Editing Pirithous (section)

=== Rescue ===
[[Heracles]] freed Theseus from the stone, but the earth shook when he attempted to free Pirithous.<ref>Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheca'' (Book 2, Ch. 5, sec. 12)</ref> He had committed too great a crime for wanting the wife of one of the great gods as his own bride.<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' (''Book 6'', ln. 393)</ref> According to a [[scholia|scholium]] on [[Aristophanes]], in a lost play by [[Euripides]], Hades had Pirithous fed to [[Cerberus]] for his impiety.<ref>[[John Tzetzes|Tzetzes]] on [[Aristophanes]]' ''[[Frogs]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/euripides-dramatic_fragments/2008/pb_LCL506.637.xml 142a]</ref> By the time Theseus returned to Athens, the [[Dioscuri]] (Helen's twin brothers [[Castor and Pollux]]) had taken Helen back to [[Sparta]]; they had taken captive Aethra as well as Pirithous' sister, Physadeia, and they became handmaidens of Helen and later followed her to Troy.<ref>Hyginus, ''Fabulae'' 79 & 92</ref>

The rescue of Theseus and Pirithous acquired a humorous tone in the realm of Attic comedy, in which Heracles attempted to free them from the rock to which they had been bound together in the [[Greek Underworld|Underworld]] (for having tried to carry off [[Persephone]]). He succeeded in freeing only Theseus and left behind his buttocks attached to the rocks. Due to this Theseus came to be called hypolispos, meaning "with hinder parts rubbed smooth."<ref>Licht, Hans. ''Sexual life in ancient Greece''. 1994, [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.282802/page/n263 p. 232].</ref><ref>[[Horace]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0025%3Abook%3D4%3Apoem%3D7 ''Odes'' (Book 4, ln. 7)]</ref> This may have been a later invention.

Pirithous was worshiped at Athens, along with Theseus, as a hero.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Graeciae Descriptio'' (Book 1, Ch. 30, sect. 4; Book 10, Ch. 29, sect. 2)</ref><ref>Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' (''Book 8'', ln. 566)</ref><ref>[[Pliny the Elder]], ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Naturalis Historia]]'' 36.4</ref><ref>Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheca'' (Book 1, Ch. 8, sect. 2)</ref>