Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Late in life Theseus lost his grip on Athens. While he was trapped in Hades with Pirithous—or during other absences—Menestheus son of Peteos stirred the people and seized power (with Dioscuri pressure after Helen’s recovery in related tellings). Returning, Theseus found himself unable to reassert rule; he sent his children abroad and took refuge on Scyros, whose king Lycomedes was his guest-friend (or kinsman). Lycomedes, either fearing Theseus would seize the island or suborned by Menestheus, led him to a high cliff as if to show him the land—and pushed him off to his death. So the civilizer of Attica died by treachery far from the city he had unified. Later, when the Athenians were commanded by an oracle to recover Theseus’s bones, Cimon took Scyros, found a giant coffin with bronze spear and sword, and brought the relics to Athens; a hero-shrine (Theseion) housed them. The death on Scyros closes the Theseus cycle: not a glorious battlefield end, but exile, betrayal, and posthumous cult return.