It seemed to me, then, that many resemblances made Theseus a fit parallel to Romulus. For both were of uncertain and obscure parentage, and got the reputation of descent from gods; Both were also warriors, as surely the whole world knoweth, and with their strength, combined sagacity. Of the world’s two most illustrious cities, moreover, Rome and Athens, Romulus founded the one, and Theseus made a metropolis of the other, and each resorted to the rape of women. Besides, neither escaped domestic misfortunes and the resentful anger of kindred, but even in their last days both are said to have come into collision with their own fellow-citizens, if there is any aid to the truth in what seems to have been told with the least poetic exaggeration.
The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.
Theseus, Plutarch — translated by Bernadotte Perrin, 1914–1926
Perseus Digital Library — Plutarch, Parallel Lives (Perrin translation) · Bernadotte Perrin, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press / William Heinemann, 1914–1926
license: public-domain (US: pre-1930 publication); Perseus digital edition CC BY-SA 4.0, attribution recorded in ops/corpus-staging/SOURCES.md