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 begotten by Neptune; for
the Troezenians pay Neptune the highest veneration. He is their tutelar
god, to him they offer all their first-fruits, and in his honor stamp
their money with a trident.

Theseus displaying not only great strength of body, but equal bravery,
and a quickness alike and force of understanding, his mother Aethra,
conducting him to the stone, and informing him who was his true father,
commanded him to take from thence the tokens that Aegeus had left, and
to sail to Athens. He without any difficulty set himself to the stone
and lifted it up; but refused to take his journey by sea, though it was
much the safer way, and though his mother and grandfather begged him to
do so. For it was at that time very dangerous to go by land on the road
to Athens, no part of it being free from robbers and murderers. That
age produced a sort of men, in force of hand, and swiftness of foot, and
strength of body, excelling the ordinary rate, and wholly incapable of
fatigue; making use, however, of these gifts of nature to no good or
profitable purpose for mankind, but rejoicing and priding themselves in
insolence, and taking the benefit of their superior strength in the
exercise of inhumanity and cruelty, and in seizing, forcing, and
committing all manner of outrages upon every thing that fell into their
hands; all respect for others, all justice, they thought, all equity and
humanity, though naturally lauded by common people, either out of want
of courage to commit injuries or fear to receive them, yet no way
concerned those who were strong enough to win for themselves. Some of
these, Hercules destroyed and cut off in his passage through these