Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/134

 120 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY Athens at the southern base of the ancient Acropolis, an event that lived on in the memory of the people through the celebration of the old Synoikia ( l uniting of habita- tions'), and probably gave him his name Theseus ='the founder.' (Of. Orfa-uv and rifleVai.) 155. Like Bellerophon, Hercules, and Achilles, Theseus also fought against the Amazons, either as a comrade of Hercules, or on the occasion of an invasion made by the Amazons into Attica. At the same time he won the love of Antiope or Hippolyte, who had been conquered by him (cf. Achilles and Penthesilea), married her, and begot Hippolytus ('unyoker of horses'), a hero worshiped in Troezen and Sparta, who probably was originally a sun god. Afterwards Phaedra (' the shining one/ a moon goddess related to Aphrodite), whom Theseus had married after the death of the Amazon, became enamored of her chaste stepson Hippolytus, and, when her passion was not reciprocated by him, brought about his death by falsely accusing him of making improper proposals to her. 156. At Marathon, which belonged to the old Ionian tetrapolis ('four states') of Attica and was the scene of his struggle with the bull, Theseus met the Thessalian Pirithous ('daring attempter'), king of the Lapithae, and formed a close friendship with him. Then, as we read in the Iliad (though the passage is much disputed), on the occasion of his friend's marriage to Hippodamia, or Deidamia, Theseus fought beside him against the wild Centaurs of Mount Pelion., as in their drunkenness they laid wanton hands on the women. This scene frequently appears in the art of the first half of the fifth century B.C., notably in the metopes of the Parthenon, and in the group