Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
These, then, are the things worth knowing that have come down to us about Romulus and Theseus. And it appears, first, that the one acted by deliberate choice, with no one compelling him — though it was open to him to reign undisturbed at Troezen, succeeding to a kingdom of no small repute, he himself, of his own accord, reached after great things; while the other, with slavery at hand for him to flee and vengeance bearing down upon him, became, in the exact words of Plato, brave simply out of fear, and through dread of suffering the worst arrived, by sheer necessity, at doing great deeds.
Then again, the greatest deed of this latter man was to destroy a single tyrant, the tyrant of Alba; whereas for the other these were mere byplay and preliminary contests — Sciron, Sinis, Procrustes, Corynetes — whom he killed and punished, ridding Greece of terrible tyrants even before the very people he rescued knew his identity; and it was possible for him to travel unmolested by sea, wronged by none of the robbers, while it was not possible for Romulus to be free of trouble so long as Amulius lived.
A great proof of this is that the one, though himself suffering no wrong, set out against the wicked on behalf of others, while the others, so long as they themselves suffered no ill at the tyrant's hands, looked on while he wronged everyone else. And indeed, if it is a great thing to have been wounded fighting the Sabines, and to have killed Acron, and to have overcome many enemies in battle, one may set against these deeds the battle with the Centaurs and the affair with the Amazons.
But what Theseus dared with regard to the Cretan tribute — whether as food for some beast, or as an offering at the tomb of Androgeos, or, the mildest version of what is told, to serve in shameful and dishonored bondage among insolent and hostile men — offering himself willingly, sailing along with the maidens and young boys, no one could say how great was the daring, or the greatness of soul, or the justice toward the common good, or the longing for glory and virtue, in this.
So it seems to me that the philosophers are not wrong when they describe love as a duty performed for the gods, meant to protect and preserve the young. As for the love Ariadne felt seems, more than anything, to have been the work of a god and a device contrived for the young man's salvation; and it is not right to blame the woman who loved, but rather to marvel that not all men and all women are so affected; and if she alone suffered this, I for my part would readily say that she was made worthy of a god's love, being one who loved beauty and goodness, and had a passion for the best things.
Both, then, being by nature men suited to statesmanship, neither preserved the kingly manner; each swerved and underwent a change — the one toward the popular, the other toward the tyrannical — erring in the same way from opposite passions. For a ruler must, above all, preserve the rule itself; and it is preserved no less by abstaining from what does not belong to it than by holding fast to what does.
Whoever relaxes or overextends it ceases to be a king or ruler, and turns instead into either a rabble-pleaser or a tyrant, and produces in his subjects either hatred or contempt. Yet the one failing seems to belong to fairness and kindliness, the other to self-love and harshness.
But if we must not attribute their misfortunes entirely to fortune, but should rather seek in them differences of character and passion, then let no one excuse the one man in his dealings with his brother, nor the other in his dealings with his son, on the ground of an unreasoning anger of sudden onset — yet the occasion that stirred the anger deserves more indulgence when the man was overthrown by a greater cause, as if by a heavier blow.
For in Romulus's case, since the quarrel arose out of counsel and deliberation over the common interest, no one would suppose that his mind was suddenly overcome by so great a passion; but Theseus, toward his son, was undone — as very few among men have escaped being undone — by love and jealousy and a woman's slanders. And what is more, Romulus's anger issued in an act and a deed that had an unfortunate end, while Theseus's wrath went no further than words, abuse, and an old man's curse — in all else the young man seems to have left things to fortune. So that on this count one might award the vote to Theseus.
For Romulus, first, there stands to his credit the great fact of having risen from the smallest beginnings to power. For men called slaves and sons of swineherds, before they themselves became free, freed nearly all the Latins, obtaining at one and the same time the finest of titles — slayers of enemies, saviors of their own people, kings of nations, and founders of cities, not mere transplanters of populations, as Theseus was, who put together and built up one dwelling-place out of many, destroying in the process many cities named after ancient kings and heroes.
Romulus did this too, later, forcing his enemies, once they had thrown down and destroyed their own homes, to attach themselves to the victors; but at the very first he did not transform or enlarge an existing state, but made one out of what did not exist, acquiring for himself all at once a country, a fatherland, a kingdom, kinsfolk, marriages, and family ties; he destroyed no one and ruined no one, but rather benefited a people willing, though homeless and hearthless, to become citizens; and robbers and wrongdoers he did not kill, but rather brought nations to him by war, overthrew cities, and led kings and commanders in triumph.
As for the death of Remus, the one who struck the blow is disputed, and most writers turn the blame onto others; but Romulus conspicuously saved his mother when she was being put to death, and set his grandfather, who was living in obscure and dishonored servitude, upon the throne of Aeneas, and did many good deeds willingly.
Nor did he even unwillingly do him harm; whereas Theseus's forgetfulness and neglect of the instruction concerning the sail could scarcely, I think, escape the charge of patricide even with a long defense and before indulgent judges — a point which some Attic writer, seeing how very hard it is to defend, worked around by inventing that Aegeus, as the ship approached, ran up eagerly to the acropolis to view it and, stumbling, fell down, as though he had no attendants, or as though on his hurried way to the sea no one was there to help him.
Furthermore, the offenses concerning the seizing of women give Theseus no honorable excuse. First, because he did it often — he seized Ariadne, and Antiope, and Anaxo the Troezenian, and, beyond all these, Helen, when he himself was past his prime and she not yet in hers, but a mere child, unripe for marriage, while he, already of an age to have finished with marriage and lawful unions, took her anyway; and then there is the reason itself, for the daughters of the Troezenians and Laconians and Amazons, unbetrothed, were no more worthy to bear his children than the daughters of the Erechtheids and Cecropids at Athens.
But these acts lie under suspicion of having been done out of arrogance and for pleasure's sake. Romulus, on the other hand, having seized nearly eight hundred women — not taking all of them for himself, but only one, Hersilia, as they say — distributed the rest among the good men of the citizenry; and afterward, by the honor, affection, and justice he showed toward the women, he demonstrated that that act of violence and wrong had become the finest and most statesmanlike deed toward binding the community together.
Thus he mingled and welded the two peoples together, and provided a wellspring of future goodwill and strength for the state. And time is witness to the reverence, friendship, and constancy he brought about in these marriages; since across two hundred and thirty years, not a single man dared abandon his wife, nor any woman her husband's household — but just as among the Greeks the truly exceptional cases are remembered as the first patricide or matricide, so all Romans recognize that Spurius Carvilius was the very first man to divorce his wife, on a charge of barrenness.
And the deeds themselves bear witness to that long span of time. For the kings shared their rule, and the two peoples shared citizenship, because of that marriage-alliance; while, by contrast, from Theseus's marriages the people of Athens gained no friendship or fellowship through any compact with anyone, but rather hatreds and wars and the killing of citizens, and in the end the loss of Aphidnae, and they were barely spared, through the enemy's pity — after bowing down and invoking the gods — from suffering what the Trojans suffered on account of Alexander.
The mother of Theseus, however, did not share in the danger, but suffered the fate of Hecuba, abandoned and given up by her son — if indeed the story of her captivity is not itself invented, as this, like most of the rest, ought to be judged a falsehood, since the mythical tales about the divine also make a great difference here. For Romulus's deliverance came with the great favor of the gods, whereas the oracle given to Aegeus, to abstain from a woman in a foreign land, seems to show that Theseus's begetting of a child happened against the will of the gods.