Erechtheus
（
Ἐρεχθεύς). A mythical king of Athens. According to Homer
(
Il. ii. 547, etc.;
Odyss. vii. 81), he was the son of
Earth by Hephaestus, and was reared by Athené. Like that of Cecrops, half of his
form was that of a snake— a sign that he was one of the aborigines.
Athené put the child in a chest, which she gave to the daughters of
Cecrops—Agraulos, Hersé, and Pandrosos—to take care of,
forbidding them at the same time to open it (Hygin.
Poet. Astr. ii. 13). The
first two disobeyed, and in terror at the serpent-shaped child (or, according to another
version, the snake that surrounded the child), they went mad, and threw themselves from the
rocks of the Acropolis. Another account made the serpent kill them. Erechtheus drove out
Amphictyon, and got possession of the kingdom. He then established the worship of
Athené, and built to her, as goddess of the city (
Πολιάς), a temple, named after him the Erechtheum. Here he was afterwards himself
worshipped with Athené and Poseidon. He was also the founder of the Panathenaic
festival. He was said to have invented the four-wheeled chariot, and to have been taken up to
heaven for this by Zeus, and set in the sky as the constellation of the Charioteer. His
daughters were Orithyia and Procris. (See
Boreas;
Cephalus.) Originally identified with
Erichthonius, he was in later times distinguished
from him, and was regarded as his grandson, and as son of Pandion and Zeuxippé. His
twin-brother was Butes, his sisters Procné and Philomela. The priestly office fell
to Butes, while Erechtheus assumed the functions of royalty. By Praxithea, the daughter of
Cephissus, he was father of the second Cecrops (see
Pandion, 2), of Metion (see
Daedalus), of
Creüsa (see
Ion), as well as of Protogenia,
Pandora, and Chthonia. When Athens was hard pressed by the Eleusinians under Eumolpus, the
oracle promised him the victory if he would sacrifice one of his daughters. He chose the
youngest, Chthonia; but Protogenia and Pandora, who had made a vow with their sister to die
with her, voluntarily shared her fate. Erechtheus conquered his enemies and slew Eumolpus, but
was afterwards destroyed by the trident of his enemy's father, Poseidon. The myth of
Erechtheus has suggested the subject for Swinburne's tragedy
Erechtheus
(London, 1876).
