Early life Pelops was the strongest of the kings in
Peloponnesus quite as much on account of the number of his children as the amount of his wealth. He gave many daughters in marriage to men of the highest rank, and scattered many sons among the cities as their rulers. Coming from the district of
Pisatis in
Elis, Pittheus and his brother Troezen were received by Aetius, son of
Anthas. This Anthas was a brother of
Hyperenor and the two were sons of
Poseidon and
Pleiad Alcyone, both reigned in Hyperea and Anthea before Aetius. The Pelopids settled in the country and divided the power with Aetius. Thus, after these events the land was ruled by three kings instead of one: Aetius, Troezen and Pittheus but the newcomers enjoyed the real authority. This was evident after Troezen's death for Pittheus who supplanted the earlier dynasty, ruled as the sole king. Having gathered settlers together and joining the two villages of Hyperea and Anthea into a modern city, Pittheus renamed it Troezen after his sibling.
Bellerophon came to Troezen to ask Pittheus for Aethra's hand in marriage, but the hero was banished from
Corinth before the nuptials took place.
Childless Aegeus King Aegeus of Athens reigned at the same time with Pittheus in Troezen. He was childless with his previous marriages and thus desired to have his own heirs. After he received from the
Pythian priestess the celebrated oracle in which she bade him to have intercourse with no woman until he came to Athens. But Aegeus thought the words of the command somewhat obscure, and therefore turned aside to Troezen and asked for Pittheus's advice pertaining the words of the god, which ran as follows: — '''Loose not the wine-skin's jutting neck, great chief of the people, Until thou shalt have come once more to the city of Athens.''' Pittheus understanding the oracle on Aegeus's inquiry whether or not he was going to ever have children, had made the Athenian king drunk, who ended up spending the night with his daughter Aethra. According to
Plutarch, Pittheus merely spread the report of her daughter's copulation with the god so that Theseus might be regarded as the son of Poseidon, who was much revered at Troezen.
Two heroes A Troezenian legend of the earliest notable event of Theseus's life is set in the house of Pittheus. When Heracles became slave of
Omphale in
Lydia, villains burst forth and broke in the regions of Hellas because no one would rebuke and restrain them. The journey was therefore a perilous one for travelers by land from Peloponnesus to Athens, and Pittheus, by describing each of the miscreants at length, what sort of a monster he was, and what deeds he wrought upon strangers, tried to persuade Theseus to make his journey by sea. But the hero, secretly inspired by the valor of his cousin Heracles, paid no heed of his grandfather's warnings, traveled by the road and eventually cleared it from brigands and bandits that infested it.
Misfortune of Hippolytus Pittheus also appeared in the myth about
Hippolytos, son of
Theseus and thus Pittheus's great-grandson. When Theseus, now king of Athens, married
Phaedra, he sent Hippolytos to the house of Pittheus, who became his pupil and raised him as heir to the Troezen throne. However, Hippolytos later got killed by Poseidon when his father was led to believe he violated Phaedra and caused her to commit suicide. Pittheus's tomb and the chair on which he had sat in judgment were shown at Troezene down to a late time. == Source ==