He put an end to
Peirithous at once, by means of his dog, but only guarded Theseus
strictly.
XXXII. Now at this period Mnestheus, the son of Peteus, who was the son
of Orneus, who was the son of Erechtheus, first of all mankind they say
took to the arts of a demagogue, and to currying favour with the people.
This man formed a league of the nobles, who had long borne Theseus a
grudge for having destroyed the local jurisdiction and privileges of
each of the Eupatrids by collecting them all together into the capital,
where they were no more than his subjects and slaves; and he also
excited the common people by telling them that although they were
enjoying a fancied freedom they really had been deprived of their
ancestral privileges and sacred rites, and made to endure the rule of
one foreign despot, instead of that of many good kings of their own
blood.
While he was thus busily employed, the invasion of Attica by the sons of
Tyndareus greatly assisted his revolutionary scheme; so that some say
that it was he who invited them to come. At first they abstained from
violence, and confined themselves to asking that their sister Helen
should be given up to them; but when they were told by the citizens that
she was not in their hands, and that they knew not where she was, they
proceeded to warlike measures. Akademus, who had by some means
discovered that she was concealed at Aphidnae, now told them where she
was; for which cause he was honoured by the sons of Tyndareus during his
life, and also the Lacedaemonians, though they often invaded the country
and ravaged it unsparingly, yet never touched the place called the
Akademeia, for Akademus's sake.
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