Erechtheus
mythological figure · 13 works · 14 mentions · 22 anchored passages
Erectheus · Erechtheus the Athenian · great-hearted Erechtheus
in the texts
Ion
Legendary king of Athens, Creusa's father, who sacrificed his daughters for his country and was slain by Poseidon.
Creusa is my name, the daughter of Erechtheus I;
The sea-god smote and slew him with his trident.
Did thy sire Erechtheus offer thy sisters as a sacrifice?
Constitution of the Athenians
Legendary early king of Athens, predecessor of Pandion.
Pandion, having reigned after Erechtheus, divided the rule among his sons;
On the Nature of the Gods
Legendary king of Athens, worshipped as a god with shrine and priest, exemplifying deification for civic virtue
For that very cause Erectheus at Athens, and his daughters, are in the number of the gods;
But if these are gods, surely Erectheus is, whose shrine and priest we have seen at Athens.
Tusculan Disputations
Mythological Athenian king whose daughters sacrificed themselves for the city.
They go back to Erechtheus, whose daughters too eagerly sought death for the life of the citizens;
Protrepticus
Legendary Athenian king said to have sacrificed his own daughter to Pherephatta.
Erechtheus the Athenian and Marius the Roman sacrificed their own daughters;
The Funeral Speech
Legendary early king of Athens, ancestor of the Erechtheidae, said to have sacrificed his own daughters for the salvation of the land.
All the Erechtheidae were well aware that Erechtheus, from whom they have their name, for the salvation of this land gave his own daughters, whom they call Hyacinthides, to certain death, and so extinguished his race.
The Histories
A legendary early king of Athens, honored with a shrine on the acropolis called the Earthborn, containing the sacred olive tree and salt-water pool.
In that acropolis is a shrine of Erechtheus, called the “Earthborn,” and in the shrine are an olive tree and a pool of salt water.
When Cecrops was their king they were called Cecropidae, and when Erechtheus succeeded to the rule, they changed their name and became Athenians.
Odyssey
A legendary king of Athens into whose house Athena goes after leaving Scheria.
She went to Marathon and to the spacious streets of Athens, where she entered the abode of Erechtheus;
Panathenaicus
A mythic Athenian ruler or hero opposed by Eumolpus in the contest for Athens.
For our country was invaded by the Thracians, led by Eumolpus, son of Poseidon, who disputed the possession of Athens with Erechtheus, alleging, that Poseidon had appropriated the city before Athena;
Against Leocrates
Legendary king of Athens who, on the oracle's instruction, sacrificed his daughter to defeat Eumolpus and the Thracians.
As a large army was about to invade their country, he went to Delphi and asked the god by what means he could assure a victory over the enemy.
The tradition is that Eumolpus, the son of Poseidon and Chione, came with the Thracians to claim this country during the reign of Erechtheus who was married to Praxithea, the daughter of Cephisus.
Alcibiades 1
Legendary early king of Athens, invoked in a poetic description of the Athenian people as a warning about the seductiveness of popular favor.
For fair of face is the people of great-hearted Erechtheus;
Memorabilia
Legendary early Athenian figure whose birth and the war waged in his time are cited as part of the ancestral legends demonstrating Athens's ancient preeminence.
Yes, and the care and birth of Erectheus, and the war waged in his day with all the adjacent country, and the war between the sons of Heracles and the Peloponnesians, and all the wars waged in the days of Theseus, in all of which it is manifest that they were champions among the men of their time.
Symposium
Mythic Athenian ancestor named in Callias' lineage.
you are of aristocratic birth, of Erechtheus’ line, a priest serving the gods who under the leadership of Iacchus took the field against the barbarian;