From that day the town grew and spread, and soon there was not room on the hilltop for all the people.  Then houses were built in the plain around the foot of the hill, and a great road was built to the sea, three miles away; and in all the world there was no city more fair than Athens.

In the old market place on the top of the hill the people built a temple to Athena, the ruins of which may still be seen.  The olive tree grew and nourished; and, when you visit Athens, people will show you the very spot where it stood.  Many other trees sprang from it, and in time became a blessing both to Greece and to all the other countries round the great sea.  As for the horse, he wandered away across the plains towards the north and found a home at last in distant Thessaly beyond the River Peneus.  And I have heard it said that all the horses in the world have descended from that one which Neptune brought out of the rock; but of the truth of this story there may be some doubts.

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THE ADVENTURES OF THESEUS.

I. Aegeus and Aethra.

There was once a king of Athens whose name was AEgeus.  He had no son; but he had fifty nephews, and they were waiting for him to die, so that one of them might be king in his stead.  They were wild, worthless fellows, and the people of Athens looked forward with dread to the day when the city should be in their power.  Yet so long as AEgeus lived they could not do much harm, but were content to spend their time in eating and drinking at the king’s table and in quarreling among themselves.

It so happened one summer that AEgeus left his kingdom in the care of the elders of the city and went on a voyage across the Saronic Sea to the old and famous city of Troezen, which lay nestled at the foot of the mountains on the opposite shore.  Troezen was not fifty miles by water from Athens, and the purple-peaked island of AEgina lay between them; but to the people of that early time the distance seemed very great, and it was not often that ships passed from one place to the other.  And as for going by land round the great bend of the sea, that was a thing so fraught with danger that no man had ever dared try it.

King Pittheus of Troezen was right glad to see AEgeus, for they had been boys together, and he welcomed him to his city and did all that he could to make his visit a pleasant one.  So, day after day, there was feasting and merriment and music in the marble halls of old Troezen, and the two kings spent many a happy hour in talking of the deeds of their youth and of the mighty heroes whom both had known.  And when the time came for the ship to sail back to Athens, AEgeus was not ready to go.  He said he would stay yet a little longer in Troezen, for that the elders of the city would manage things well at home; and so the ship returned without him.