| Theseus | Son of Aethra and Aegeus/Poseidon; national hero of the Athenians. |
| Cecrops | First king in Athens; brought civilization to the Athenian people;
depicted as half-man, half-snake. |
| Erichthonius | Half-man, half-snake product of the spilled semen of Hephaestus;
and early king of Athens; |
| Cephalus | Son of Hersê, a daughter of Cecrops, and Hermes; his marriage
with Procris was fraught with suspicion and ended in disaster. |
| Procris | Daughter of Erechtheus, and early king of Athens, and wife of
Cephalus; her marriage with Cephalus was fraught with suspicion and
ended in disaster. |
| Laelaps | The magical dog who always caught what it was chasing; given as a
gift to Procris by Minos, king of Crete; ended in a paradoxical pursuit
with the magical fox that could never be caught. |
| Procnê | Daughter of Pandion, and early king of Athens, and wife of Tereus;
killed her own son Itys to avenge Tereus' rape and mutilation of her
sister Philomela. |
| Philomela | Daughter of Pandion, an early king of Athens, and sister of
Procnê; she was raped and mutilated by Tereus, Procnê's
husband. |
| Tereus | King of Thessaly; given Procnê as his wife by Pandion; his
rape and mutilation of her sister Philomela led to the death of his son
Itys by Procnê. |
| Itys | Son of Tereus and Procnê; killed by his mother in revenge for
Tereus' rape and mutilation of Philomela, Procnê's sister. |
| Erechtheus | An early king of Athens; best known for his children: Procris,
Orithyia, and Cecrops II, the latter of whom is the grandfather of
Aegeus, father of Theseus. |
| Aegeus | Son of Pandion II and father of Theseus; sonless, he traveled to
Delphi; stopping in Troezen on the way back, he impregnated Aethra,
daughter of the king, their son was Theseus. |
| Aethra | Mother of Theseus and daughter of Pittheus, the King of Troezen,
who, understanding the meaning of Delphi's obscure oracle to Aegeus,
connived to have her impregnated by him. |
| Procrustes | Villain overcome by Theseus on his way from Troezen to Athens;
murdered his victims by putting them on a bed that never fit. |
| Amazonomachy | Battle of the Athenians and the invading Amazons; battle provoked
by Theseus' abduction of their Queen Antiopê; later comes to
symbolize Athens's victory over the Persians. |
| Hippolytus | Son of Theseus by Antiopê, Queen of the Amazons; falsely
accused by Phaedra, Theseus' new wife, of having attempted to rape
her, he is killed by Poseidon, who answers Theseus' prayer. |
| Phaedra | Wife of Theseus and stepmother to Hippolytus; inflicted with a
shameful lust for Hippolytus and rebuffed by him, she kills herself,
leaving behind a letter falsely accusing Hippolytus of having tried to
rape her. |
| Bellerophon | Parallel to the Hippolytus false-accusation motif; having rebuffed
the wife of the king at Corinth, the king tries to kill him. |
| Pirithoüs | King in Thessaly, opponent of Theseus who, like Enkidu and
Gilgamesh, becomes his companion in a number of adventures. |
| Lapiths | Thessalian people, whose king Pirithoüs, is a companion of
Theseus; involved in a famous battle against the Centaurs that erupts
at a wedding: the "Battle of the Centaurs and the Lapiths" (aka the
Centauromachy). |
| Centaurs | Race of half-man half-horse creatures; offspring of Ixion; mostly
dangerous and wild, some are good. |
| Pisistratus | Democratic tyrant of late 6th century Athens; responsible for
promoting the myths of Theseus and identifying them with democratic
ideology. |
