what he had left
there, she should send him away to him with those things with all
secrecy, and with injunctions to him as much as possible to conceal his
journey from everyone; for he greatly feared the Pallantidae, who were
continually mutinying against him, and despised him for his want of
children, they themselves being fifty brothers, all sons of Pallas, the
brother of Aegeus.

When Aethra's son was born, some say that he was immediately named
Theseus, from the tokens which his father had put under the stone;
others that he received his name afterwards at Athens, when Aegeus
acknowledged him for his son. He was brought up under his grandfather
Pittheus, and had a tutor and attendant set over him named Connidas, to
whom the Athenians, even to this time, the day before the feast that is
dedicated to Theseus, sacrifice a ram, giving this honor to his memory
upon much juster grounds than to Silanio and Parrhasius, for making
pictures and statues of Theseus. There being then a custom for the
Grecian youth, upon their first coming to a man's estate, to go to
Delphi and offer firstfruits of their hair to the god, Theseus also went
thither, and a place there to this day is yet named Thesea, as it is
said, from him. He clipped only the fore part of his head, as Homer says
the Abantes did. And this sort of tonsure was from him named Theseis.
The Abantes first used it, not in imitation of the Arabians, as some
imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because they were a warlike people,
and used to close fighting, and above all other nations, accustomed to
engage hand to hand; as Archilochus testifies in these verses:

Slings shall not whirl, nor many arrows fly,
When on the plain the battle joins; but swords,
Man against man, the deadly conflict try,
As is the practice of Euboea's lords
Skilled with the spear.--

Therefore, that they might not give their enemies a hold by their hair,
they cut it in this manner. They write also that this was the reason
why Alexander gave command to his captains that all the beards of the
Macedonians should be shaved, as being the readiest hold for an enemy.

Aethra for some time concealed the true parentage of Theseus, and a
report was given out by Pittheus that he was the son of Neptune; for the
Troezenians pay Neptune the highest veneration. He is their tutelar god,
to him they offer all their firstfruits, and in his honor stamp their
money with a trident.

Theseus di