Theseus   

As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts
of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin
to the effect, that beyond this lies nothing but the sandy deserts
full of wild beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen
sea, so in this work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of
the greatest men with one another, after passing through those periods
which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing
in, I might very well say of those that are farther off: "Beyond this
there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants
are the poets and inventors of fables; there is no credit, or certainty
any farther." Yet, after publishing an account of Lycurgus the lawgiver
and Numa the king, I thought I might, not without reason, ascend as
high as to Romulus, being brought by my history so near to his time.
Considering therefore with myself-
"Whom shall I set so great a man to face?
Or whom oppose? Who's equal to the place?" (as Aeschylus expresses
it), I found none so fit as him that peopled the beautiful and far-famed
city of Athens, to be set in opposition with the father of the invincible
and renowned city of Rome. Let us hope that Fable may, in what shall
follow, so submit to the purifying processes of Reason as to take
the character of exact history. In any case, however, where it shall
be found contumaciously slighting credibility and refusing to be reduced
to anything like probable fact, we shall beg that we may meet with
candid readers, and such as will receive with indulgence the stories
of antiquity.
Theseus seemed to me to resemble Romulus in many particulars. Both
of them, born out of wedlock and of uncertain parentage, had the repute
of being sprung from the gods.
"Both warriors; that by all the world's allowed." Both of them united
with strength of body an equal vigour of mind; and of the two most
famous cities of the world, the one built Rome, and the other made
Athens be inhabited. Both stand charged with the rape of women; neither
of them could avoid domestic misfortunes nor jealousy at home; but
towards the close of their lives are both of them said to have incurred
great odium with their countrymen, if, that is, we may take the stories
least like poetry as our guide to the truth.
The lineage of Theseus, by his father's side, ascends as high as to
Erectheus and the first inhabitants of Attica. By his mother's side
he was descended of Pelops. For Pelops was the most powerful of all
the kings of Peloponnesus, not so much by the greatness of his riches
as the multitude of his children, having married many daughters to
chief men, and put many sons in places of command in the towns round
about him. One of whom named Pittheus, grandfather to Theseus, was
governor of the small city of the Troezenians and had the repute of
a man of the greatest knowledge and wisdom of his time; which then,
it seems, consisted chiefly in grave maxims, such as the poet Hesiod
got his great fame by, in his book of Works and Days. And, indeed,
among these is one that they ascribe to Pittheus,-
"Unto a friend suffice
A stipulated price;" which, also, Aristotle mentions. And Euripides,
by calling Hippolytus "scholar of the holy Pittheus," shows the opinion
that the world had of him. Aegeus, being desirous of children, and
consulting the oracle of Delphi, received the celebrated answer which
forbade him the company of any woman before his return to Athens.
But the oracle being so obscure as not to satisfy him that he was
clearly forbid this, he went to Troezen, and communicated to Pittheus
the voice of the god, which was in this manner,-
"Loose not the wine-skin foot, thou chief of men,
Until to Athens thou art come again."
Pittheus, therefore, taking advantage from the obscurity of the oracle,
prevailed upon him, it is uncertain whether by persuasion or deceit,
to lie with his daughter Aethra. Aegeus afterwards, knowing her whom
he had lain with to be Pittheus's daughter, and suspecting her to