hen the ship was
approaching, hurriedly ran up to the acropolis to view it, and fell
down, as though he were unattended, or would hurry along the road to the
shore without servants.

VI. The crimes of Theseus in carrying off women are without any decent
excuse; first, because he did it so often, for he carried off Ariadne
and Antiope and Anaxo of Troezen, and above all when he was an old man
he carried off Helen, when she was not yet grown up, and a mere child,
though he was past the age for even legitimate marriage. Besides, there
was no reason for it, for these Troezenian, Laconian, and Amazonian
maidens, besides their not being betrothed to him, were no worthier
mothers for his children than the Athenian daughters of Erechtheus and
Kekrops would have been, so we must suspect that these acts were done
out of mere riotous wantonness.

Now Romulus, though he carried off nearly eight hundred women, yet kept
only one, Hersilia, for himself, and distributed the others among the
unmarried citizens; and afterwards, by the respect, love, and justice
with which he treated them, proved that his wrongful violence was the
most admirable and politic contrivance for effecting the union of the
two nations. By means of it he welded them into one, and made it the
starting-point of harmony at home and strength abroad. The dignity,
love, and permanence with which he invested the institution of marriage
is proved by the fact that during two hundred and thirty years no man
separated from his wife or woman from her husband; but, just as in
Greece, very exact persons can mention the first instance of parricide
or matricide, so all the Romans know that Spurius Carvilius was the
first who put away his wife, upon a charge of barrenness. Events also
testify to the superior wisdom of Romulus, for, in consequence of that
intermarriage, the two kings and the two races shared the empire,
whereas, from the marriage of Theseus, the Athenians obtained no
alliance or intercourse with any nation, but only hatreds and wars and
deaths of citizens and at last the destruction of Aphidnae, and they
themselves escaped from the fate which Paris brought upon Troy, only by
the mercy of their enemies and their own entreaties and supplications.
The mother of Theseus, not nearly but quite, suffered the fate of
Hekuba, who was abandoned and given up by her son, unless the story of
her captivity is false, as I hope it is, together with much of the
rest.

Also the