family, laboring under the same distemper; for Medea, having fled from
Corinth, and promised Aegeus to make him, by her art, capable of having
children, was living with him. She first was aware of Theseus, whom as
yet Aegeus did not know, and he being in years, full of jealousies and
suspicions, and fearing every thing by reason of the faction that was
then in the city, she easily persuaded him to kill him by poison at a
banquet, to which he was to be invited as a stranger. He, coming to the
entertainment, thought it not fit to discover himself at once, but,
willing to give his father the occasion of first finding him out, the
meat being on the table, he drew his sword as if he designed to cut with
it; Aegeus, at once recognizing the token, threw down the cup of poison,
and, questioning his son, embraced him, and, having gathered together
all his citizens, owned him publicly before them, who, on their part,
received him gladly for the fame of his greatness and bravery; and it is
said, that when the cup fell, the poison was spilt there where now is
the enclosed space in the Delphinium; for in that place stood Aegeus's
house, and the figure of Mercury on the east side of the temple is
called the Mercury of Aegeus's gate.

The sons of Pallas, who before were quiet, upon expectation of
recovering the kingdom after Aegeus's death, who was without issue, as
soon as Theseus appeared and was acknowledged the successor, highly
resenting that Aegeus first, an adopted son only of Pandion, and not at
all related to the family of Erechtheus, should be holding the kingdom,
and that after him, Theseus, a visitor and stranger, should be destined
to succeed to it, broke out into open war. And, dividing themselves
into two companies, one part of them marched openly from Sphettus, with
their father, against the city, the other, hiding themselves in the
village of Gargettus, lay in ambush, with a design to set upon the enemy
on both sides. They had with them a crier of the township of Agnus,