Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and RomansPlutarch
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch
Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
Aphidnae being won by Castor and Pollux, and the city of Athens being in
consternation, Menestheus persuaded the people to open their gates, and
receive them with all manner of friendship, for they were, he told them,
at enmity with none but Theseus, who had first injured them, and were
benefactors and saviors to all mankind beside. And their behavior gave
credit to those promises; for, having made themselves absolute masters
of the place, they demanded no more than to be initiated, since they
were as nearly related to the city as Hercules was, who had received the
same honor. This their desire they easily obtained, and were adopted by
Aphidnus, as Hercules had been by Pylius. They were honored also like
gods, and were called by a new name, Anaces, either from the cessation
(Anokhe) of the war, or from the care they took that none should suffer
any injury, though there was so great an army within the walls; for the
phrase anakos ekhein is used of those who look to or care for any thing;
kings for this reason, perhaps, are called anactes. Others say, that
from the appearance of their star in the heavens, they were thus called,
for in the Attic dialect this name comes very near the words
that signify above.
Some say that Aethra, Theseus's mother, was here taken prisoner, and
carried to Lacedaemon, and from thence went away with Helen to Troy,
alleging this verse of Homer, to prove that she waited upon Helen,
Aethra of Pittheus born, and large-eyed Clymene.
Others reject this verse as none of Homer's, as they do likewise the
whole fable of Munychus, who, the story says, was the son of Demophon
and Laodice, born secretly, and brought up by Aethra at Troy. But
Ister, in the thirteenth book of his Attic History, gives us an account
of Aethra, different yet from all the rest: that Achilles and Patroclus
overcame Paris in Thessaly, near the river Sperchius, but that Hector
took and plundered the city of the Troezenians, and made Aethra prisoner
there. But this seems a groundless tale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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