ely out of the labyrinth.
They then fled to their ship, taking with them the lovely maiden to whose
affection for their deliverer they owed their safety.

Arrived at the island of Naxos, Theseus had a dream, in which Dionysus, the
wine-god, appeared to him, and informed him that the Fates had decreed that
Ariadne should be his bride, at the same time menacing the hero with all
kinds of misfortunes should he refuse to resign her. Now Theseus, having
been taught from his youth to reverence the gods, feared to disobey the
wishes of Dionysus. He accordingly took a sad farewell of the {264}
beautiful maiden who so tenderly loved him, and left her on the lonely
island, where she was found and wooed by the wine-god.

Theseus and his companions felt keenly the loss of their benefactress, and
in their grief at parting with her, forgot that the ship still bore the
black sails with which she had left the Attic coast. As she neared the port
of Athens, Aegeus, who was anxiously awaiting the return of his son on the
beach, caught sight of the vessel with its black sails, and concluding that
his gallant son had perished, threw himself in despair into the sea.

With the unanimous approval of the Athenians, Theseus now ascended the
vacant throne, and soon proved himself to be not only a valiant hero but
also a wise prince and prudent legislator. Athens was at this time but a
small city surrounded by a number of villages, each of which possessed its
own separate form of government; but by means of kind and conciliatory
measures Theseus induced the heads of these different communities to resign
their sovereignty, and to intrust the administration of public affairs to a
court which should sit constantly at Athens, and exercise jurisdiction over
all the inhabitants of Attica. The result of these judicious measures was,
that the Athenians became a united and powerful people, and that numbers of
strangers and foreigners flocked to Athens, which became a flourishing
maritime port and a commercial centre of great importance.

Theseus renewed the Isthmian Games, and also instituted numerous festivals,
the principal of which was the Panathenaea, held in honour of Athene-Polias.

It is related that Theseus upon one occasion arrived during a voyage at the
Amazonian coast. Anxious to ascertain the object of his visit, the Amazons
sent Hippolyte, one of their number, with presents to the stranger; but no
sooner did the fair herald set foot on board