THESEUS, legendary hero of Attica, and son of AEgeus, king of Athens; ranks second to Hercules, captured the Marathonian bull, and slew the MINOTAUR (q. v.) by the help of ARIADNE (q. v.); waged war against the Amazons, and carried off the queen; assisted at the Argonautic expedition, and is famed for his friendship for Perithous, whom he aided against the Centaurs.

THESPIS, the father of Greek tragedy, hence Thespian art for the drama.

THESSALONIANS, EPISTLE TO THE, epistles of St. Paul to the Church at Thessalonica; of which there are two; the first written from Corinth about A.D. 53 to exhort them to beware of lapsing, and comforting them with the hope of the return of the Lord to judgment; the second, within a few months after the first, to correct a false impression produced by it in connection with the Lord’s coming; they must not, he argued, neglect their ordinary avocations, as though the day of the Lord was close at hand; that day would not come till the powers of evil had wrought their worst, and the cup of their iniquity was full; this is the first purely dogmatic epistle of St. Paul.

THESSALONICA.  See SALONICA.

THESSALY, the largest division of ancient Greece, a wide, fertile plain stretching southward from the Macedonian border to the Maliac Gulf, and entirely surrounded by mountains save the Vale of Tempe in the NE. between Mounts Ossa and Olympus; was conquered by Philip of Macedon in the 4th century B.C., and subsequently incorporated in the Roman Empire, on the break up of which it fell into the hands of the Venetians, and eventually of the Turks (1335), and remained a portion of the Ottoman Empire till 1881, when the greater and most fertile part was ceded to Greece.  Chief town, Larissa.

THETFORD (4), a historic old market-town on the Norfolk and Suffolk border, at the confluence of the Thet and Little Ouse, 31 m.  SW. of Norwich; a place of importance in Saxon times, and in Edward III.’s reign an important centre of monasticism; has interesting ruins, a notable Castle Hill, and industries in brewing, tanning, &c.

THETIS, in the Greek mythology the daughter of NEREUS (q. v.) and Doris, who being married against her will to Peleus, became the mother of Achilles; she was therefore a NEREID (q. v.), and gifted with prophetic foresight.

THEURIET, ANDRE, modern French poet and novelist, born at Marly le Roi, near Paris; studied law, and in 1857 received a post in the office of the Minister of Finance; has published several volumes of poems, dealing chiefly with rustic life, but is more widely known by his novels, such as “Mademoiselle Guignon,” “Le Mariage de Gerard,” “Deux Soeurs,” &c., all of them more or less tinged with melancholy, but also inspired by true poetic feeling; b. 1833.

THIALFI, in the Norse mythology the god of manual labour, Thor’s henchman and attendant.