In Eleusis he killed Cercyon, the Arcadian, in a wrestling match.
And going on a little farther, in Erineus, he slew Damastes,
otherwise called Procrustes, forcing his body to the size of his
own bed, as he himself was used to do with all strangers; this he
did in imitation of Hercules, who always returned upon his
assailants the same sort of violence that they offered to him;
sacrificed Busiris, killed Antaeus in wrestling, and Cycnus in
single combat, and Termerus by breaking his skull in pieces
(whence, they say, comes the proverb of "a Termerian mischief"),
for it seems Termerus killed passengers that he met by running
with his head against them. And so also Theseus proceeded with the
same violence from which they had inflicted upon others, justly
suffering after the same manner of their own injustice.
As he went forward on his journey, and was come as far as the
River Cephisus, some of the race of the Phytalidae met him and
saluted him, and upon his desire to use the purifications, then in
custom, they performed them with all the usual ceremonies, and
having offered propitiatory sacrifices to the gods, invited him
and entertained him at their house, a kindness which, in all his
journey hitherto, he had not met.
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