Sciron

Sciron beaten by Theseus, Attic red-figure cup, 500–490 BC, Louvre (G 104).

In Greek mythology, Sciron or Sceiron (Ancient Greek: Σκίρων; gen.: Σκίρωνoς) was a bandit killed by Theseus on the way from Troezen to Athens.

Mythology

An Isthmian outlaw, he was the son of either Pelops or Poseidon.[1] He dwelled at the Sceironian Rocks, a cliff on the Saronic coast of the Isthmus of Corinth;[1] He robbed travelers passing the Sceironian Rocks and forced them to wash his feet. When they knelt before him, he kicked them over the cliff into the sea, where they were eaten by a monstrous sea turtle.[1] Theseus killed him in the same way, by pushing him off the cliff.

According to Plutarch, however, the Megarians claimed that Sciron was not a robber, but identified him with the Megarian warlord named Sciron. He was the son of Pylas, king of Megara; and father of Endeïs, wife of Aeacus. When Pylas was exiled from Megara, he gave the rule to his son-in-law Pandion, who then gave it to his son Nisus. Sciron disputed this, but agreed to accept arbitration by Aeacus, king of Aegina, who decided that Nisus should be king and Sciron the military leader. Sciron accepted this decision and married his daughter Endeïs to Aeacus.[2] Yet elsewhere Plutarch states that Sciron was the son of Canethus and Henioche, a daughter of Pittheus, which made him a cousin of Theseus, and that, in one version, Theseus instituted the Isthmian Games so as to honor him. Others, Plutarch remarked, related the same of Sinis, another bandit killed by Theseus.[3]

A passage in Ovid (Met. 7.444), where the poet claims that certain cliffs by the name of Sciron owe their name to the man, suggests an aetiological origin for the tale.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Tripp, Edward. The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology. Meridian, 1970, p. 522.
  2. ↑ Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Theseus", 10. (Plut. Thes. 10)
  3. ↑ Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Theseus", 25. 4 - 5
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