Theseus is one of the great heroes of Greek mythology. Growing up as the unrecognized son of the King of Athens, Theseus is finally acknowledged as a teenager by the aging king, only to be taken by the Minoans of Crete as part of an annual tribute. Theseus and 13 fellow Athenians were destined to die as food for the "Minotaur" -- the monstrous offspring of a mating between a bull and the Minoan queen, kept hidden in a labyrinth.
The myth describes how Theseus organized his fellow Athenian captives into a tightly knit group. The king's daughter Ariadne falls in love with Theseus, and helps him find his way through the labyrinth, kill the Minotaur, and escape with her from Crete.
I heard the story from my father as a boy. It was a story, no more and no less realistic than Jack and the Beanstalk. But in 1958, Mary Renault wrote her critically-acclaimed historical novel, The King Must Die, re-telling the story from Theseus's point of view, filling in the blanks she found in the myth, and adding her own twist to Theseus's nature and personality. She offers what, we may choose to believe, were the real and somewhat more plausible facts out of which the ancient myths grew with time -- an account based on her understanding of Greek and Minoan civilizations during the time of Theseus's supposed life.
I read the novel as a youth, and I've just finished re-reading it now. Coincidentally, my nephew, an English teacher, will be teaching the novel to his ninth grade honors classes as part of the school's prescribed curriculum. The Renault novel has become a classic.
On re-reading, the novel was every bit as exciting as it had been the first time around, and as evocative of Hellenic civilization -- or at least of a plausible interpretation of Hellenic civilization. But reading it now, it also brought about thoughts of our world today.
More explicitly than in the myth, every important act by Renault's Theseus is rooted in his religious beliefs -- and especially in his conviction that he is an offspring of the god Poseidon, the god of the sea, of horses, of bulls, and -- crucial to Renault's story -- of earthquakes. Since childhood, Theseus has had an ability -- whether physical or god-given in origin -- to sense impending earthquakes. Nothing is more natural than for him to treat this ability as confirmation of his descent from Poseidon the Earth-Shaker. Allied to this ability is the ability to sense -- whether supernatural in origin, or self-delusional -- when Poseidon is pleased or displeased with his course of action.
Although Theseus turns primarily to Poseidon for guidance, he fully respects the other Hellenic sky gods -- especially Apollo -- and pays respect to the earth gods of the indigenous matriarchal civilization that the invading Hellenes had found on the Greek mainland and on Crete. For purposes of this summary, it's important only to realize that Theseus and his companions were formed in a world where respect for the gods was instinctual and imperative.
Many aspects of life on Crete amaze Theseus, including the antiquity of the civilization and the incredible wealth and leisure of the ruling class. But he is appalled by the superficiality, as he views it, of Cretan life, and by the impiety of the Cretan people, both rulers and ruled. The teenagers brought to Crete annually as tribute for the bulls, in Renault's version of the myth, don't serve as food for the Minotaur (who in fact is merely a human prince), but as participants in the bull ring, to their eventual death as a sacrifice to the bull god, the Earth Shaker himself. They become "bull dancers."
But the performance long ago lost its religious significance to the Cretan public. Only the forms of religious sacrifice remained -- the performance by now is for the crowd's entertainment, similar to bull fights in today's Spain, and an occasion for gambling on the relative longevity of the young bull dancers. Even Princess Ariadne, who is the high priestess, has no belief in anything other than a desire to perform the public rituals properly.
Theseus, who views kingship as a sacred duty -- serving not only as a military leader but as a priest standing before the gods on behalf of his people, and destined finally to offer his own life as an ultimate sacrifice -- not only is scandalized, but is unable to see how the Minoan king, the Minotaur prince, and even his beloved Ariadne can live with themselves.
Renault's description of the Cretan aristocracy -- the folks who attend the bull performances -- anticipates by a half century Suzanne Collins's description of the citizens of The Capitol in her Hunger Games trilogy.
These young lords and ladies were full of nonsense, having almost their own language, like children's games. And they held their honor as light as they held their gods. ...New things were their passion, and hard for them to come by. ... They would stand on their heads for the sake of newness, if nothing else new was left. You could see this in their pots and vases. ... It was a pleasure only to take their pots in your hands, to feel the shape and the glaze. But lately they had begun to spoil them with all kinds of gaudy stuck-on finery, flowers and dangles which might show their skill, yet gave the thing a look of being fit for no use and good for nothing but to gather dust. The truth is that what had not been tried in a thousand years was not worth doing, But even beauty wearied them, if it was not new.
Perhaps that is how today's visitors from the Arab world view us in the West?
In the end, of course -- like the exquisite but similarly trivial society in the Hunger Games's Capitol -- it all collapsed. Poseidon became disgusted by the impieties committed before him. He spoke, the earth shook, and the great palace of Knossos collapsed. Only Theseus and those companions he had trained in discipline, supporting each other to the death, their mutual support reinforced by oaths mutually sworn before the gods they held sacred, escaped the island.
The Cretans considered Theseus and the other dancers in the bull ring "barbarians." They were uncivilized, their behavior was crude and unrefined, they were like children. They were amusing as entertainment, and as occasional invited guests in their beds. The dancers' belief in the traditional gods was charming and picturesque, but, my goodness, they took everything so seriously. They hardly knew how to take a joke.
Theseus was not "uncivilized" -- he was a Hellene, and he himself saw non-Hellenes as "barbaric." He took his beliefs seriously, and accepted the burdens of his duties. He had his pleasures -- women flocked to him -- but those pleasures always were secondary to his obligation to the gods and to those he was duty-bound to defend.
In a typical adventure story, Theseus would have had the last laugh -- but for Theseus, the deaths of thousands and the ruin of Minoan civilization came from the gods and inspired awe. Theseus had served only as the instrument of the gods' will. It would have been impious to laugh at what the gods decreed, even when you became -- as he ultimately did -- King of Athens and overlord of Crete as a result.
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