T 11 1. 



executed is still apparent, and shows that cadi painting ' 



ic whole wall from the roof to two feet nine 

 inches short of till- pavement. 



There was alo a wnctuary of Theseus in the Peirseeus, 

 as appears from an inscription. > 



lart's Atheni, vol. iii. : I.cakc's TV^MTapAjr </ 

 Atkrns; Daterijition >./ Anlinit Marbbt tn UuBritith 



..HI. part ix. ; Forchhammer, TopograpMit ron Al/ien, 

 Ki.-l. 1*11. 



THESEUS (eifffiic), the great national hero of Athens, 

 i said to i born ;it Tnv/rn. where his father 



.c-Egi". -lept one night with .to lira, the 



daughter HI' I'lttheus, king <if the place. .Kgeus, on his 

 departure, hid his sword and shoes under a large stone, 

 and charged .Kthrn. if she brought forth a son, to send 

 him U> Athens with these tokens, as soon as he was able 



1 away the stune. She brought forth a son, to whom 

 she gave t'he 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, Tor the roads were infested by 

 robbers and monsters. Hut Theseus, who was desirous of 

 emulating the dory of Hercules, refused to go by sea, and 

 after destroying various monsters who had been the terror 

 of the country, arrived in wifely at Athens. Here he 

 was joyfully recognised l>y dBgeuft, but with difficult]' 



cd destruction from Medea and the Pallantids. the 

 sons and grandsons of Pallas, the brother of .fligeus. These 

 mever he finally surmounted, and slew the 

 Pullantids in battle. 



His ne\t exploit was the destruction of the great Mara- 



thonian bull, which ravaged the neiirhbouring country : 



, ed to deliver the Athenians from 



the tribute that they were obliged to pay to Minos, king of 

 Crete. Kvery 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 voluir 

 to go as one of the victims, and through the assistance ol 



!ue, the daughter of Minos, who became enamoured 

 of him, he slew the Minotaur and escaped from the Laby- 

 rinth. He then sailed away with Ariadne, whom he de- 

 serted in the island of Dia or Naxos, an event which fre- 

 quently forms the subject of ant lent works of art. The 

 sails of the ship in which Theseus left Athens were black, 

 but he promised his father, if he returned in salety, to 

 hoist white sai's. This however he neglected to do, and 

 /Kgeus seeing the ship draw near with black sails, sup 

 that his son had peiished, and threw himself from a rock. 



Theseus now ascended the throne of Athens. Hut his 

 adventures were by no means concluded. He marched 

 into the country of the Amazons, who dwelt on the Ther- 

 modon, according to some accounts in the company of 



i lies, and carried away their queen Antiope. The 

 Amazons in revenge invaded Attica, and were with diffi- 

 cult', 1 iv the Athenians. This battle was one of 

 the most favourite subjects of the antient artists, and is 

 commemorated in several works of art that arc still extant. 

 Theseus also took part in the Argonautic expedition and 

 the Calydoniati hunt. He assisted his friend Pirithous and 

 the Lapithae in their contest with the Centaurs, and also 

 accompanied 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 I.eda, who was then only nine years 

 of age. Hut hi invaded in consequence by 

 Castor and Pollux, the brother* ot I.eda : his own people 

 rose against him: and at last, finding his affairs desperate, 

 he withdrew to the island of S.-uos. and there perished 

 either by a fall from the cliffs or through the treachery ol 



uicdcs-, the king of the island. For a long time his 

 memory was forgotten by the Athenians, but he was sub- 

 sequently 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 conclusion of the Persian war, his bones were disco- 

 d at Scyros by Cimon, who conveyed them to Athens. 

 where they, were received with great pomp, and dt ; 

 in a tempfe built to his honour. [TiiKsKirM.] A festival 

 alto was instituted, which was celebrated on the eighth day 

 of every month, but more especially on the eighth of P\- 

 nepsion. 



The above is a brief account of the legends prevailing 

 respecting Theseus. But he is moreover represented by 



T II K 



antient writers as the founu \ttic commonwealth, 



ami even of its demociatical institutions. It won: . 

 waste of time to inquire whether there was an 

 peisonage of this name wl intrudiu -ed the poli- 



tical change* ascribed to him: it will be convenient to 

 adhere to the antient account in describing them ::.. the 

 work of Theseus. 



Before his time Attica contained manv independent 

 townships, which were only nominally united'. I 

 corporaled the people into emoved th 



i- people 

 administ 



courts for the administration of just ice to Atln 



enlarged thr city, which had hitherto covered little nioie 

 than the rock which afterwards formed the citadel. '1 

 ment their union he institute 



ally changed the . \then. i'a into the Panathensea, or the 

 val of all the Attieaus. He encouraged the nobles to i 

 at Athens, and surrendered a part of his kingly pi < 

 to them, for winch reason he is jierhii] 

 founder of the Athenian demoe; ern 



ment which he established was, and continued to be long 

 alter him, strictly aristocratical. For he div ided the ]>< 

 into the tribe.-, or classes of Knpatrida . tit-onion, and 

 Demiurgi, of whom the first were nobli s, the second agri- 

 culturists, the third artisans. All the ofli< 

 those connected with religion were exclusively in the 



Of the lir-t class. Knell tribe v I. either ill 



his time or shortly a tier wards, into three phratria-, and 

 each phratria into thirty g ; . The meml'. 



the separate phi atria- and gcntes had rc'i - and 



Is peculiar to themselves, which were preserved long 

 nfter these communities had lost their political importance 

 by the democratical changes of C'leisthenes. [( '1.1 < 



'(Plutarch's 7. /('(;/' . Mem-sins. TketeiU, ttV8 M 



cju-i I'iltl Rebuxqtic nn.t. Ultraject.. 



where all the authorities are quoted ; Thirlwall's 

 Hixl'iry of Grferf, vol. ii., p. 8, &c.) 



THESMOPHO'RIA (eta/iofoo'" * festival with mys- 

 teries in honour of Demet. 'o whom all the insti- 

 tutions of civilized life, especially of civil and religious 

 laws, were attributed. The festival of th iioiia. 

 especially referred to this part of the character of the god- 

 dess, as is clear from several of the ceremonies observed at 

 its celebration, and from the surname of the goddess, 

 Thcsmophoros,' from which the festival deiivcd its name. 

 It was celebrated in various towns in Greece, and in the 

 Greek colonies, as Sparta, Thebes. Eretiia, F.pli 



Agrieentum. and others. But the place where it was 

 held with the greatest solemnity, and where the particulais 

 of its celebiation are best, known, was Athens. It was in- 

 troduced at Athens, according to some writers, by Oif 

 and according to Herodotus ii. 171 by the daugln 

 Danaus from Fgypt. Its celebration was confin 

 women, especial ! women. It commenced . 



year on the 1 1th of 1'vaiu psion. and lasted accnrdi. 

 some writers for four, and according to others for live 



da\s. The discrepancy in this case, as well as in that of 

 other Greek and Roman festivals, seems to have arisen 

 from the circumstance that the real festival was in many 

 instances preceded by one or more days devoted to pre- 

 parations and purifications, and that some writers reckoned 

 these davs as belonging to the festival. Now that the 

 Thesmophoiia v. ed by such preparatory d; 



cxprcssh stated, and during these days the Athenian 

 women underwent various kinds of purifications. Wellauer. 

 in his little work cited below, has rendered il more than 

 probable that the festival itself did not last more than 

 three days. 



Previous to its celebration the women of each demos 



I from among themselves two matrons to conduct 

 the solemnities, whose husbands, provided th < ived 



a dowry of not less than three talents, had to pay the 

 expenses of the festival as a liturgy. (Isaeus, DC Cirnnis 



W., p. 208.) The first day m the festival 

 avolot or itoioiJof, that is, the procession, because the 

 women went from Athens to Eleiisis in a procession in 

 which they carried on their heads certain lav 

 written either in books or upon tablets. During the night 



'n the first and second day the women solemnized 

 their mysteries at Kleusis. The second day. called vriania, 

 or the Fast,' was a day of mourning, on which the women 

 were not allowed to take any other food than cakes of 



ie and honey, and t!i- part of it thev spent 



sitting in mournful attitudes on the ground around the 



