PLUTARCHI'S LIVES. senate house for them all on the site of the present acropolis, called the city Athens, and instituted the Panathenaic festival common to all of them. He also instituted a festival for the resident aliens, on the sixteenth of the month, Hekatombeion, which is still kept And having, according to his promise, laid down his Sovereign power, he arranged the new constitution under the auspices of the gods; for he made inquiry at Delphi as to how he should deal with the city, and received tho following answer: up. "Thou son of geus and of Pittheus' maid, The bounds of many cities; weigh not down Thy soul with thought; the bladder cannot drown." The same thing they say was afterwards prophesied by the Sibyl concerning the city, in these words: "The bladder may be dipped, but cannot drown." XXV. Wishing still further to increase the number of his citizens, ho invited all strangers to come and share equal privileges, and they say that the words now used, Come hither all ye peoples," was the proclamation then used by Theseus, establishing as it were a commonwealth of all nations. But he did not permit his state to fall into the disorder which this influx of all kinds of people would probably have produced, but divided the people into three classes, of Eupatridæ or nobles, Geomori or farmers, Demiurgi or artisans. care of religious rites, the supply of magistrates for the city, and the interpretation of the laws and customs sacred ΟΙ Profane, yet he placed them on an equality with the numbers. other citizens, thinking that the nobles would always excel in dignity, the farmers in usefulness, and the artisans in Homer seems to confirm this view by speaking of tho inclined to democracy, and gave up the title of king; and tioned in his catalogue of ships. Theseus also struck Aristotle tells us that he was the first who moncy bull of Marathon, or Taurus, Minos' general, or else to with the figure of a bull, either alluding to the encourage farming among the citizens. Hence they say. came the words, "worth ten," or "worth a hundred oxen." Ho permanently annexed Megara to Attica, and set up the famous pillar on the Isthmus, on which he wrote the distinction between the countries in two trimotor lines, of which the one looking cast says, "This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia, and the one looking west says, "This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia." And also ho instituted games thero, in emulation of Herakles; that, just as Ilerakles had ordained that the Greeks should celebrate the Olympic games in honour of Zeus, so by Theseus's appointment they should celebrate the Isthmian games in honour of Poseidon. The festival which was previously established there in honour of Melikerta used to be celebrated by night, and to be more like a religious mystery than a great spectacle and gathering. Some writers assert that the Isthmian games were established in honour of Skeiron, and that Thesens wished to make them an atonement for the murder of his kinsman; for Skeiron was the son of Kanethus and of Henioche the daughter of Pittheus. Others say that this festival was established in honour of Sinis, not of Skeiron. Be this as it may, Theseus established it, and stipulated with the Corinthians that visitors from Athens who came to the games should have a seat of honour in as large a spaco as could be covered by a sail of the public ship which carried them, when stretched out on the ground. This we are told by Hellanikus and Andron of Halikarnassus. XXVI. Besides this, according to Philochorus and other writers, he sailed with Herakles to tho Euxino, took part in the campaign against the Amazons, and received Antiope as the roward for his valour; but most historians, among whom are Pherckydes, Hellanikus, and Herodorus, say that Theseus made an expedition of his own later than that of Herakles, and that ho took the Amazon captive, which is a more reasonable story. For no one of his companions is said to have captured an Amazon; while Bion relates that he caught this one by treachery and carried her off; for the Amazons, he says, were not averse to men, and did not avoid Theseus when he touched at their coast, but even offered him presents. He invited the bearer of these on board his ship; and when she had embarked he set sail. But one, Menckrates, who has written a history of the town of Nikaa in Bithynia, states that Theseus spent a long time in that country with Antiope, and that there were three young Athenians, brothers, who were his companions in arms, by name Euneon, Thoas, and Solocis. his his Antiope, and, without telling his brothers, confided his passion to one of his comrades. This man laid the matter before Antiope, who firmly rejected his pretensions, but treated him quietly and discreetly, telling Theseus nothing about it. Soloeis, in despair at his rejection, leaped into a river and perished; and Theseus then at length learned the cause of the young man's death. In Sorrow he remembered and applied to himself an oracle he had received from Delphi. It had been enjoined upon him by the Pythia that whenever he should be struck down with special sorrow in a foreign land, he should found a city in that place and leave some of Companions there as its chiefs. In consequence of this the city which he founded was called Pythopolis, in honour of the P'ythian Apollo, and the neighbouring river was called Solocis, after the youth who died in it. He left there the brothers of Solocis as the chiefs and lawgivers of the new city, and together, with them one Hermus, an Athenian Eupatrid. In consequence of this, the people of Pythopolis call a certain place in their city the house of Hermes, by a mistaken accentuation transferring the honour due to their founder, to their god Hermes. feeble or womanish spirit, for they never could have Amazons; and it seems to have been carried on in no the Payx and the Muscum unless they had conquered the camped in the city nor have fought a battle close to rest of the country, so as to be able to approach the city XVII. This was the origin of the war with the It is hard to believe, as Hellanikus relates, that ey crossed the Cimmerian Bosphorus on the ice; but safely. that they encamped almost in the city is borne witness to by the local names, and by the tombs of the fallen. For a long time both parties held aloof, unwilling to engago; but at last Thesous, after sacrificing to Phobos (Fear), attacked them. The battle took placo in the month Boedromion, on the day on which the Athenians celebrato the feast Boedromia. Kleidemus gives us accurate details, stating that the left wing of the Amazons stood at the place now called the Amazoneum, while the right reached up to the P'nyx, at the place where the gilded figure of Victory now stands. The Athenians attacked them on this side, issuing from the Museum, and the tombs of the fallen are to be seen along the street which leads to the gato near the shrine of the hero Chalkodus, which is called the Peiraic gate. On this side the women forced them back as far as the temple of the Eumenides, but on the other side those who assailed them from the temple of Pallas, Ardettus, and the Lyceum, drove their right wing in confusion back to their camp with great slaughter. In the fourth month of the war peace was brought about by Hippolyto; for this writer names the wife of Theseus Hippolyte, not Antiopo. Some relate that she was slain fighting by the side of Theseus by a javelin hurled by one Molpadia, and that the column which stands beside the temple of Olympian Earth is sacred to her memory. It is not to be wondered at that history should be at fault when dealing with such ancient events as these, for there is another story at variance with this, to the effect that Antiopo caused the wounded Amazons to be secretly transported to Chalkis, where they were taken care of, and some of them wore buried there, at what is now called the Amazoncum. However, it is a proof of the war having ended in a treaty of peace, that the place near the temple of Theseus where they swore to observe it, is still called Horcomosium, and that the sacrifice to the Amazons always has taken place before the festival of Theseus. The people of Megara also show a burying-place of the Amazons, as one goes from the market-place to what they call Rhus, where the lozengeshaped building stands. It is said that some others died at Charonea, and were buried by the little stream which it seems was PLUTARCHI'S LIVES. called Hæmon, about which we have treated in the life I did not even get across Thessaly without troublo, for of Demosthenes. It would appear that the Amazons graves of them are shown to this day at Skotussa and anciently called Thermodon, but now is Kynoskephale. XXVIII. The above is all that is worthy of mention about the Amazons; for, as to the story which the author of the Thcseid' relates about this attack of the Amazons being brought about by Antiope to rovengo herself upon Theseus for his marriago with Phædra, and how she and her Amazons fought, and how Herakles slew them, all this is clearly fabulous. After the death of Antiope, Theseus married Phaedra, having a son by Antiope named Hippolytus, or Demophoon, according to l'indar. As for his inisfortunes with this wife and son, as the account given by historians does not differ from that which appears in the plays of the tragic pocts, we must believe them to have happened XXIX. However, there aro certain other legends about Theseus' as all these writers say. marriago which have never appeared on the stage, which have neither a creditable beginning nor a prosperous termination: for it is said that he carried off Periboca the mother of Ajax and also l'hereboa and Iope one Anaxo, a Trozenian girl, and after slaying Sinis and Kerkyon he forced their daughters, and that he married the daughter of Iphikles; and, as has been told already, Panopeus that he deserted Ariadne, which was a shameful and discreditable action. it was which on account of his love for Agle the daughter of And in addition to all this he is charged with carrying off Helen, which brought war upon Attica, and exile and destruction on himself; about adventures were undertaken by tho heroes of those times, Herodorus is of opinion that 'Theseus took no part in any of them, except with the Lapitha in their fight with tho Centaurs; though other writers say that ho went to Kolchis with Jason and took part with Molcager in the hunt of tho Kalydonian boar. out Theseus;" also he by himself without any comrades From these legends arises the proverb, "Not with We shall speak presently. But, though many |