Paus

Aglauros:
Testimonia

Collected by Todd M. Compton as background for Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior, and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth And History (Washington DC: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2006).

Many of the following are taken from a testimonia section in Benjamin Powell, Erichtonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 17 (Cornell 1906).

1. Inscription: Ancestral Oath of the Ephebes = Pollux 8.105-106, Stobaeus 1.48

Ὅρκος ἐφήβων πάτριος, ὃν ὀμνύναι δεῖ τ|οὺς ἐφήβους· vvv Οὐκ αἰσχυνῶ τὰ ἱερὰ ὅπ|λα οὐδὲ λείψω τὸν παραστάτην ὅπου ἂν στ|<ο>ιχήσω· ἀμυνῶ δὲ καὶ ὑπὲρ ἱερῶν καὶ ὁσ|ίων, καὶ ο<ὐ>κ ἐλάττω παραδώσω τὴν πατρίδ||α, πλείω δὲ καὶ ἀρείω κατὰ τε ἐμαυτὸν κα|ὶ μετὰ ἁπάντων, καὶ εὐηκοήσω τῶν ἀεὶ κρ|αινόντων ἐμφρόνως καὶ τῶν θεσμῶν τῶν | ἱδρυμένων καὶ οὓς ἂν τὸ λοιπὸν ἱδρύσω|νται ἐμφρόνως· ἐὰν δέ τις ἀναιρεῖ, οὐκ ἐ||πιτρέψω κατά τε ἐμαυτὸν καὶ μετὰ πάντ|ων, καὶ τιμήσω ἱερὰ τὰ πάτρια. Ἵστορες [[ο]] | θεοὶ Ἄγραυλος, Ἑστία, Ἐνυώ, Ἐνυάλιος, Ἄρ|ης καὶ Ἀθηνᾶ Ἀρεία, Ζεύς, Θαλλώ, Αὐξώ, | Ἡγεμόνη, Ἡρακλῆς, ὅροι τῆς πατρίδος, πυροί, || κριθαί, ἄμπελοι, ἐλάαι, συκαῖ. vacat |

Pollux tells us: ὤμνυον ἐν Ἀγραύλου. “They would take the oath in the temple of Agraulos.”

Traditional oath of the Epheboi, which the Ephebes must swear: I shall not disgrace the sacred weapons (that I bear) nor shall I desert the comrade at my side, wherever I stand in the line. And I shall fight in defense of things sacred and non-sacred and I shall not hand down (to my descendants) a lessened fatherland, but one that is increased in size and strength both as far as [it] lies within me [to do this] and with the assistance of all, and I shall be obedient to those who on any occasion are governing prudently and to the laws that are established and any that in the future may be established prudently. If anyone tries to destroy (them), I shall resist both as far as [it] lies within me [to do this] and with the assistance of all, and I shall honor the sacred rites that are ancestral. The witnesses (are) the gods, Agraulos, Hestia, Enyo, Enyalios, Ares and Athena Areia, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone, Herakles, (and) the boundaries of my fatherland, the wheat, the barley, the vines, the olives, the figs.

[Trans. by Phillip Harding, adapted, quoted in Loren J. Samons, What’s Wrong with Democracy? From Athenian Practice to American Worship, chapter two, at http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9916/9916.ch02.html. Text from Tod #204, p. 303. Samons’s footnote for this: “Tod 204 = Harding 109A (trans. Harding, adapted). Cf. Lycurgus 1.77, Pollux 8.105-6 ( = Harding 109B); Hansen, Athenian Democracy, p. 100. See Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion, esp. pp. 31-38, on the importance Athenians attached to oaths.”]

[M. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford 1946) and M. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions. Vol ii. from 403-to 328 BC (Oxford 1948). Vol. 2 includes the Oath of the Ephebes. Phillip Harding, ed. and tr., From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Ipsus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. 2 of the Cambridge series Translated Documents of Greece & Rome, which also includes C. W. Fornara’s Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War.]

[The actual inscription is dated to the fourth century BC. P. Siewert, “The Ephebic Oath in Fifth-Century Athens,” JHS 97 (1977): 102-111, dates the oath to “within the 100 or 120 years between the introduction of hoplite warfare . . . and the definite ascendancy of Peisistratus, who used mercenaries, not citizen soldiers, and is not likely to have bestowed sanctions against coups d’état upon the Athenians. We cannot rule out a date before the Solonian reforms.” Solon lived ca. 638–558 BC, and was archon of Athens in 594 BC. Peisistratus lived ca. 607-528 BC and was tyrant of Athens in 561, 559-556 and 546-528 BC. So this oath can perhaps be dated to ca. 650-560 BC.]

[See also Plutarch Alcibiades 15, Demosthenes On the False Embassy 19:303, Philochorus, FGH 328 F 105-106, below. For Agraulos in this oath, see R. Merkelbach, “Aglauros (Die Religion der Epheben).” ZPE 9 (1972): 277-283.]

2. Vase fragment with inscription, Athens, Nat. Mus. Akr. 780

[ΑΓΛ]ΑΥΡΟΣ

[LIMC #1--Uta Kron, “Aglauros, Herse, Pandrosus,” in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 8 vols. (Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1981-1999) 1.1:283-298, #1. Dated to first quarter of 6th century BC.]

3. Vase fragment with inscription, Athens, Nat. Mus. Akr. 508a

ΠΑΝΔΡΟΣΟΣ.

Two women in one mantle, one labeled Pandrosos; behind them a bearded man with band and sceptre.

[LIMC #4. Beazley, ABV 40, 17. See Beazley Database, http://163.1.48.106/BeazleyAdmin/Script2/default.htm. Dated to 580-70 BC.]

4. Polyaenus Strategems 1.21.2

ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ μὲν ἡσυχῆ διελέγετο, οἱ δ’ ἐντείναντες τὰς ἀκοὰς προσεῖχον, οἱ ἐπίκουροι προελθόντες ἀράμενοι τὰ ὅπλα κατήνεγκαν εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν τῆς Ἀγραύλου.

Wishing to take away the arms of the Athenians, Pisistratus ordered them all to come to the Anaceum with their arms. They came, and he advanced as if he wished to address them and began to speak softly. Unable to hear, they asked him to come forward to the gateway, so that all could hear. When he continued to speak quietly, they strained their ears and paid close attention. Pisistratus’ henchmen came forward, took the arms, and placed them in the temple of Agraulus. Then the Athenians, left disarmed, understood that Pisistratus’ low voice was a trick to get their arms.

[Trans. from Peter Krentz and Evertt L. Wheeler, ed. and tr., Polyaenus: Strategems of War, 2 vols. (Chicago: Ares Publishers, Inc., 1994) . Text from the Teubner ed., edited by E. Woelfflin and I. Melber (Stuttgart 1970). For dating of Peisistratus, see on the Oath of the Ephebes, above. Polyaenus was born c. 100 AD, and the Strategems was finished c. 163 AD.]

5. Bion of Prokonnesos, FGH 332 F 1 = Phot. Berol. p. 19 1 Rei

Ἄγλαυρος· ἐπώνυμον Ἀθηνᾶς. — καὶ μία τῶν Κέκροπος θυγατέρων, ἣν διὰ τιμῆς ἔχουσιν καὶ ὀμνύουσιν αἱ γυναῖκες· εἰς γὰρ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῆς Κέκροπος τιμὴν ἀπονεῖμαι τινα γέρα τὴν θεὸν τῆι Ἀγλαύρωι. οὕτω Βίων ὁ Προκοννήσιος.

Aglauros; epithet of Athena. — And one of the daughters of Cecrops, whom the women hold and swear by, because she is honored; for to honor her father Cecrops the goddess bestows [?] certain honors on Aglauros. Thus writes Bion of Prokonnesos.

[My trans. Text from FGH. Cf. Dontas, “The True Aglaurion,” 55. Diogenes Laertius 4.58 makes Bion of Prokonnesos contemporary with Pherecydes of Syria, who fl. c. 544 BC.

6. Herodotus Histories 8.53

LIII. χρόνῳ δ’ ἐκ τῶν ἀπόρων ἐφάνη δή τις ἔξοδος τοῖσι βαρβάροισι: ἔδεε γὰρ κατὰ τὸ θεοπρόπιον πᾶσαν τὴν Ἀττικὴν τὴν ἐν τῇ ἠπείρῳ γενέσθαι ὑπὸ Πέρσῃσι. ἔμπροσθε ὦν πρὸ τῆς ἀκροπόλιος, ὄπισθε δὲ τῶν πυλέων καὶ τῆς ἀνόδου, τῇ δὴ οὔτε τις ἐφύλασσε οὔτ’ ἂν ἤλπισε μή κοτέ τις κατὰ ταῦτα ἀναβαίη ἀνθρώπων, ταύτῃ ἀνέβησαν τινὲς κατὰ τὸ ἱρὸν τῆς Κέκροπος θυγατρὸς Ἀγλαύρου, καίτοι περ ἀποκρήμνου ἐόντος τοῦ χώρου. [2] ὡς δὲ εἶδον αὐτοὺς ἀναβεβηκότας οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπὶ τὴν ἀκρόπολιν, οἳ μὲν ἐρρίπτεον ἑωυτοὺς κατὰ τοῦ τείχεος κάτω καὶ διεφθείροντο, οἳ δὲ ἐς τὸ μέγαρον κατέφευγον. τῶν δὲ Περσέων οἱ ἀναβεβηκότες πρῶτον μὲν ἐτράποντο πρὸς τὰς πύλας, ταύτας δὲ ἀνοίξαντες τοὺς ἱκέτας ἐφόνευον: ἐπεὶ δέ σφι πάντες κατέστρωντο, τὸ ἱρὸν συλήσαντες ἐνέπρησαν πᾶσαν τὴν ἀκρόπολιν.

LIII. In time a way out of their difficulties was revealed to the barbarians, since according to the oracle all the mainland of Attica had to become subject to the Persians. In front of the acropolis, and behind the gates and the ascent, was a place where no one was on guard, since no one thought any man could go up that way. Here some men climbed up, near the sacred precinct of Cecrops’ daughter Aglaurus, although the place was a sheer cliff. [2] When the Athenians saw that they had ascended to the acropolis, some threw themselves off the wall and were killed, and others fled into the chamber. The Persians who had come up first turned to the gates, opened them, and murdered the suppliants. When they had levelled everything, they plundered the sacred precinct and set fire to the entire acropolis.

[Trans. A. D. Godley. Text and translation from Perseus. Athens was sacked by the Persians in 480 BC.]

7. Red Figure Cup, Frankfurt, Liebieghaus, ST V 7

Two maidens, identified as Herse and Aglauros, flee from a large snake that comes from behind a basket. In a palace, a bearded man and a youth sit, and a woman rushes toward Herse and Aglauros.

[LIMC, #15. Ascribed to the Brygos Painter. J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1963), 386, 398.7, 1649. See also Beazley Archive Pottery Database, online. Dated at c. 480 BC.]

8. Attic Red-Figure Vase, Munich 2345 (inv. no. Munich J 376)

ΑΓΛΑΥΡΟΣ

Boreas kidnapping Oreithyia. According to Deirdre Beyer-Honça, in Perseus: “Kekrops, in a long chiton and mantle and holding a scepter, stands with his feet pointing left, but looking back to the right at Aglauros, also in long chiton, mantle and cap. Aglauros has run to Erechtheus, the father of Oreithyia, and she reaches frantically for his chin. Erechtheus is wearing a long chiton and mantle and holding a scepter, whose tip is not preserved.”

[LIMC #30. See Perseus Vase Catalog. This is a pointed amphora, the name vase of the the Oreithyia Painter. ARV², 496, 2. Cf. Powell, fig. 6, p. 37. Dated c. 480-470 BC.]

9. Inscribed Vase Fragment

ΑΓΛΑΥΡΟ[Σ]

Only Aglauros’ head is preserved.

[LIMC #2. ARV2 1108, 17. Dated to 480-470 BC.]

10. Attic Red Figure Krater, Denman Collection (Shapiro No. 4)

Athena punishing the Daughters of Kekrops. From the Shapiro catalog: “On side A, Athena chastises the three sisters for disregarding her injunction. Two of the girls try to flee to the left, looking back at Athena, but the goddess takes hold of the nearer one by the shoulder. The third sister, presumably the obedient Pandrosos, observes the others as she moves off to the right. All three wear chitons, two of them finely pleated, and over them himatia. One wears a sakkos on her head, one a simple headband, and the third nothing at all. Athena is particularly splendidly dressed. Her chiton is embroidered with a three-dot pattern and has a wide hem decorated with leaping dolphins between borders of dots and parallel lines. The dotted border appears at the sleeves and at the neck as well. Over the chiton she wears a mantle with stiff folds, and her aegis is decorated with a stippled pattern, a dot border, nineteen snakes, and a comical Gorgoneion. The cap of her Attic helmet is embellished with engraved spirals, and the low crest trails down over her shoulder. She carries a long spear in her left hand; the two girls at the left each carry a spiralling branch.”

[Harvey Alan Shapiro, Art, Myth, and Culture: Greek Vases from Southern Collections, available at Perseus. This is a column krater, attributed to the Orchard Painter. Also ARV², 973, 7-8 (Acropolis fragments). Dated to c. 470-460 BC.]

11. Fragmentary vase in Leipzig, Universität T 654

Athena and the Kekropides? Ge, half in the ground, with raised hands; to the left a woman (possibly Athena) with Erichthonius in the folds of her dress. Women to left and right. Interpretation not certain.

Other side: A basket with top opened rests on rocks. There are two women fleeing (Aglauros and Herse?), and one woman standing (Athena?).

[LIMC #6, 16. See Harvey Alan Shapiro, Art, Myth, and Culture: Greek Vases from Southern Collections, at Shapiro No. 4, available at Perseus. He cites Kron 1976, 71-72 and pl. 2, 2. Dated to 470/60 BC.]

12. Rhyton, British Museum E 788.

Cecrops; a winged woman; a youth sits on a rock. Before him stands a maiden with sceptre. Two women hurry (Aglauros and Herse?), the one on the left reaching back to the second.

[LIMC #29. Beazley ARV² 764, 8. Dated to 460/50 BC.]

13. Red-figure Pyxis, Athens, National Museum, A8922

The following are named: Erichthonios, Chariot, Women, Pylios, Chryseis, Eunoe, Hermes, Nike, Nysis, Kekrops, Pandrosos, Aglauros, Athena, Basileia.

[See at the Beazley Archive Database, http://163.1.48.106/BeazleyAdmin/Script2/default.htm . Dated to 450-400 BC.]

14. Attic red figure vase, Berlin, Antikenmuseen 2537

A: ΚΕΚΡΟΨ. ΓΕ. ΕΡΙΧΘΟΝΙΟΣ. ΑΘΕΝΑΙΑ. ΗΦΑΙΣΤΟΣ. ΕΡΣΕ

B: [ΑΓ]ΛΑΥΡΟΣ. ΕΡΕΧ(Θ)ΕΥΣ. ΠΑΝΔ[ΡΟΣΟΣ].

A: Cecrops. Ge. Erichthonius. Athena. Hephaestus. Herse.

B: Aglauros. Erechtheus. Pandrosos.

The birth of Erichthonius. Powell describes the iconography of Berlin 2537 thus: “Gaea rising from the earth and holding out the child to Athena. Behind Gaea is Cecrops; his tail is a snake-tail, falling in loose spirals. He has a staff in his right hand and in his left he holds a fold of his chiton; on his head he wears a chaplet. Behind Athena is Hephaestus . . . [Then Herse] . . . then on the reverse follow Aglaurus, Erechtheus, Pandrosus, Aegueus, and last, standing still, is Pallas, a male. All the male figures, except Pallas, wear chaplets and carry staves. The later kings . . . serve to break the line of running maidens. Herse and Aglaurus are eager; Pandrosus hangs back, extending her arms. All the figures are distinctly labeled with their names.”

[Powell, fig. 4, discussed at pp. 16 and 37. See also LIMC #7; Perseus Vase Catalog, which dates this to 440 BC. ARV², 1268.2, 1689; Beazley Addenda 2, 356.]

15. Vase fragment, Athens, Nat. Mus. Akr. 508, 509

ΑΓΛΑΥΡΟΣ.

Two fragments, one with a woman’s head, labeled Aglauros, and the other Athena with warning arm outstretched.

[LIMC #17. ARV²973, 7, 8. Beazley Archive Database, http://163.1.48.106/BeazleyAdmin/Script2/default.htm . Lewis Painter. Dated to 440/30 BC.]

16. Pelike, British Museum E 372.

A: Athena, helmet in hand, stands in front of piled up rocks, on which is the kiste, with the top off. Little Erichthonius makes a gesture with his right hand.
B: Two women are running from left to right.

[LIMC #18. Reproduced in Arthur Bernard Cook, Zeus a Study in Ancient Religion, 3 vol. (Cambridge 1914-1940), vol. 3, Plate XXIX, discussed at pp. 248 and 249. Dated at 440/30 BC.]

17. Red figure lekythos, Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig, BS404.

Athena, scowling, holds a woman (Aglauros?) who looks frightened by the left arm; between them is the opened ciste with a snake coming out of it.

[LIMC #19. Also at the Beazley Archive Database, http://163.1.48.106/BeazleyAdmin/Script2/default.htm. Dated at c. 430 BC.]

18. Red-Figure Pelike, Wurzburg, Universitat, Martin von Wagner Mus., 511:

Boreas kidnapping Oreithyia. Includes side A, Boreas and Oreithyia, Athena; side B, Pandrosos and Aglauros, fleeing to Erechtheus.

[Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Attributed to the Niobid Painter. Beazley, J.D., Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1963), 604.47.]

19. Alabastron in Athens: Athena and the Kekropides

[See Harvey Alan Shapiro, Art, Myth, and Culture: Greek Vases from Southern Collections, at No. 4, available at Perseus. Shapiro cites M. Schmidt, “Die Entdeckung des Erichthonios,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung (1968), 200-212, pl. 76, which I have not yet seen.]

20. Plutarch Alcibiades 15

[15.4] οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ τῆς γῆς συνεβούλευεν ἀντέχεσθαι τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις, καὶ τὸν ἐν Ἀγραύλου προβαλλόμενον ἀεὶ τοῖς ἐφήβοις ὅρκον ἔργῳ βεβαιοῦν. ὀμνύουσι γὰρ ὅροις χρήσασθαι τῆς Ἀττικῆς πυροῖς, κριθαῖς, ἀμπέλοις, ἐλαίαις, οἰκείαν ποιεῖσθαι διδασκόμενοι τὴν ἥμερον καὶ καρποφόρον.

XV. After this fiasco on the part of the Lacedaemonians Alcibiades was appointed general, and straightway brought the Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans into alliance with Athens. The manner of this achievement of his no one approved, but the effect of it was great. It divided and agitated almost all Peloponnesus; it arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Mantinea so many warlike shields upon a single day; it set at farthest remove from Athens the struggle, with all its risks, in which, when the Lacedaemonians conquered, their victory brought them no great advantage, whereas, had they been defeated, the very existence of Sparta would have been at stake.

[2] After this battle of Mantinea, the oligarchs of Argos, “The Thousand,” set out at once to depose the popular party and make the city subject to themselves; and the Lacedaemonians came and deposed the democracy. But the populace took up arms again and got the upper hand. Then Alcibiades came and made the people’s victory secure. He also persuaded them to run long walls down to the sea, and so to attach their city completely to the naval dominion of Athens. [3] He actually brought carpenters and masons from Athens, and displayed all manner of zeal, thus winning favour and power for himself no less than for his city. In like manner he persuaded the people of Patrae to attach their city to the sea by long walls. Thereupon some one said to the Patrensians: “Athens will swallow you up!” “Perhaps so,” said Alcibiades, “but you will go slowly, and feet first; whereas Sparta will swallow you head first, and at one gulp.”

[4] However, he counselled the Athenians to assert dominion on land also, and to maintain in very deed the oath regularly propounded to their young warriors in the sanctuary of Agraulus. They take oath that they will regard wheat, barley, the vine, and the olive as the natural boundaries of Attica, and they are thus trained to consider as their own all the habitable and fruitful earth.

[Trans. Bernadotte Perrin; text and translation from Perseus. The battle of Mantinea occurred in 418 BC. See #1 above on the oath of the ephebes.]

21. Hellanicus Atthis FGH 4 F38 = Suda, s.v. Areios pagos

Ἄρειος πάγος: δικαστήριον Ἀθήνησιν. ἐν αὐταῖς βουλαὶ β#, ἡ μὲν τῶν φ# καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν κληρουμένη βουλεύειν, ἡ δὲ εἰς μίαν τῶν Ἀρεοπαγετῶν. ἐδίκαζε δὲ καὶ τὰ φονικὰ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πολιτικὰ διῴκει σεμνῶς. ἐκλήθη δὲ Ἄρειος πάγος, ἤτοι ὅτι ἐν τῷ πάγῳ ἐστὶ καὶ ἐν ὕψει τὸ δικαστήριον: Ἄρειος δὲ, ἐπεὶ τὰ φονικὰ δικάζει: ὁ δὲ Ἄρης ἐπὶ τῶν φόνων: ἢ ὅτι ἔπηξε τὸ δόρυ ἐκεῖ ἐν τῇ πρὸς Ποσειδῶνα ὑπὲρ Ἁλιρροθίου δίκῃ, ὅτε ἀπέκτεινεν αὐτὸν βιασάμενον Ἀλκίππην τὴν αὐτοῦ καὶ Ἀγραύλου τῆς Κέκροπος θυγατρὸς, ὥς φησιν Ἑλλάνικος ἐν α#. καὶ Ἄρειον τεῖχος καὶ Ἀρειοπαγίτης.

Areopagus, hill of Ares. A law court amongst the Athenians. In it[1] [are] two councils: that of the 500 which is appointed each year to deliberate, and another for one [body] of the Areopagites.[2] It also used to try homicide cases and it exercized solemn control over the other affairs of the city. It was given the name Areios pagos [“Hill of Ares”], either because the court is on a hill and [thus] in a high place — and “of Ares” because it tries homicide cases; Ares presides over [?] homicides — or because he grounded his spear there in the suit against Poseidon over Halirrhothios, when he [Ares] killed him [Halirrhothios] because he [Halirrhothios] had raped Alkippe, his [Ares’] daughter with Agraulos the daughter of Kekrops, as Hellanicus says in [book] one.[3]

Also Areion teichos [“wall of Ares”] and Areiopagitês [“Areopagite”].[4]

[1] The text actually reads, ungrammatically, “in them”.

[2] Besides the odd phraseology here there is a major substantive error: the first of these councils, the Kleisthenic Boule and its successors, had no connection, either topographical or functional, with the ancient Areiopagos Council/Court.

[3] Hellanicus FGrH 4 F38. For Halirrhothios see already alpha 1243.

[4] See already alpha 3824.

[Trans. Jennifer Benedict and David Whitehead, adapted; translation, text and notes from Suda Online, http://www.stoa.org/sol/. Hellanicus lived c. 496-411 BC.]

22. Euripides Ion 21ff.

Ἑρμῆς

Ἄτλας, ὁ χαλκέοισι † νώτοις οὐρανὸν

θεῶν παλαιὸν οἶκον ἐκτρίβων, θεῶν

μιᾶς † ἔφυσε Μαῖαν, ἣ ‘μ’ ἐγείνατο

Ἑρμῆν μεγίστῳ Ζηνί, δαιμόνων λάτριν.

5 ἥκω δὲ Δελφῶν τήνδε γῆν, ἵν’ ὀμφαλὸν

μέσον καθίζων Φοῖβος ὑμνῳδεῖ βροτοῖς

τά τ’ ὄντα καὶ μέλλοντα θεσπίζων ἀεί.

ἔστιν γὰρ οὐκ ἄσημος Ἑλλήνων πόλις,

τῆς χρυσολόγχου Παλλάδος κεκλημένη+,

10 οὗ παῖδ’ Ἐρεχθέως Φοῖβος ἔζευξεν γάμοις

βίᾳ Κρέουσαν, ἔνθα προσβόρρους πέτρας

Παλλάδος ὑπ’ ὄχθῳ τῆς Ἀθηναίων χθονὸς

Μακρὰς καλοῦσι γῆς ἄνακτες Ἀτθίδος.

ἀγνὼς δὲ πατρί -- τῷ θεῷ γὰρ ἦν φίλον --

15 γαστρὸς διήνεγκ’ ὄγκον. ὡς δ’ ἦλθεν χρόνος,

τεκοῦσ’ ἐν οἴκοις παῖδ’ ἀπήνεγκεν βρέφος

ἐς ταὐτὸν ἄντρον οὗπερ ηὐνάσθη θεῷ

Κρέουσα, κἀκτίθησιν ὡς θανούμενον

κοίλης ἐν ἀντίπηγος εὐτρόχῳ κύκλῳ,

20 προγόνων νόμον σῴζουσα τοῦ τε γηγενοῦς

Ἐριχθονίου. κείνῳ γὰρ ἡ Διὸς κόρη

φρουρὼ παραζεύξασα φύλακε σώματος

δισσὼ δράκοντε, παρθένοις Ἀγλαυρίσι

δίδωσι σῴζειν: ὅθεν Ἐρεχθείδαις ἐκεῖ

25 νόμος τις ἔστιν ὄφεσιν ἐν χρυσηλάτοις

τρέφειν τέκνα. ἀλλ’ ἣν εἶχε παρθένος χλιδὴν

τέκνῳ προσάψασ’ ἔλιπεν ὡς θανουμένῳ.

κἄμ’ ὢν ἀδελφὸς Φοῖβος αἰτεῖται τάδε:

ὦ σύγγον’, ἐλθὼν λαὸν εἰς αὐτόχθονα

30 κλεινῶν Ἀθηνῶν -- οἶσθα γὰρ θεᾶς πόλιν --

λαβὼν βρέφος νεογνὸν ἐκ κοίλης πέτρας

αὐτῷ σὺν ἄγγει σπαργάνοισί θ’ οἷς ἔχει

ἔνεγκε Δελφῶν τἀμὰ πρὸς χρηστήρια,

καὶ θὲς πρὸς αὐταῖς εἰσόδοις δόμων ἐμῶν.

35 τὰ δ’ ἄλλ’ -- ἐμὸς γάρ ἐστιν, ὡς εἰδῇς, ὁ παῖς --

ἡμῖν μελήσει. Λοξίᾳ δ’ ἐγὼ χάριν

πράσσων ἀδελφῷ πλεκτὸν ἐξάρας κύτος

ἤνεγκα, καὶ τὸν παῖδα κρηπίδων ἔπι

τίθημι ναοῦ τοῦδ’, ἀναπτύξας κύτος

40 ἑλικτὸν ἀντίπηγος, ὡς ὁρῷθ’ ὁ παῖς.

Before the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The sun is about to rise. Hermes enters.

Hermes

Atlas, who wears away heaven, the ancient home of the gods, on his bronze shoulders, was the father of Maia by a goddess; she bore me, Hermes, to great Zeus; and I am the gods’ servant. [5] I have come to Delphi, this land where Phoebus from his central throne chants to mortals, always declaring the present and the future.

For Hellas has a famous city, which received its name from Pallas of the golden lance; [10] here Apollo forced a union on Creusa, the child of Erechtheus, where the rocks, turned to the north beneath the hill of Pallas’ Athenian land, are called Macrai by the lords of Attica. Unknown to her father --such was the pleasure of the god-- [15] she bore the weight in her womb. When the time came, Creusa gave birth in the house to a child, and brought the infant to the same cave where the god had bedded her, and there exposed him to die in the round circle of a hollow cradle, [20] observant of the customs of her ancestors, and of Erichthonius, the earth-born. For the daughter of Zeus set beside him two serpents to guard his body, and gave him in charge to the daughters of Aglauros; [25] from which the Erechthidae have a custom to rear their children in gold serpents. Ornaments which the girl had she hung around her son, and left him to die. And Phoebus, as my brother, asked me this: “O brother, go to the native-born people [30] of glorious Athens, for you know the city of the goddess; take the new-born baby from the hollow rock, with his cradle and baby-clothes; bring him to my shrine at Delphi, and place him at the very entrance of my temple; [35] The rest--know that the child is mine--will be my care.” To gratify my brother Loxias I took up the woven basket and brought it here, and placed the boy at the base of this temple, [40] opening up the wreathed cradle, so that the infant might be seen.

[Trans. by Robert Potter; text and translation from Perseus. Euripides lived c. 480–406 BC.]

23. Euripides Ion 260-274

Κρέουσα 260

Κρέουσα μέν μοι τοὔνομ’, ἐκ δ’ Ἐρεχθέως

πέφυκα, πατρὶς γῆ δ’ Ἀθηναίων πόλις.

Ἴων

ὦ κλεινὸν οἰκοῦσ’ ἄστυ γενναίων τ’ ἄπο

τραφεῖσα πατέρων, ὥς σε θαυμάζω, γύναι.

Κρέουσα

τοσαῦτα κεὐτυχοῦμεν, ὦ ξέν’, οὐ πέρα.

Ἴων 265

πρὸς θεῶν ἀληθῶς, ὡς μεμύθευται βροτοῖς . . .;

Κρέουσα

τί χρῆμ’ ἐρωτᾷς, ὦ ξέν’, ἐκμαθεῖν θέλων;

Ἴων

ἐκ γῆς πατρός σου πρόγονος ἔβλαστεν πατήρ;

Κρέουσα

Ἐριχθόνιός γε: τὸ δὲ γένος μ’ οὐκ ὠφελεῖ.

Ἴων

ἦ καί σφ’ Ἀθάνα γῆθεν ἐξανείλετο;

Κρέουσα 270

ἐς παρθένους γε χεῖρας, οὐ τεκοῦσά νιν.

Ἴων

δίδωσι δ’, ὥσπερ ἐν γραφῇ νομίζεται . . .;

Κρέουσα

Κέκροπός γε σῴζειν παισὶν οὐχ ὁρώμενον.

Ἴων

ἤκουσα λῦσαι παρθένους τεῦχος θεᾶς.

Κρέουσα

τοιγὰρ θανοῦσαι σκόπελον ᾕμαξαν πέτρας.

[260] Creusa: Creusa is my name, Erechtheus my father, the city of Athens my fatherland.

Ion: O you that dwell in a famous city and were brought up by noble parents, how I marvel at you, lady.

Creusa: I am fortunate so far, stranger, and no further.

[265] Ion: By the gods, truly, as the tale goes among mortals--

Creusa: What are you asking about, stranger, that you want to know?

Ion: Your father’s ancestor grew from the earth?

Creusa: Yes, Erichthonius; but my family is no benefit to me.

Ion: And did Athena take him up from the earth?

[270] Creusa: Into her virgin hands; she was not his mother.

Ion: And gave him, as paintings usually show--

Creusa: To the daughters of Kekrops to keep, unseen.

Ion: I have heard that the maidens opened the vessel of the goddess.

Creusa: And so they died, making the promontory of the rock bloody.

[275] Ion: I see. Well, what about this? Is it true, or a vain rumor--

Creusa: What are you asking? For I am at leisure.

Ion: Did your father Erechtheus sacrifice your sisters?

Creusa: He dared to kill the maidens, as a sacrifice for their country.

Ion: And you were the only one of your sisters saved?

[280] Creusa: I was a new-born infant in my mother’s arms.

Ion: Did a hollow of the earth truly hide your father?

Creusa: The blows of the sea-god’s trident destroyed him.

Ion: There is a place there called Makrai?

Creusa: Why do you ask this? How you have reminded me of something!

[285] Ion: Phoebus and the Pythian lightning honor it.

Creusa: . . . Would that I had never seen it!

Ion: Why do you hate the place very dear to the god?

Creusa: No reason; I know of a shameful deed in a cave.

Ion: But what Athenian married you, lady?

[290] Creusa: No citizen, but a foreigner from another land.

[Trans. by Robert Potter; text and translation from Perseus.]

24. Euripides Ion 1163-1165

1160 εὐηρέτμους ναῦς ἀντίας Ἑλληνίσιν,

καὶ μιξόθηρας φῶτας, ἱππείας τ' ἄγρας

ἐλάφων, λεόντων τ' ἀγρίων θηράματα.

κατ' εἰσόδους δὲ Κέκροπα θυγατέρων πέλας

σπείραισιν εἱλίσσοντ', Ἀθηναίων τινὸς

1165 ἀνάθημα . . .

Attendant: He took the calves and left. The youth reverently built the round tent on pillars, without walls, taking good care of the rays of the sun, [1135] setting it neither towards the middle beams of heat nor in turn towards the ending ones. He measured a length of 100 feet for a square, having its whole area ten thousand feet, as the wise say, [1140] so that he might call all the people of Delphi to the feast. From the treasuries he took sacred tapestries, and shadowed over the tent, a wonder for men to see. First, overhead he spread out wings of cloth, a dedication of the son of Zeus, which Herakles [1145] brought from the Amazons as spoils for the god. These pictures were woven in it: Heaven gathering the stars into the circle of the sky. The Sun was driving his horses to the last flare, drawing on the light of Evening. [1150] Dark-robed Night was shaking her two-horse chariot by means of the yoked pair, and stars attended her. A Pleiad hastened through the middle sky, with Orion and his sword; above, Arktos turned his golden tail on the pole; [1155] the full moon, that divides the months in half, shot forth her beams above, with the Hyades, the clearest sign for sailors, and light-bearing Dawn, pursuing the stars. Ion spread other tapestries over the sides of the tent, foreign ones: [1160] well-equipped ships against the Hellenes, and half-human creatures; and the pursuit of deer on horse-back, and hunting of savage lions. At the entrance there was Cecrops, with his daughters, winding in his serpent coils, [1165] a dedication from an Athenian.

[Trans. by Robert Potter; text and translation from Perseus.]

25. Red figure vase fragment: Aglauros with sceptre

ΑΓΛΑΥΡΟΣ.

There is a young woman sitting, with a scepter. To her left, another scepter. To her right, a standing woman. Beazley thinks the seated woman is a goddess, and the standing woman is Aglauros.

[LIMC #3. See also Perseus Vase Catalog. J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd edition (Oxford 1963), 1316. Dated to last quarter of 5th century BC.]

26. Krater, Adolphseck, Schloß Fasanerie 77

Birth of Erichthonius, with the Aglaurides. In the center, Athena and Cecrops are near the sacred olive tree; a covered basket with Erichtonius is before it. Above Cecrops are three maidens in elaborate clothing, the three sisters, two standing, one sitting; Eros touches one on the shoulder.

[LIMC #8. Beazley, ARV2 1346, 1. Dated to end of 5th century BC.]

27. Demosthenes On the False Embassy 19:303

303] ἀλλὰ μὴν ὅτι ταῦθ’ οὕτως ἔχει, αὐτὸς οὐχ οἷός τ’ ἀντειπεῖν ἔσται. τίς γάρ ἐσθ’ ὁ τὸν Ἴσχανδρον προσάγων ὑμῖν τὸ κατ’ ἀρχάς, ὃν παρὰ τῶν ἐν Ἀρκαδίᾳ φίλων τῇ πόλει δεῦρ’ ἥκειν ἔφη; τίς ὁ συσκευάζεσθαι τὴν Ἑλλάδα καὶ Πελοπόννησον Φίλιππον βοῶν, ὑμᾶς δὲ καθεύδειν; τίς ὁ τοὺς μακροὺς καὶ καλοὺς λόγους ἐκείνους δημηγορῶν, καὶ τὸ Μιλτιάδου καὶ <τὸ> Θεμιστοκλέους ψήφισμ’ ἀναγιγνώσκων καὶ τὸν ἐν τῷ τῆς Ἀγλαύρου τῶν ἐφήβων ὅρκον;

[303] Yet that such are the facts, he will not be able to deny. For who originally introduced Ischander to you, declaring him to have come as the representative of the Arcadian friends of Athens? Who raised the cry that Philip was forming coalitions in Greece and Peloponnesus while you slept? Who made those long and eloquent speeches, and read the decrees of Miltiades and Themistacles and the oath [horkon] which our young men take in the temple of Aglaurus?

[Trans. by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince; text and translation from Perseus. Demosthenes lived 384–322 BC.]

28. Philochorus, FGH 328 F 105-106 = Scholia in Demosthenes 19.303

105 (14) καὶ τὸν ἐν τῷ τῆς Ἀγραύλου] ἔστι μὲν μία τῶν Κέκροπος θυγατέρων ἡ Ἄγραυλος. ἐν δὲ τῷ τεμένει αὐτῆς οἱ ἐξιόντες εἰς τοὺς ἐφήβους ἐκ παίδων μετὰ πανοπλιῶν ὤμνυον ὑπερμαχεῖν ἄχρι θανάτου τῆς θρεψαμένης. ἡ δὲ ἱστορία αὕτη·

Ἄγραυλος καὶ Ἕρση καὶ Πάνδροσος θυγατέρες Κέκροπος, ὥς φησιν ὁ Φιλόχορος. λέγουσι δὲ ὅτι πολέμου συμβάντος παρ’ Ἀθηναίοις, ὅτε ὁ Εὔμολπος ἐστράτευσε κατὰ Ἐρεχθέως, καὶ μηκυνομένου τούτου, ἔχρησεν ὁ Ἀπόλλων ἀπαλλαγήσεσθαι ἐάν τις ἀνέληι ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως. ἡ τοίνυν Ἄγραυλος ἑκοῦσα αὑτὴν ἐξέδωκεν εἰς θάνατον. ἔρριψε γὰρ ἑαυτὴν ἐκ τοῦ τείχους. εἶτα ἀπαλλαγέντος τοῦ πολέμου, ἱερὸν ὑπὲρ τούτου ἐστήσαντο αὐτῆι περὶ τὰ προπύλαια τῆς πόλεως· καὶ ἐκεῖσε ὤμνυον οἱ ἔφηβοι μέλλοντες ἐξιέναι εἰς πόλεμον. . . 106 (14) ἱέρεια γέγονεν ἡ Ἄγραυλος Ἀθηνᾶς, ὥς φησιν Φιλόχορος.

105 Agraulos is one of the daughters of Cecrops. And in her temple those going out to become ephebes after their childhood [?] took an oath fully armed to battle to the death on behalf of the city that had nourished them [?]. And this is the story.

Agraulos and Herse and Pandrosos were daughters of Cecrops, as Philochorus says. And they say that when war came to pass for the Athenians, when Eumolpus made war against Erechtheus, and it was prolonged, Apollo gave an oracle that the war would end if someone would give himself up on behalf of the city. Therefore Agraulos willing gave herself over [exedōken] to death. For she threw [erripse] herself from the battlements. When the war ended, they built a temple for her above this place, close to the entrance of the city. And the ephebes swore there when they were about to go out [exienai] to war. . . 106 Agraulos was a priestess of Athena, as Philochorus says.

[My trans. Text from FGH. Philochorus, atthidographer, was born before 340 BC; he held the official position of mantis in 306.]

29. Scamon of Mytilene, FGH 476 F2 = Suda, s.v. Phoinikēia grammata

Φοινικήϊα γράμματα: Λυδοὶ καὶ Ἴωνες τὰ γράμματα ἀπὸ Φοίνικος τοῦ Ἀγήνορος τοῦ εὑρόντος: τούτοις δὲ ἀντιλέγουσι Κρῆτες, ὡς εὑρέθη ἀπὸ τοῦ γράφειν ἐν φοινίκων πετάλοις. Σκάμων δ’ ἐν τῇ δευτέρᾳ τῶν εὑρημάτων ἀπὸ Φοινίκης τῆς Ἀκταίωνος ὀνομασθῆναι. μυθεύεται δ’ οὗτος ἀρσένων μὲν παίδων ἄπαις, γενέσθαι δὲ αὐτῷ θυγατέρας Ἄγλαυρον, Ἔρσην, Πάνδροσον: τὴν δὲ Φοινίκην ἔτι παρθένον οὖσαν τελευτῆσαι. διὸ καὶ Φοινικήϊα τὰ γράμματα τὸν Ἀκταίωνα, βουλόμενόν τινος τιμῆς ἀπονεῖμαι τῇ θυγατρί.

Phoenician letters: Lydians and Ionians [call] the letters [thus] from their inventor Phoinix the son of Agenor; but Cretans disagree with them, [saying that] the name was derived from writing on palm leaves [phoinika]. But Skamon in his second book on Discoveries [says] that they were named from Phoinike the daughter of Aktaion. Legend tells that this man [Aktaion] had no male children, but had daughters Aglauros, Erse, and Pandrosos; Phoinike, however, died while still a virgin. For this reason Aktaion [called] the letters Phoenician, because he wanted to give some share of honor to his daughter.

[Trans. by Catharine Roth and David Whitehead; text and translation from Suda Online, http://www.stoa.org/sol/. Scamon lived in the 4th century BC.

30. Decree of the Salaminioi: SEG 21 (1965) nr. 527

[8] . . . τὰς ἱερεωσ

ύνας κοινὰς εἶναι ἀμφοτέρων εἰς τὸν αἰεὶ χρόν

[10] ον τῆς Ἀθηνάας τῆς Σκιράδος καὶ τὴν τõ Ἡρακλέο

υ τõ ἐπὶ Πορθμῶι, καὶ τὴν τõ Εὐρυσάκος, καὶ τὴν τῆ

ς Ἀγλαύρο καὶ Πανδρόσο καὶ τῆς Κοροτρόφο·

. . .

[41] . . . τὸς ἄρτος ἐς Σκιράδος ν

έμειν κατὰ τάδε, ἀφελόντας ἐξ ἁπάντων τὸς νομι

ζομένος ἀφαιρεῖσθαι κατὰ τὰ πάτρια· κήρυκι ἄρ

τον, Ἀθηνᾶς ἱερείαι ἄρτον, Ἡρακλέος ἱερεῖ ἄρτο

[45] ν, Πανδρόσο καὶ Ἀγλαύρο ἱερείαι ἄρτον, Κοροτρό

φο καὶ καλαθηφόρωι ἄρτον, κώπαις ἄρτον· τῶν δἐ ἄ

λλων νέμεσθαι τὰ ἡμίσεα ἑκατέρος. . .

Gods

In the archonship of Charikleides at Athens. The arbitrators (diaitetai), Stephanos of Myrrhinous, Kleagoras of Acharnai, Aristogeiton of Myrrhinous, Euthykritos of Lamptrai, and Kephisodotos of Aithalidai, settled the disputes between the Salminioi of the Heptaphylai and the Salaminioi from Sounion on the following terms, both parties being mutually in agreement that the decision of the arbitrators was good: the priesthoods shall be common to both for all time, namely those of Athena Skiras, Herakles at Porthmos, Eurysakes, Aglauros and Pandrosos and Kourotrophos. When one of the priestesses or priests dies a successor shall be elected by lot from both groups taken together. Those thus designated shall officiate on the same terms as those who held the priesthoods aforetime. The land at the Herakleion at Porthmos and the Hale and the agora in Koile shall be divided into two equal parts and each party shall receive as its portion one, which it shall bound by markers. They shall sacrifice to the gods and heroes as follows: such victims as the state furnishes from the treasury or as the Salaminioi happen to receive from the oschophoroi or the deipnophoroi, these both parties shall sacrifice in common and each shall receive half of the flesh raw. Such victims, on the other hand, as the Salaminioi were wont to sacrifice from rentals they shall sacrifice from their own funds according to their ancient custom, each party contributing half for all the sacrifices.

The gifts of honor herein specified shall be paid to the priests and priestesses: to the priest of Herakles as hierosyna 30 drachmas, for pelanos 3 drachmas; of these sums the half shall be contributed by each party. Of the victims which he sacrifices for the corporation he shall receive, of pelted animals the skin and the leg, of animals singed the leg; of an ox nine pieces of flesh and the skin. To the priest of Eurysakes as hierosyna 6 drachmas, for pelanos for both cults 7 drachmas, in lieu of the legs and the skins in the Eurysakeion 13 drachmas; of these sums each party shall contribute the half; of the victims sacrified to the hero at the Hale he shall receive the skin and the leg. To the priests and the priestesses in the shrines in which each officiates there shall be given by each party a portion. The wheaten loaves in the shrine of Skiras they shall distribute as follows, after setting apart from the whole number those customarily set apart according to ancestral practice : to the herald a loaf, to the priestess of Athena a loaf, to the priest of Herakles a loaf, to the priestess of Aglauros and Pandrosos a loaf, to the kalathephoros of Kourotrophos also a loaf, to the millers a loaf; of the rest each group shall receive the half. They shall designate by lot from each party in turn an official (archon) who shall appoint the oschophoroi and the deipnophoroi in collaboration with the priestess and the herald according to ancestral custom. Both parties shall inscribe the aforegoing regulations on a common stele and set it up in the shrine of Athena Skiras.

The same person shall be priest of Eurysakes and of the hero at the Hale. If anything in the shrines should be in need of repairs they shall repair it by common action, each contributing the half of what is required. (The men from the Heptaphylai furnished the official [archon] in the archonship of Charikleides.) All the records shall be common to both parties. Until the period of his lease lapses the person who has the contract to till the land shall till it, paying half the rental to each party. Each party shall perform in turn the sacrifice which precedes the contest and each party shall receive the half of the flesh and skins. The priestly office of herald shall belong to Thrasykles according to ancient custom. All other charges affecting both individuals and the corporation up to the month of Boedromion of Charikleides’ archonship shall be dropped.

vacat

In the archonship for the Salaminioi of Diphilos, son of Diopeithes, of Sounion the following members of the Salaminioi from Sounion took the oath: Diopeithes son of Phasyrkides, Philoneos son of Ameinonikos, Chalkideus son of Andromenes, Chariades son of Charikles, Theophanes son of Zophanes, Hegias son of Hegesias, Ameinias son of Philinos. In the archonship for the Salaminioi of Antisthenes, son of Antigenes, of Acharnai the following members of those from the Heptaphylai took the oath: Thrasykles, son of Thrason, of Boutadai, Stratophon, son of Straton, of Agryle, Melittios, son of Exekestides, of Boutadai, Aristarchos, son of Demokles, of Acharnai, Arkeon, son of Eumelides, of Acharnai, Chairestratos, son of Pankleides, of Epikephisia, Demon, son of Demaretos, of Agryle.

Archeleos moved: in order that the Salaminioi may ever sacrifice to the gods and heroes according to ancestral custom, and that effect may be given to the terms on which the mediators (diallaktai) adjusted the differences between the two groups and to which the persons chosen took the oath, be it decreed by the Salaminioi that the archon Aristarchos inscribe all the sacrifices and the stipends of the priests on the stele on which are the terms of settlement (diallagai), so that the archons succeeding one another in office for both parties from time to time may know the amount of money each party must contribute for all the sacrifices from the rental of the land at the Herakleion; and [be it further decreed] that he set up the stele in the Eurysakeion.

Mounichion. At Porthmos: to Kourotrophos a goat, 10 drachmas; to Ioleos a sheep burnt whole, 15 drachmas; to Alkmene a sheep, 12 drachmas; to Maia a sheep, 12 drachmas; to Herakles an ox, 70 drachmas; to the hero at the Hale a sheep, 15 drachmas; to the hero at Antisara a suckling pig, 3 drachmas, 3 obols; to the hero at Pyrgilion a suckling pig, 3 drachmas, 3 obols; to Ion to sacrifice a sheep alternately every other year. Wood for the sacrifices and for those sacrifices which the state gives in accordance with the laws, 10 drachmas. On the eighteenth of the month: to Eurysakes a pig, 40 drachmas. Wood for the sacrifices and incidentals, 3 drachmas.

Hekatombaion. At the Panathenaia: to Athena a pig, 40 drachmas. Wood for the

sacrifices and incidentals, 3 drachmas.

Metageitnion. On the seventh: to Apollo Patroos a pig, 40 drachmas; to Leto a suckling pig, 3 drachmas, 3 obols; to Artemis a suckling pig, 3 drachmas, 3 obols; to Athena agelaa a suckling pig, 3 drachmas, 3 obols. Wood for the sacrifices and incidentals, 3 drachmas, 3 obols.

Boedromion. To Poseidon hippodromios a pig, 40 drachmas; to the hero Phaiax a suckling pig, 3 drachmas, 3 obols; to the hero Teukros a suckling pig, 3 drachmas, 3 obols ; to the hero Nauseiros a suckling pig, 3 drachmas, 3 obols. Wood for the sacrifices and incidentals, 3 drachmas.

Pyanopsion. On the sixth: to Theseus a pig, 40 drachmas. Incidentals, 3 drachmas. At the Apatouria: to Zeus Phratrios a pig, 40 drachmas. Wood for the sacrifices and incidentals, 3 drachmas.

Maimakterion. To Athena Skiras a pregnant ewe, 12 drachmas ; to Skiros a sheep, 15 drachmas. Wood for the altar, 3 drachmas.

Total of the money which both parties have to spend on all the sacrifices, 530 drachmas, 3 obols.

These sacrifices they are to make in common from the rental of the land at the Herakleion at Sounion, each party contributing money for all the sacrifices. If any one moves, or any archon puts a motion, to abrogate any of these provisions or to divert the money to any other purpose, he shall be accountable to the whole genes and likewise to the priests and liable to an action which may be instituted privately by any one of the Salaminioi who wishes.

[Trans. and text from William S. Ferguson, “The Salaminioi of Heptaphylai and Sounion,” Hesperia 7 (1938): 2-21. Per Ferguson, this inscription states that the priestess of Aglauros also served as priestess of Pandrosos and Kourotrophos. See also Dontas, “The True Aglaurion,” 54; Theodora Hadzisteliou Price, Kourotrophos: Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 117. The decree is dated to 363/362 BC.]

31. Amelesagoras Atthis FGH 330 F 22 = Antigonus Carystius Hist. Mirab. 12

Ἀμελησαγόρας δὲ ὁ Αθηναῖος ὁ τὴν Ἀτθίδα συγγεγραφώς, οὔ φησι κορώνην προσίπτασθαι πρὸς τὴν ακρόπολιν, οὐδ’ ἔχοι ἂν εἰπεῖν ἑωρακὼς οὐδείς, ἀποδίδωσιν δὲ τὴν αἰτίαν μυθικῶς. φησὶν γὰρ Ἡφαίστωι δοθείσης τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς, συγκατακλιθεῖσαν αὐτῶι ἀφανισθῆναι, τὸν δὲ Ἥφαιστον εἰς γῆν πεσόντα, προίεσθαι τὸ σπέρμα· τὴν δὲ γῆν ὕστερον [αὐτῶι] ἀναδοῦναι Ἐριχθόνιον, ὃν τρέφειν τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν καὶ εἰς κίστην καθεῖρξαι καὶ παραθέσθαι ταῖς Κέκροπος παισὶν Ἀγραύλωι καὶ Πανδρόσωι καὶ Ἕρσηι, καὶ ἐπιτάξαι μὴ ἀνοίγειν τὴν κίστην, ἕως ἂν αὐτὴ ἔλθηι. ἀφικομένην δὲ εἰς Πελλήνην φέρειν ὄρος, ἵνα ἔρυμα πρὸ τῆς ἀκροπόλεως ποιήσηι, τὰς δὲ Κέκροπος θυγατέρας τὰς δύο, Ἄγραυλον καὶ Πάνδροσον, τὴν κίστην ἀνοῖξαι καὶ ἰδεῖν δράκοντας δύο περὶ τὸν Ἐριχθόνιον. τῆι δὲ Ἀθηνᾶι, φερούσηι τὸ ὄρος, ὃ νῦν καλεῖται Λυκαβηττός, κορώνην φησὶν ἀπαντῆσαι καὶ ειπεῖν ὅτι Ἐριχθόνιος ἐν φανερῶι· τὴν δὲ ἀκούσασαν, ῥῖψαι τὸ ὄρος ὅπου νῦν ἐστι, τῆι δὲ κορώνῆι διὰ τὴν κακαγγελίαν εἰπεῖν ὡς εἰς ἀκρόπολιν οὐ θέμις αὐτῆι ἔσται ἀφικέσθαι.

Amelesagoras of Athens, author of the Atthis, asserts that no crow flies to the Akropolis and that nobody can claim to have seen one so doing. He adds a mythical explanation. He states that, when Athena was given to Hephaistos, she lay down with him and vanished. Hephaistos fell to earth and spent his seed. The earth afterwards produced Erichthonios, whom Athena nurtured and shut up in a basket and entrusted to the daughters of Kekrops—Agraulos, Pandrosos, and Herse—charging them not to open the basket until she returned. She then went to Pellene and fetched a mountain to serve as a bulwark in front of the Akropolis. The daughters of Kekrops, two of them, Agraulos and Pandrosos, opened the basket and saw two snakes coiled round Erichthonios. As Athena was carrying the mountain, which is now called Lykabettos, a crow—he states—met her and said “Erichthonios is exposed.” She on hearing it threw down the mountain where it now is, and told the crow as bearer of evil tidings that never thereafter would it be lawful for it to go to the Akropolis.

[Trans. Arthur Bernard Cook, Zeus a Study in Ancient Religion, 3 vol. (Cambridge 1914-1940), 3.1, pp. 237-38. Text from FGH. Amelesagoras’ Atthis has been dated to c. 300 BC.]

32. IG II/III² 3459

Ἀγλαύρου ἱέρεα Φειδοστράτη

Ἐτεοκλέους Αἰθαλίδου θυγάτηρ.

Pheidostrate, priestess of Aglauros,

Daughter of Eteokles of Aithalidai.

[My trans. Text from IG². Cf. Ferguson, “The Salaminioi of Heptaphylai and Sounion,” 20. The inscription is dated c. 280 BC.]

33. Callimachus Hecale fr. 260.18-29 (Pfeiffer) = Hollis fr. 70

. . . τόφρα δὲ κοῦραι

αἱ φυλακοὶ κακὸν ἔργον [ἐ]πεφράσσαντο τελέσσαι,

κίστης [ ] δεσμά τ’ ἀνεῖσαι.

But Pallas left him, the seed of Hephaestus, long (?) within (the chest), until for the sons of Cecrops . . . the rock, . . . secret, unutterable, but I neither knew, nor learnt whence he was by descent, but a report (spread?) among the primeval birds, that Earth forsooth bore him to Hephaestus. Then she, that she might set up a bulwark for her land, which she had newly obtained by the vote of Zeus and the twelve other immortals, and by the witness of the snake, was coming to Pellene in Achaia. Meanwhile, the maidens that watched the chest planned to do an evil deed . . . undoing the fastenings (of the chest) . . . [about 22 lines missing]

[Trans. C. A. Trypanis, LCL. Text from Pfeiffer. Cf. Adrian S. Hollis, Callimachus Hecale (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). Callimachus lived c. 305- 240 BC.)]

34. Calendar of the Demarchia of Erchia, B 55-60

[Σ]κιροφοριῶν-

ος τρίτηι ἱσ-

ταμένο, Ἀγλα-

ύρωι, ἐμ Πόλε

Ἐρχι : οἶς, Δ uacat

Κεφάλαιον u

[Text from Daux, “La Grande Demarchie,” BCH 87 (1963): 603-634. See also Sokolowski 1969, 36ff., no. 18, with commentary; Price, Kourotrophos, 123. Per Price, Kourotrophos, 123, Kourotrophos was offered sacrifices “in the Sanctuary of Hera in Erchia, in the month Gamelion, the month of the Theogameia, when Hera was honoured together with Athena Polias, Aglauros, Zeus Polieus [actually, Zeus Teleios] and Poseidon.” As far as Aglauros goes, this is incorrect; she appears in the month Skirophorion. Dated to 300-250 BC.]

35. Euphorion, fr. 9 (Powell)

“Euphorion, howeer, in a passage owing much to the Hecale, singles out Herse as the sister who opened the basket and was thereafter driven to suicide . . .” Hollis, Callimachus Hecale, 230.

[See Powell, Collectanea Alexandrina, p. 31. Euphorion was born c. 275 BC.]

36. A stele honoring a third-century priestess of Aglauros

. . . Ὑπὲρ ὧν ἀπαγγέλλει Ἀ

ριστοφάνης ὁ ὑὸς τῆς ἱερείας τῆς Ἀγλαύρ

ου ὑπὲρ τῶν ἱερῶν ὧν ἔθυεν τοῖς εἰσιτητη

ρίοις τῆι Ἀγλαύρωι καὶ τῶι Ἄρει καὶ Ἡλί

ωι καὶ ταῖς Ὥραις καὶ τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι καὶ το

ῖς ἄλλοις θεοῖς οἷς πάτριον ἦν ἀγαθεῖ τ

ύχει, δεδόχθαι τῆι βουλῆι . . .

. . . ἐπει

δὴ δὲ ἡ ἱέρεια τῆς Ἀγλαύρου τά τε εἰσαγώγ

εια καὶ τὰς θυσίας ἔθυσε τὰς προσηκούσα

ς, ἐπεμελήθη δὲ καὶ τῆς εὐταξίας τῆς ἐν τῆ

ι παννυχίδι, ἐκόσμησε δὲ καὶ τὴν τράπεζα

ν, ἐπαινέσαι τὴν ἱέρειαν τῆς Ἀγλαύρου

Τιμοκρίτην Πολυνίκου Ἀφιδναίου θυγατ

έρα καὶ στεφανῶσαι αὐτὴν θαλλοῦ στεφάν

ωι εὐσεβείας ἕνεκα τῆς πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς. ἀ

ναγράψαι δὲ τὸ ψήφισμα τὸν γραμματέα τὸ

ν κατὰ πρυτανείαν ἐν στήλει λιθίνει καὶ

στῆσαι ἐν τῶι ἱερῶι τῆς Ἀγλαύρου, εἰς δὲ τ

ὴν ἀναγραφὴν τῆς στήλης μερίσαι τοὺς ἐπ

ὶ τῆι διοικήσει τὸ γενόμενον ἀνάλωμα.

Ἡ βουλή

Ὁ δῆμος

Τὴν ἱέρειαν

Τιμοκρίτην

. . .Concerning what is reported by Aristophanes the son of the priestess of Aglauros with regard to the sacrifices offered at the eisiteteria to Aglauros and to Ares and to Helios and to the Horai and to Apollo and to the other gods to whom it is a hereditary custom (to offer sacrifice), with good fortune be it resolved by the Council . . .

And whereas the priestess of Aglauros has offered the eisagogeia and the befitting sacrifices and has also taken care that there be good order during the pannychis and has prepared the table (of offerings), to praise the priestess of Aglauros, Timokrite daughter of Polynikos of Aphidna, and to crown her with a crown of leaves for the piety she is showing to the gods. The prytany-secretary shall inscribe this decree on a marble stele and place it in the sanctuary of Aglauros and the board of administration shall apportion the expenditure incurred for the inscription on the stele.

The Council

The Demos (honor)

The Priestess

Timokrite

[Trans. and text from George S. Dontas, “The True Aglaureion.” Hesperia 52 (1983):48–63. This stele was discovered “under the large cave on the east side of the Acropolis,” and caused scholars to entirely rethink the location of the temple of Aglauros, putting it on the east of the Acropolis, instead of on the north. It is dated to 247/6 or 246/5 BC.]

37. From an inscribed seat in the theater of Dionysus at Athens: IG² II/III 5152

Kουροτρόφου ἐξ Ἄγλαύρου, Δήμη<τ>ρος

(For the priestess) of Kourotrophos, the one from the shrine of Aglauros, and of Demeter.

[Trans. Theodora Hadzisteliou Price, Kourotrophos: Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 113. Text from IG². See also George S. Dontas, “The True Aglaureion,” Hesperia 52 (1983):48–63, 54 n. 11; Merkelbach, “Aglauros,” 281. Dated to the Roman era.]

38. Philodemus On Piety

Hermes “made [unidentifiable male characters] bent, and also turned Pandrosos to stone because she did not give up her sister Herse to him.”

[Trans. Hollis, Callimachus Hecale, 231. Note that Ovid seems to turn this story around. Philodemus lived c. 110-35 BC.]

39. Ovid Metamorphoses 2.708ff

Aglauros. Invidia.

Hinc se sustulerat paribus caducifer alis,

Munychiosque volans agros gratamque Minervae

710 despectabat humum cultique arbusta Lycei.

Illa forte die castae de more puellae

vertice supposito festas in Palladis arces

pura coronatis portabant sacra canistris.

Inde revertentes deus adspicit ales iterque

715 non agit in rectum, sed in orbem curvat eundem.

Ut volucris visis rapidissima miluus extis,

dum timet et densi circumstant sacra ministri,

flectitur in gyrum nec longius audet abire

spemque suam motis avidus circumvolat alis,

720 sic super Actaeas agilis Cyllenius arces

inclinat cursus et easdem circinat auras.

Quanto splendidior quam+ cetera sidera fulget

Lucifer, et quanto quam Lucifer aurea Phoebe,

tanto virginibus praestantior omnibus Herse

725 ibat, eratque decus pompae comitumque suarum.

Obstipuit forma Iove natus, et aethere pendens

non secus+ exarsit+, quam cum Balearica+ plumbum

funda iacit+: volat+ illud+ et incandescit+ eundo+

et quos+ non habuit+, sub nubibus+ invenit+ ignes+.

730 Vertit iter caeloque petit terrena relicto

nec se dissimulat: tanta est fiducia formae.

Quae quamquam iusta est, cura tamen adiuvat illam

permulcetque comas chlamydemque, ut pendeat apte,

collocat, ut limbus totumque appareat aurum,

735 ut teres in dextra, qua somnos ducit et arcet,

virga sit, ut tersis niteant talaria plantis.

Pars secreta domus ebore et testudine cultos

tres habuit thalamos: quorum tu, Pandrose, dextrum,

Aglauros laevum, medium possederat Herse.

740 Quae tenuit laevum, venientem prima notavit

Mercurium nomenque dei scitarier ausa est

et causam adventus. Cui sic respondit Atlantis

Pleionesque nepos: “Ego sum, qui iussa per auras

verba patris porto: pater est mihi Iuppiter ipse.

745 Nec fingam causas; tu tantum fida sorori

esse velis prolisque meae matertera dici.

Herse causa viae. Faveas oramus amanti.”

Adspicit hunc oculis isdem, quibus abdita nuper

viderat Aglauros flavae secreta Minervae,

750 proque ministerio magni sibi ponderis aurum

postulat: interea tectis excedere cogit.

Vertit ad hanc torvi dea bellica luminis orbem

et tanto penitus traxit suspiria motu,

ut pariter pectus positamque in pectore forti

755 aegida concuteret. Subit, hanc arcana profana

detexisse manu tum cum sine matre creatam

Lemnicolae stirpem contra data foedera vidit,

et gratamque deo fore iam gratamque sorori

et ditem sumpto, quod avara poposcerat, auro.

760 Protinus Invidiae nigro squalentia tabo

tecta petit. Domus est imis in vallibus huius

abdita, sole carens, non ulli pervia vento,

tristis et ignavi plenissima frigoris, et quae

igne vacet semper, caligine semper abundet.

765 Huc ubi pervenit belli metuenda virago,

constitit ante domum (neque enim succedere tectis

fas habet) et postes extrema cuspide pulsat.

Concussae patuere fores. Videt intus edentem

vipereas carnes, vitiorum alimenta suorum,

770 Invidiam, visaque oculos avertit. At illa

surgit humo pigre semesarumque relinquit

corpora serpentum passuque incedit inerti;

utque deam vidit formaque armisque decoram,

ingemuit vultumque ima ad suspiria duxit.

775 Pallor in ore sedet, macies in corpore toto,

nusquam recta acies, livent rubigine dentes,

pectora felle virent, lingua est suffusa veneno.

Risus abest, nisi quem visi movere dolores.

Nec fruitur somno, vigilacibus excita curis,

780 sed videt ingratos intabescitque videndo

successus hominum, carpitque et carpitur una,

suppliciumque suum est. Quamvis tamen oderat illam,

talibus adfata est breviter Tritonia dictis:

“Infice tabe tua natarum Cecropis unam.

785 Sic opus est. Aglauros ea est.” Haud plura locuta

fugit et impressa tellurem reppulit hasta.

Illa deam obliquo fugientem lumine cernens

murmura parva dedit, successurumque Minervae

indoluit, baculumque capit, quod spinea totum

790 vincula cingebant, adopertaque nubibus atris,

quacumque ingreditur, florentia proterit arva

exuritque herbas et summa cacumina carpit,

adflatuque suo populos urbesque domosque

polluit. Et tandem Tritonida conspicit arcem

795 ingeniis opibusque et festa pace virentem,

vixque tenet lacrimas, quia nil lacrimabile cernit.

Sed postquam thalamos intravit Cecrope natae,

iussa facit pectusque manu ferrugine tincta

tangit et hamatis praecordia sentibus implet,

800 inspiratque nocens virus, piceumque per ossa

dissipat et medio spargit pulmone venenum.

Neve mali causae spatium per latius errent,

germanam ante oculos fortunatumque sororis

coniugium pulchraque deum sub imagine ponit,

805 cunctaque magna facit. Quibus inritata dolore

Cecropis occulto mordetur et anxia nocte,

anxia luce gemit, lentaque miserrima tabe

liquitur ut glacies incerto saucia sole.

Felicisque bonis non lenius uritur Herses,

810 quam cum spinosis ignis supponitur herbis,

quae neque dant flammas lenique tepore cremantur.

Saepe mori voluit, ne quicquam tale videret,

saepe velut crimen rigido narrare parenti;

denique in adverso venientem limine sedit

815 exclusura deum. Cui blandimenta precesque

verbaque iactanti mitissima “desine” dixit:

“hinc ego me non sum nisi te motura repulso.”

“Stemus” ait “pacto” velox Cyllenius “isto”:

caelestique fores virga patefecit. At illi

820 surgere conanti partes, quascumque sedendo

flectimus, ignava nequeunt gravitate moveri.

Illa quidem pugnat recto se attollere trunco,

sed genuum iunctura riget, frigusque per inguen

labitur, et callent amisso sanguine venae.

825 Utque malum late solet inmedicabile cancer

serpere et inlaesas vitiatis addere partes,

sic letalis hiems paulatim in pectora venit

vitalesque vias et respiramina clausit.

Nec conata loqui est, nec, si conata fuisset,

830 vocis habebat iter: saxum iam colla tenebat,

oraque duruerant, signumque exsangue sedebat.

Nec lapis albus erat: sua mens infecerat illam.

Aglauros. Invidia.

AGLAUROS AND MERCURY

High in the dome of Heaven, behold the bright

Caduceus-Bearer soared on balanced wings;

and far below him through a fruitful grove,

devoted to Minerva’s hallowed reign,

some virgins bearing on their lovely heads,

in wicker baskets wreathed and decked with flowers,

their sacred offerings to the citadel

of that chaste goddess. And the winged God,

while circling in the clear unbounded skies,

beheld that train of virgins, beautiful,

as they were thence returning on their way.

Not forward on a level line he flew,

but wheeled in circles round. Lo, the swift kite

swoops round the smoking entrails, while the priests

enclose in guarded ranks their sacrifice:

wary with fear, that swiftest of all birds,

dares not to venture from his vantage height,

but greedily hovers on his waving wings

around his keen desire. So, the bright God

circled those towers, Actaean, round and round,

in mazey circles, greedy as the bird.

As much as Lucifer outshines the stars

that emulate the glory of his rays,

as greatly as bright Phoebe pales thy light,

O lustrous Lucifer! so far surpassed

in beauty the fair maiden Herse, all

those lovely virgins of that sacred train,

departing joyous from Minerva’s grove.

The Son of Jove, astonished, while he wheeled

on balanced pinions through the yielding air,

burned hot; as oft from Balearic sling

the leaden missile, hurled with sudden force,

burns in a glowing heat beneath the clouds.

Then sloped the god his course from airy height,

and turned a different way; another way

he went without disguise, in confidence

of his celestial grace. But though he knew

his face was beautiful, he combed his hair,

and fixed his flowing raiment, that the fringe

of radiant gold appeared. And in his hand

he waved his long smooth wand, with which he gives

the wakeful sleep or waketh ridded eyes.

He proudly glanced upon his twinkling feet

that sparkled with their scintillating wings.

In a secluded part of that great fane,

devoted to Minerva’s hallowed rites,

three chambers were adorned with tortoise shell

and ivory and precious woods inlaid;

and there, devoted to Minerva’s praise,

three well known sisters dwelt. Upon the right

dwelt Pandrosos and over on the left

Aglauros dwelt, and Herse occupied

the room between those two.

When Mercury drew near to them, Aglauros first espied

the God, and ventured to enquire his name,

and wherefore he was come. Then gracious spoke

to her in answer the bright son of Jove;

“Behold the god who carries through the air

the mandates of almighty Jupiter!

But I come hither not to waste my time

in idle words, but rather to beseech

thy kindness and good aid, that I may win

the love of thy devoted sister Herse.”

Aglauros, on the son of Jupiter,

gazed with those eyes that only lately viewed

the guarded secret of the yellow-haired

Minerva, and demanded as her price

gold of great weight; before he paid denied

admittance of the house.

Minerva turned,

with orbs of stern displeasure, towards the maid

Aglauros; and her bosom heaved with sighs

so deeply laboured that her Aegis-shield

was shaken on her valiant breast. For she

remembered when Aglauros gave to view

her charge, with impious hand, that monster form

without a mother, maugre Nature’s law,

what time the god who dwells on Lemnos loved.--

now to requite the god and sister; her

to punish whose demand of gold was great;

Minerva to the Cave of Envy sped.

Dark, hideous with black gore, her dread abode

is hidden in the deepest hollowed cave,

in utmost limits where the genial sun

may never shine, and where the breathing winds

may never venture; dismal, bitter cold,

untempered by the warmth of welcome fires,

involved forever in abounding gloom.

When the fair champion came to this abode

she stood before its entrance, for she deemed

it not a lawful thing to enter there:

and she whose arm is mortal to her foes,

struck the black door-posts with her pointed spear,

and shook them to the center. Straight the doors

flew open, and, behold, within was Envy

ravening the flesh of vipers, self-begot,

the nutriment of her depraved desires.--

when the great goddess met her evil gaze

she turned her eyes away. But Envy slow,

in sluggish languor from the ground uprose,

and left the scattered serpents half-devoured;

then moving with a sullen pace approached.--

and when she saw the gracious goddess, girt

with beauty and resplendent in her arms,

she groaned aloud and fetched up heavy sighs.

Her face is pale, her body long and lean,

her shifting eyes glance to the left and right,

her snaggle teeth are covered with black rust,

her hanging paps overflow with bitter gall,

her slavered tongue drips venom to the ground;

busy in schemes and watchful in dark snares

sweet sleep is banished from her blood-shot eyes;

her smiles are only seen when others weep;

with sorrow she observes the fortunate,

and pines away as she beholds their joy;

her own existence is her punishment,

and while tormenting she torments herself.

Although Minerva held her in deep scorn

she thus commanded her with winged words;

“Instil thy poison in Aglauros, child

of Cecrops; I command thee; do my will.”

She spake; and spurning with her spear the ground

departed; and the sad and furtive-eyed

envy observed her in her glorious flight:

she murmured at the goddess, great in arms:

but waiting not she took in hand her staff,

which bands of thorns encircled as a wreath,

and veiled in midnight clouds departed thence.

She blasted on her way the ripening fields;

scorched the green meadows, starred with flowers,

and breathed a pestilence throughout the land

and the great cities. When her eyes beheld

the glorious citadel of Athens, great

in art and wealth, abode of joyful peace,

she hardly could refrain from shedding tears,

that nothing might be witnessed worthy tears.

She sought the chamber where Aglauros slept,

and hastened to obey the God’s behest.

She touched the maiden’s bosom with her hands,

foul with corrupting stains, and pierced her heart

with jagged thorns, and breathed upon her face

a noxious venom; and distilled through all

the marrow of her bones, and in her lungs,

a poison blacker than the ooze of pitch.

And lest the canker of her poisoned soul

might spread unchecked throughout increasing space,

she caused a vision of her sister’s form

to rise before her, happy with the God

who shone in his celestial beauty. All

appeared more beautiful than real life.--

when the most wretched daughter of Cecrops

had seen the vision secret torment seized

on all her vitals; and she groaned aloud,

tormented by her frenzy day and night.

A slow consumption wasted her away,

as ice is melted by the slant sunbeam,

when the cool clouds are flitting in the sky.

If she but thought of Herse’s happiness

she burned, as thorny bushes are consumed

with smoldering embers under steaming stems.

She could not bear to see her sister’s joy,

and longed for death, an end of misery;

or schemed to end the torture of her mind

by telling all she knew in shameful words,

whispered to her austere and upright sire.

But after many agonizing hours,

she sat before the threshold of their home

to intercept the God, who as he neared

spoke softly in smooth blandishment.

“Enough,” she said, “I will not move from here

until thou hast departed from my sight.”

“Let us adhere to that which was agreed.”

Rejoined the graceful-formed Cyllenian God,

who as he spoke thrust open with a touch

of his compelling wand the carved door.

But when she made an effort to arise,

her thighs felt heavy, rigid and benumbed;

and as she struggled to arise her knees

were stiffened? and her nails turned pale and cold;

her veins grew pallid as the blood congealed.

And even as the dreaded cancer spreads

through all the body, adding to its taint

the flesh uninjured; so, a deadly chill

entered by slow degrees her breast, and stopped

her breathing, and the passages of life.

She did not try to speak, but had she made

an effort to complain there was not left

a passage for her voice. Her neck was changed

to rigid stone, her countenance felt hard;

she sat a bloodless statue, but of stone

not marble-white--her mind had stained it black.

[Trans. Brookes More. Text and translation from Perseus. See also Philodemus above; W. Wimmel, “Aglauros in Ovids Metamorphosen,” Hermes 90 (1962): 326-333. Ovid lived 43 BC–17 AD.]

40. Hyginus Fabulae 166

ERICHTHONIVS

Vulcanus Ioui ceterisque diis solia ex auro et[1] adamante cum fecisset, Iuno cum sedisset, subito in aere pendere coepit. quod cum ad Vulcanum missum esset ut matrem quam ligauerat solueret, iratus quod de caelo praecipitatus erat, negat se matrem ullam habere. quem cum Liber pater ebrium in concilio deorum adduxisset, pietati negare non potuit; tum optionem a Ioue accepit, si quid ab iis petisset, impetraret. tunc ergo Neptunus, quod Mineruae erat infestus, instigauit Vulcanum Mineruam petere in coniugium. qua re impetrata in thalamum cum uenisset, Minerua monitu Iouis uirginitatem suam armis defendit, interque luctandum ex semine eius quod in terram decidit natus est puer, qui inferiorem partem draconis habuit; quem Erichthonium ideo nominarunt, quod eris Graece certatio dicitur, chthon autem terra dicitur. quem Minerua cum clam nutriret, dedit in cistula servandum Aglauro Pandroso et Herse Cecropis filiabus. hae cum cistulam aperuissent, cornix indicauit; illae a Minerua insania obiecta ipsae se in mare praecipitauerunt.

When Vulcan had made [golden sandals] for Jove and for the other gods, he made some of adamant [for Juno?], and as soon as she sat down she suddenly found herself hanging in the air. When Vulcan was summoned to free his mother whom he had bound, in anger because he had been thrown from Heaven, he denied that he had a mother. When Father Liber had brought him back drunk to the council of the gods, he could not refuse (this) filial duty [to liberate Juno]. Then he obtained freedom of choice from Jove, to gain whatever he sought from them. Therefore Neptune, because he was hostile to Minerva, urged Vulcan to ask for Minerva in marriage. This was granted, but Minerva, when he entered the chamber, defended her virginity with arms. As they struggled, some of his seed fell to earth, and from it a boy was born, the lower part of whose body was snake-formed. They named him Erichthonius, because eris in Greek means “strife,” and khthōn means “earth.” When Minerva was secretly caring for him, she gave him in a chest to Aglaurus, Pandrosus, and Herse, daughters of Cecrops, to guard. A crow gave the secret away when the girls opened the chest, and they, driven mad by Minerva, threw themselves into the sea.

[Trans. from Mary Grant, tr. and ed., The Myths of Hyginus (Lawence: University of Kansas Press, 1960). Text from Teubner edition, ed. Peter K. Marshall (Stuttgard 1993). Hyginus lived c. 64 BC to 17 AD.]

41. Hyginus Astronomica 2.13

Heniochus. Hunc nos Aurigam Latine dicimus, nomine Erichthonium, ut Eratosthenes monstrat. Quem Iuppiter, cum vidisset primum inter homines equos quadrigis iunxisse, admiratus est ingenium hominis, ad solis inventa accessisse, quod is princeps quadrigis inter deos est usus. Sed Erichthonius et quadrigas, ut ante diximus, et sacrificia Minervae et templum in arce Atheniensium primus instituit. De cuius progenie Euripides ita dicit: Vulcanum Minervae pulchritudine corporis inductum petisse ab ea ut sibi nuberet neque impetrasse et coepisse Minervam sese occultare in eo loco qui propter Vulcani amorem Hephaestius est appellatus. quo persecutum Vulcanum ferunt coepisse ei vim adferre et, cum plenus cupiditatis ad eam ut complexui se applicaret, repulsus effudit in terram voluptatem; quo Minerva, pudore permota, pede pulverem iniecit. Ex hoc autem nascitur Erichthonius anguis qui ex terra et eorum dissensione nomen possedit. Eum dicitur Minerva in cistella quadam ut mysteria contectum ad Erechthei filias detulisse et his dedisse servandum; quibus interdixit, ne cistulam aperirent. Sed, ut hominum est natura cupida, ut eo magis appetant quo interdicatur saepius, virgines cistam aperuerunt et anguem viderunt. Quo facto, insania a Minerva iniecta de arce Atheniensium se praecipitaverunt; anguis autem ad Minervae clipeum confugit et ab ea est educatus.

Alii autem anguina tantum crura habuisse Erichthonium dixerunt eumque primo tempore adulescentiae ludos Minervae Panathenaea fecisse, et ipsum quadrigis concurrisse; pro quibus factis inter sidera dicitur collocatus.

Charioteer. In Latin we call him “auriga”—Erichtonius by name, as Eratosthenes shows. Jupiter, seeing that he first among men yoked horses in four-horse chariots, admired the genius of a man who could rival the invention of Sol, who first among the gods made use of the quadriga. Erichthonius first invented the four-horse chariot, as we said before, and also first established sacrifices to Minerva, and a temple on the citadel of the Athenians. Euripides gives the following account of his birth. Vulcan, inflamed by Minerva’s beauty, begged her to marry him, but was refused. She hid herself in the place called Hephastius, on account of the love of Vulcan. They say that Vulcan, following her there, tried to force her, and when, full of passion, he tried to embrace her, he was repulsed, and some of his seed fell to the ground. Minerva, overcome by shame, with her foot spread dust over it. From this the snake Erichthonius was born, who derives his name from the earth and their struggle. Minerva is said to have hidden him, like a cult-object, in a chest. She brought the chest to the daughters of Erechtheus and gave it to them to guard, forbidding them to open it. But man is by nature curious, so that the oftener one is forbidden to do something, the more one desires to do it. So the girls opened the chest and saw the snake. As a result they were driven mad by Minerva, and threw themselves from the Acropolis. But the snake fled to the shield of Minerva, and was reared by her. Others have said that Erichthonius merely had snake-legs, and in his youth established the Panathenaic Games for Minerva, himself competing in the four-hour chariot race. In return for these deeds he was placed among the constellations.

[Trans. from Grant, The Myths of Hyginus. Text from the Teubner edition, edited by Ghislaine Viré (Stuttgart 1992).]

42. Apollodorus 3.14.2-6

2] Κέκροψ δὲ γήμας τὴν Ἀκταίου κόρην Ἄγραυλον παῖδα μὲν ἔσχεν Ἐρυσίχθονα, ὃς ἄτεκνος μετήλλαξε, θυγατέρας δὲ Ἄγραυλον Ἕρσην Πάνδροσον. Ἀγραύλου μὲν οὖν καὶ Ἄρεος Ἀλκίππη γίνεται. ταύτην βιαζόμενος Ἁλιρρόθιος, ὁ Ποσειδῶνος καὶ νύμφης Εὐρύτης, ὑπὸ Ἄρεος φωραθεὶς κτείνεται. Ποσειδῶνος δὲ ἐν Ἀρείῳ πάγῳ κρίνεται δικαζόντων τῶν δώδεκα θεῶν Ἄρης καὶ ἀπολύεται. [p. 82]

[2] Cecrops married Agraulus, daughter of Actaeus, and had a son Erysichthon, who departed this life childless; and Cecrops had daughters, Agraulus, Herse, and Pandrosus.[2] Agraulus had a daughter Alcippe by Ares. In attempting to violate Alcippe, Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon and a nymph Euryte, was detected and killed by Ares.[3] Impeached by Poseidon, Ares was tried in the Areopagus before the twelve gods, and was acquitted.[4] [p. 83]

[3] Herse had by Hermes a son Cephalus, whom Dawn loved and carried off,1 and consorting with him in Syria bore a son Tithonus, who had a son Phaethon,2 who had a son Astynous, who had a son Sandocus, who passed from Syria to Cilicia and founded a city Celenderis, and having married Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, begat Cinyras.3 This Cinyras in Cyprus, whither he had come with [p. 85] some people, founded Paphos; and having there married Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, he begat Oxyporus and Adonis,4 and besides them daughters, Orsedice, Laogore, and Braesia. These by reason of the wrath of Aphrodite cohabited with foreigners, and ended their life in Egypt.

4] . . . [on Adonis] . . .

5] When Cecrops died, Cranaus came to the throne1 ; he was a son of the soil, and it was in his time that the flood in the age of Deucalion is said to have taken place.2 He married a Lacedaemonian wife, Pedias, daughter of Mynes, and begat Cranae, Menaechme, and Atthis; and when Atthis died a maid, Cranaus called the country Atthis.3

[6] Κραναὸν δὲ ἐκβαλὼν Ἀμφικτύων ἐβασίλευσε: τοῦτον ἔνιοι μὲν Δευκαλίωνος, ἔνιοι δὲ αὐτόχθονα λέγουσι. βασιλεύσαντα δὲ αὐτὸν ἔτη δώδεκα Ἐριχθόνιος ἐκβάλλει. τοῦτον οἱ μὲν Ἡφαίστου καὶ τῆς Κραναοῦ θυγατρὸς Ἀτθίδος εἶναι λέγουσιν, οἱ δὲ Ἡφαίστου καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς, οὕτως: Ἀθηνᾶ παρεγένετο πρὸς Ἥφαιστον, ὅπλα κατασκευάσαι θέλουσα. ὁ δὲ ἐγκαταλελειμμένος ὑπὸ Ἀφροδίτης εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν ὤλισθε τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς, [p. 90] καὶ διώκειν αὐτὴν ἤρξατο: ἡ δὲ ἔφευγεν. ὡς δὲ ἐγγὺς αὐτῆς ἐγένετο πολλῇ ἀνάγκῃ ̔ἦν γὰρ χωλόσ̓, ἐπειρᾶτο συνελθεῖν. ἡ δὲ ὡς σώφρων καὶ παρθένος οὖσα οὐκ ἠνέσχετο: ὁ δὲ ἀπεσπέρμηνεν εἰς τὸ σκέλος τῆς θεᾶς. ἐκείνη δὲ μυσαχθεῖσα ἐρίῳ ἀπομάξασα τὸν γόνον εἰς γῆν ἔρριψε. φευγούσης δὲ αὐτῆς καὶ τῆς γονῆς εἰς γῆν πεσούσης Ἐριχθόνιος γίνεται. τοῦτον Ἀθηνᾶ κρύφα τῶν ἄλλων θεῶν ἔτρεφεν, ἀθάνατον θέλουσα ποιῆσαι: καὶ καταθεῖσα αὐτὸν εἰς κίστην Πανδρόσῳ τῇ Κέκροπος παρακατέθετο, ἀπειποῦσα τὴν κίστην ἀνοίγειν. αἱ δὲ ἀδελφαὶ τῆς Πανδρόσου ἀνοίγουσιν ὑπὸ περιεργίας, καὶ θεῶνται τῷ βρέφει παρεσπειραμένον δράκοντα: καὶ ὡς μὲν ἔνιοι λέγουσιν, ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ διεφθάρησαν τοῦ δράκοντος, ὡς δὲ ἔνιοι, δι’ ὀργὴν Ἀθηνᾶς ἐμμανεῖς γενόμεναι κατὰ τῆς ἀκροπόλεως αὑτὰς ἔρριψαν. ἐν δὲ τῷ τεμένει τραφεὶς Ἐριχθόνιος [p. 92] ὑπ’ αὐτῆς Ἀθηνᾶς, ἐκβαλὼν Ἀμφικτύονα ἐβασίλευσεν Ἀθηνῶν, καὶ τὸ ἐν ἀκροπόλει ξόανον τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ἱδρύσατο, καὶ τῶν Παναθηναίων τὴν ἑορτὴν συνεστήσατο, καὶ Πραξιθέαν νηίδα [p. 94] νύμφην ἔγημεν, ἐξ ἧς αὐτῷ παῖς Πανδίων ἐγεννήθη.

[6] Cranaus was expelled by Amphictyon, who reigned in his stead;[5] some say that Amphictyon was a son of Deucalion, others that he was a son of the soil; and when he had reigned twelve years he was expelled by Erichthonius.[6] Some say that this Erichthonius was a son of Hephaestus and Atthis, daughter of Cranaus, and some that he was a son of Hephaestus and Athena, as follows: Athena came to Hephaestus, desirous of fashioning arms. But he, being forsaken by Aphrodite, fell in love with Athena, and began to pursue [p. 91] her; but she fled. When he got near her with much ado ( for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her; but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he dropped his seed on the leg of the goddess. In disgust, she wiped off the seed with wool and threw it on the ground; and as she fled and the seed fell on the ground, Erichthonius was produced.[7] Him Athena brought up unknown to the other gods, wishing to make him immortal; and having put him in a chest, she committed it to Pandrosus, daughter of Cecrops, forbidding her to open the chest. But the sisters of Pandrosus opened it out of curiosity, and beheld a serpent coiled about the babe; and, as some say, they were destroyed by the serpent, but according to others they were driven mad by reason of the anger of Athena and threw themselves down from the acropolis.[8] Having been brought up by Athena [p. 93] herself in the precinct,[9] Erichthonius expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens; and he set up the wooden image of Athena in the acropolis,[10] and instituted the festival of the Panathenaea,[11] and [p. 95] married Praxithea, a Naiad nymph, by whom he had a son Pandion.

[Translation and notes by J. G. Frazer; text and translation from Perseus.]

43. Pausanias 1.2.6

[6] τὴν δὲ βασιλείαν Ἀμφικτύων ἔσχεν οὕτως. Ἀκταῖον λέγουσιν ἐν τῇ νῦν Ἀττικῇ βασιλεῦσαι πρῶτον: ἀποθανόντος δὲ Ἀκταίου Κέκροψ ἐκδέχεται τὴν ἀρχὴν θυγατρὶ συνοικῶν Ἀκταίου, καί οἱ γίνονται θυγατέρες μὲν Ἕρση καὶ Ἄγλαυρος καὶ Πάνδροσος, υἱὸς δὲ Ἐρυσίχθων: οὗτος οὐκ ἐβασίλευσεν Ἀθηναίων, ἀλλά οἱ τοῦ πατρὸς ζῶντος τελευτῆσαι συνέβη, καὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν τὴν Κέκροπος Κραναὸς ἐξεδέξατο, Ἀθηναίων δυνάμει προύχων. Κραναῷ δὲ θυγατέρας καὶ ἄλλας καὶ Ἀτθίδα γενέσθαι λέγουσιν: ἀπὸ ταύτης ὀνομάζουσιν Ἀττικὴν τὴν χώραν, πρότερον καλουμένην Ἀκταίαν. Κραναῷ δὲ Ἀμφικτύων ἐπαναστάς, θυγατέρα ὅμως ἔχων αὐτοῦ, παύει τῆς ἀρχῆς: καὶ αὐτὸς ὕστερον ὑπὸ Ἐριχθονίου καὶ τῶν συνεπαναστάντων ἐκπίπτει: πατέρα δὲ Ἐριχθονίῳ λέγουσιν ἀνθρώπων μὲν οὐδένα εἶναι, γονέας δὲ Ἥφαιστον καὶ Γῆν.

[6] Amphictyon won the kingdom thus. It is said that Actaeus was the first king of what is now Attica. When he died, Cecrops, the son-in-law of Actaeus, received the kingdom, and there were born to him daughters, Herse, Aglaurus and Pandrosus, and a son Erysichthon. This son did not become king of the Athenians, but happened to die while his father lived, and the kingdom of Cecrops fell to Cranaus, the most powerful of the Athenians. They say that Cranaus had daughters, and among them Atthis; and from her they call the country Attica, which before was named Actaea. And Amphictyon, rising up against Cranaus, although he had his daughter to wife, deposed him from power. Afterwards he himself was banished by Erichthonius and his fellow rebels. Men say that Erichthonius had no human father, but that his parents were Hephaestus and Earth.

[Trans. and notes by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod; text and translation from Perseus. Pausanias lived in the 2nd century AD.]

44. Pausanias 1.18.2

[2] ὑπὲρ δὲ τῶν Διοσκούρων τὸ ἱερὸν Ἀγλαύρου τέμενός ἐστιν. Ἀγλαύρῳ δὲ καὶ ταῖς ἀδελφαῖς Ἕρσῃ καὶ Πανδρόσῳ δοῦναί φασιν Ἀθηνᾶν Ἐριχθόνιον καταθεῖσαν ἐς κιβωτόν, ἀπειποῦσαν ἐς τὴν παρακαταθήκην μὴ πολυπραγμονεῖν: Πάνδροσον μὲν δὴ λέγουσι πείθεσθαι, τὰς δὲ δύο--ἀνοῖξαι γὰρ σφᾶς τὴν κιβωτόν--μαίνεσθαί τε, ὡς εἶδον τὸν Ἐριχθόνιον, καὶ κατὰ τῆς ἀκροπόλεως, ἔνθα ἦν μάλιστα ἀπότομον, αὑτὰς ῥῖψαι. κατὰ τοῦτο ἐπαναβάντες Μῆδοι κατεφόνευσαν Ἀθηναίων τοὺς πλέον τι ἐς τὸν χρησμὸν ἢ Θεμιστοκλῆς εἰδέναι νομίζοντας+ καὶ τὴν ἀκρόπολιν ξύλοις καὶ σταυροῖς ἀποτειχίσαντας.

XVIII. The sanctuary of the Dioscuri is ancient. They them selves are represented as standing, while their sons are seated on horses. Here Polygnotus has painted the marriage of the daughters of Leucippus, was a part of the gods’ history, but Micon those who sailed with Jason to the Colchians, and he has concentrated his attention upon Acastus and his horses.

[2] Above the sanctuary of the Dioscuri is a sacred enclosure of Aglaurus. It was to Aglaurus and her sisters, Herse and Pandrosus, that they say Athena gave Erichthonius, whom she had hidden in a chest, forbidding them to pry curiously into what was entrusted to their charge. Pandrosus, they say, obeyed, but the other two (for they opened the chest) went mad when they saw Erichthonius, and threw themselves down the steepest part of the Acropolis. Here it was that the Persians climbed and killed the Athenians who thought that they understood the oracle[12] better than did Themistocles, and fortified the Acropolis with logs and stakes.[13]

[Trans. and notes by W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod; text and translation from Perseus.]

45. Pausanias 1.27.3

Τῷ ναῷ δὲ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς Πανδρόσου ναὸς συνεχής ἐστι· καὶ ἔστι Πάνδροσος ἐς τὴν παρακαταθήκην ἀναίτιος τῶν ἀδελφῶν μόνη.

Adjoining the temple of Athena is the temple of Pandrosus, the only one of the sisters to be faithful to the trust.

[Trans. and text from W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod, LCL.]

46. Pausanias 1.38.3

XXXVIII. The streams called Rheiti are rivers only in so far as they are currents, for their water is sea water. It is a reasonable belief that they flow beneath the ground from the Euripus of the Chalcidians, and fall into a sea of a lower level. They are said to be sacred to the Maid and to Demeter, and only the priests of these goddesses are permitted to catch the fish in them. Anciently, I learn, these streams were the boundaries between the land of the Eleusinians and that of the other Athenians,

[2] and the first to dwell on the other side of the Rheiti was Crocon, where at the present day is what is called the palace of Crocon. This Crocon the Athenians say married Saesara, daughter of Celeus. Not all of them say this, but only those who belong to the parish of Scambonidae. I could not find the grave of Crocon, but Eleusinians and Athenians agreed in identifying the tomb of Eumolpus. This Eumolpus they say came from Thrace, being the son of Poseidon and Chione. Chione they say was the daughter of the wind Boreas and of Oreithyia. Homer says nothing about the family of Eumolpus, but in his poems styles him “manly.”

[3] When the Eleusinians fought with the Athenians, Erechtheus, king of the Athenians, was killed, as was also Immaradus, son of Eumolpus. These were the terms on which they concluded the war: the Eleusinians were to have in dependent control of the mysteries, but in all things else were to be subject to the Athenians. The ministers of the Two Goddesses were Eumolpus and the daughters of Celeus, whom Pamphos and Homer agree in naming Diogenia, Pammerope, and the third Saesara. Eumolpus was survived by Ceryx, the younger of his sons whom the Ceryces themselves say was a son of Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops, and of Hermes, not of Eumolpus.

47. Lactantius Placidus Narrationes Fabularum ii, 12

Athenis virgines per sollemne sacrificium canistris Minervae ferunt pigmenta: inter quas a Mercurio eminens specie conspecta est Herse Cecropis filia. Itaque adgressus est sororem eius Aglauron, precatusque, ut se Hersae sorori suae iungeret. At illa cum pro ministerio aurum eum poposcisset, Minerva graviter offensa est avaritia eius, ob quam cistulam etiam traditam sororibus eius custodiendam adversus suum praedictum aperuisset: Invidiae novissime imperavit eam sororis Herses exacerbare fortunio : diuque excruciatam saxo mutavit.

At Athens maidens carried color materials [pigmenta] in baskets in a sacred rite in honor of Minerva. Among these, distinguished by her striking appearance, Herse, the daughter of Cecrops, was seen by Mercury. Accordingly he approached her sister, Aglaurus, and begged her to bring him to Herse. But Aglaurus demanded gold for her service and Minerva was greatly offended at her avarice, on account of which she had also opened the little box entrusted to the care of her sisters and, moreover, had done this aginst the express command of the goddess . . . So Minerva, having tortured her, turned her into a rock.

[Trans. and text from Powell, Erichtonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, who believes pigmenta should be emended to figmenta. Cf. Ovid, above. ]

48. Athenagoras A Plea for the Christians 1

καὶ Ἀγραύλῳ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ τελετὰς καὶ μυστήρια ἄγουσι καὶ Πανδρόσῳ, αἳ ἐνομίσθησαν ἀσεβεῖν ἀνοίξασαι τὴν λάρνακα.

And the Athenians carried out initiations and mystery rites for Agraulos and Pandrosos, whom they thought had been impious when they opened the box.

[My trans. Text from Powell, Erichtonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, #27. Athenagoras lived c. the 2nd half of the 2nd century AD.]

49. Pollux Onomasticon s.v. peripoloi

ὤμνυον ἐν Ἀγραύλου.

They [the ephebes] would take the oath in the temple of Agraulos.

[The oath of the ephebes follows, see #1 above. My trans. Text from Eric Bethe, ed., Pollvcis Onomasticon (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1967).]

50. Scholion on Aristophanes Thesmophoriazousae 533

κατὰ τῆς Ἀγραύλου ὤμνυον· κατὰ δὲ τῆς Πανδρόσου σπανιώτερον. κατὰ δὲ τῆς Ἔρσης οὐχ εὑρήκαμεν.

For they would swear by Agraulos; and by Pandrosos more rarely. But I have not found that they swear by Herse.

[My trans. Text from Powell, Erichtonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, #116.]

51. Scholiast on Aristides (Panathenaicus 85 (119)):

μηκυνομένου δὲ τοῦ πολέμου, ἔχρησεν ὁ θεὸς, Ερεχθέα θῦσαι τὴν θυγατέρα Ἄργραυλον. καὶ τούτου γενομένου, ἔδοξεν Ευμόλπῳ καταλῦσαι τὴν ἔχθραν. . . . ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι Ἔργα καὶ Πανδρόσα, αἱ τῆς Ἀγραύλου ἀδελφαὶ, συνανεῖλον ἑαυτὰς τῇ ἀδελφῇ· ὅρκῳ γὰρ πρόσθεν ἑαυτὰς κατέλαβον κοινωνεῖν ἐν ἅπασι ταύτῃ. AC

And when the war [between Eumolpos of Eleusis and Erechtheus of Athens]was dragging out, the god gave an oracle to Erechtheus that he should sacrifice his daughter Agraulos. And when this took place, it seemed best for Eumolpos to end the war. . . . One should note that Erga [Herse] and Pandrosa [Pandrosos], the sisters of Agraulos, killed themselves with their sister. For previously they had bound themselves with an oath to have a common fate with her in all things.

[My trans. Text from G. Dindorf, ed., Aristides Ex Recensione (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1964, orig. Leipzig 1829), 3.110, see also p. 112, where the sisters are Ἔρσα and Πανδρόση. This is a clear confusion of the Hyacinthides (daughters of Erechtheus) and Aglauros and her sisters (daughters of Cecrops). See Powell, Erichtonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, p. 31; Emily Kearns, The Heroes of Attica (BICS Suppl. 57) (London 1989), 59-63. Artistides Aelius lived c. 117-181.]

52. Hesychius s.v. Aglauros

Θυγάτηρ Κέκροπος. παρὰ δὲ Ἀττικοῖς καὶ ὀμνύουσιν κατ’ αὐτῆς. ἦν δὲ ἱέρεια τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς.

Daughter of Cecrops. And the inhabitants of Attica swear by her. And she was a priestess of Athena.

[My trans. Text from Powell, Erichtonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, #117. Hesychius fl. c. 5th century AD.]

53. Hesychius, s.v. Plunētēria

Πλυντήρια· ἑορτὴ Ἀθήνῃσιν, ἣν ἐπὶ τῇ Ἀγραύλου τῆς Κέκροπος θυγατρὸς τιμῇ ἄγουσιν.

Plunteria: festival for the Athenians, which they perform to honor Agraulos, daughter of Cecrops.

[My trans. Text from Powell, Erichtonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, #168.]

54. Fulgentius Mythologiae ii i4

De Vulcano et Minerva.

Vulcanus cum Iovi fulmen efficeret, ab Iove promissum accepit, ut quidquid vellet praesumeret. Ille Minervam in coniugium petivit. Iupiter imperavit, ut Minerva armis virginitatem defendisset. Dumque cubiculum introirent, certando Vulcanus semen in pavimentum eiecit, unde natus est Erichthonius. eris enim Graece certamen dicitur, khthōn khthonos vero terra nuncupatur: quem Minerva in cistam abscondidit, draconeque custode adposito, duabus sororibus Aglauro et Pandorae commendavit, qui primus currum reperit. Vulcanum dici voluerunt, quasi furiae ignem unde et Vulcanus dicitur, veluti voluntatis calor. Denique Iovi fulgura facit, id est, furorem concitat. Ideo vero cum Minervae coniungi voluerunt, quod furor etiam sapientibus subrepat. Illa vero armis virginitatem defendit: hoc est, omnis sapientia integritatem suorum morum contra furiam virtute animi vindicat. Unde quidem Erichthonius nascitur: eris enim Graece certamen dicitur, khthōn vero non solum terra, quantum etiam invidia dici potest. Unde et Thales Milesius ait: ō khthōn doxēs kosmikēs sterēsis, id est, invidia mundanae gloriae consumptio. Et quiduam aluid subripiens furor sapientiae generare poterat, nisi certamen invidiae? Quod quidem sapientia, id est, Minerva, abscondidit in cista, id est in corde celat. Omnis enim sapiens, furorem suum in corde celat. Ergo Minerva draconem custodem adponit, id est perniciem: quem quidem duabus commendat virginibus, id est Aglauro et Pandorae. Pandora enim universale dicitur munus. Aglauro vero, quasi akholēthon, id est tristitiae oblivio. Sapiens enim dolorem suum aut benignitati commendat, quae omnium munus est: aut oblivioni, sicut de Caesare dictum est: Qui oblivisci nihil amplius soles, quam iniurias. Denique cum Erichthonius adolesceret, quid invenisse dicitur? Nihilominus currum, ubi semper certamen est. Unde Vergilius: Primus Erichthonius currus, et quatuor ausus iungere equos. Inspicite, quantum valeat cum sapientia iuncta castitas, cui flammarum non praevaluit deus.

When Vulcan created lightning for Jupiter, he received a promise from Jupiter, that he should receive whatever he wanted. He asked for the hand of Minerva in marriage. Jupiter ordered that Minerva should defend her virginity with weapons. And while they were entering the marriage chamber, because of Minerva’s armed resistance, Vulcan ejected his seed onto the ground, from which Erichthonius was born . . . whom Minerva hid in a box, and when she had placed a snake as his guardian, she entrusted him, who first discovered the chariot, to two sisters, Aglauros and Pandora . . .

[My trans. Text from Powell, Erichtonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, #19. Fulgentius is dated to the fifth century AD.]

55. Photius Lexicon s. v. Kalluntēria kai pluntēria, p. 127

καλλυντήρια καὶ πλυντήρια· ἑορτῶν ὀνόματα· γίνονται μὲν αὗται Θαργηλιῶνος μηνός, ἐνάτῃ μὲν ἐπὶ δέκα καλλυντήρια, δευτέρᾳ δὲ φθίνοντος τὰ πλυντήρια· τὰ μὲν πλυντήριά φησι διὰ (τὸ μετὰ) τὸν θάνατον τῆς Ἀγραύλου ἐντὸς ἐνιαυτοῦ μὴ πλυνθῆναι (τὰς ἱερας) ἐσθῆτας· εἶθ’ οὕτω πλυθείσας τὴν ὀνομασίαν λαβεῖν ταύτην· τὰ δὲ καλλυντήρια, ὅτι πρώτη δοκεῖ ἡ Ἄγραυλος γενομένη ἱέρεια τοὺς θεοὺς κοσμῆσαι· διὸ καὶ καλλυντήρια αὐτῇ ἀπέδειξαν· καὶ γὰρ τὸ (καλλύνειν) κοσμεῖν καὶ λαμπρύνειν ἐστίν.

Kallunteria and Plunteria. Names of festivals. These are of the month Thargelion, the Kallunteria on the 19th [?], and the Plunteria the second from the last day of the month [?]. They say that the Plunteria, because [after] the death of Agraulos within the year [?] the [sacred] clothing was not washed, then thus [?] when it was washed, took this name. And the Kallunteria, because it seems that Agraulos was the first priestess to adorn the gods. Because of this, they assigned the Kallunteria to her; for [beautifying (kallunein)] is adorning and making brilliant.

[My trans. Text from S. A. Naber edition of Photius’ Lexicon (Leiden: Brill, 1964). “They say” from Harrison, “Mythological Studies,” p. 353. Naber has phēsi. Photius lived c. 820-891 AD.]

56. Bekker Anecdota Graeca 1.270, s.v. Kallion

Κάλλιον: δικαστήριον Ἀθήνῃσιν οὕτω καλούμενον ἀπὸ τοῦ καλλύνειν καὶ κοσμεῖν καὶ λαμπρύνειν. Ἄγραυλος γὰρ ἱέρεια πρώτη γενομένη, τοὺς θεοὺς ἐκόσμησε. πλυντήρια δὲ καλεῖται διὰ τὸ μετὰ τὸν θάνατον τῆς Ἀγραύλου ἑνὸς ἐνιαυτοῦ μὴ πλυθῆναι τὰς ἱερὰς ἐσθῆτας.

Kallion. Law court called thus by the Athenians from beautifying and ordering and making brilliant. For Agraulos, who became the first priestess, adorned the gods. And Plunteria receives its name because after the death of Agraulos in the first year the sacred clothing was not washed.

[My trans. Text from Bekker.]

57. Bekker Anecdota Graeca 1.239, s.v. Deipnophoros

Δειπνοφόρος· ἑορτῆς ὄνομα. δειπνοφορία γάρ ἐστι τὸ φέρειν δεῖπνα ταῖς Κέκροπος θυγατράσιν Ἕρσῃ καὶ Πανδρόσῳ καὶ Ἀγραύλῳ. ἐφέρετο δὲ πολυτελῶς κατά τινα μυστικὸν λόγον. καὶ τοῦτο ἐποίουν οἱ πολλοί· φιλοτιμίας γὰρ εἴχετο. Φιλόχορος δέ φησι τὰς μητέρας τῶν δὶς ἑπτὰ παίδων, τῶν κατακλεισθέντων ἵνα πεμφθῶσι τῷ Μινωταύρῳ, πέμπειν καθ’ ἡμέραν αὐτοῖς δεῖπνον καὶ φοιτᾶν πρὸς αὐτούς, καὶ μετὰ τὴν ὑποστροφὴν ὥσπερ εὐχὴν ἀποδιδόντας ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ ἄγειν τοὺς παῖδας τὰ δεῖπνα, καλουμένους δειπνοφόρους.

Deipnophoros. The name of a festival. For the Deipnophoria is to bring feasts to the daughters of Cecrops, Herse and Pandrosos and Agraulos. They would bring the feast with great expense, according to a certain mystical formula. And many people would do this; for the rite was very prestigious. And Philochorus says that the mothers of the twice seven youths — who were obliged to be sent to the Minotaur — would send a feast to them every day and visit them, and after the return, as if they were giving thanks, in the festival they would bring feasts to the children, and were called “feast-bringers.”

[My trans. Text from Bekker.]

58. Porphyry De Abstinentia 2.54 = Eusebius Praeparatio Evangelica 4.16.2 (155c)

ἐν δὲ τῇ νῦν Σαλαμῖνι, πρότερον δὲ Κορωνίδι ὀνομαζομένῃ, μηνὶ κατὰ Κυπρίους Ἀφροδισίῳ ἐθύετο ἄνθρωπος τῇ Ἀγραύλῳ τῇ Κέκροπος καὶ νύμφης Ἀγραυλίδος. καὶ διέμενε τὸ ἔθος ἄχρι τῶν Διομήδους χρόνων· εἶτα μετέβαλεν, ὥστε τῷ Διομήδει τὸν ἄνθρωπον θύεσθαι” ὑφ’ ἕνα δὲ περίβονον ὅ τε τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς νεὼς καὶ ὁ τῆς Ἀγραύλου καὶ Διομήδους. ὁ δὲ σφαγιαζόμενος ὑπὸ τῶν ἐφήβων ἀγόμενος τρὶς περιθεῖ τὸν βωμόν· ἔπειτα ὁ ἱερεὺς αὐτὸν λόγχῃ ἔπαιεν κατὰ τοῦ στομάχου, καὶ οὕτως αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὴν νησθεῖσαν πυρὰν ὡλοκαύτιζεν.

And in what is now called Salamis, but formerly Coronia, in the month Aphrodisius according to the Cyprians, a man used to be sacrificed [ethueto] to Agraulos, the daughter of Cecrops and a nymph of Agraule. This custom continued until the times of Diomedes; then it changed, so that the man was sacrificed to Diomedes; and the shrine of Athena, and that of Agraulos and Diomedes are under one enclosure. The man to be sacrificed ran thrice round the altar, led by the youths: then the priest struck him in the throat with a spear, and so they offered him as a burnt-sacrifice [hōlokautizen] upon the pyre that was heaped up.

22 ‘But this ordinance was abolished by Diphilus, king of Cyprus, who lived in the times of Seleucus the theologian, and changed the custom into a sacrifice of an ox: and the daemon accepted the ox instead of a man; so little is the difference in value of the performance.

[Trans. E. H. Gifford from the Tertullian project, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/fathers/. Text from Powell #90, 93. Porphyry lived c. 232 -304 AD. Eusebius lived c. 275-339 AD.]

59. Eusebius De Laudibus Constantini 13.7 (p. 646b)

[See on Porphyry, above.]

60. The Suda, s.v. Aglauros

Ἄγλαυρος: ἡ θυγάτηρ Κέκροπος. ἔστι δὲ καὶ ἐπώνυμον Ἀθηνᾶς.

Aglauros: The daughter of Kekrops. It is also a cult-name of Athena.

[Trans. Roger Travis; translation and text from Suda Online, http://www.stoa.org/sol/. Note: From Harpokration s.v.]

61. The Suda, s.v. Areios pagos (Ἄρειος πάγος) = Hellanicus FGrH 4 F38 =

Also Areion teichos [“wall of Ares”] and Areiopagitês [“Areopagite”].[4]

[1] The text actually reads, ungrammatically, “in them”.

[3] Hellanicus FGrH 4 F38. For Halirrhothios see already alpha 1243.

[4] See already alpha 3824.

[Trans. Jennifer Benedict and David Whitehead, adapted; translation, text and notes from Suda Online, http://www.stoa.org/sol/.]

62. The Suda, s.v. Phoinikēia grammata = Skamon of Mytilene FGrH 476 F2.

Phoenician letters: Lydians and Ionians [call] the letters [thus] from their inventor Phoinix the son of Agenor; but Cretans disagree with them, [saying that] the name was derived from writing on palm leaves [phoinika]. But Skamon[1] in his second book on Discoveries [says] that they were named from Phoinike the daughter of Aktaion. Legend tells that this man had no male children, but had daughters Aglauros, Erse, and Pandrosos; Phoinike, however, died while still a virgin. For this reason Aktaion [called] the letters Phoenician, because he wanted to give some share of honor to his daughter.

[Trans. by Catharine Roth and David Whitehead; text and translation from Suda Online, http://www.stoa.org/sol/.

63. Stephanus Byzantius, s. v. Agraulē

Ἀγραυλή: δῆμος Ἀθήνησι τῆς Ἐρεχθηίδος φυλῆς. τινὲς δὲ Ἀγρυλὴ γράφουσιν ἄνευ τοῦ α, Ἀγρυλῆθεν. θέλει δὲ τὸ ᾱ ἀπὸ Ἀγραύλου τῆς Κέκροπος θυγατρός. τρεῖς δὲ ἦσαν, ἀπὸ τῶν αὐξόντων τοὺς καρποὺς ὠνομασμέναι, Πάνδροσος, Ἕρση, Ἄγραυλος.

Agraulē: deme of the Athenians of the tribe of Erechtheus. And some write Agrulē without the alpha, Agrulēthen. [?] And the long alpha derives [?] from Agraulos the daughter of Cecrops. And they were three, named from things causing fruit to grow, Pandrosos, Herse, Agraulos.

[My trans. Text from Powell #88.]

Selected Secondary Sources

Harrison, Jane. “Mythological Studies: I—The Three Daughters of Cecrops.” Journal of Hellenic Studies (1891): 350-355.

Powell, Benjamin. Erichthonius and the Three Daughters of Cecrops, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 17 (Cornell 1906).

Cook, Arthur Bernard. Zeus a Study in Ancient Religion, 3 vol. (Cambridge 1914-1940), vol. 3.1, pp. 237-238.

Kerényi, Karl. Jungfrau und Mutter der griechischen Religion: eine Studie über Pallas Athene (Zürich 1952). Athene: Virgin and Mother : a study of Pallas Athene, trans. Murray Stein (Zürich: Spring, 1978).

Burkert, Walter. “Kekropidensage und Arrhephoria.” Hermes 94 (1966): 1-25. Translation in Savage Energies: Lessons of Myth and Ritual in Ancient Greece, tr. Peter Bing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 37-63, as “The Legend of Kekrop’s Daughters and the Arrephoria: From Initiation Ritual to Panathenaic Festival.”

Schmidt, M. “Die Entdeckung des Erichthonios: Zu einer neuen Lekythos des Phialemalers und einem ungedeuteten Vasenbild,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung (1968): 200-212. (Not yet seen.)

Brelich, Angelo. Paides e Parthenoi (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1969), 229-302.

Merkelbach, R. “Aglauros (Die Religion der Epheben).” ZPE 9 (1972): 277-283.

Kron, Uta. Die zehn attischen Phylenheroen: Geschichte, Mythos, Kult und Darstellungen (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1976), 55-72.

Siewert, P. “The Ephebic Oath in Fifth-Century Athens.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 97 (1977): 102-111.

Loraux, Nicole. Les enfants d’Athéna: idées athéniennes sur la citoyenneté et la division des sexes (Paris, F. Maspero, 1981), 59. The Children of Athena: Athenian ideas about citizenship and the division between the sexes, trans. Caroline Levine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Shapiro, Harvey Alan. Art, Myth, and Culture: Greek Vases from Southern Collections (New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art, in conjunction with Tulane University, 1981), available at Perseus. See #4.

Dontas, George S. “The True Aglaureion.” Hesperia 52 (1983): 48–63.

Robertson, Noel. “The Riddle of the Arrhephoria at Athens.” HSCP 87 (1983): 241-288, 272-273.

Boedeker, Deborah. Descent from Heaven: Images of Dew in Greek Poetry and Religion (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984), ch. 5, Dew and Athenian Autochthony, 100-124.

Parker, R. “Myths of Early Athens.” In J. Bremmer, ed., Interpretations of Greek Mythology (London 1987), 195ff.

Kearns, Emily. The Heroes of Attica (BICS Suppl. 57) (London 1989), 23-27, 57-63, 139.

Larson, Jennifer. Greek Heroine Cults (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 102.

Kron, Uta. “Aglauros, Herse, Pandrosus,” in Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 8 vols. (Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1981-1999) 1.1:283-298.

Garrison, Elise P. “Suicidal Females in Greek and Roman Mythology: A Catalogue.” See Diotima, Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World, at http://www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/garrison_catalogue.shtml.

[1] solia ex auro et Rose / soleas aureas ex F solia aurea ex Mu (duce Sr)

[2] Compare Paus. 1.2.6; Hyginus, Fab. 146; Ov. Met. 2.737ff. All these writers call the first of the daughters Aglaurus instead of Agraulus, and the form Aglaurus is confirmed by inscriptions on two Greek vases (Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, vol. iv. p. 146, Nos. 7716, 7718).

[3] Compare Paus. 1.21.4; Stephanus Byzantius and Suidas, s.v. Ἄρειος πάγος in Bekker’s Anecdota Graeca, vol. i. p. 444, lines 8ff. From the three latter writers we learn that the story was told by the historians Philochorus and Hellanicus, whom Apollodorus may here be following.

[4] See Eur. Ion 1258ff.; Eur. IT 945ff.; Dem. 23.66; Marmor Parium 5ff.; Paus. 1.28.5; Scholiast on Eur. Or. 1648, 1651. The name Areopagus was commonly supposed to mean “the hill of Ares” and explained by the tradition that Ares was the first to be tried for murder before the august tribunal. But more probably, perhaps, the name meant “the hill of curses.” See Frazer, note on Pausanias. i.28.5 (vol. ii. pp. 363ff.). For other legendary or mythical trials in the court of the Areopagus, see below, Apollod. 3.15.1; Apollod. 3.15.9.

[5] Compare the Parian Chronicle, Marmor Parium 8-10; Paus. 1.2.6; Eusebius, Chronic. vol. ii. p. 30, ed. A. Schoene. The Parian Chronicle represents Amphictyon as a son of Deucalion and as reigning, first at Thermopylae, and then at Athens; but it records nothing as to his revolt against Cranaus. Pausanias says that Amphictyon deposed Cranaus, although he had the daughter of Cranaus to wife. Eusebius says that Amphictyon was a son of Deucalion and in-law of Cranaus.

[7] With this story of the birth of Erichthonius compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. 2.547 (who agrees to a great extent verbally with Apollodorus); Eur. Ion 20ff.; Eur. Ion 266ff.; Eratosthenes, Cat. 13; Nonnus, in Westermann’s Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum, 3, pp. 359ff.; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 111; Antigonus Carystius, Hist. Mirab. 12; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἐρεχθεύς, p. 371.29; Hyginus, Fab. 166; Hyginus, Ast. ii.13; Serv. Verg. G. 3.113; Fulgentius, Mytholog. ii.14; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. ii.17; Augustine, De civitate Dei xviii.12; Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea, p. 394, ed. Fr. Eyssenhardt (in his edition of Martianus Capella); Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 41, 86ff., 88 (First Vatican Mythographer 128; Second Vatican Mythographer 37, 40). The story of the birth of Erichthonius was told by Euripides, according to Eratosthenes, Cat. 13 and by Callimachus, according to the Scholiast on Hom. Il. 2.547. Pausanias was plainly acquainted with the fable, though he contents himself with saying that Erichthonius was reported to be a son of Hephaestus and Earth (Paus. 1.2.6; Paus. 1.14.6). As C. G. Heyne long ago observed, the story is clearly an etymological myth invented to explain the meaning of the name Erichthonius, which some people derived from ἔρις, “strife,” and χθών, the ground,” while others derived it from ἔριον, “wool,” and χθών, “the ground.” The former derivation of “eri” in Erichthonius seems to have been the more popular. Mythologists have perhaps not sufficiently reckoned with the extent to which false etymology has been operative in the creation of myths. “Disease of language” is one source of myths, though it is very far from being the only one.

[8] With this story of the discovery of Erichthonius in the chest compare Eur. Ion 20ff.; Eur. Ion 266ff.; Paus. 1.18.2; Antigonus Carystius, Hist. Mirab. 12; Ov. Met. 2.552ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 166; Hyginus, Ast. ii.13; Fulgentius, Mytholog. ii.14; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i.17; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 41, 86ff., 88 (First Vatican Mythographer 128; Second Vatican Mythographer 37, 40). Apollodorus apparently describes the infant Erichthonius in the chest as a purely human babe with a serpent coiled about him. The serpent was said to have been set by Athena to guard the infant; according to Eur. Ion 20ff., there were two such guardian serpents. But according to a common tradition Erichthonius was serpent-footed, that is, his legs ended in serpents. See Nonnus, in Westermann’s Mythographi Graeci, Appendix Narrationum 3, p. 360; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἐρεχθεύς, p. 371.47; Hyginus, Fab. 166; Serv. Verg. A. 3.113; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 41, 87 (First Vatican Mythographer 128, Second Vatican Mythographer 37). Indeed, in one passage (Astronom. ii.13) Hyginus affirms that Erichthonius was born a serpent, and that when the box was opened and the maidens saw the serpent in it, they went mad and threw themselves from the acropolis, while the serpent took refuge under the shield of Athena and was reared by the goddess. This view of the identity of Erichthonius with the serpent was recognized, if not accepted, by Pausanias; for in describing the famous statue of the Virgin Athena on the acropolis of Athens, he notices the serpent coiled at her feet behind the shield, and adds that the serpent “may be Erichthonius” (Paus. 1.24.7). The sacred serpent which lived in the Erechtheum on the acropolis of Athens and was fed with honey-cakes once a month, may have been Erichthonius himself in his original form of a worshipful serpent. See Hdt. 8.41; Aristoph. Lys. 758ff., with the Scholiast; Plut. Them. 10; Philostratus, Im. ii.17.6; Hesychius, s.vv. δράκαυλος and οἰκουρὸν ὄφιν; Suidas, s.v. Δράκαυλος; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. δράκαυλος, p. 287; Photius, Lexicon, s.v. οἰκουρὸν ὄφιν; Eustathius on Hom. Od. i.357, p. 1422, lines 7ff. According to some, there were two such sacred serpents in the Erechtheum (Hesychius, s.v. οἰκουρὸν ὄφιν). When we remember that Cecrops, the ancestor of Erichthonius, was said, like his descendant, to be half-man, half-serpent (above, Apollod. 3.14.1), we may conjecture that the old kings of Athens claimed kinship with the sacred serpents on the acropolis, into which they may have professed to transmigrate at death. Compare The Dying God, pp. 86ff.; and Frazer on Paus. 1.18.2 (vol. ii. pp. 168ff.). The Erechtheids, or descendants of Erechtheus, by whom are meant the Athenians in general, used to put golden serpents round the necks or bodies of their infants, nominally in memory of the serpents which guarded the infant Erechthonius, but probably in reality as amulets to protect the children. See Eur. Ion 20-26, Eur. Ion 1426-1431. Erechtheus and Erichthonius may have been originally identical. See Scholiast on Hom. Il. 2.547; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Ἐρεχθεύς, p. 371.29; C. F. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 61 note (n).

[9] “The precinct” is the Erechtheum on the acropolis of Athens. It was in the Erechtheum that the sacred serpent dwelt, which seems to have been originally identical with Erichthonius. See the preceding note.

[10] That is, the ancient image of Athena, made of olive-wood, which stood in the Erechtheum. See my note on Paus. 1.26.6 (vol. ii. pp. 340ff.).

[11] Compare the Parian Chronicle, Marmor Parium 18; Harpocration, s.v. Παναθήναια; Eratosthenes, Cat. 13; Hyginus, Ast. ii.13, who says that Erichthonius competed at the games in a four-horse car. Indeed, Erichthonius was reputed to have invented the chariot, or, at all events, the four-horse chariot. See the Parian Chronicle, Marmor Parium 18, 21; Eusebius, Chronic. vol. ii. p. 32, ed. A. Schoene; Verg. G. 3.113ff.; Fulgentius, Mytholog. ii.14. According to some, he invented the chariot for the purpose of concealing his serpent feet. See Serv. Verg. G. 3.113; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 41, 87 (First Vatican Mythographer 127; Second Vatican Mythographer 37). The institution of the Panathenaic festival was by some attributed to Theseus (Plut. Thes. 24), but the Parian Chronicle (Marmor Parium 18), in agreement with Apollodorus, ascribes it to Erichthonius; and from Harpocration, s.v. Παναθήναια we learn that this ascription was supported by the authority of the historians Hellanicus and Androtion in their works on Attica. Here, therefore, as usual, Apollodorus seems to have drawn on the best sources.

[12] That the Athenians were to trust their “wooden walls,” i.e. their ships.