they called Hecalene, because she, while entertaining Theseus, who
was quite a youth, addressed him, as old people do, with similar
endearing diminutives; and having made a vow to Jupiter that he
was going to the fight, that, if he returned in safety, she would
offer sacrifices in thanks of it, and dying before he came back,
she had these honors given her by way of return for her
hospitality, by the command of Theseus, as Philochorus tells us.

Not long afterwards came the third time from Crete the collectors
of the tribute which the Athenians paid them upon the following
occasion. Androgeus having been treacherously murdered in the
confines of Attica, not only Minos, his father, put the Athenians
to extreme distress by a perpetual war, but the gods also laid
waste their country; both famine and pestilence lay heavy upon
them, and even their rivers were dried up. Being told by the
oracle that if they appeased and reconciled Minos, the anger of
the gods would cease and they should enjoy rest from the miseries
they labored under, they sent heralds, and with much supplication
were at last reconciled, entering into an agreement to send to
Crete every nine years a tribute of seven young men and as many
virgins, as most writers agree in stating; and the most poetical
story adds that the Minotaur destroyed them, or that, wandering in
the Labyrinth, and finding no possible means of getting out, they
miserably ended their lives there, and that this Minotaur was (as
Euripides hath it)

A mingled form, where two strange shapes combined,
And different natures, bull and man, were joined.

Now when the time of the third tribute was come, and the fathers