1017 



THESEUS. 



THESIQER, SIB FREDERICK, M.P., D.C.L. 



1018 



simply because he saw that the measures of the Thirty would ruin 

 them. Critias was unconcerned about all consequences, and Thera- 

 menes gave way. Repeated warnings on his part created some fear 

 lest he should betray them and join the popular party, for he was 

 notorious for his political inconstancy, from which he is said to have 

 received the nickname of Cothurnus (the shoe which fits either foot). 

 At the same time the Thirty became sensible of their dangerous 

 position, and in order to strengthen themselves they made out a list of 

 3000 Athenians on whom a kind of franchise was conferred, while all 

 the remaining Athenians were treated as outlaws. Theramenes again 

 was dissatisfied with these proceedings, but the tyrants insisted upon 

 disarming the Athenians, with the exception of the three thousand 

 and the knights. The reckless cruelty and avarice of the Thirty grew 

 worse every day, and it was determined that each of them should 

 select out one rich alien who was to be put to death, and whose pro- 

 perty should be taken by his murderer. Theramenes refused to have 

 any share in this crime. This refusal increased the fears of his col- 

 leagues, and excited their hatred against him, and they resolved to get 

 rid of him before he could become a dangerous enemy. An accu- 

 sation was brought against him in the name of the Thirty by Critias 

 before the council. He was charged with being hostile to the exist- 

 ing government, and with betraying its interests. Theramenes 

 defended himself, and made such an impression upon the council, that 

 it appeared willing to acquit him. Critias perceiving this, called into 

 the council-chamber an armed band of his followers, whom he had 

 kept in readiness outside, and conversed for a few moments with his 

 colleagues. Hereupon he declared that with the consent of his friends 

 he erased Theramenes from the list of the Thirty and of the three 

 thousand, and that he might now be condemned to death without 

 trial. Theramenes rushed to the Hestia (the altar of Vesta), and 

 conjured the members of the council to protect him, and not to allow 

 Critias to dispose of the lives of citizens; but the herald of the 

 Thirty called in the Eleven (the executioners), who apprehended 

 Theramenes and led him away to punishment. The council was 

 struck with amazement at this bold movement, and Theramenes was 

 hurried across the Agora by Statyrus and the Eleven to prison. When 

 he bad drunk the poison which was administered to him, he dashed 

 the cup with the last few drops to the ground, and said, ' This is to 

 the health of my dear Critias.' This happened in B.C. 404. 



The manner in which Theramenes died has been admired by ancient 

 and modern writers. But his fortitude was not based on the con- 

 sciousness of a virtuous life, and he no more deserves admiration than 

 a criminal to whom death is a matter of indifference. Thucydides 

 (vii. 68) says of him that he was not wanting in eloquence and ability. 

 Whether he wrote any orations is uncertain. (Cicero, 'De Orat.,' ii. 

 22; 'Brut.' 7.) He is said to have instructed Isocrates (Dionysius 

 Hal., ' Isocrat.,' i.), and to have written on rhetoric. It may be true 

 therefore, as Suidas says, that he wrote declamations; but it is much 

 more probable that Suidas confounds him with a late sophist, Thera- 

 menes of Ceos. (Eudocia, 231 ; Fabricius, ' Biblioth. Grsec.,' ii. 748 ; 

 Ruhnken, ' Hist. Grit. Orat. Gtrssc,,' p. 40, &c.) 



(Xenophon, Helkn., ii. 3 ; Plutarch, Nicias, 2 ; Scholiast on Aristoph., 

 Nub., 360; Ranae, 47, 546; Diodorus Sic., xiii. 38, &c.; Thirlwall; 

 Qrote ; E. Ph. Hinrichs, De Theramenia, Critiae, et Thrasybuli Rebus et 

 Inyenio, 4to, Hamburg, 1820. 



THESEUS (07j<rei5s), the great national hero of Athens, is said to 

 have been born at Trcezen, where his father ^Egeus, king of Athens, 

 slept one night with ^35thra, the daughter of Pittheus, king of the 

 place. JEgeus, on his departure, hid his sword and shoes under a 

 large stone, and charged Jsthra if she brought forth a son, to send 

 him to Athens with these tokens, as soon as he was able to roll away 

 the stone. She brought forth a son, to whom she gave the name of 

 Theseus, and when he was grown up, informed him of his origin and 

 told him to take up the tokens and sail to Athens, for the roads were 

 infested by robbers and monsters. But Theseus, who was desirous of 

 emulating the glory of Hercules, refused to go by sea, and after 

 destroying various monsters who had been the terror of the country, 

 arrived in safety at Athens. Here he was joyfully recognised by 

 JEgeus, but with difficulty escaped destruction from Medea and the 

 Pallantids, the sons and grandsons of Pallas, the brother of ^Egeus. 

 These dangers however he finally surmounted, and slew the Pallantids 

 in battle. 



His next exploit was the destruction of the great Marathonian bull, 

 which ravaged the neighbouring country ; and shortly after he resolved 

 to deliver the Athenians from the tribute that they were obliged to 

 pay to Minos, king of Crete. Every ninth year the Athenians had to 

 send seven young men and as many virgins to Crete to be devoured 

 by the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. Theseus volunteered to go as one 

 of the victims, and through the assistance of Ariadne, the daughter of 

 Minos who became enamoured of him, he slew the Minotaur and 

 escaped from the Labyrinth. He then sailed away with Ariadne, 

 whom he deserted in the island of Dia or Naxos, an event which 

 frequently forms the subject of ancient works of art. The sails of 

 the sLip in which Theseus left Athens were black, but he promised 

 his father, if he returned in safety, to hoist white sails. This however 

 he neglected to do, and ^Egeus seeing the ship draw near with black 

 sails, supposed that his son had perished, and threw himself from 

 a rock. 



Theseus now ascended the throne of Athene. But his adventures 

 were by no means concluded. He marched into the country of the 

 Amazons, who dwelt on the Thermodon, according to some accounts 

 in the company of Hercules, and carried away their Queen Antiope. 

 The Amazons in revenge invaded Attica, and were with difficulty 

 defeated by the Athenians. This battle was one of the moat favourite 

 subjects of the ancient artists, and is commemorated in several works 

 of art that are still extant. Theseus also took part in the Argonautic 

 expedition and the Calydonian hunt He assisted his friend Pirithous 

 and the Lapithse in their contest with the Centaurs, and also accom- 

 panied the former in his descent to the lower world to carry off 

 Proserpine, the wife of Pluto. When Theseus was fifty years old, 

 according to tradition, he carried off Helen, the daughter of Leda, who 

 was then only nine years of age. But his territory was invaded in 

 consequence by Castor and Pollux, the brothers of Leda; his own 

 people rose against him ; and at last, finding his affairs desperate, he 

 withdrew to the island of Scyros, and there perished either by a fall 

 from the cliffs or through the treachery of Lycomedes, the king of 

 the island. For a long time his memory was forgotten by the Athe- 

 nians, but he was subsequently honoured by them as the greatest of 

 their heroes. At the battle of Marathon they thought they saw him 

 armed and bearing down upon the barbarians; and after the conclu- 

 sion of the Persian war, his bones were discovered at Scyros by Cimon, 

 who conveyed them to Athens, where they were received with great 

 pomp, and deposited in a temple built to his honour. A festival also 

 was instituted, which was celebrated on the eighth day of every 

 month, but more especially on the eighth of Pyanepsion. 



The above is a brief account of the legends prevailing respecting 

 Theseus. But he is moreover represented by ancient writers as the 

 founder of the Attic commonwealth, and even of its democratical 

 institutions. It would be waste of time to inquire whether there was 

 an historical personage of this name who actually introduced the 

 political changes ascribed to him : it will be convenient to adhere to 

 the ancient account in describing them as the work of Theseus. 



Before this time Attica contained many independent townships, 

 which were only nominally united. Theseus incorporated the people 

 into one state, removed the principal courts for the administration of 

 justice to Athens, and greatly enlarged the city, which had hitherto 

 covered little more than the rock which afterwards formed the citadel. 

 To cement their union he instituted several festivals, and especially 

 changed the Athensea into the Panathensea, or the festivals of all the 

 Atticans. He encouraged the nobles to reside at Athens, and sur- 

 rendered a part of his kingly prerogatives to them, for which reason 

 he is perhaps represented as the founder of the Athenian democracy, 

 although the government which he established was, and continued to 

 be long after him, strictly aristocratical. For he divided the people 

 into the tribes or classes of Eupatridae, Geomori, and Demiurgi, of 

 whom the first were nobles, the second agriculturists, the third 

 artisans. All the offices of state and those connected with religion 

 were exclusively in the hands of the first class. Each tribe was 

 divided, either in his time or shortly afterwards, into three phratrise, 

 and each phratria into thirty gentes (yevri). The members of the 

 separate phratrise and gentes had religious rites and festivals peculiar 

 to themselves, which were preserved long after these communities had 

 lost their political importance by the democratical changes of Cleis- 

 thenes. [CLEISTHENES.] 



(Plutarch, Life of Theseus;' Meursius, Theseus, sive de eju* Vitd 

 Rebusque Gestis Liber Postumus, Ultraject., 1684, where all the authori- 

 ties are quoted : Thirlwall, Grote, &c.) 



* THESIGER, SIR FREDERICK, M.P., D,C.L., is the youngest 

 and only surviving son of Charles Thesiger, Esq., Collector of Customs 

 in the island of St. Vincent, and nephew of Sir Frederick Thesiger who 

 was aide-de-camp to Lord Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen. He 

 was born in London in July 1794, and entered the navy in 1803 as 

 midshipman of the Cambrian frigate. His elder brother however 

 dying while he was still a boy, and his father's West India property 

 having been destroyed by the eruption of a volcano, he abandoned 

 the navy for the legal profession, and after keeping the necessary 

 terms was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1818. For many years he 

 went the Home Circuit, of which he became the undisputed leader. 

 His principal practice was in Westminster Hall and the Surrey 

 Sessions, where he was regularly retained by the parish of Christ Church. 

 He greatly distinguished himself before the committee on the Dublin 

 Election in 1835, which sat daily for several month?. On this occa- 

 sion he was counsel for Mr. O'Connell, and though unsuccessful in the 

 issue, he conducted a hopeless case with a degree of perseverance and 

 quiet confidence, and a readiness of resource which were the object of 

 general admiration. In 1834 he became a King's counsel and in 

 March 1840 entered parliament as M.P. for Woodstock, which he 

 represented until 1844. In this year, he was elected for Abingdon, on 

 being appointed Solicitor-General under the administration of Sir 

 Robert Peel, and in the following year succeeded the late Sir W. W. 

 Follett as Attorney-General, but resigned on the retirement of his 

 party in 1846. He continued to represent Abingdon down to the 

 dissolution in 1852, when he was returned for Stamford, a borough in 

 which the influence of the Marquis of Exeter greatly preponderates. 

 He was re-appointed Attorney-General in 1852 under the Earl of 

 Derby, of whose political opinions he is a leading supporter. The 



