... would have had trouble with a task involving brute strength. Beneath the stone Theseus found certain tokens left by his father. His name, Aethra now revealed, was King Aegeus of Athens. Prompted by a sense of heroic destiny, Theseus set out forthwith to meet this parent he had never known. He determined to journey to Athens by land, although his mother argued for the safer route by sea. And in fact the landward route proved to be infested by an unusual number of villains, thugs and thieves. Theseus quickly adopted the credo of doing unto these bad guys what they were in the habit of doing to others. Setting out from Troezen, his birthplace, the first community of any size through which he passed was Epidaurus. Here he was waylaid by the ruffian Periphetes. Periphetes was nicknamed Corynetes or "Club-Man", after his weapon of choice, a stout length of wood ...

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