The Historians' History of the World 03

Ægeus, king of Athens, though an able and spirited prince, yet, in the divided and disorderly state of his country, with difficulty maintained his situation. When past the prime of life he had the misfortune to remain childless, though twice married; and a faction headed by his presumptive heirs, the numerous sons of Pallas his younger brother, gave him unceasing disturbance. Thus urged, he went to Delphi to implore information from the oracle how the blessing of children might be obtained. Receiving an answer which, like most of the oracular responses, was unintelligible, his next concern was to find some person capable of explaining to him the will of the deity thus mysteriously declared. Among the many establishments which Pelops had procured for his family throughout Peloponnesus was the small town and territory of Trœzen on the coast opposite to Athens, which he placed under the government of his son Pittheus. Ægeus applied to that prince; who was not only in his own age eminent for wisdom, but of reputation remaining even in the most flourishing period of Grecian philosophy; yet so little was he superior to the ridiculous, and often detestable superstition of his time that, in consequence of some fancied meaning in the oracle, which even the superstitious Plutarch confesses himself unable to comprehend, he introduced his own daughter Æthra to an illicit commerce with Ægeus. Perhaps it may be allowed to conjecture that the commerce was unknown to the Trœzenian prince till the consequence became evident, and that the interpretation of the oracle was an ensuing resource to obviate disgrace.

The affairs of Attica being in great confusion required the return of Ægeus. His departure from Trœzen is marked by an action which, to persons accustomed to consider modern manners only, may appear unfit to be related but in a fable, yet is so consonant to the manners of the times, and so characteristical of them, as to demand the notice of the historian. He led Æthra to a sequestered spot where was a small cavity in a rock. Depositing there a hunting-knife and a pair of sandals, he covered them with a marble fragment of enormous weight; and then addressing Æthra, “If,” said he, “the child you now bear should prove a boy, let the removal of this stone be one day the proof of his strength; when he can effect it, send him with the tokens underneath to Athens.”

Pittheus, well knowing the genius and the degree of information of his subjects and fellow-countrymen, thought it not too gross an imposition to report that his daughter was pregnant by the god Poseidon, or, as we usually call him with the Latins, Neptune, esteemed the tutelary deity of the Trœzenians. A similar expedient seems indeed to have been often successfully used to cover the disgrace which, even in those days, would otherwise attend such irregular amours in a lady of high rank, though women of lower degree appear to have derived no dishonour from concubinage with their superiors. Theseus was the produce of the singular connection of Æthra with Ægeus. He is said to have been carefully educated under the inspection of his grandfather, and to have given early proofs of uncommon vigour both of body and mind. On his attaining manhood, his mother, in pursuance of the injunction of Ægeus, unfolded to him the reality of his parentage, and conducted him to the rock where his father’s tokens were deposited. He removed the stone which covered them, with a facility indicating that superior bodily strength so necessary in those days to support the pretensions of high birth; and thus encouraged she recommended to him to carry them to Ægeus at Athens. This proposal perfectly suited the temper and inclination of Theseus; but when he was farther advised to go by sea on account of the shortness and safety of the passage, piracy being about this time suppressed by the naval power of Minos, king of Crete, he positively refused.

THESEUS