Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

THE CHILDREN OF THESEUS AND HERAKLES. 67
of the Kalydonian boar, and takes part in the war of the
Epigonoi before Thebes. But a more noteworthy myth is
that which takes him, like Orpheus, into the nether world to
bring back another Eurydike in the form of the maiden Perse-
phone. This legend exhibits another reflection of Theseus
in Peirithoos, a son of Zeus or Ixion, the heaven or the
proud sun, and Dia, the clear-shining dawn. 1
Peirithoos
had already aided Theseus when he took Helen from Sparta
and placed her in the hands of his mother Aithra, an act
requited in the myth which carries Aithra to Ilion and
makes her the handmaid of Helen. The attempt of Peiri-
thoos ends as disastrously as the last exploits of Patroklos,
and Theseus himself is shut up in Hades until Herakles
comes to his rescue, as he does also to that of Prometheus,
The presence of the Dioskouroi, the bright Asvins or horsemen,
complicates the story. These carry away Helen and
Aithra, and when Theseus comes back from the unseen land,
he finds that his stronghold of Aphidnai has been destroyed,
and that Menestheus is king in Athens. He therefore
sends his sons to Euboia, and hastens to Skyros, where the
chief Lykomedes hurls him from a cliff into the sea, a death
which Kephalos inflicted upon himself at the Leukadian or
White Cape. But though his own life closes in gloom, his
children return at length with Aithra from Ilion, and are
restored, like the Herakleids, to their ancient inheritance.
This is the Theseus who, in the pages of Thucydides, con- The The-
solidates the independent Attic Demoi into one Athenian ^c
state, over which he rules as a constitutional sovereign, con- dides.
fining himself strictly to his definite functions. There is
nothing more to be said against the method by which this
satisfactory result is obtained than that it may be applied
with equal profit, if not with equal pleasure, to the stories of
Boots and Jack the Giant- Killer.
In the Corinthian tradition, Hipponoos, the son of Glauko^ Hipponoos
or of Poseidon, is known especially as the slayer of Belleros, J^^J
whom the same tradition converted into a near kinsman,
1 The carrying off of Hippodameia, is a myth of the wind-driven and stagthe
bride of Peirithoos, at her wedding- gering cloud hearing away the golden
feast, by the drunken Kentaur Eurytion, light into the distant heavens.
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