say that he came to beg his assistance against the Athenians. But
Lycomedes, either jealous of the glory of so great a man, or to
gratify Menestheus, having led him up to the highest cliff of the
island, on pretense of showing him from thence the lands that he
desired, threw him headlong down from the rock and killed him.
Others say he fell down of himself by a slip of his foot, as he
was walking there, according to his custom, after supper. At that
time there was no notice taken, nor were any concerned for his
death, but Menestheus quietly possessed the kingdom of Athens. His
sons were brought up in a private condition, and accompanied
Elephenor to the Trojan war, but, after the decease of Menestheus
in that expedition, returned to Athens, and recovered the
government. But in succeeding ages, beside several other
circumstances that moved the Athenians to honor Theseus as a
demigod, in the battle which was fought at Marathon against the
Medes, many of the soldiers believed they saw an apparition of
Theseus in arms, rushing on at the head of them against the
barbarians. And after the Median war, Phaedo being archon of
Athens, the Athenians, consulting the oracle at Delphi, were
commanded to gather together the bones of Theseus, and, laying
them in some honorable place, keep them as sacred in the city. But
it was very difficult to recover these relics, or so much as to
find out the place where they lay, on account of the inhospitable
and savage temper of the barbarous people that inhabited the
island. Nevertheless, afterwards, when Cimon took the island (as
is related in his life), and had a great ambition to find the
place where Theseus was buried, he, by chance, spied an eagle upon
a rising ground pecking with her beak and tearing up the earth
with her talons, when on the sudden it came into his mind, as it
were by some divine inspiration, to dig there, and search for the