The Slaying of the Minotaur
Meanwhile in Athens, Aigeus had taken Medea in, and she bore him a son named Medos. Medea knew the dark arts and she kept the factions contesting Aigeus' power at bay. When Theseus arrived at Athens, Aigeus did not yet know of his parentage, but Medea knew, and she wanted to kill Theseus to preserve her son's position as future King.

Medea thus convinced Aigeus that Theseus was a spy and laced his wine cup with poison during supper that night. However, just before he drank the wine, he drew out his sword to cut his meat. Aigeus immediately recognized the sword and threw the poisoned cup onto the floor. Angered, Theseus tried to kill Medea, but she cast a spell of invisibility and she and her son escaped.

With Medea and her magic gone, the fifty sons of Aigeus' brother immediately prepared an attack to usurp the throne. Theseus single-handedly killed half the brothers, which left the rest cowering. Poseidon gave Theseus the chance to prove himself as his son, and told him how to outwit the white bull. With this knowledge, he set out to capture the bull whom Minos had called forth. Thesues finally did so, and brought it to the Acropolis, where he sacrificed it, finishing what Minos should have done a long time ago.

After his sacrifice, he found a procession towards the port, and on further questioning he realised that these were sacrifices for the Minotaur. Theseus, having killed the father of the Minotaur, thought it simple enough to kill the Minotaur itself. He took the place of one of the young men and sailed to Crete. Aigeus did not want his newfound son to leave, and told him to hoist a white flag when he returned, if he had survived.

So the ship left the port, and when it arrived in Crete, the sacrifices were thrown into prison, to be led into the labyrinth the next day. Minos' daughter, princess Ariadne, had seen Theseus, and fallen in love with him. He went to his prison cell that night, and offered him the secret of the labyrinth in exchange for a promise to bring her back to Athens and to marry her. Theseus agreed, and so she gave him the secret of the labyrinth.

It was a spindle of thin, strong thread, made by Daidalos himself. Everyone had thought the maze to be a horizontal puzzle of passageways, but in fact it was vertical, spiralling down into the earth, when it finally reached the centre of the maze, where the Minotaur was. Gravity itself would guide the spindle to the centre of the maze, and to leave would be a matter of having tied the thread to the start of the maze, and following the thread back up.

So that night, Theseus set out along the labyrinth and used the spindle to find his way into the heart of the labyrinth, where the Minotaur was fast asleep. The chamber was filled with human bones and the stench of death. He stabbed the Minotaur so many times he was sure it was dead, before hurrying back to the entrance as a feeling of disgust filled him.

Once out of the maze, he ran to unlock all the Athenians with him. He brought Ariadne along, and they sank every Cretan ship at the port before getting on their own ship and sailing back to Athens. Along the way, they stopped over at an island for water, while everyone rested and Ariadne slept along the beach. The god, Dionysos, was enchanted by Ariadne's beauty, and made Theseus forgetful such that he forgot to wake the sleeping Ariadne and left the island without her.

Ariadne awoke, angry that Theseus had deserted her. Not long after appeared Dionysos, who filled her with love for him, and removed all memory of Theseus. Ariadne became his queen and they travelled the world together.

Theseus was afflicted with Dionysos' dose of forgetfulness, and forgot his promise to hoist a white flag if he survived. When Aigeus saw the ship sailing with a black flag, he was overcome with grief and jumped off the steep rocks of the Acropolis and killed himself. He had fulfilled the prophecy that the oracle told to him many years before: not to unfasten a wineskin's foot until he reached the Acropolis, lest causing his own death.

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