Characters
- Hephaestus — usual father of Periphetes; explains the lame feet
- Periphetes — club-bearing robber of the Epidaurian road; son of Hephaestus (or Poseidon); slain with his own club
- Poseidon — alternate father in some notices
- Theseus — first road labor; kills Periphetes; takes the club
Places
- Epidauria — haunt of Periphetes; first stretch from Trozen toward the Isthmus
- Troezen — Theseus’s point of departure
Themes
Narrative
Theseus’s first encounter on the road from Trozen was with Periphetes, son of Hephaestus (or, in some notices, of Poseidon), called Corynetes—“Club-man”—because he haunted the Epidaurian stretch of the road and battered passers-by with a bronze (or iron) club. He was lame in the feet, as Hephaestus’s son was expected to be, and used the club both as weapon and as a staff.
Theseus met him, fought him, and killed him with his own club. Thereafter Theseus kept the club as a trophy and weapon, so that Bacchylides and Attic report could list the club among the marks by which travelers recognized the approaching youth. The labor is brief in Apollodorus but programmatically first: Theseus turns the bandit’s instrument against him, as Heracles wears the Nemean skin—the enemy’s power made the hero’s badge.