Hippolytus (mythology) - Definition and Overview

In Greek mythology, Hippolytus was a son of Theseus and either Antiope or Hippolyte. He was identified with the Roman forest god Virbius.

Phaedra, Theseus' second wife, fell in love with Hippolytus. According to some sources, he had scorned Aphrodite to become a devotee of Artemis and Aphrodite made Phaedra fall in love with him as a punishment. He rejected her. Alternatively, Phaedra's nurse told Hippolytus of her love, and he swore he would not reveal her as a source of information--even after Phaedra killed herself and blamed his seduction of her in her suicide note. In revenge, Phaedra wrote Theseus a letter that claimed Hippolytus raped her. She then killed herself. Theseus believed her and, using one of the three curses he had received from Poseidon, Hippolytus' horses were frightened by a sea monster and ragged their rider to his death. Alternatively, after telling Theseus that Hippolytus had raped her, he killed his son and Phaedra committed suicide out of guilt for she had not intended for Hippolytus to die. Artemis later told Theseus the truth. In an alternate version, Phaedra simply told Theseus this and did not kill herself; Dionysus sent a wild bull which terrified Hippolytus' horses.

A cult grew up around Hippolytus, associated with the cult of Aphrodite. Girls who were about to be married offered locks of their hair to him. His cult believed Asclepius resurrected Hippolytus and he lived in a sacred forests near Aricia in Latium.

• Hippolytus (http://www.verbumvanum.org/adel) for details on the figure of Hippolytus and a classicist's philological study of the evolution of Hippolytus as a chastity paradigm in Euripides, Seneca, Racine; extensive bibliography (in Dutch)