Chapter 9, Theseus’ Later Exploits
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Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 99.539, Attic red-figure cup with Peirithoos on interior tondo
Detail of Peirithoos from J.C. Hoppin, Handbook of Attic Red-figured Vases, vol. 2 (1919), 477
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
Perseus Art & Archaeology Artifact Browser
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 08.258.21, Attic red-figure calyx krater with Peirithoos and Theseus in Hades
G.M.A. Richter and L.F. Hall, Red-figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1936), vol. 2, pl. 135
G.M.A. Richter and M.J. Milne, Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases (1935), fig. 57
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
Paris, Louvre G341: Attic red-figure calyx krater by the Niobid Painter, Herakles with heroes, among them possibly Theseus and Peirithoos in Hades? (for discussion, see Gantz p. lxxiv, note 29 for p. 294)
A. Furtwaengler and K. Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei: Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder (Serie II, 1909), pl. 108
Beazley Archive Pottery Database
Perseus Art and Archaeology Artifact Browser
Naples, Museo Nazionale Archeologico Stg 709, Apulian red-figure volute krater with Theseus and Peirithoos in Hades (see upper right for Peirithoos and lower left for Theseus)
Archäologische Zeitung 1884, pl. 18
♠ Isokrates, Helen 20
So grateful was Theseus to Peirithos, his partner in the abduction, that when Peirithos wished to woo Persephon, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and summoned him to the descent into Hades to obtain her, when Theseus found that he could not by his warnings dissuade his friend, although the danger was manifest he nevertheless accompanied him, for he was of opinion that he owed this debt of gratitude—to decline no task enjoined by Peirithos in return for his help in his own perilous enterprise. Greek Text
♠ Diodoros Siculus, Library of History 4.63.4-5
Peirithoüs now decided to seek the hand of Persephonê in marriage, and when he asked Theseus to make the journey with him Theseus at first endeavoured to dissuade him and to turn him away from such a deed as being impious; but since Peirithoüs firmly insisted upon it Theseus was bound by the oaths to join with him in the deed. And when they had at last made their way below to the regions of Hades, it came to pass that because of the impiety of their act they were both put in chains, and although Theseus was later let go by reason of the favour with which Heracles regarded him, Peirithoüs because of the impiety remained in Hades, enduring everlasting punishment; but some writers of myths say that both of them never returned. [5] While this was taking place, they say that Helen’s brothers, the Dioscori, came up in arms against Aphidna, and taking the city razed it to the ground, and that they brought back Helen, who was still a virgin, to Lacedaemon and along with her, to serve as a slave, Aethra, the mother of Theseus. Greek Text
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Edited by Aaron J. Ivey, Graduate Teaching Assistant, Department of Classics, University of Georgia, June 2016; by R. Ross Holloway, Elisha Benjamin Andrews Professor Emeritus, Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Brown Univ., June 2016; and by Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, July 2016.
Literary sources updated by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, May 2023.
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