fair Æglê:[497] and the tragic poets found it more congenial to the feelings of their audience to exhibit him as a dignified and liberal sovereign, rather than as an adventurous single-handed fighter. But the logographers and the Alexandrine poets remained more faithful to the old fables. The story of Hekalê, the hospitable old woman who received and blessed Thêseus when he went against the Marathônian bull, and whom he found dead when he came back to recount the news of his success, was treated by Kallimachus:[498] and Virgil must have had his mind full of the unrefined legends when he numbered this Attic Hêraklês among the unhappy sufferers condemned to endless penance in the under-world.[499] [492] Thuc. ii. 15. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ Θησεὺς ἐβασίλευσε, γενόμενος μετὰ τοῦ ξυνετοῦ καὶ δυνατὸς, τά τε ἄλλα διεκόσμησε τὴν χώραν, καὶ κατάλυσας τῶν ἄλλων πόλεων τά τε βουλευτήρια καὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς, ἐς τὴν νῦν πόλιν ... ξυνῴκισε πάντας. [493] Iliad, i. 265; Odyss. xi. 321. I do not notice the suspected line, Odyss. xi. 630. [494] Diodôrus also, from his disposition to assimilate Thêseus to Hêraklês, has given us his chivalrous as well as his political attributes (iv. 61). [495] Plutarch, Thêseus, i. Εἴη μὲν οὖν ἡμῖν, ἐκκαθαιρόμενον λόγῳ τὸ μυθῶδες ὑπακοῦσαι καὶ λαβεῖν ἱστορίας ὄψιν· ὅπου δ᾽ ἂν αὐθαδῶς τοῦ πιθανοῦ περιφρονῇ, καὶ μὴ δέχηται ~τὴν πρὸς τὸ εἰκὸς μίξιν~, εὐγνωμόνων ἀκροατῶν δεησόμεθα, καὶ πρᾴως τὴν ἀρχαιολογίαν προσδεχομένων. [496] See Isokratês, Panathenaic. (t. ii. p. 510-512, Auger); Xenoph. Memor. iii. 5, 10. In the Helenæ Encomium, Isokratês enlarges more upon the personal exploits of Thêseus in conjunction with his great political merits (t. ii. p. 342-350, Auger). [497] Plutarch, Thêseus, 20. [498] See the epigram of Krinagoras, Antholog. Pal. vol. ii. p. 144; ep. xv. ed. Brunck. and Kallimach. Frag. 40. Ἀείδει δ᾽ (Kallimachus) Ἑκάλης τε φιλοξείνοιο καλιὴν, Καὶ Θησεῖ Μαραθὼν οὓς ἐπέθηκε πόνους. Some beautiful lines are preserved by Suidas, v. Ἐπαύλια, περὶ Ἑκάλης θανούσης (probably spoken by Thêseus himself, see Plutarch, Theseus, c. 14). Ἴθι, πρηεῖα γυναικῶν, Τὴν ὁδὸν, ἣν ἀνίαι θυμαλγέες οὐ περόωσιν· Πόλλακι σεῖ᾽, ὦ μαῖα, φιλοξείνοιο καλιῆς Μνησόμεθα· ξυνὸν γὰρ ἐπαύλιον ἔσκεν ἅπασι. [499] Virgil, Æneid, vi. 617. “Sedet æternumque sedebit Infelix Thêseus.” Two however among the Thêseian fables cannot be dismissed without some special notice,—the war against the Amazons, and the expedition against Krête. The former strikingly illustrates the facility as well as the tenacity of Grecian legendary faith; the latter embraces the story of Dædalus and Minos, two of the most eminent among Grecian ante-historical personages.