There being then a custom for the Grecian youth, upon their first coming to a man's estate, to go to Delphi and offer firstfruits of their hair to the god, Theseus also went thither, and a place there to this day is yet named Thesea, as it is said, from him. He clipped only the fore part of his head, as Homer says the Abantes did. And this sort of tonsure was from him named Theseis. The Abantes first used it, not in imitation of the Arabians, as some imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because they were a warlike people, and used to close fighting, and above all other nations, accustomed to engage hand to hand; as Archilochus testifies in these verses: Slings shall not whirl, nor many arrows fly, When on the plain the battle joins; but swords, Man against man, the deadly conflict try, as is the practice of Euboea's lords Skilled with the spear. Therefore, that they might not give their enemies a hold by their hair, they cut it in this manner. They write also that this was the reason why Alexa.
