Theseus

Now Aegeus, king of Athens, desiring to have children, is said to have received from the Pythian priestess the celebrated oracle in which she bade him to have intercourse with no woman until he came to Athens. But Aegeus thought the words of the command somewhat obscure, and therefore turned aside to Troezen and communicated to Pittheus the words of the god, which ran as follows:—

1. Loose not the wine-skin’s jutting neck, great chief of the people,
2. Until thou shalt have come once more to the city of Athens.

This dark saying Pittheus apparently understood, and persuaded him, or beguiled him, to have intercourse with his daughter Aethra. Aegeus did so, and then learning that it was the daughter of Pittheus with whom he had consorted, and suspecting that she was with child by him, he left a sword and a pair of sandals hidden under a great rock, which had a hollow in it just large enough to receive these objects.

He told the princess alone about this, and bade her, if a son should be born to her from him, and if, when he came to man’s estate, he should be able to lift up the rock and take away what had been left under it, to send that son to him with the tokens, in all secrecy, and concealing his journey as much as possible from everybody; for he was mightily in fear of the sons of Pallas,[*](His brother.) who were plotting against him, and who despised him on account of his childlessness; and they were fifty in number, these sons of Pallas. Then he went away.

When Aethra gave birth to a son, he was at once named Theseus, as some say, because the tokens for his recognition had been placed in hiding; but others say that it was afterwards at Athens, when Aegeus acknowledged [*](It is impossible to reproduce in English the play on the Greek words.) him as his son. He was reared by Pittheus, as they say, and had an overseer and tutor named Connidas. To this man, even down to the present time, the Athenians sacrifice a ram on the day before the festival of Theseus, remembering him and honoring him with far greater justice than they honor Silanio and Parrhasius, who merely painted and moulded likenesses of Theseus.