THESEUS. 35

used of those who look to or care for any thing ; kings for this reason, perhaps, are called anodes. Others say, that from the appearance of their star in the heavens, they were thus called, for in the Attic dialect this name comes very near the words that signify above.* Some say that iEthra, Theseus's mother, was here taken prisoner, and carried to LacedaBinon, and from thence went away with Helen to Troy, alleging this verse of Homer, to prove that she waited upon Helen, iEthra of Pittheus born, and large-eyed Clymene. Others reject this verse as none of Homer's, as they do likewise the whole fable of Munychus, who. the story says, was the son of Demophon and Laodice, born secretly, and brought up by iEthra at Troy. But Ister, in the thirteenth book of his Attic History, gives us an account of iEthra, different yet from all the rest : that Achilles and Patroclus overcame Paris in Thessaly, near the river Sperchius, but that Hector took and plundered the city of the Troezenians, and made iEthra prisoner there. But this seems a groundless tale. Now Hercules, passing by the Molossians, was enter- tained in his way by Aidoneus the king, who, in conver- sation, accidentally spoke of the journey of Theseus and Pirithotis into his country, of what they had designed to do, and what they were forced to suffer. Hercules was much grieved for the inglorious death of the one and the miserable condition of the other. As for Pirithoiis, he thought it useless to complain ; but begged to have The- seus released for his sake, and obtained that favor from the king. Theseus, being thus set at liberty, returned to Athens, where his friends were not yet wholly suppressed, and dedicated to Hercules all the sacred places which the city had set apart for himself, changing their names from

• Anekas, anecathen.