In Greek mythology, Theseus volunteered to join Athens’s tribute expedition to face the Minotaur.
Athens was required to send young people to Crete after the death of Androgeus, the son of King Minos. Theseus, the son of Aegeus in the usual tradition, chose to accompany the next group rather than allow the tribute to continue without challenge.
His decision established the central heroic structure of the myth. Theseus travelled to Crete, entered the Labyrinth, killed the Minotaur, and escaped. Ariadne helped him navigate the maze, making her an essential figure in the episode even though Theseus later abandoned her on Naxos.
Theseus was not the same hero as Heracles, Perseus, or Jason. Those figures belong to other major Greek myth cycles, although their stories sometimes overlap in broader accounts of Greek heroic tradition.