ogs, Seythian ice, or frozen sea, so, in this great work
of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men with one
another, after passing through those periods which probable reasoning
can reach to and real history find a footing in, I might very well
say of those that are farther off, Beyond this there is nothing but
prodigies and fictions; the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors
of fables; there is no credit, or certainty any farther. Yet, after
publishing an account of Lycurgus the lawgiver and Numa the king, I
thought I might, not without reason, ascend as high as to Romulus, being
brought by my history so near to his time. Considering therefore with
myself

Whom shall I set so great a man face to face?
Or whom oppose? Who's equal to the place?

(as Aeschylus expresses it), I found none so fit as he who peopled the
beautiful and far-famed city of Athens, to be set in opposition with
the father of the invincible and renowned city of Rome. Let us hope that
Fable may, in what shall follow, so submit to the purifying processes of
Reason as to take the character of exact history. We shall beg that we
may meet with candid readers, and such as will receive with indulgence
the stories of antiquity.

Theseus seemed to me to resemble Romulus in many particulars. Both of
them had the repute of being sprung from the gods.

Both warriors; that by all the world's allowed.

Both of them united with strength of body an equal vigor of mind; and of
the two most famous cities of the world, the one built in Rome, and the
other made Athens be inhabited. Neither of them could avoid domestic
misfortunes nor jealousy at home; but toward the close of their
lives are both of them said to have incurred great odium with their
countrymen, if, that is, we may take the stories least like poetry as
our guide to truth.

Theseus was the son of Aegeus and Aethra. His lineage, by his father's
side, ascends as high as to Erechtheus and the first inhabitants of
Attica. By his mother's side, he was descended of Pelops, who was the
most powerful of all the kings of Peloponnesus.

When Aegeus went from the home of Aethra in Troezen to Athens, he left
a sword and a pair of shoes, hiding them under a great stone that had a
hollow in it exactly fitting them; and went away making her only privy
to it, and commanding her that, if, when their son came to man's estate,
he should be able to lift up the stone and take away