bones of Theseus. There were found in that place a coffin of a man
of more than ordinary size, and a brazen spear-head, and a sword
lying by it, all which he took aboard his galley and brought with
him to Athens. Upon which the Athenians, greatly delighted, went
out to meet and receive the relics with splendid procession and
with sacrifices, as if it were Theseus himself returning alive to
the city. He lies interred in the middle of the city, near the
present gymnasium. His tomb is a sanctuary and refuge for slaves,
and all those of mean condition that fly from the persecution of
men in power, in memory that Theseus while he lived was an
assister and protector of the distressed, and never refused the
petitions of the afflicted that fled to him. The chief and most
solemn sacrifice which they celebrate to him is kept on the eighth
day of Pyanepsion, on which he returned with the Athenian young
men from Crete. Besides which, they sacrifice to him on the eighth
day of every month, either because he returned from Troezen the
eighth day of Hecatombaeon, as Diodorus the geographer writes, or
else thinking that number to be proper to him, because he was
reputed to be born of Neptune, because they sacrifice to Neptune
on the eighth day of every month. The number eight being the first
cube of an even number, and the double of the first square, seemed
to be am emblem of the steadfast and immovable power of this god,
who from thence has the names of Asphalius and Gaeiochus, that is,
the establisher and stayer of the earth.




Romulus