Pythia & Aegeus Plate

This is the only surviving pottery depicting Pythia, high priestess of Apollo. King of Athens, Aegeus, consults the famous oracle of Delphi. The story says that Aegeas was troubled for not having a male heir from his marriage and consulted the oracle, who gave him an incomprehensible answer. On his way back to Athens, he visited his friend Pittheus, King of Troezen, and asked for his advice. Pittheus got him drunk and married him to his daughter Aethra, so that his descendants would inherit the Athenian throne. Next day, when Aegeus regained his consciousness, he said to Aethra that if their marriage bore a child, she should raise it in secrecy. Under a great rock, he buried his sandals and his sword and told Aethra that when the child grows old enough to be able to move that rock, it should bring the hidden items to his father in Athens. And so it happened. The child was no other than the legendary hero of Greece, Theseus.

Attic red-figure plate copy from Original red figure kylix, 440-430 BC. - Berlin Museum