PHIL 1120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Aegeus, Euripides
Document Summary
At some point theseus faced hippolyta, an amazon woman, perhaps as a result of a battle with the amazons. They were a race of mostly man hating, aggressive women, one of the stock enemies of greek civilization in mythology. The result of this encounter is hippolytus, who is described as a bastard because his parents were not formally married. Hippolyta was also not greek, which is also a consideration. In order to be considered an athenian citizen, a child had to have both mother and father as citizens. Theseus" maternal family in troezen to be raised. Theseus then married phaedra and they had legitimate children. Apparently relations with crete improved after the minotaur episode. Theseus succeeded aegeus as king of athens, but his cousins, the sons of his father"s brother pallas, disliked him. If he hadn"t shown up, they would have inherited power from aegeus.
