Cecrops married Agraulus, daughter of Actaeus, and had a son Erysichthon, who departed this life childless; and Cecrops had daughters, Agraulus, Herse, and Pandrosus.[*](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).) 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.[*](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.) Impeached by Poseidon, Ares was tried in the Areopagus before the twelve gods, and was acquitted.[*](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. 3.15.8.)
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Herse had by Hermes a son Cephalus, whom Dawn loved and carried off,[*](See above, Frazer on Apollod. 1.9.4, where Cephalus is said to have been a son of Deion by Diomede; compare Apollod. 2.4.7; Apollod. 3.15.1. Pausanias also calls Cephalus a son of Deion (Paus. 1.37.6; Paus. 10.29.6), and so does Ant. Lib. 41. The Scholiast on Hom. (Od. xi.321) calls his father Deioneus. Hyginus in two passages (Hyginus, Fab. 189, 270) describes Cephalus as a son of Deion, and in another passage (Hyginus, Fab. 160) as a son of Hermes (Mercury) by Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus. Euripides tells how “Dawn with her lovely light once snatched up Cephalus to the gods, all for love”( Eur. Hipp.454ff.).) and consorting with him in Syria bore a son Tithonus, who had a son Phaethon,[*](According to Hes. Th. 986ff. and Paus. 1.3.1, Phaethon was a son of Cephalus and the Dawn or Day. According to another and seemingly more usual account the father of Phaethon was the Sun. See Diod. 5.23; Paus. 1.4.1; Paus. 2.3.2; Lucian, Dial. Deorum xxv.1; Tzetzes, Chiliades iv.357ff.; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.325, p. 1689; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xvii.208; Ov. Met. 2.19ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 152, 156; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. i.221; Scholia in Caesaris Germanici Aratea, p. 421, ed. Fr. Eyssenhardt, in his edition of Martianus Capella; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 37, 93, 208 (First Vatican Mythographer 118; Second Vatican Mythographer 57; Third Vatican Mythographer iii.8.14); Serv. Verg. A. 10.189. The mother who bore him to the Sun is usually called Clymene (so Lucian, Tzetzes, Eustathius, Ovid, Hyginus, Lactantius Placidus, the Vatican mythographers, and Servius); but the Scholiast on Hom. Od. xvii.208 calls her Rhode, daughter of Asopus. Clymene herself, the mother of Phaethon, is said to have been a daughter of Ocean and Tethys (Tzetzes, Chiliades iv.359; Ov. Met. 2.156) or of Iphys or Minyas (Eustathius). Apollodorus passes over in silence the famous story how Phaethon borrowed the chariot of the Sun for a day, and driving too near the earth set it on fire, and how in his wild career he was struck dead by Zeus with a thunderbolt and fell into the river Eridanus, where his sisters mourned for him till they were turned into poplar trees, their tears being changed into drops of amber which exuded from the trees. The story is told at great length and with many picturesque details by Ovid, (Metamorph. ii.1ff.). Compare Lucretius v.396ff.; Diodorus Siculus, Lucian, the Scholiast on Homer, Hyginus, and the Latin Mythographers. Euripides wrote a tragedy on the subject, of which some considerable fragments survive. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 599ff. For some similar stories, see Frazer's Appendix on Apollodorus, “Phaethon and the Chariot of the Sun.”) 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.[*](According to Hyginus, Fab. 142, Cinyras was a son of Paphus.) This Cinyras in Cyprus, whither he had come with
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some people, founded Paphos; and having there married Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, he begat Oxyporus and Adonis,
[*](A different and apparently more prevalent tradition represented Adonis as the son of Cinyras by incestuous intercourse with his daughter Myrrha or Smyrna. See Scholiast on Theocritus i.107; Plut. Parallela 22; Ant. Lib. 34 (who, however, differs as to the name of Smyrna's father); Ov. Met. 10.298ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 58, 164; Fulgentius, Mytholog. iii.8; Lactantius Placidus, Narrat. Fabul. x.9; Serv. Verg. Ecl. 10.18, and Serv. Verg. A. 5.72; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 60 (First Vatican Mythographer 200). Similar cases of incest with a daughter are frequently reported of royal houses in antiquity. They perhaps originated in a rule of transmitting the crown through women instead of through men; for under such a rule a widowed king would be under a strong temptation to marry his own daughter as the only means of maintaining himself legitimately on the throne after the death of his wife. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed., i.43ff. The legend of the incestuous origin of Adonis is mentioned, on the authority of Panyasis, by Apollodorus himself a little lower down.) 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.
And Adonis, while still a boy, was wounded and killed in hunting by a boar through the anger of Artemis.[*](Compare Bion i; Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compendium 28; Plut. Quaest. Conviv. iv.5.3, 8; Athenaeus ii.80, p. 69 B; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 831; Aristides, Apology, ed. J. Rendel Harris (Cambridge, 1891), pp. 44, 106ff.; Prop. iii.4(5) 53ff., ed. F. A. Paley; Ov. Met. 10.710ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 248; Macrobius, Sat. i.21.4; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i.17; Firmicus Maternus, De errore profanarum religionum 9; Augustine, De civitate Dei vi.7. There are some grounds for thinking that formerly Adonis and his Babylonian prototype Tammuz were conceived in the form of a boar, and that the story of his death by a boar was only a misinterpretation of this older conception. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii.22f.; C. F. Burney, The Book of Judges (London, 1918), pp. xviiff., who refers to “the brilliant discovery of Ball (PSBA. xvi.1894, pp. 195ff.) that the Sumerian name of Tammuz, DUMU.ZI (Bab. Du' ûzu, Dûzu) is identical with the Turkish dōmūz ‘pig,’ and that there is thus an ‘original identity of the god with the wild boar that slays him in the developed legend.’” W. Robertson Smith, as Professor Burney points out, had many years ago expressed the view that “the Cyprian Adonis was originally the Swine-god, and in this as in many other cases the sacred victim has been changed by false interpretation into the enemy of the god” (Religion of the Semites, New Edition, London, 1894, p. 411, note). The view is confirmed by the observation that the worshippers of Adonis would seem to have abstained from eating swine's flesh. See W. W. Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun (Leipsig, 1911), p. 142, quoting SS. Cyri et Joannis Miracula, in Migne's Patrologia Graeca, lxxxvii.3, col. 3624.) Hesiod, however, affirms that he was a son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea; and Panyasis says that he was a son
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of Thias, king of Assyria,
[*](According to Ant. Lib. 34, Smyrna, the mother of Adonis, was a daughter of Belus by a nymph Orithyia. Tzetzes mentions, but afterwards rejects, the view that Myrrha, the mother of Adonis, was a daughter of Thias (Scholiast on Lycophron 829, 831). Hyginus says that Cinyras, the father of Adonis, was king of Assyria (Hyginus, Fab. 58). This traditional connexion of Adonis with Assyria may well be due to a well-founded belief that the religion of Adonis, though best known to the Greeks in Syria and Cyprus, had originated in Assyria or rather in Babylonia, where he was worshipped under the name of Dumuzi or Tammuz. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 3rd ed., i.6ff. ) who had a daughter Smyrna. In consequence of the wrath of Aphrodite, for she did not honor the goddess, this Smyrna conceived a passion for her father, and with the complicity of her nurse she shared her father's bed without his knowledge for twelve nights. But when he was aware of it, he drew his sword and pursued her, and being overtaken she prayed to the gods that she might be invisible; so the gods in compassion turned her into the tree which they call smyrna ( myrrh).
[*](As to the transformation of the mother of Adonis into a myrrh-tree, see Scholiast on Theocritus i.107; Plut. Parallela 22; Ant. Lib. 34; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 829; Ov. Met. 10.476ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 58, 164; Fulgentius, Mytholog. iii.8; Lactantius Placidus, Narrat. Fabul. x.9; Serv. Verg. Ecl. 10.18 and Aen. v.72; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 60 (First Vatican Mythographer 200). The drops of gum which oozed from the myrrh-tree were thought to be the tears shed by the transformed Myrrha for her sad fate (Ov. Met. 10.500ff.).) Ten months afterwards the tree burst and Adonis, as he is called, was born, whom for the sake of his beauty, while he was still an infant, Aphrodite hid in a chest unknown to the gods and entrusted to Persephone. But when Persephone beheld him, she would not give him back. The case being tried before Zeus, the year was divided into three parts, and the god ordained that Adonis should stay by himself for one part of the year, with Persephone for one part, and with Aphrodite for the remainder.
[*](According to another version of the story, Aphrodite and Persephone referred their dispute about Adonis to the judgment of Zeus, and he appointed the Muse Calliope to act as arbitrator between them. She decided that Adonis should spend half the year with each of them; but the decision so enraged Aphrodite that in revenge she instigated the Thracian women to rend in pieces Calliope's son, the musician Orpheus. See Hyginus, Ast. ii.6. A Scholiast on Theocritus (Id. iii.48) reports the common saying that the dead Adonis spends six months of the year in the arms of Persephone, and six months in the arms of Aphrodite; and he explains the saying as a mythical description of the corn, which after sowing is six months in the earth and six months above ground.) 89
However Adonis made over to Aphrodite his own share in addition; but afterwards in hunting he was gored and killed by a boar.
When Cecrops died, Cranaus came to the throne[*](Compare Paus. 1.2.6.); 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.[*](According to the Parian Chronicle (Marmor Parium 4-7), Deucalion reigned at Lycorea on Mount Parnassus, and when the flood, following on heavy rains, took place in that district, he fled for safety to king Cranaus at Athens, where he founded a sanctuary of Rainy Zeus and offered thank-offerings for his escape. Compare Eusebius, Chronic. vol. ii. p. 26, ed. A. Schoene. We have seen that, according to Apollod. 3.8.2, the flood happened in the reign of Nyctimus, king of Arcadia.) 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.[*](Compare Paus. 1.2.6; Eusebius, Chronic. vol. ii. p. 28, ed. A. Schoene.)
Cranaus was expelled by Amphictyon, who reigned in his stead;[*](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.) 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.[*](Compare Paus. 1.2.6.) 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
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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.
[*](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.) 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.
[*](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).) Having been brought up by Athena
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herself in the precinct,
[*](“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.) Erichthonius expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens; and he set up the wooden image of Athena in the acropolis,
[*](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.).) and instituted the festival of the Panathenaea,
[*](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.) and
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married Praxithea, a Naiad nymph, by whom he had a son Pandion.
When Erichthonius died and was buried in the same precinct of Athena,[*](Compare Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. iii.45, p. 39, ed. Potter, who gives a list of legendary or mythical personages who were said to have been buried in sanctuaries or temples. Amongst the instances which he cites are the graves of Cinyras and his descendants in the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Paphus, and the grave of Acrisius in the temple of Athena on the acropolis of Larissa. To these examples C. G. Heyne, commenting on the present passage of Apollodorus, adds the tomb of Castor in a sanctuary at Sparta (Paus. 3.13.1), the tomb of Hyacinth under the image of Apollo at Amyclae (Paus. 3.19.3), and the grave of Arcas in a temple of Hera at Mantinea (Paus. 8.9.3). “Arguing from these examples,” says Heyne, “some have tried to prove that the worship of the gods sprang from the honours paid to buried mortals.”) Pandion[*](Compare Paus. 1.5.3, who distinguishes two kings named Pandion, first, the son of Erichtonius, and, second, the son of Cecrops the Second. This distinction is accepted by Apollodorus (see below, Apollod. 3.15.5), and it is supported by the Parian Chronicle (Marmor Parium 22, 30). Eusebius also recognizes Pandion the Second, but makes him a son of Erechtheus instead of a son of Cecrops the Second (Eus. Chronic. bk. i. vol. i. col. 185, ed. A. Schoene). But like Cecrops the Second, son of Erectheus (below, Apollod. 3.15.5), Pandion the Second is probably no more than a chronological stopgap thrust into the broken framework of tradition by a comparatively late historian. Compare R. D. Hicks, in Companion to Greek Studies, ed. L. Whibley, 3rd. ed. (Cambridge, 1916), p. 76.) became king, in whose time Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica.[*](Here Apollodorus differs from the Parian Chronicle, which dates the advent of Demeter, not in the reign of Pandion, but in the reign of his son Erechtheus (Marmor Parium 23ff.). To the reign of Erechtheus the Parian Chronicle also refers the first sowing of corn by Triptolemus in the Rharian plain at Eleusis, and the first celebration of the mysteries by Eumolpus at Eleusis (Marmor Parium 23-29). Herein the Parian Chronicle seems to be in accord with the received Athenian tradition which dated the advent of Demeter, the beginning of agriculture, and the institution of the Eleusinian mysteries in the reign of Erechtheus. See Diod. 1.29.1-3. On the other hand, the Parian Chronicler dates the discovery of iron on the Cretan Mount Ida in the reign of Pandion the First (Marmor Parium 22ff.). He says nothing of the coming of Dionysus to Attica. The advent of Demeter and Dionysus is a mythical expression for the first cultivation of corn and vines in Attica; these important discoveries Attic tradition referred to the reigns either of Pandion the First or of his son Erechtheus.) But Demeter was welcomed by Celeus at Eleusis,[*](See above, Apollod. 1.5.1.) and
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Dionysus by Icarius, who received from him a branch of a vine and learned the process of making wine. And wishing to bestow the god's boons on men, Icarius went to some shepherds, who, having tasted the beverage and quaffed it copiously without water for the pleasure of it, imagined that they were bewitched and killed him; but by day
[*](The implication is that their wassailing had taken place by night. The Greek μεθʼ ἡμέραν regularly means “by day” as opposed to “by night”; it is not to be translated “the day after.” See Hdt. 2.150, οὐ νυκτὸς ἀλλὰ μετʼ ἡμέρην ποιεύμενον; Plat. Phaedrus 251d, ἐμμανὴς οὖσα οὔτε νυκτὸς δύναται καθεύδειν οὔτε μεθʼ ἡμέραν. Compare Apollod. 1.9.18, Apollod. 3.5.6 (νύκτωρ καὶ μεθʼ ἡμέραν), Apollod. 3.12.3; Apollod. E.4.5; Apollod. E.7.31 (μεθʼ ἡμέραν μὲν ὑφαίνουσα, νύκτωρ δὲ ἀναλύουσα.) ) they understood how it was and buried him. When his daughter Erigone was searching for her father, a domestic dog, named Maera, which had attended Icarius, discovered his dead body to her, and she bewailed her father and hanged herself.
[*](With this story of the first introduction of wine into Attica, and its fatal consequences, compare Scholiast on Hom. Il. 22.29; Ael., Var. Hist. vii.28; Nonnus, Dionys. xlvii.34-245; Hyginus, Fab. 130; Hyginus, Ast. ii.4; Statius, Theb. xi.644-647, with the comment of Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. v. 644; Serv. Verg. G. 2.389; Probus on Verg. G. 2.385; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 6, 94ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 19; Second Vatican Mythographer 61). The Athenians celebrated a curious festival of swinging, which was supposed to be an expiation for the death of Erigone, who had hanged herself on the same tree at the foot of which she had discovered the dead body of her father Icarius (Hyginus, Ast. ii.4). See Hesychius, s.v. Αἰώρα ; Etymologicum Magnum, s.v. Αἰώρα; ; Athenaeus xiv.10, p. 618 EF; Festus, s.v. “Oscillantes,” p. 194, ed. C. O. Muller. Compare The Dying God, pp. 281ff. However, some thought that the Erigone whose death was thus expiated was not the daughter of Icarius, but the daughter of Aegisthus, who accused Orestes at Athens of the murder of her father and hanged herself when he was acquitted (so Etymologicum Magnum, l.c.; compare Apollod. E.6.25 with the note). Sophocles wrote a play Erigone, but it is doubtful to which of the two Erigones it referred. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 173ff. The home of Icarius was at Icaria (Stephanus Byzantius, s.v. Ἰκαρία). From the description of Statius, Theb. xi.644-647 we infer that the place was in the woods of Marathon, and in accordance with this description the site has been discovered in a beautiful wooded dell at the northern foot of the forest-clad slopes of Mount Pentelicus. The place is still appropriately named Dionysos. A rugged precipitous path leads down a wild romantic ravine from the deserted village of Rapentosa to the plain of Marathon situated at a great depth below. Among the inscriptions found on the spot several refer to the worship of Dionysus. See Frazer, commentary on Pausanias, vol. ii. pp. 461ff., compare p. 442.) 99
Pandion married Zeuxippe, his mother's sister,[*](This tradition of marriage with a maternal aunt is remarkable. I do not remember to have met with another instance of such a marriage in Greek legend.) and begat two daughters, Procne and Philomela, and twin sons, Erechtheus and Butes. But war having broken out with Labdacus on a question of boundaries, he called in the help of Tereus, son of Ares, from Thrace, and having with his help brought the war to a successful close, he gave Tereus his own daughter Procne in marriage.[*](For the tragic story of Procne and Philomela, and their transformation into birds, see Zenobius, Cent. iii.14 (who, to a certain extent, agrees verbally with Apollodorus); Conon 31; Ach. Tat. 5.3, 5.5; Tzetzes, Chiliades vii.459ff.; Paus. 1.5.4; Paus. 1.41.8ff.; Paus. 10.4.8ff.; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xix.518, p. 1875; Hyginus, Fab. 45; Ov. Met. 6.426-674; Serv. Verg. Ecl. 6.78; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. v.120; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 2, 147 (First Vatican Mythographer 8; Second Vatican Mythographer 217). On this theme Sophocles composed a tragedy Tereus, from which most of the extant versions of the story are believed to be derived. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 221ff. However, the version of Hyginus differs from the rest in a number of particulars. For example, he represents Tereus as transformed into a hawk instead of into a hoopoe; but for this transformation he had the authority of Aesch. Supp. 60ff. Tereus is commonly said to have been a Thracian, and the scene of the tragedy is sometimes laid in Thrace. Ovid, who adopts this account, appears to have associated the murder of Itys with the frenzied rites of the Bacchanals, for he says that the crime was perpetrated at the time when the Thracian women were celebrating the biennial festival (sacra trieterica) of Dionysus, and that the two women disguised themselves as Bacchanals. On the other hand, Thuc. 2.29 definitely affirms that Tereus dwelt in Daulia, a district of Phocis, and that the tragedy took place in that country; at the same time he tells us that the population of the district was then Thracian. In this he is followed by Strab. 9.3.13, Zenobius, Conon, Pausanias, and Nonnus (Dionys. iv.320ff.). Thucydides supports his view by a reference to Greek poets, who called the nightingale the Daulian bird. The Megarians maintained that Tereus reigned at Pagae in Megaris, and they showed his grave in the form of a barrow, at which they sacrificed to him every year, using gravel in the sacrifice instead of barley groats (Paus. 1.41.8ff.). But no one who has seen the grey ruined walls and towers of Daulis, thickly mantled in ivy and holly-oak, on the summit of precipices that overhang a deep romantic glen at the foot of the towering slopes of Parnassus, will willingly consent to divest them of the legendary charm which Greek poetry and history have combined to throw over the lovely scene. It is said that, after being turned into birds, Procne and Tereus continued to utter the same cries which they had emitted at the moment of their transformation; the nightingale still fled warbling plaintively the name of her dead son, Itu! Itu! while the hoopoe still pursued his cruel wife crying, Poo! poo! (ποῦ, ποῦ, “Where? Where?”). The later Roman mythographers somewhat absurdly inverted the transformation of the two sisters, making Procne the swallow and the tongueless Philomela the songstress nightingale.) Tereus had by her a son Itys,
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and having fallen in love with Philomela, he seduced her also saying that Procne was dead, for he concealed her in the country. Afterwards he married Philomela and bedded with her, and cut out her tongue. But by weaving characters in a robe she revealed thereby to Procne her own sorrows. And having sought out her sister, Procne killed her son Itys, boiled him, served him up for supper to the unwitting Tereus, and fled with her sister in haste. When Tereus was aware of what had happened, he snatched up an axe and pursued them. And being overtaken at Daulia in Phocis, they prayed the gods to be turned into birds, and Procne became a nightingale, and Philomela a swallow. And Tereus also was changed into a bird and became a hoopoe.
When Pandion died, his sons divided their father's inheritance between them, and Erechtheus got the kingdom,[*](Erechtheus is recognized as the son of Pandion by the Parian Chronicle (Marmor Parium 28ff.), Eusebius, Chronic. vol. i. p. 186, ed. A. Schoene, Hyginus, Fab. 48 and Ov. Met. 6.675ff. According to Ov. Met. 6.675ff. Erechtheus had four sons and four daughters.) and Butes got the priesthood of Athena and Poseidon Erechtheus.[*](Compare Harpocration, s.v. Βούτης , who tells us that the families of the Butads and Eteobutads traced their origin to this Butes. There was an altar dedicated to him as to a hero in the Erechtheum on the acropolis of Athens (Paus. 1.26.5). Compare J. Toepffer, Attische Genealogie (Berlin, 1889), pp. 113ff. Erechtheus was identified with Poseidon at Athens (Hesychius, s.v. Ἐρεχθεύς ). The Athenians sacrificed to Erechtheus Poseidon (Athenagoras, Supplicatio pro Christianis 1). His priesthood was called the priesthood of Poseidon Erechtheus (Pseudo-Plutarch, x. Orat. Vit. Lycurgus 30, p. 1027, ed. Dubner; Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum iii.805; Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecorum(3) 790). An inscription found at the Erechtheum contains a dedication to Poseidon Erechtheus (Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum 387, vol. i). Hence we may conclude with great probability that Heyne is right in restoring Ἐρεχθέως for Ἐριχθονίου in the present passage of Apollodorus. See the Critical Note.) Erechtheus
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married Praxithea, daughter of Phrasimus by Diogenia, daughter of Cephisus, and had sons, to wit, Cecrops, Pandorus, and Metion; and daughters, to wit, Procris, Creusa, Chthonia, and Orithyia, who was carried off by Boreas.
[*](Orithyia is said to have been carried off by Boreas from the banks of the Ilissus, where she was dancing or gathering flowers with her playmates. An altar to Boreas marked the spot. See below, Apollod. 3.15.2; Plat. Phaedrus 229b-c; Paus. 1.19.5; Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.212ff., with the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.212, from whom we learn that the story was told by the poet Simonides and the early historian Pherecydes. Compare Ov. Met. 6.683ff. According to another account, Orithyia was seen and loved by Boreas as she was carrying a basket in a procession, which was winding up the slope of the acropolis to offer sacrifice to Athena Polias, the Guardian of the City; the impetuous lover whirled her away with him, invisible to the crowd and to the guards that surrounded the royal maidens. See Scholiast on Hom. Od. xiv.533, who refers to Aculiaus as his authority. A different tradition as to the parentage of Orithyia appears to be implied by a vase-painting, which represents Boreas carrying off Orithyia in the presence of Cecrops, Erechtheus, Aglaurus, Herse, and Pandrosus, all of whom are identified by inscriptions (Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, vol. iv. p. 146, No. 7716). The painting is interpreted most naturally by the supposition that in the artist's opinion Aglaurus, Herse, and Pandrosus, the three daughters of Cecrops (see above, Apollod. 3.14.2), were the sisters of Orithyia, and therefore that her father was Cecrops, and not Erechtheus, as Apollodorus, following the ordinary Greek tradition (Hdt. 7.189), assumes in the present passage. This inference is confirmed by an express statement of the Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.212 that Cecrops was the father of Orithyia. As to the vase-painting in question, see F. G. Welcker, Antike Denkmäler, iii.144ff.; Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, i.351ff. ) Chthonia was married to Butes,
[*](This is the third instance of marriage or betrothal with a niece, the daughter of a brother, which has met us in Apollodorus. See above, Apollod. 2.4.3; Apollod. 2.4.5. So many references to such a marriage seem to indicate a former practice of marrying a niece, the daughter of a brother.) Creusa to Xuthus,
[*](Compare Eur. Ion 57ff.; Paus. 7.1.2, where, however, Creusa is not named.) and Procris to Cephalus, son of Deion.
[*](The tragic story of Cephalus and Procris was told with variations in detail by ancient writers. See Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.321; Eustathius on Hom. Od. xi.321, p. 1688; Ant. Lib. 41; Tzetzes, Chiliades i.542ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 189; Ov. Met. 7.670-862; Serv. Verg. A. 6.445; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 16ff., 147 (First Vatican Mythographer 44; Second Vatican Mythographer 216). Of these writers, Tzetzes closely follows Apollodorus, whom he cites by name. They are the only two authors who mention the intrigue of Procris with Pteleus and the bribe of the golden crown. The story was told by Pherecydes, as we learn from the Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.321, who gives an abstract of the narrative. In it the test of his wife's chastity is made by Cephalus himself in disguise; nothing is said of the flight of the abashed Procris to Minos, and nothing of the love of Dawn (Aurora) for Cephalus, which in several of the versions figures conspicuously, since it is the jealous goddess who suggests to her human lover the idea of tempting his wife to her fall. The episode of Procris's flight to Minos is told with some differences of detail by Antoninus Liberalis. As to the dog which Procris received from Minos, see above, Apollod. 2.7.1. The animal's name was Laelaps (Ov. Met. 7.771; Hyginus, Fab. 189). According to Hyginus, Fab. 189, both the dog and the dart which could never miss were bestowed on Procris by Artemis (Diana). Sophocles wrote a tragedy Procris, of which antiquity has bequeathed to us four words. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 170ff. The accidental killing of Procris by her husband was a familiar, indeed trite, tale in Greece (Paus. 10.29.6).) Bribed by
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a golden crown, Procris admitted Pteleon to her bed, and being detected by Cephalus she fled to Minos. But he fell in love with her and tried to seduce her. Now if any woman had intercourse with Minos, it was impossible for her to escape with life; for because Minos cohabited with many women, Pasiphae bewitched him, and whenever he took another woman to his bed, he discharged wild beasts at her joints, and so the women perished.
[*](The danger which the women incurred, and the device by which Procris contrived to counteract it, are clearly explained by Ant. Lib. 41. According to him, the animals which Minos discharged from his body were snakes, scorpions, and millipeds.) But Minos had a swift dog and a dart that flew straight; and in return for these gifts Procris shared his bed, having first given him the Circaean root to drink that he might not harm her. But afterwards, fearing the wife of Minos, she came to Athens and being reconciled to Cephalus she went forth with him to the chase; for she was fond of hunting. As she was in pursuit of game in the thicket, Cephalus, not knowing she was there, threw a dart, hit and killed Procris, and, being tried in the Areopagus, was condemned to perpetual banishment.
[*](Compare Tzetzes, Chiliades i.552. After the homicide of his wife, Cephalus is said to have dwelt as an exile in Thebes (Paus. 1.37.6).) While Orithyia was playing by the Ilissus river, Boreas carried her off and had intercourse with her; and she bore daughters, Cleopatra and Chione, and winged sons, Zetes and Calais. These sons sailed
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with Jason
[*](See above, Apollod. 1.9.21; Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.211ff., ii.273ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xiv.533; Scholiast on Soph. Ant. 981; Hyginus, Fab. 14, pp. 42ff., ed. Bunte; Ov. Met. 6.711ff.; Serv. Verg. A. 3.209. According to Hyginus, their wings were attached to their feet, and their hair was sky-blue. Elsewhere (Hyginus, Fab. 19) he describes them with wings on their heads as well as on their feet. Ovid says that they were twins, and that they did not develop wings until their beards began to grow; according to him, the pinions sprouted from their sides in the usual way.) and met their end in chasing the Harpies; but according to Acusilaus, they were killed by Hercules in Tenos.
[*](This is the version adopted by Ap. Rhod., Argon. i.1298-1308, who tells us that when Zetes and Calais were returning from the funeral games of Pelias, Herakles killed them in Tenos because they had persuaded the Argonauts to leave him behind in Mysia; over their grave he heaped a barrow, and on the barrow he set up two pillars, one of which shook at every breath of the North Wind, the father of the two dead men. The slaughter of Zetes and Calais by Herakles is mentioned by Hyginus, Fab. 14, p. 43, ed. Bunte.) Cleopatra was married to Phineus, who had by her two sons, Plexippus and Pandion. When he had these sons by Cleopatra, he married Idaea, daughter of Dardanus. She falsely accused her stepsons to Phineus of corrupting her virtue, and Phineus, believing her, blinded them both.[*](See above, Apollod. 1.9.21. The story of Phineus and his sons is related by the Scholiast on Sophocles (Antigone, 981), referring to the present passage of Apollodorus as his authority. The tale was told by the ancients with many variations, some of which are noticed by the Scholiast on Sophocles (Antigone, 981). According to Soph. Ant. 969ff., it was not their father Phineus, but their cruel stepmother, who blinded the two young men, using her shuttle as a dagger. The names both of the stepmother and of her stepsons are variously given by our authorities. See further Diod. 4.43ff.; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xii.69 (who refers to Asclepiades as his authority); Scholiast on Ap. Rhod., Argon. ii.178; Hyginus, Fab. 19; Serv. Verg. A. 3.209; Scholiast on Ovid, Ibis 265, 271; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 9, 124 (First Vatican Mythographer 27; Second Vatican Mythographer 124). According to Phylarchus, Aesculapius restored the sight of the blinded youths for the sake of their mother Cleopatra, but was himself killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt for so doing. See Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos i.262, p. 658, ed. Bekker; compare Scholiast on Pind. P. 3.54(96); Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1. Both Aeschylus and Sophocles composed tragedies entitled Phineus. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 83, 284ff.; The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 311ff. ) But when the Argonauts sailed past with Boreas, they punished him.[*](Here Apollodorus departs from the usual tradition, followed by himself elsewhere (Apollod. 1.9.21), which affirmed that the Argonauts, instead of punishing Phineus, rendered him a great service by delivering him from the Harpies.)
Chione had connexion with Poseidon, and having
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given birth to Eumolpus
[*](With this account of the parentage of Eumolpus, compare Paus. 1.38.2; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 854; Hyginus, Fab. 157. Isoc. 4.68 agrees with Apollodorus in describing Eumolpus as a son of Poseidon, but does not name his mother. On the other hand the Parian Chronicle (Marmor Parium 27ff.) represents Eumolpus as a son of Musaeus, and says that he founded the mysteries of Eleusis. Apollodorus does not expressly attribute the institution of the mysteries to Eumolpus, but perhaps he implies it. Compare Apollod. 2.5.12. It seems to have been a common tradition that the mysteries of Eleusis were founded by the Thracian Eumolpus. See Plut. De exilio 17; Lucian, Demonax 34; Photius, Lexicon, s.v. Εὐμολπίδαι . But some people held that the Eumolpus who founded the mysteries was a different person from the Thracian Eumolpus; his mother, according to them, was Deiope, daughter of Triptolemus. Some of the ancients supposed that there were as many as three different legendary personages of the name of Eumolpus, and that the one who instituted the Eleusinian mysteries was descended in the fifth generation from the first Eumolpus. See Scholiast on Sophocles, Oedipus Colon. 1053; Photius, Lexicon, s.v. Εὐμολπίδαι . The story which Apollodorus here tells of the casting of Eumolpus into the sea, his rescue by Poseidon, and his upbringing in Ethiopia, appears not to be noticed by any other ancient writer.) unknown to her father, in order not to be detected, she flung the child into the deep. But Poseidon picked him up and conveyed him to Ethiopia, and gave him to Benthesicyme( a daughter of his own by Amphitrite) to bring up. When he was full grown, Benthesicyme's husband gave him one of his two daughters. But he tried to force his wife's sister, and being banished on that account, he went with his son Ismarus to Tegyrius, king of Thrace, who gave his daughter in marriage to Eumolpus's son. But being afterwards detected in a plot against Tegyrius, he fled to the Eleusinians and made friends with them. Later, on the death of Ismarus, he was sent for by Tegyrius and went, composed his old feud with him, and succeeded to the kingdom. And war having broken out between the Athenians and the Eleusinians, he was called in by the Eleusinians and fought on their side with a large
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force of Thracians.
[*](As to the war between the Athenians and the Eleusinians, see Paus. 1.5.2; Paus. 1.27.4; Paus. 1.31.3; Paus. 1.36.4; Paus. 1.38.3; Paus. 2.14.2; Paus. 7.1.5; Paus. 9.9.1; Alcidamas, Od. 23, p. 182, ed. Blass; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 854; Aristides, Or. xiii. vol. i. pp. 190ff., ed. Dindorf. Pausanias differs from Apollodorus and our other authorities in saying that in the battle it was not Eumolpus, but his son Ismarus or, as Pausanias calls him, Immaradus who fell by the hand of Erechtheus (Paus. 1.5.2, Paus. 1.27.4). According to Pausanias (Paus. 1.38.3), Erechtheus was himself slain in the battle, but Eumolpus survived it and was allowed to remain in Eleusis (Paus. 2.14.2). Further, Pausanias relates that in the war with Eleusis the Athenians offered the supreme command of their forces to the exiled Ion, and that he accepted it (Paus. 1.31.3; Paus. 2.14.2; Paus. 7.1.5); and with this account Strab. 8.7.1 substantially agrees. The war waged by Eumolpus on Athens is mentioned by Plat. Menex. 239b; Isoc. 4.68, Isoc. 12.193; Dem. 60.8; and Plut. Parallela 31. According to Isocrates, Eumolpus claimed the kingdom of Athens against Erechtheus on the ground that his father Poseidon had gained possession of the country before Athena.) When Erechtheus inquired of the oracle how the Athenians might be victorious, the god answered that they would win the war if he would slaughter one of his daughters; and when he slaughtered his youngest, the others also slaughtered themselves; for, as some said, they had taken an oath among themselves to perish together.
[*](Compare Lyc. 1.98ff.; Plut. Parallela 20; Suidas, s.v. παρθένοι ; Apostolius, Cent. xiv.7; Aristides, Or. xiii. vol. i. p. 191, ed. Dindorf; Cicero, Pro Sestio xxi.48; Cicero, Tusculan. Disput. i.48.116; Cicero, De natura deorum iii.19.50; Cicero, De finibus v.22.62; Hyginus, Fab. 46. According to Suidas and Apostolius, out of the six daughters of Erechtheus only the two eldest, Protogonia and Pandora, offered themselves for the sacrifice. According to Eur. Ion 277-280, the youngest of the sisters, Creusa, was spared because she was an infant in arms. Aristides speaks of the sacrifice of one daughter only. Cicero says (Cicero, De natura deorum iii.19.50) that on account of this sacrifice Erechtheus and his daughters were reckoned among the gods at Athens. “Sober,” that is, wineless, sacrifices were offered after their death to the daughters of Erechtheus. See Scholiast on Soph. OC 100. The heroic sacrifice of the maidens was celebrated by Euripides in his tragedy Erechtheus, from which a long passage is quoted by Lyc. 1.100. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 464ff. ) In the battle which took place after the slaughter, Erechtheus killed Eumolpus.
But Poseidon having destroyed Erechtheus[*](According to Hyginus, Fab. 46, Zeus killed Erechtheus with a thunderbolt at the request of Poseidon, who was enraged at the Athenians for killing his son Eumolpus.) and his house, Cecrops, the eldest of the sons of Erechtheus, succeeded to the throne.[*](Compare Paus. 1.5.3; Paus. 7.1.2.) He married Metiadusa, daughter of Eupalamus, and begat Pandion. This Pandion, reigning after Cecrops, was
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expelled by the sons of Metion in a sedition, and going to Pylas at Megara married his daughter Pylia.
[*](Compare Paus. 1.5.3, who tells us that the tomb of Pandion was in the land of Megara, on a bluff called the bluff of Diver-bird Athena.) And at a later time he was even appointed king of the city; for Pylas slew his father's brother Bias and gave the kingdom to Pandion, while he himself repaired to Peloponnese with a body of people and founded the city of Pylus.
[*](Compare Paus. 1.39.4; Paus. 4.36.1; Paus. 6.22.5, who variously names this Megarian king Pylas, Pylus, and Pylon.) While Pandion was at Megara, he had sons born to him, to wit, Aegeus, Pallas, Nisus, and Lycus. But some say that Aegeus was a son of Scyrius, but was passed off by Pandion as his own.
[*](Compare Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 494, who may have copied Apollodorus. The sons of Pallas, the brother of Aegeus, alleged that Aegeus was not of the stock of the Erechtheids, since he was only an adopted son of Pandion. See Plut. Thes. 13.)