Theseus' son by an Amazon — Antiope or Hippolyte in the rival lists — scorned women and was destroyed when Phaedra falsely accused him and Poseidon sent a bull from the sea to wreck his chariot; the queen hanged herself when the truth came out.1
The Amazon's son
By the Amazon he had carried off when her sisters marched on Athens — Antiope, Melanippe, or Hippolyte in the rival lists — Theseus begot Hippolytus, a youth who devoted himself to Artemis and would have nothing to do with Aphrodite or the company of women.2
Phaedra's false charge
Theseus wedded Phaedra, daughter of Minos, and she bore him two sons — but fell in love with Hippolytus. When he fled her embraces she tore open her chamber, rent her garments, and told Theseus the youth had assaulted her. The king believed the lie and prayed to Poseidon that his son might die.3
The bull from the sea
As Hippolytus drove his chariot beside the shore, Poseidon sent up a bull from the surf; the horses bolted, the car was shattered, and the youth, tangled in the reins, was dragged to death. Phaedra hanged herself when the truth emerged. Apollodorus adds that Asclepius later raised Hippolytus from the dead — for which Zeus struck the healer — and Ovid has Diana hide the restored youth as Virbius in her sacred grove.4
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How the centuries saw it
Hippolytus, Phaedra and the Nurse
Unknown (Roman wall painter), 1st century AD
Herculaneum fresco: lovesick Phaedra and her nurse opposite the chaste Hippolytus — Euripides' confession scene on a Campanian wall.
Hippolytus after the Confession of Phaedra, his Stepmother
Étienne-Barthélémy Garnier, 1793
Garnier's Salon canvas — Hippolytus recoiling after Phaedra's confession, the instant that sets Theseus' curse in motion.
The Death of Hippolytus (La mort d'Hippolyte)
Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne the Elder, 1715
Lemoyne's Louvre marble — Poseidon's sea-bull panics the horses and Hippolytus is dragged in the reins, Euripides' catastrophe in stone.
The Death of Hippolytus
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1860
Alma-Tadema's shore: the bull surges from the waves as the chariot wrecks — the chaste hunter destroyed by a father's curse.
On screen
In play
Hippolytus (play)
Euripides
Euripides' tragedy of the chaste hunter and the stepmother's desire — still the source text for every Phaedra.
Phèdre
Jean Racine
Racine's French classic remakes Hippolytus' doom for the neoclassical stage — passion as fatal clarity.