The Bull of Marathon

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/052-bull-of-marathon-apollodorus

Cycle: Heroes — Theseus

Version line: Apollodorean (Marathonian bull = Cretan bull released by Heracles; Theseus captures and sacrifices it)

Sources: Apollodorus, *Epitome* 1.5–6; *Library* 2.5.7 (Cretan bull later at Marathon); Plutarch, *Life of Theseus* 14

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/052-bull-of-marathon-apollodorus.md

Characters

Aegeus — king during Theseus’s Attic exploits
Artemis — recipients of the sacrifice in variant notices
Bull of Marathon — formerly the Cretan bull of Heracles’s seventh labor; ravager of the Marathon plain
Hecale — aged hostess of Theseus on the Marathon road (Plutarch / Callimachus)
Heracles — prior captor who released the bull (cross-link to seventh labor)
Theseus — captures the Marathonian bull; sacrifices it at Athens

Places

Mycenae — where Heracles first delivered the bull to Eurystheus
Oenone — original home of the bull under Minos
Olympia — display and sacrifice of the bull
Rhamnus — Attic plain ravaged by the bull; place of capture

Themes

Sacrifice

Narrative

After his recognition at Athens—or, in some chronological arrangements, as one of the deeds that proved him before or just after—Theseus went against the bull of Marathon. This was the same Cretan bull Heracles had brought alive to Eurystheus as his seventh labor and then released; it had crossed to Attica and ravaged the plain of Marathon. Theseus captured it alive, drove it through Athens in display, and sacrificed it to Apollo Delphinius (or to Athena). Plutarch adds that an old woman named Hecale entertained Theseus on his way to the hunt and vowed offerings if he returned safe; she died before his return, and Theseus instituted honors for her—a local Attic tale Callimachus later elaborated in hexameter. The bull episode links the Theseus cycle to the Heracles cycle (see 03-heroes/021) and marks Theseus as Athens’s own monster-slayer on Attic soil before the greater Cretan voyage.