For some time Ethra concealed the name of Theseus's real father, but the report propagated by Pittheus was, that he was the son of Neptune; for the Trozenians principally worship that God: he is the patron of their city; to him they offer their first-fruits; and their money bears the impression of a trident. Theseus, in his youth, discovering not only great strength of body but firmness and solidity of mind, together with a large share of understanding and prudence, Athra led him to the stone; and, having told him the truth concerning his origin, ordered him to take up his father's tokens, and sail to Athens. The stone 19 he easily removed; but he refused to go by sea, though he might have done it with great safety, and was strongly entreated by his grandfather and his mother, as it was hazardous at that time to travel by land to Athens, because no part was free from the danger of ruffians and robbers. Those times, indeed, produced men of great and indefatigable powers of body, of extraordinary swiftness and agility; but they applied their powers to nothing just or useful. On the contrary their genius, their disposition, and their pleasures tended only to insolence, to violence, and to rapine. As for modesty, justice, equity, and humanity, they looked upon them as qualities, in winch the strong had no kind of concern; virtues, praised only by such as were afraid of being injured, and who abstained from injuring others out of the same principle of fear. Some of these ruffians were cut off by Hercules in his peregrinations, while others escaped to their lurking-holes, and were spared by the hero in con

19

Thenceforward, it was called "Theseus' Stone.' It had previously been denominated the altar of Jupiter Sthenius. A beau tiful cornelian, representing this first effort of the hero, was in the Orleans cabinet! *

tempt of their cowardice. But when Hercules had unfortunately killed Iphitus, he retired to Lydia, where for a long time he was a slave to Omphale, a punishment which he imposed upon himself for the murther. The Lydians, during that period, enjoyed great quiet and security; but in Greece the same kind of enormities broke out anew, there being no one to restrain or quell them. It was, therefore, extremely dangerous to go by land from Peloponnesus to Athens; and Pittheus, acquainting Theseus with the number of these ruffians and with their cruel treatment of strangers, advised him to go thither by sea. But he had long been secretly fired with the glory of Hercules, whom he held in the highest esteem, listening with the utmost attention to such as related his achievements, particularly to those who had seen him, conversed with him, and been witnesses of his various prowess. He was affected in the same manner as Themistocles afterward was, when he declared that the trophies of Miltiades would not suffer him to sleep. The virtues of Hercules were his dream by night, and by day emulation led him out, and spurred him on to perform some exploits of a similar nature. Besides, they were nearly related, being born of

Those who had been guilty of murther became voluntary exiles, and imposed upon themselves a certain penance, which they continued till they thought their crime expiated. (L.) Hercules had rashly thrown Iphitus headlong from the walls of Tirynthus, in resentment of a breach of faith by his father Eury tus; who had promised to him his daughter Iöle upon certain conditions, and afterward refused to fulfil his engagement. In consequence of this event, he applied first to Neleus at Pylus, who denied him the necessary lustration; and next, with somewhat better success, to Deiphobus at Amyclæ. But, being still afflicted with a severe illness, he consulted the Delphic oracle; and was answered, that he must spend three years in servitude, in order to obtain an effectual cure. Upon which, Mercury sold him to Omphale, queen of Lydia. (Apollod. II.) *

cousin-germans; for thra was the daughter of Pittheus and Alcmena of Lysidice, and Pittheus and Lysidice were brother and sister by Pelops and Hippodamia. He considered it therefore as an insupportable dishonour, that Hercules should traverse both sea and land to clear them of those villains, while he himself declined such adventures as occurred to him; disgracing his reputed father, if he took his voyage or rather flight by sea, and carrying to his real father a pair of sandals and a sword unstained with blood, instead of the ornament of great and good actions, to add lustre to his noble birth. With such thoughts and resolutions as these he set forward, determined to injure no one, but to take vengeance of such as should offer him any violence.

He was first attacked by Periphetes in Epidauria, whose weapon was a club, and who upon that account was called Corynetes, or the Club-bearer.' He engaged with him, and slew him. Delighted with the club, he took it for his weapon, and bore it as Hercules did the lion's skin. The skin was a proof of the vast size of the wild beast, which that hero had slain; and Theseus carried about with him this club, whose stroke he indeed had been able to parry, but which in his hand was irresistible. In the Isthmus he slew Sinnis the Pine-bender'22, in the same manner as he had destroyed many others: and this he did, not as having learned or practised the bending of those trees, but to prove that natural

21 A district of Peloponnesus.

22 Sinnis was so called from his bending the heads of two pines, and tying passengers between the opposite branches, which by their sudden return tore them to pieces. (L.)

Pausanias, who (as well as Ovid, Met. vii. 40.) calls him Sinis, says that one of these pines remained till the time of Adrian {ii. 1.) *

strength is above all art. Sinnis had a daughter remarkable for her beauty and stature, named Perigune, who had concealed herself when her father was killed. Theseus made diligent search for her, and found at last that she had retired into a place overgrown with shrubs, and rushes, and wild asparagus. In her childish simplicity she addressed her prayers and vows to these plants and bushes, as if they had a sense of her misfortune; promising, if they would save and hide her, that she would never burn or destroy them. But Theseus pledging himself to treat her honourably, she came to him, and in due time brought him a son named Melanippus. Afterward, with his permission, she married Deïoneus, the son of Eurytus the Echalian. Melanippus had a son named Iöxus, who joined with Örnytus in planting a colony in Caria; and hence sprung the Iöxides, with whom it is an inviolable rule, not to burn either rushes or wild asparagus, but to honour and worship them.

go

About this time Crommyon was infested by a wild sow named Phæä23, a fierce and formidable creature. This savage he attacked and killed 24, ing out of his way to engage her, and thus displaying an act of voluntary valour: for he believed it equally became a brave man to stand upon his defence against abandoned ruffians, and to seek out and begin the combat with strong and savage animals. But some say, that Phæä was an abandoned female robber, who dwelt in Crommyon;

23 Halos, dun' or 'dark-coloured.' This sow, according to Strabo, produced the Calydonian boar, killed by Meleager.

Crommyon was on the border dividing Corinth from Megara.* 24 In this instance our hero deviated from the principle upon which he set out, never to be the aggressor in any engagement. The wild sow was, certainly, no less respectable an animal than 'the Pine-bender.'

that she had the name of 'Sow' from her life and manners, and was afterward slain by Theseus.

On the borders of Megara he destroyed Sciron, by casting him headlong from a precipice: a robber, as the story is generally related; but as others affirm, one who in wanton villainy used to make strangers wash his feet, and to take those opportunities to kick and push them into the sea. The writers of Megara however, in contradiction to this report, and (as Simonides expresses it) "fighting with all antiquity," assert that Sciron was neither a robber nor a ruffian, but on the contrary a destroyer of robbers, and a man whose heart and house were ever open to the good and the honest. For acus (say they) was looked upon as the justest man in Greece, Cychreus of Salamis had divine honours paid him at Athens, and the virtue of Peleus and Telamon also was universally known. Now Sciron was the son-in-law of Cychreus, the father-in-law of Eacus, and the grandfather of Peleus and Telamon, who were both of them sons of Endëis", the daughter of Sciron and Chariclo: it was not therefore probable, that the best of men should make such alliances with one of so vile a character, giving and receiving the greatest and dearest pledges. Besides, we are told that Theseus did not slay Sciron in his first journey to Athens; but afterward, when he took Eleusis from the Megarensians, having expelled Diocles, it's chief magistrate, by a stratagem. In such contradictions are these things involved.

At Eleusis he engaged in wrestling with Cer

25 Apollodorus makes her the daughter of Chiron; but, beside the resemblance of the names (which might easily lead a transcriber of that author into the mistake) it is highly probable that Plutarch's statement is the more correct, as he builds an ar gument upon the connection; and Pausanias agrees with him (ii. 1.).*