it as a weapon, and always used it, just
as Herakles used his lion's skin; for the skin was a proof of how huge a
beast the wearer had overcome, while the club, invincible in the hands
of Theseus, had yet been worsted when used against him. At the Isthmus
he destroyed Sinis the Pine-bender by the very device by which he had
slain so many people, and that too without having ever practised the
art, proving that true valour is better than practice and training.
Sinis had a daughter, a tall and beautiful girl, named Perigoune. When
her father fell she ran and hid herself. Theseus sought her everywhere,
but she fled into a place where wild asparagus grew thick, and with a
simple child-like faith besought the plants to conceal her, as if they
could understand her words, promising that if they did so she never
would destroy or burn them. However, when Theseus called to her,
pledging himself to take care of her and do her no hurt, she came out,
and afterwards bore Theseus a son, named Melanippus. She afterwards was
given by Theseus in marriage to Deioneus, the son of Eurytus of
Oechalia. Ioxus, a son of Melanippus, and Theseus's grandchild, took
part in Ornytus's settlement in Caria; and for this reason the
descendants of Ioxus have a family custom not to burn the asparagus
plant, but to reverence and worship it.

IX. Now the wild sow of Krommyon, whom they called Phaia, was no
ordinary beast, but a fierce creature and hard to conquer. This animal
he turned out of his way to destroy, that it might not be thought that
he performed his exploits of necessity. Besides, he said, a brave man
need only punish wicked men when they came in his way, but that in the
case of wild beasts he must himself seek them out and attack them. Some
say that Phaia was a murderous and licentious woman who carried on
brigandage at Krommyon, and was called a sow from her life and habits,
and that Theseus put her to death.

X. Before coming to Megara he slew Skeiron by flinging him down a
precipice into the sea, so the story runs, because he was a robber, but
some say that from arrogance he used to hold out his feet to strangers
and bid them wash them, and that then he kicked the washers into the
sea. But Megarian writers, in opposition to common tradition, and, as
Simonides says, "warring with all antiquity," say that Skeiron was not
an arrogant brigand, but repressed brigandage, loved those who were good
and just, and was related to them. For, they po