Theseus at Athens
When Theseus reached Athens, he was not immediately recognized by his father, but his identity was known to the sorceress Medea. The former wife of Jason, after fleeing Corinth, had sought refuge with Aegeus and had borne him a son, Medus; Theseus’s arrival threatened Me-dus’s position in Aegeus’s court. Medea therefore persuaded Aegeus to send the young stranger to fight the wild bull that was ravaging the plain of Marathon. (According to some legends, this was the Cretan bull that had fathered the Minotaur on Pasiphaë.) Theseus fought the bull and killed it, returning to Athens a hero. At the banquet in his honor, Medea tried again to murder him, this time by offering him a cup of poisoned wine. Just as he was about to drink the potion, Aegeus recognized his own sword at Theseus’s side and struck the cup from his son’s hand. Father and son were reunited, and Medea was banished from Athens.
      
       Classical Sources. Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.404-24. Plutarch, Parallel Lives, “Theseus” 6ff. Apollodorus, Biblioteca E1.5—6. Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.19.1,1.27.9—10.