Theseus' birthright

Theseus' birthright

It was said that Theseus ,mother had swam through the sea to an island called Sphairia where she lay with Poseidon through her husband to sire Theseus through the unity of god and mortal. The great stone was placed on this and under it the sword and sanded. Theseus' father added this to the instructions to his wife concerning his son, when he is old enough to wield them and hero enough to move the stone was he to take his fathers role and be a greater hero than he. Only when he was ready to be the hero bestowed into his DNA through the union of god and mortal would said rock be moved and only if Theseus was truly as he was to be. The items are said in many versions of the myth to be symbols of the royal lineage, legacy and bestowal. His mother returned to Athens in one version and later was in exile in Troezen. It was said that Theseus was brought up in his mother's lands thus Troezen was in the lands under her lineages control. "At Athens, Aegeus was joined by Medea, who had fled Corinth after slaughtering the children she had borne Jason, and had taken up a new consort in Aegeus. Priestess and consort together represented the old order at Athens." http://wiki.ask.com/Theseus If you notice the old authority of Greece made up of Athens and Corinth united. It is after the sacrifice of the children born of the union with Jason as the new alliance was fleeing from the old pack and subsuming the new young into a newer union through Athens. this ios a crucial point for understanding the environment that led to the necessity of Theseus and the politics that entails said environment.

lastly to understand the symbolic real authority bestowed in the sandals and sword one must remember that Theseus' "mother then told him the truth about his father's identity and that he must take the weapons back to the king and claim his birthright." so these symbols where the means to becoming king of Athens and exercising the right of the use of thier authority.

While you are thinking about the first bandit Periphetes, Theseus encountered recall that they were symbolised by a club/