Concerning his voyage into the Euxine Sea, Philochorus and some others
write that he made it with Hercules, offering him his service in the
war against the Amazons, and had Antiope given him for the reward of his
valor; but the greater number, of whom are Pherecides, Hellanicus,
and Herodorus, with a navy under his own command, and took the Amazon
prisoner,--the more probable story, for we do not read that any other,
of all those that accompanied him in this action, took any Amazon
prisoner. Bion adds, that, to take her, he had to use deceit and fly
away; for the Amazons, he says, being naturally lovers of men, were so
far from avoiding Theseus when he touched upon their coasts, that they
sent him presents to his ship; but he, having invited Antiope, who
brought them, to come aboard, immediately set sail and carried her
away. An author named Menecrates, that wrote the History of Nicaea in
Bithynia, adds, that Theseus, having Antiope aboard his vessel, cruised
for some time about those coasts, and that there were in the same ship
three young men of Athens, that accompanied him in his voyage, all
brothers, whose names were Euneos, Thoas, and Soloon. The last of these
fell desperately in love with Antiope; and escaping the notice of the
rest, revealed the secret only to one of his most intimate acquaintance,
and employed him to disclose his passion to Antiope. She rejected his
pretences with a very positive denial, yet treated the matter with much
gentleness and discretion, and made no complaint to Theseus of anything
that had happened; but Soloon, the thing being desperate, leaped into
a river near the seaside and drowned himself. As soon as Theseus was
aquainted with his death, and his unhappy love that was the cause of it,
he was extremely distressed, and, in the height of his grief, an oracle
which he had formerly received at Delphi came into his mind; for he had
been commanded by the priestess of Apollo Pythius, that, wherever in a
strange land he was most sorrowful and under the greatest affliction,
he should build a city there, and leave some of his followers to be
governors of the place. For this cause he there founded a city, which
he called, from the name of Apollo, Pythopolis, and, in honor of the
unfortunate youth, he named the river that runs by it Soloon, and left
the two surviving brothers intrusted with the care of the government and
laws, joining with them Hermus, one of the nobility of Athens, from whom
a place in the city is called the House of Hermus; though by an error
in the accent it has been taken for the House of Hermes, or Mercury, and
the honor that was designed to the hero, transferred to the god.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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