To judge from vase paintings, Theseus achieved a new prominence in late sixth-century Athens. Where before he was the hero who slew the Kretan Minotaur and engaged in some rather disreputable dealings with Ariadne and Helen, he now became a chastiser of brigands and founder of festivals, the just and respected unifier of Attica. Scholars are divided as to whether his elevation came through the patronage of the Peisistratids or a few years later under the nascent democracy, but it is clear that Theseus was to be the Athenian answer to Dorian Herakles (whose cults were already widespread in Attica). Gradually, local traditions about Theseus were expanded, and unrelated cults were provided with Thesean credentials. This process was accelerated when the politically adroit general Kimon, responding to an oracular command to “bring home the bones” of Theseus, contrived to find the hero’s remains on the newly conquered island of Skyros (476). Perhaps the bones of some prehistoric behemoth, the remains were ceremoniously laid to rest in a new shrine, the Theseion (the location of which is still unknown) and a levy was passed in order to finance a state cult and annual festival called the Theseia. The resulting ritual cycle, which was readily assimilated into the existing festival calendar, commemorated events in the “biography” of the hero, especially his triumphant return from Krete via Delos and his landing at the port of Phaleron, celebrated in the preexisting vintage festival of the Oschophoria. Theseus’ return was placed in the seedsowing month of Pyanopsion, so the mixture of pulses and cereals consumed in the Apolline festival of the Pyanepsia (Bean Boiling) was explained as the potluck soup created when Theseus and his companions pooled the last of their rations for a homecoming meal.24 Whereas the Spartans had focused on enlarging a collection of Atreid heroes in order to appropriate their credentials and prestige, the Athenians molded and elevated Theseus to fit the new ideals established by the democracy.
World History
