XXVIII.  The above is all that is worthy of mention about the Amazons; for, as to the story which the author of the ‘Theseid’ relates about this attack of the Amazons being brought about by Antiope to revenge herself upon Theseus for his marriage with Phaedra, and how she and her Amazons fought, and how Herakles slew them, all this is clearly fabulous.  After the death of Antiope, Theseus married Phaedra, having a son by Antiope named Hippolytus, or Demophoon, according to Pindar.  As for his misfortunes with this wife and son, as the account given by historians does not differ from that which appears in the plays of the tragic poets, we must believe them to have happened as all these writers say.

XXIX.  However, there are certain other legends about Theseus’ marriage which have never appeared on the stage, which have neither a creditable beginning nor a prosperous termination:  for it is said that he carried off one Anaxo, a Troezenian girl, and after slaying Sinis and Kerkyon he forced their daughters, and that he married Periboea the mother of Ajax and also Phereboea and Iope the daughter of Iphikles:  and, as has been told already, it was on account of his love for Aegle the daughter of Panopeus that he deserted Ariadne, which was a shameful and discreditable action.  And in addition to all this he is charged with carrying off Helen, which brought war upon Attica, and exile and destruction on himself; about which we shall speak presently.  But, though many adventures were undertaken by the heroes of those times, Herodorus is of opinion that Theseus took no part in any of them, except with the Lapithae in their fight with the Centaurs; though other writers say that he went to Kolchis with Jason and took part with Meleager in the hunt of the Kalydonian boar.

From these legends arises the proverb, “Not without Theseus;” also he by himself without any comrades performed many glorious deeds, from which the saying came into vogue, “This is another Herakles.”

Theseus, together with Adrastus, effected the recovery of the bodies of those who fell under the walls of the Cadmea at Thebes, not after conquering the Thebans, as Euripides puts it in his play, but by a truce and convention, according to most writers.  Philochorus even states that this was the first occasion on which a truce was made for the recovery of those slain in battle.  But we have shown in our ‘Life of Herakles’ that he was the first to restore the corpses of the slain to the enemy.  The tombs of the rank and file are to be seen at Eleutherae, but those of the chiefs at Eleusis, by favour of Theseus to Adrastus.  Euripides’s play of the ‘Suppliants’ is contradicted by that of Aeschylus, the ‘Eleusinians,’ in which Theseus is introduced giving orders for this to be done.