to imitate the Mysians, but because they
were a warlike race, and met their foes in close combat, and studied
above all to come to a hand-to-hand fight with their enemy, as
Archilochus bears witness in his verses:

"They use no slings nor bows,
Euboea's martial lords,
But hand to hand they close
And conquer with their swords."

So they cut their hair short in front, that their enemies might not
grasp it. And they say that Alexander of Macedon for the same reason
ordered his generals to have the beards of the Macedonians shaved,
because they were a convenient handle for the enemy to grasp.

[Footnote A: The first cutting of the hair was always an occasion of
solemnity among the Greeks, the hair being dedicated to some god. The
first instance of this is in Homer's Iliad, where Achilles speaks of
having dedicated his hair to the river Spercheius. The Athenian youth
offered their hair to Herakles. The Roman emperor Nero, in later times,
imitated this custom.]

VI. Now while he was yet a child, Aethra concealed the real parentage of
Theseus, and a story was circulated by Pittheus that his father was
Poseidon. For the people of Troezen have an especial reverence for
Poseidon; he is their tutelar deity; to him they offer first-fruits of
their harvest, and they stamp their money with the trident as their
badge. But when he was grown into a youth, and proved both strong in
body and of good sound sense, then Aethra led him to the stone, told him
the truth about his father, and bade him take the tokens from beneath it
and sail to Athens with them. He easily lifted the stone, but determined
not to go to Athens by sea, though the voyage was a safe and easy one,
and though his mother and his grandfather implored him to go that way.
By land it was a difficult matter to reach Athens, as the whole way was
infested with robbers and bandits. That time, it seems, produced men of
great and unwearied strength and swiftness, who made no good use of
these powers, but treated all men with overbearing insolence, taking
advantage of their strength to overpower and slay all who fell into
their hands, and disregarding justice and right and kindly feeling,
which they said were only approved of by those who dared not do injury
to others, or feared to be injured themselves, while men who could get
the upper hand by force might disregard them. Of these ruffians,
Herakles in his wanderings cut off a good many, but others had esc