Theseus   

be with child by him, left a sword and a pair of shoes, hiding them
under a great stone that had a hollow in it exactly fitting them;
and went away making her only privy to it, and commanding her, if
she brought forth a son who, when he came to man's estate, should
be able to lift up the stone and take away what he had left there,
she should send him way to him with those things with all secrecy,
and with injunctions to him as much as possible to conceal his journey
from every one; for he greatly feared the Pallantidae, who were continually
mutinying against him, and despised him for his want of children,
they themselves being fifty brothers, all sons of Pallas.
When Aethra was delivered of a son, some say that he was immediately
named Theseus, from the tokens which his father had put under the
stone; others that he had received his name afterwards at Athens,
when Aegeus acknowledged him for his son. He was brought up under
his grandfather Pittheus, and had a tutor and attendant set over him
named Connidas, to whom the Athenians even to this time, the day before
the feast that is dedicated to Theseus, sacrifice a ram, giving this
honour to his memory upon much juster grounds than to Silanio and
Parrhasius for making, pictures and statues of Theseus. There being
then a custom for the Grecian youth, upon their first coming to man's
estate, to go to Delphi and offer first-fruits of their hair to the
god, Theseus also went thither, and a place there to this day is yet
named Thesea, as it is said, from him. He clipped only the fore part
of his head, as Homer says the Abantes did. And this sort of tonsure
was from him named Theseus. The Abantes first used it, not in imitation
of the Arabians, as some imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because
they were a warlike people, and used to close fighting, and above
all other nations accustomed to engage hand to hand; as Archilochus
testifies in these verses:-
"Slings shall not whirl, nor many arrows fly,
When on the plain the battle joins; but swords,
Man against man, the deadly conflict try
As is the practice of Euboea's lords
Skilled with the spear.-"
Therefore that they might not give their enemies a hold by their hair,
they cut it in this manner. They write also that this was the reason
why Alexander gave command to his captains that all the beards of
the Macedonians should be shaved, as being the readiest hold for an
enemy.
Aethra for some time concealed the true parentage of Theseus, and
a report was given out by Pittheus that he was begotten by Neptune;
for the Troezenians pay Neptune the highest veneration. He is their
tutelar god; to him they offer all their first-fruits, and in his
honour stamp their money with a trident.
Theseus displaying not only great strength of body, but equal bravery,
and a quickness alike and force of understanding, his mother Aethra
conducting him to the stone, and informing him who was his true father,
commanded him to take from thence the tokens that Aegeus had left,
and sail to Athens. He without any difficulty set himself to the stone
and lifted it up; but refused to take his journey by sea, though it
was much the safer way, and though his mother and grandfather begged
him to do so. For it was at that time very dangerous to go by land
on the road to Athens, no part of it being free from robbers and murderers.
That age produced a sort of men, in force of hand, and swiftness of
foot, and strength of body, excelling the ordinary rate and wholly
incapable of fatigue; making use, however, of these gifts of nature
to no good or profitable purpose for mankind, but rejoicing and priding
themselves in insolence, and taking the benefit of their superior
strength in the exercise of inhumanity and cruelty, and in seizing,
forcing, and committing all manner of outrages upon everything that
fell into their hands; all respect for others, all justice, they thought,
all equity and humanity, though naturally lauded by common people,
either out of want of courage to commit injuries or fear to receive
them, yet no way concerned those who were strong enough to win for