Here Lycomedes, king of the
island, feigned to receive him with the utmost friendship; but being, as it
is supposed, in league with Menesthius, he led the old king to the summit
of a high rock, under pretence of showing him his estates, and
treacherously killed him by pushing him over the cliff.

Many centuries after his death, by the command of the oracle of Delphi,
Cimon, the father of Miltiades, at the conclusion of the Persian war,
brought the remains of Theseus, the great benefactor of Athens, to that
city, {269} and in his honour a temple was erected, which exists to the
present day, and serves as a museum of art.

OEDIPUS.

Laius, king of Thebes, the son of Labdacus, and a direct descendant of
Cadmus, was married to Jocaste, the daughter of a noble Theban. An oracle
having foretold that he would perish by the hand of his own son, he
determined to destroy the infant to whom Jocaste had just given birth. With
the consent of his wife, whose affection for her husband overcame her love
for her child, he pierced the feet of the babe, bound them together, and
handed the infant over to a servant, with instructions to expose him on
Mount Cithaeron to perish. But instead of obeying this cruel command, the
servant intrusted him to a shepherd who was tending the flocks of Polybus,
king of Corinth, and then returned to Laius and Jocaste, and informed them
that their orders had been obeyed. The parents were satisfied with the
intelligence, and quieted their conscience by the reflection that they had
thus prevented their son from committing the crime of parricide.

Meanwhile the shepherd of king Polybus had unbound the feet of the infant,
and in consequence of their being much swollen he called him Oedipus, or
Swollen-foot. He then carried him to the king, his master, who, pitying the
poor little waif, enlisted for him the kind offices of his wife, Merope.
Oedipus was adopted by the king and queen as their own son, and grew up in
the belief that they were his parents, until one day a Corinthian noble
taunted him at a banquet with not being the son of the king. Stung at this
reproach the youth appealed to Merope, but receiving an equivocal, though
kindly answer, he repaired to Delphi to consult the oracle. The Pythia
vouchsafed no reply to his inquiry, but informed him, to his horror, that
he was fated to kill his father and to marry his own mother.

Filled with dismay, for he was tenderly attached to Polybus and Merope,
Oed