As the boy grew up, he evinced equal strength of body and nobleness of mind; and at length the time arrived when Aethra communicated to him the secret of his birth, and led him to the stone which concealed the tokens of his origin.

He easily removed it, and repaired by land to Athens.
At that time, as I have before stated, Greece was overrun by robbers: Hercules had suppressed them for awhile; but the Theban hero was now at the feet of the Lydian Omphale, and the freebooters had reappeared along the mountainous recesses of the Peloponnesus; the journey by land was therefore not only longer, but far more perilous, than a voyage by sea, and Pittheus earnestly besought his grandson to prefer the latter.

But it was the peril of the way that made its charm in the eyes of the young hero, and the fame of Hercules had long inspired his dreams by night [89], and his thoughts by day.

With his father's sword, then, he repaired to Athens.

Strange and wild were the adventures that befell him.