res, and loads the Gods with gifts;
and the axes strike the muscular necks of the oxen having their horns
bound with wreaths. No day is said {ever} to have shone upon the people
of Erectheus more famous than that--the senators and the common people
keep up the festivity; songs, too, they sing, wine inspiring wit. "Thee,
greatest Theseus," said they, "Marathon[78] admired for {shedding} the
blood of the Cretan bull; and that the husbandman ploughs Cromyon[79] in
safety from the boar, is thy procurement and thy work. By thy means the
country of Epidaurus saw the club-bearing son of Vulcan[80] fall; {and}
the banks of the river Cephisus[81] saw the cruel Procrustes {fall by
thee}. Eleusis, sacred to Ceres, beheld the death of Cercyon.[82]
Sinnis[83] fell too, who barbarously used his great powers; who was able
to bend {huge} beams, and used to pull pine trees from aloft to the
earth, destined to scatter {human} bodies far and wide. The road to
Alcathoe,[84] the Lelegeian city, is now open in safety, Scyron[85]
being laid low {in death}: {and} the earth denies a resting-place, the
water, {too}, denies a resting-place to the bones of the robber
scattered piecemeal; these, long tossed about, length of time is
reported to have hardened into rocks. To {these} rocks the name of
Scyron adheres. If we should reckon up thy glorious deeds, and thy
years, thy actions would exceed thy years {in number}. For thee, bravest
{hero}, we make public vows: in thy honor do we quaff the draughts of
wine." The palace rings with the acclamations of the populace, and the
prayers of those applauding; and there is no place sorrowing throughout
the whole city.

And yet (so surely is the pleasure of no one unalloyed, and some anxiety
is {ever} interposing amid joyous circumstances), AEgeus does not have
his joy undisturbed, on receiving back his son. Minos prepares for war;
who, though he is strong in soldiers, strong in shipping, is still
strongest of all in the resentment of a parent, and, with retributive
arms, avenges the death of {his son} Androgeus. Yet, before the war, he
obtains auxiliary forces, and crosses the sea with a swift fleet, in
which he is accounted strong. On the one side, he joins Anaphe[86] to
himself; and the realms of Astypale; Anaphe by treaty, the realms of
Astypale by conquest; on the other side, the low Myconos, and the chalky
lands of Cimolus,[87] and the flourishing Cythnos, Scyros, and the level
Seriphos;[88] Paros, too