to jerk him quite violently from his seat. Theseus was pulled free but his buttocks were left behind. It was as if they had been superglued to the stone of the chair. Athenian representations of the older, post-Hades Theseus, portray him as apygous, essentially arseless.fn38 Theseus returned to the upper world to discover that Helen had been rescued by her brothers, the twins Castor and Polydeuces, also known as the Dioscuri.fn39 Chastened, he chose a new bride for himself. His eye fell on PHAEDRA, the younger sister of Ariadne. Perhaps she reminded Theseus of his first love, perhaps he felt an alliance with her might repair the old wrong of leaving Ariadne on Naxos, perhaps it was nothing more than a political move. The motives of Theseus seem always the hardest to read of any of the heroes. Minos, the old enemy of Athens was dead, of course, boiled alive in Sicily. His son DEUCALION had inherited the throne and – presumably because he knew that Athens was now stronger than Crete and also saw the value of an alliance – approved and even helped arrange the marriage, all thoughts of Theseus’s abandonment of his sister Ariadne and slaughtering of his half-brother the Minotaur put aside. Phaedra and Theseus had two sons together, Acamas and Demophon, who would grow up to feature in a touching and honourable cameo in the Trojan War. Meanwhile, what of Hippolytus, Theseus’s son by Antiope? He had been sent to Theseus’s old home of Troezen. He grew into a handsome, athletic young man, whose greatest passion was hunting. His devotion to Artemis, the goddess of the chase and the chaste, was equalled by his contempt for Aphrodite and the distractions of love. No man or woman interested him. Aphrodite, of course, did not take kindly to being ignored and the revenge she prepared for this insolent young man’s neglect of her altars and practices was terrible indeed. When his father Theseus and step-mother Phaedra visited Troezen, Hippolytus welcomed them dutifully. Theseus and Hippolytus hit it off at once. Greek myth is full of fathers who kill sons and sons who kill fathers so the mutual bond of affection and admiration that blossomed between these two seems especially remarkable. During the visit they spent all day and every day in each other’s company. Hippolytus barely noticed Phaedra. She, however, noticed him. She slowly became obsessed and one night visited him and declared her love.fn40 With a touch more horror and visible disgust than was wise or tactful, Hippolytus rejected her advances. As with Stheneboea and Bellerophon and Potiphar’s wife and Joseph, the scorned and humiliated Phaedra cried rape to Theseus who cursed his son and called on his father Poseidon to punish him. As Hippolytus was driving his chariot along the shore one morning the god sent one of his great bulls from the sea which maddened the horses. The boy was trampled to death. Phaedra, on hearing this, took her own life. The goddess Artemis appeared to Theseus and explained that his son had been innocent all along and that the tragedy had been the result of spurned love and Aphrodite’s resentment. Exiled from his kingdoms of Athens and Troezen for his role, however unwitting, in the deaths of his son and wife, wretched, bitter, desolated and drained of all passion and purpose, Theseus came to a bathetic and pathetic end. A guest of King Lycomedes of Skyros, Theseus was pushed by his host over a cliff to his death. The cause of the argument between them is lost to us. Cimon, a historical king of Athens many many years later, invaded Skyros and brought Theseus’s body back to the city that he done so much to make great. Lycomedes achieved greater fame for the part he was to play in the upbringing of Achilles. A fine statue of a naked Theseus stands proudly today in Athens’ central place of assembly, the city’s hub, Syntagma Square. Even today he is a focus of Athenian identity and pride. The ship he brought back from his adventures in the Labyrinth of Crete remained moored in the harbour at Piraeus, a visitor attraction right up to the days of historical ancient Athens, the time of Socrates and Aristotle. Its continuous presence there for such a long time caused the Ship of Theseus to become a subject of intriguing philosophical speculation. Over hundreds of years, its rigging, its planks, its hull, deck, keel, prow, stern and all its timbers had been replaced so that not one atom of the original remained. Could one call it the same ship? Am I the same person I was fifty years ago? Every molecule and cell of my body has been replaced many times over.fn41 It is appropriate that Theseus should be linked in this way with the Athens of logic, philosophy and open enquiry for he was the hero who more than any other embodied the qualities Athenians most prized. Like Heracles, Perseus and Bellerophon before him, he helped cleanse the world of dangerous monsters, but the way he did so employed wit, intelligence and fresh ways of thinking. He was fallible and flawed, as the all the heroes were, but he stood for something great in us all. Long may he stand in Syntagma Square and long may he stand high in our regard.

Envoi The heroes cleansed our world of chthonic terrors – earthborn monsters that endangered mankind and threatened to choke the rise of civilisation. So long as dragons, giants, centaurs and mutant beasts infested the air, earth and seas we could never spread out with confidence and transform the wild world into a place of safety for humanity. In time, even the benevolent minor deities would find themselves elbowed out by the burgeoning and newly confident human race. The nymphs, dryads, fauns, satyrs and sprites of the mountains, streams, meadows and oceans could not compete with our need and greed for land to quarry, farm and build upon. The rise of a spirit of rational enquiry and scientific understanding pushed the immortals further from us. The world was being reshaped as a home fit for mortal beings only. Today, of course, some of the rarer and more vulnerable mortal creatures that have shared the world with us are undergoing the same threats to their natural territories that caused the end of the nymphs and woodland spirits. Habitat loss and species extinction have all happened before. The days of the gods themselves were numbered too. Prometheus’s gift of fire, as Zeus had feared, would one day allow us to do even without the Olympians. But not yet. Heracles, without knowing it, had started the clock on a countdown to a cataclysmic event in our history. The installation of Tyndareus in Sparta and Atreus in Mycenae and the sparing of the life of Priam after the destruction of old Troyfn1 – these would prove to be sticks of kindling that would one day burst into the greatest conflagration the world had yet seen. Not yet. Zeus and the Olympians were not finished with us yet.

The Offspring of Echidna and Typhon The giant serpent TYPHON, child of Gaia and Tartarus, was the primal and most deadly chthonic monster of them all. He mated with the sea creature, ECHIDNA. Their brood includes many, if not most, of the monsters that our heroes were sent out to defeat. THE NEMEAN LION, slain by Heracles. THE LERNAEAN HYDRA (serpentine guardian of the gates of hell), slain by Heracles. ORTHRUS (canine guardian of the cattle of Geryon), slain by Heracles. LADON (dragon guardian of the Apples of the Hesperides), slain by Heracles. CERBERUS (canine guardian of the gates of hell), borrowed by Heracles. THE CHIMERA, slain by Bellerophon. THE SPHINX, defeated by Oedipus. THE CAUCASIAN EAGLE (sent by Zeus to tear out Prometheus’ liver), slain by Heracles. THE CROMMYONIAN SOW, slain by Theseus. THE COLCHIAN DRAGON (guardian of the Golden Fleece), hypnotised by Medea. SCYLLA, avoided by Jason.fn1

The Rages of Heracles I was reading not long ago about the strange and sad case of Chris Benoit, a World Wrestling Entertainment star who strangled his wife and son in 2007. An inexplicable and terrible crime that has been put down variously to ‘roid-rage’ (the psychotic effects of synthetic and natural testosterone, nandrolone, anastrozole and other hormones and steroids used by wrestlersfn1) or the effects of traumatic brain injury similar to those experienced by some NFL players, as highlighted in the Peter Landesman/Will Smith film, Concussion. It seems Benoit specialised in a move called the ‘diving headbutt’ which may have caused serious trauma to his brain. The similarity between Heracles’ murder of Megara and his children and the Benoit case struck me at once. Two musclebound men, boiling over with an excess of testosterone, have a moment of rage or delusion and spend the rest of their lives regretting it. In Benoit’s case not a long rest of life: he hanged himself two days after the murders. I don’t believe all myths must be founded in some historical truth, but I do think it interesting that when the collective unconscious of the Greeks imagined and gave life, character and narrative to a mythical strong man, they included in him a terrible and inexplicable tendency to explode in destructive psychotic ragesfn2 – I’m thinking not only of the savage murder of his family, but the massacre of the centaurs in the cave of Pholus and the killing of Iphitus too. Of course plenty of musclemen are gentle, kind and sweet-natured (André the Giant springs to mind) but I do not think it is outside the realms of possibility that the Greeks had heard of a real strongman who had a tendency to be overcome by savage fits of violence followed by periods of agonised remorse.

Afterword Timelines in myth are often confusing and inconsistent, especially when it comes to the heroes. According to Euripides, for example, Heracles kills his first wife Megara after his Twelfth Labour, whereas in most tellings of the myth the Labours are set for him specifically as a punishment for that crime. In Shakespeare, and other versions, Theseus is seen to have gone on to marry Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, who has surely been killed by Heracles during his Ninth Labour? Some heroes are listed as Argonauts and participants in the Calydonian Hunt after they have been killed or before they could possibly have been born. Myth is not history. Variant tellings and narrative lines are inevitable. I have tried where possible to give some overarching shape to the stories of the heroes whose lives and deaths I have told here, but chronological incongruities are bound to make themselves manifest. Apollodorus’s Bibliotheca (Library) is a major source for all Greek myth, though he is often at variance with Hesiod and Homer. Apollonius Rhodius wrote the Argonautica, from which most of the details of Jason’s great voyage in search of the Golden Fleece are derived. The Roman writers Hyginus and Ovid embroider and elaborate in their way, and the travellers and geographers Pausanias and Strabo in theirs. The heroes, however, more than the gods, nymphs or other mortals, live on in the works of the three great Athenian tragedians, EURIPIDES, AESCHYLUS and SOPHOCLES. They embellish and alter the myths, it is true, but as playwrights their interest lay in dramatic truth and a focus on characters in crisis. Sophocles’ Theban Cycle is the source for the most commonly told versions of the tragic story of Oedipus and his family. Euripides enters the hearth and home of Jason, Theseus and Heracles, and concentrates on the women in their lives. Aeschylus comes into his own later, outside the parameters of this volume. I have plundered a great deal from all three of these great contemporaries and rivals. As with Mythos, I have tried to tell the stories without offering explanations or interpretations. Myth is ripe for interpretation and I hope you often find yourself putting the book down and speculating on what the Greeks meant (or thought they meant) by Chrysaor and Pegasus bursting from the severed neck of Medusa, or how they distinguished between the Harpies, the birds from the Isle of Ares and the Stymphalian birds. Myths are not crossword puzzles or allegories with single meanings and answers. Fate, necessity, cause and blame are endlessly mixed in these stories as they are in our lives. They were no more soluble to the Greeks than they are to us. There are those who like to think that many myths are pearls built up around grains of fact. In the past, even in antiquity, mythographers regularly attempted to trace almost all mythic stories back to some actual, historical truth. This is sometimes called Euhemerism or the historical theory of mythology. It is true that archaeology has shown that a Troy really existed, and a Mycenae. Bronze Age and Minoan wall paintings in Crete show bull-leaping and a maze-like structure that suggests the reality of the Labyrinth. Centaurs and Amazons are seen as Greek explanations for the arrival from the east of horses and their archer riders. Another good example of Euhemerism is the idea that the Chimera defeated by Bellerophon was in fact the pirate ship of Cheimarrhus with its lion’s figurehead for a prow and serpent for a sternpost. There are plenty of opportunities for that kind of interpretation as well as for more metaphysical and psychological speculation too. Carl Jung described myths as the product of our ‘collective unconscious’. Joseph Campbell put it another way and called them ‘public dreams’.fn1 Oneiromancy, the interpretation of dreams, is free, fun and harmless, but difficult to prove in the real world. Some explanations of the ‘meaning’ of myths may convince you, some may not. It is an open field in which anyone can till and harvest. Scholars and mythographers are interested in what is known as ‘double determination’, the tendency of poets, playwrights and other authors to attribute agency and causality to both the inner person and an outer influence, a god or an oracle, for example. If Athena ‘whispers in your ear’, is it just a poetical way of saying that a clever thought has struck you, or did the goddess really speak? If someone falls in love, is it always the work of Aphrodite or Eros? When we are intoxicated or frenzied are we driven by Dionysus? Did Heracles suffer from a hallucination and seizure or did Hera send a delusional fit to him? Did Apollo send plague arrows into Troy or was it simply that disease broke out in the city? When an oracle tells a king that a son or grandson will kill him, is that perhaps an external expression of the internal fear of patricidal overthrow that many rulers suffer from? Authors will say to this day that the Muse has abandoned them when what they really mean is that they are suffering from writer’s block. The further along the timeline of Greek myth we go from the founding of Olympus to the end of the Trojan War, and humanity begins to take centre stage from the immortals, the more difficult it is to be sure. Greeks of the historical age would still write of Ares giving them courage or Apollo inspiring them when it is clear that they did not mean it literally. It is possible to tell many of the stories – the torments and Labours of Heracles, for example – with almost no reference to the gods. When the sources write that Apollo gave the young hero bows and arrows, is that not a way of saying Heracles grew up to be a talented archer? Athena needn’t have taught the Argo’s helmsmen Ancaeuss and Tiphys how to manage rigging and sails, surely it is enough to believe that they were wise and handy in their use of them? Nor need she have manifested herself and given Heracles a rattle when he tried to rid the Stymphalian Marshes of those smelly birds – maybe he was smart enough to think of it himself? Let’s face it, even today we cannot understand or explain much of what drives us. Take love, for example. To say ‘she fell in love’ is to describe a mystery. One might as well say ‘Eros pierced her heart with his arrow’ as ‘gametes fizzed, hormones seethed, psychological affinities and sexual connections were made’ … the gods in Greek myth represent human motives and drives that are still mysterious to us. Might as well call them a god as an impulse or a complex. To personify them is a rather smart way – not of managing them perhaps, but of giving shape, dimensions and character to the uncontrollable and unfathomable forces that control us. Do ‘superego’ and ‘id’ reveal any more about our inner selves than Apollo and Dionysus? Evolutionary behaviouralism and ethology may tell us more about who and how we are as scientific fact, but the poetic concentration of our traits into the personalities of gods, demons and monsters are easier for some of us dull-witted ones to hold in our heads than the abstractions of science. Myth can be a kind of human algebra which makes it easier to manipulate truths about ourselves. Symbols and rituals are not toys and games to be dispensed with on our arrival at adulthood, they are tools we will always need. They complement our scientific impulse, they do not stand in opposition to it. As with the interpretation of myths, double determination – the attribution of inner and outer influence – is as much a matter of preference as anything else. Some love to see the gods appear, interfere and direct, others are happier following humans doing their thing with the minimum of divine intervention. The Muses whisper in my ear and tell me I am done.

Illustrations 1. The Olympians, triumphant on Mount Olympus. 2. Prometheus continues to endure his terrible punishment. 3. The shower of gold. 4. Danaë and Perseus, rescued from the wooden box. 5. Perseus holds the head of Medusa, whose body lies on the ground. 6. The Head of Medusa. 7. Perseus rescues Andromeda from the sea dragon Cetus. 8. The infant Heracles choking a snake. 9. The creation of the Milky Way. 10. Heracles’ First Labour, the great Nemean Lion. 11. Heracles holds the Erymanthian boar over Eurystheus, cowering in his stone jar. 12. An Amazon defending herself from one of Heracles’ men. 13. Heracles, with his lion skin, club and bow, navigates while standing inside the Cup of Helios. 14. The Garden of the Hesperides. 15. The Gigantomachy, or the Fall of the Giants. 16. Pegasus and Bellerophon. 17. Orpheus plays for love, before Hades and Persephone. 18. Orpheus turns too quickly. 19. The Pythia at Delphi. 20. Hylas and the nymphs. 21. The Clashing Rocks. 22. Jason taming the Khalkotauroi. 23. Medea. 24. Medea tames the Colchis Dragon. 25. Jason finds the Golden Fleece. 26. The Calydonian Hunt. 27. The Foot Race. 28. Oedipus answers the riddle of the Sphinx. 29. The Labours of Theseus. 30. Theseus and the Marathonian Bull. 31. The art of bull-leaping. 32. The Tribute. 33. The Cretan Labyrinth. 34. The Minotaur. 35. The Fall of Icarus. 36. Ariadne, abandoned. 37. Theseus in Athens’ Syntagma Square.

List of Characters

O LYMPIAN G ODS APHRODITE Goddess of love. Offspring of Ouranos’s blood and seed. Wife of Hephaestus. Mother (by Ares) of Eros and Phobos. Inflicts dreadful punishments on those who neglect her, such as Atalanta and Hippomenes, Hippolytus, and Medea. Lover (and lifesaver) of Butes, by whom she has Eryx.

C HILDREN OF K RONOS AND R HEA DEMETER Goddess of fertility and the harvest. Mother (by Zeus) of Persephone, whose absence in the underworld she mourns for six months each year. Worshipped in the Eleusinian Mysteries. HADESfn1 God of the underworld. Also known as Plouton. Abductor and husband of Persephone. Master of Cerberus; lends him to Heracles. Possessor of hood of invisibility and Chair of Forgetfulness. Abettor of Perseus. Grants Orpheus the chance to bring Eurydice back from the dead. Imprisons Pirithous and Theseus for attempting to kidnap Persephone. HERA Queen of the Gods. Wife of Zeus. Mother (by Zeus) of Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe and Hephaestus. Breastfeeding accident gives rise to Milky Way. Possessor of malevolent gadflies and ferocious giant crab. Persecutor of Heracles; later his mother-in-law. Her honour defended by Heracles during the Gigantomachy. Enemy of Neleus and Pelias. Abettor of Jason in his quest for the Golden Fleece. Sender of the Sphinx to punish Thebes in fulfilment of Pelops’s curse on Laius. POSEIDON God of the sea. Inventor (and god) of horses. Father of Antaeus (by Gaia), Bellerophon (by Eurynome), Chrysaor and Pegasus (by Medusa), Eurytus and Cteatus (by Molione), the golden ram (by Theophane), Neleus and Pelias (by Tyro), Theseus (by Aethra), and possibly of Cercyon, Procrustes, Sciron and Sinis. Grandfather of Aegyptus, Cepheus and Phineus, and of Hippolytus and Nestor. Persecutor of Andromeda. Abettor of Bellerophon and Heracles. Builds Troy’s walls with Apollo; then sends sea monster to devour Hesione when Laomedon reneges on payment. Sends Minos II the Cretan Bull; then sends Pasiphae mad with lust for it. Grants Caenis gender reassignment. Fulfils Theseus’s curse on Hippolytus. ZEUS King of the Gods. Overthrower of Kronos. Liberator of his siblings from Kronos’s captivity. Husband of Hera. Father of OLYMPIAN GODS. Father of the immortals Eileithyia and Hebe (by Hera), Persephone (by Demeter) and the Muses (by Mnemosyne). Father of the mortals Aeacus (by Aegina), Amphion and Zethus (by Antiope), Dardanus and Harmonia (by the Pleiad Electra), the Dioscuros Polydeuces and Helen (by Leda), Heracles (by Alcmene), Minos I and Rhadamanthus (by Europa), Perseus (by Danaë) and Pirithous (by Dia). Creator of Nephele. Punisher of Asclepius, Atlas and Prometheus. Wielder of thunderbolts. Possessor of the oracle at Dodona.

C HILDREN OF Z EUS APOLLO Archer god and god of harmony. Son of Zeus and the TITANESS Leto. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Twin of Artemis. Father of Aristaeus and Idmon (by Cyrene), Asclepius (by Coronis), Hymen (by the Muse Urania), Linus and Orpheus (by the Muse Calliope) and Lycomedes (by Parthenope). Grandfather of Eurytus. Slayer of Python and establisher of the Pythia’s oracle at Delphi. Slayer of the Cyclopes in revenge for Zeus’s smiting of Asclepius. Servant and lover of Admetus. Devises plan with the Moirai to grant Admetus immortality. Abettor of Heracles and Orpheus. Builds Troy’s walls with Poseidon; then infects the city with plague when Laomedon reneges on payment. ARES God of war. Son of Zeus and Hera. Brother of Hephaestus. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Father of Eros and Phobos (by Aphrodite); of the Amazons, notably Antiope and Hippolyta (by the nymph Harmonia); and of Alcon, Diomedes and Eurytion. Perhaps father (by Althaea) of Meleager. Forebear of the Thracians. Possessor of man-eating metal birds. Along with Dionysus, a curser of the house of Cadmus. ARTEMIS Goddess of chastity and the chase. Daughter of Zeus and the TITANESS Leto. Twin of Apollo. Half-sister of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Mistress of the Cerynaeian Hind; lends her to Heracles. Venerated by Atalanta and Hippolytus. Sensitive to slights: sends snakes to ruin the wedding night of Admetus and Alcestis; sends the Calydonian Boar and Atalanta to punish Calydon and the family of Oeneus, and transforms most of the Meleagrids into guinea fowl. ATHENA Goddess of wisdom. Daughter of Zeus and the Oceanid Metis. Half-sister of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Patron of Athens. Abettor of Bellerophon, Heracles, Jason and Perseus. Possessor of Aegis (see Medusa). Imprisons the GIANT Enceladus under Mount Vesuvius. DIONYSUS God of dissipation and disorder. Son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Suckled by his aunt Ino. Along with Ares, a curser of the house of Cadmus. Drives his aunts Agave, Autonoë and Ino mad. Transforms Ino and his cousin Melicertes into sea deities. Causes Agave and Autonoë to help tear apart his cousin Pentheus. Orders Theseus to surrender Ariadne so that they can marry and produce numerous offspring. Restores Ariadne and Semele to life so that they can all live together on Olympus. HEPHAESTUS Smith god. Son of Zeus and Hera. Brother of Ares. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Possibly the father of Cercyon and Periphetes. Cast out of Olympus as an infant by Hera and lamed. Abettor of Heracles. Creator of marvels including a golden breastplate and bronze rattle for Heracles, the Khalkotauroi for Aeëtes, and (some believe) Talos. HERMES Messenger of the gods and arch-psychopomp. Son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia. Half-brother of Zeus’s plethora of progeny. Father of Abderus and Autolycus. Abettor of Heracles and Perseus. Possessor of caduceus (winged staff), petasus (winged helmet), talaria (winged sandals).