The other tale stands more apart from the original legend, and seems to have had its origin in the patriotic pride of the Athenians. Adrastus, unable to obtain permission from the Thêbans to inter the fallen chieftains, presented himself in suppliant guise, accompanied by their disconsolate mothers, to Thêseus at Eleusis. He implored the Athenian warrior to extort from the perverse Thêbans that last melancholy privilege which no decent or pious Greeks ever thought of withholding, and thus to stand forth as the champion of Grecian public morality in one of its most essential points, not less than of the rights of the subterranean gods. The Thêbans obstinately persisting in their refusal, Thêseus undertook an expedition against their city, vanquished them in the field, and compelled them by force of arms to permit the sepulture of their fallen enemies. This chivalrous interposition, celebrated in one of the preserved dramas of Euripidês, formed a subject of glorious recollection to the Athenians throughout the historical age: their orators dwelt upon it in terms of animated panegyric; and it seems to have been accepted as a real fact of the past time, with not less implicit conviction than the battle of Marathôn.[657] But the Thêbans, though equally persuaded of the truth of the main story, dissented from the Athenian version of it, maintaining that they had given up the bodies for sepulture voluntarily and of their own accord. The tomb of the chieftains was shown near Eleusis even in the days of Pausanias.[658] [657] Apollodôr. iii. 7, 1; Eurip. Supp. _passim_; Herodot. ix. 27; Plato, Menexen. c. 9; Lysias, Epitaph. c. 4; Isokrat. Orat. Panegyr. p. 196, Auger. [658] Pausan. i. 39, 2. A large proportion both of the interesting persons and of the exalted acts of legendary Greece belongs to the female sex. Nor can we on this occasion pass over the name of Evadnê, the devoted widow of Kapaneus, who cast herself on the funeral pile of her husband and perished.[659] [659] Eurip. Supplic. 1004-1110.