tly, on his way home, he went to Troezen, and asked
the advice of Pittheus about the response of the God, which ran thus:

"Great chief, the wine-skin's foot must closed remain,
Till thou to Athens art returned again."

Pittheus clearly perceived what the oracle must mean, and persuaded or
cheated Aegeus into an intrigue with Aethra. Afterwards, when he
discovered that he had conversed with the daughter of Pittheus, as he
imagined that she might prove with child, he left behind him his sword
and sandals hidden under a great stone, which had a hollow inside it
exactly fitting them. This he told to Aethra alone, and charged her if a
son of his should be born, and on growing to man's estate should be able
to lift the stone and take from under it the deposit, that she should
send him at once with these things to himself, in all secrecy, and as
far as possible concealing his journey from observation. For he greatly
feared the sons of Pallas, who plotted against him, and despised him on
account of his childlessness, they themselves being fifty brothers, all
the sons of Pallas.

[Footnote A: Autochthones was the name by which the original citizens of
Athens called themselves, meaning that they were sprung from the soil
itself, not immigrants from some other country.]

IV. When Aethra's child was born, some writers say that he was at once
named Theseus, from the tokens placed under the stone; others say that
he was afterwards so named at Athens, when Aegeus acknowledged him as
his son. He was brought up by his grandfather Pittheus, and had a master
and tutor, Konnidas, to whom even to the present day, the Athenians
sacrifice a ram on the day before the feast of Theseus, a mark of
respect which is much more justly due to him, than those which they pay
to Silanion and Parrhasius, who have only made pictures and statues of
Theseus.

V. As it was at that period still the custom for those who were coming
to man's estate to go to Delphi and offer to the god the first-fruits of
their hair (which was then cut for the first time),[A] Theseus went to
Delphi, and they say that a place there is even to this day named after
him. But he only cut the front part of his hair, as Homer tells us the
Abantes did, and this fashion of cutting the hair was called Theseus's
fashion because of him. The Abantes first began to cut their hair in
this manner, not having, as some say, been taught to do so by the
Arabians, nor yet from any wish