As king, Theseus was involved in several legendary campaigns, two of which were the subjects of some of the most famous works of art in antiquity. He joined with Heracles in his expedition against the
Amazons, and as his share of the spoil received the Amazon Antiope, by whom he became the father of Hippolytus. The Amazons in revenge invaded Attica and were defeated by Theseus. There are several variant versions of the Amazon saga; it partly owes its origin to the existence in Attica and other parts of Greece in prehistoric burial mounds, which were described as tombs of Amazons. It was during the Amazon attack that Antiope died (there are, however, conflicting accounts of her death). The battle between Theseus and the Amazons was depicted in the
Hephaesteum at Athens and in the Stoa Poecile (the Painted Colonnade);
these paintings dated from the period immediately after the Persian Wars (i.e., after 479), when Athenian national pride and interest in the national hero, Theseus, was at its height. The Amazons were then seen as legendary symbols of the barbarian world, who, like the contemporary
barbarians (the Persians), had been defeated by the Greeks. For this reason also, the battle with the Amazons formed one of the subjects of the metopes of the Parthenon (about 445) and was again depicted on the shield of Pheidias' great statue of Athena Parthenos upon the Acropolis, as well as on the pedestal of the statue of Zeus at Olympia.

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