Set III-2-cec-002. A collection of selected literary quotations associated with "Cecrops" as the main subject. The entries are organised chronologically, from the the earliest to the latest. The intentionally omitted textual fragments are indicated by an ellipsis placed inside angle brackets. The translator's notes and curator's commentaries are placed inside square brackets and indicated by the quartz colour. Direct mentions of the main subject are indicated by the azure colour. Direct mentions of snakes/serpents and their derivatives are indicated by the amber colour and complemented by references to the sources' original language and the words' lemmas. Important descriptive details that inform the artefacts' iconographic interpretation are indicated by the malachite colour.
------------------------------------------------- « ● Selected Classical Quotations ● » --------------------------------------------------
“
HERMES: ⟨...⟩ There is a famous Greek city [Athens] which takes its name from Pallas, goddess of the golden spear [Athena]. Here Phoebus [Apollo] made forcible love to Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, at the place where under Pallas' acropolis stand Athens' northern cliffs, the Long Cliffs, as the lords of Attica call them. Without her father's knowledge (for so the god wished it) she carried to term the burden of her belly. When her time came, Creusa gave birth in the house, then carried the child to the same cave where she was ravished by the god, and left him to die in the round hollow of a cradle. She kept the custom of her ancestors and of Erichthonius the earthborn. For Zeus's daughter [Athena] gave him two serpents [δράκων] to guard his body when she handed him for safe keeping to the daughters of Aglauros [Translator's note: Aglauros, wife of Cecrops, an early king of Athens, had three daughters, Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosos.]. And that is why the Athenians have the custom of rearing their children adorned with serpents [ὄφις] of beaten gold. Well, the girl put upon the child what adornment she possessed, thinking he would die, and left him.
„
“
CREUSA: Creusa is my name, my father was Erechtheus, and my native land is the city of Athens. ION: What a glorious city you live in, and how noble are the forebears who nurtured you! I honor you, lady! CREUSA: Yes, in this I am fortunate, but in nothing else. ION: Tell me, by the gods, is it true, as men say... CREUSA: What does your question strive to learn? ION: ...that your father's forebear sprang from the earth? CREUSA: Yes, Erichthonius [Translator's note: Hephaestus, the story went, tried to ravish Athena, but she escaped his grasp, and his seed fell on the ground. Earth was impregnated, she bore Erichthonius (the name seems to mean "very earthy"), and gave him to Athena. Athena in turn entrusted the child, hidden in a chest and guarded by snakes, to the three daughters of King Cecrops with instructions that they should not look at him. Two of them disobeyed, and all three perished, leaping in madness from the Acropolis.]. But my ancestry does me no good. ION: And did Athena take him up from the earth? CREUSA: Yes, into her maidenly embrace: she was not his mother. ION: And did she give him, as paintings often show... CREUSA: Yes, to Cecrops' daughters to keep without looking at him. ION: I have heard that the girls opened the goddess' vessel. CREUSA: And that is why they perished, spattering their blood on the cliff side.
„
“
SERVANT: ⟨...⟩ Cecrops, winding himself in coils [Translator's note: Cecrops, who was born from the earth, was a snake from the waist down.], standing next to his daughters ⟨...⟩
„
“
ATHENA: ⟨...⟩ Take this son of yours [Ion], Creusa, and go to the land of Cecrops [Athens] and set him upon the royal throne. Since he is of the line of Erechtheus it is right that he should rule my land, and he will be renowned in Hellas. His sons, four born from a single stock, will give their names to the land and to the peoples in their tribes who inhabit my rock. Geleon will be the first. The ⟨second and third are the sons who will give their name to⟩ the Hopletes and Argades, and the Aigikores named from my aegis shall possess their separate tribe. When the appointed time comes children born of these shall come to dwell in the island cities of the Cyclades and the coastal cities of the mainland, which will give strength to my land. They shall dwell in the plains in two continents on either side of the dividing sea, Asia and Europe. They shall be called Ionians after this boy and win glory.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Euripides
(c. 480-406 BC) |
Ion |
● 8-27
● 260-274
● 1163-1164
● 1571-1588 |
David Kovacs |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 010) © Harvard
University Press, 1999 |
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“
LOVECLEON: Lord Hero Cecrops, Dracontides [Δρακοντίδης; from Δράκων?] below the waist, will you simply look on when I'm being manhandled this way by barbarians, the very ones I myself taught how to cry at four tears to the quart?
„
| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
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Aristophanes
(c. 446-386 BC) |
Wasps |
● 438 |
Jeffrey Henderson |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 488) © Harvard
University Press, 1998 |
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“
They say that Cecrops was human as far down as the crotch, then a tunny-fish [θύννος] from there on down [Translator's note: In myth and art Cecrops, one of the earliest kings of Athens, was portrayed as human to the waist and then as a serpent below.].
„
| Author: |
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Eupolis
(c. 446-411 BC) |
Spongers |
● 159 (via Hippocra-tes, Epidemics V, 7) |
Ian C. Storey |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 514) © Harvard University Press, 2011 |
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“
⟨...⟩ Erichthonius, the son of Hephaestus and Earth, took over from Cecrops, who was without male descent, his house and kingdom; and beginning with this time all those who came after him - not a few in number - handed down their possessions and their powers to their sons until the reign of Theseus.
„
| Author: |
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Isocrates
(436-338 BC) |
Discources |
● V. Panathenaicus, 127-131 |
George Norlin |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 229) © Harvard
University Press, 1929 |
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“
⟨...⟩ the judgment of the gods, which Cecrops delivered in his court because of his excellence [Translator's note: When Poseidon and Athena contested the possession of Attica.] ⟨...⟩
„
| Author: |
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Xenophon of Athens
(c. 430-354 BC) |
Memorabilia |
● III: v, 10 |
Edgar Cardew Marchant; Revised by Jeffrey Henderson |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 168) © Harvard
University Press, 2013 |
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“
Cychreus, son of Salamis and Poseidon. He was king of the Salaminians, as reported by Euphorion in the Hippomedon: For such was the Cychreian (or of Cychreus) in sandy Salamis. Some say he is the bi-form Cecrops. Others, that a serpent [ὄφις] once ravaged Salamis and made it uninhabitable until Cychreus killed it, and for this reason was called Anaxiphos. Cf. Tzetzes: Cychreus, son of Poseidon and Salamis, as Euphorion says, slew the dragon [δράκων] and became king of Salamis.
„
| Author: |
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Euphorion of Chalcis
(c. 275-190 BC) |
Poetic Fragments |
● 32. Hippomedon (via Scholiast, Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra) |
Jane Lucy Lightfoot |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 508) © Harvard
University Press, 2010 |
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“
⟨...⟩ at Athens, it is said, the present law providing for burial in the earth comes down from their first king Cecrops [Translators's note: The tomb of Cecrops was on the Acropolis at Athens (Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Antiochus, 15).]; and when the nearest relatives had performed this rite, and the body was covered with earth, then the spot was sown with grain, that the breast and bosom of his mother, as it were, might be granted to the dead, but that the soil, purified by grain, might be restored to the use of the living.
„
| Author: |
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Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106-43 BC) |
On the Laws |
● II: xxv, 63 |
Clinton Walker Keyes |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 213) © Harvard
University Press, 1928 |
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“
Moreover, certain of the rulers of Athens were originally Egyptians, they say. [Translator's note: There is a break at this point in the text, since what follows can refer only to Cecrops, the traditional first king of Athens, whose body in the lower part was that of a serpent.] ⟨...⟩ He [Cecrops] was of a double form, and yet the Athenians are unable from their own point of view to give the true explanation of this nature of his, although it is patent to all that it was because of his double citizenship, Greek and barbarian, that he was held to be of double form, that is, part animal and part man.
„
“
In the same way, they continue, Erechtheus [Erichthonius?] also, who was by birth an Egyptian [!], became king of Athens ⟨...⟩
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Diodorus Siculus
(c. 90-30 BC) |
Library of
History |
● I: xxviii, 6-7
● I: xxix, 1 |
Charles Henry Oldfather |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 279) © Harvard
University Press, 1933 |
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“
Once upon a time a child was born, named Erichthonius, a child without a mother. Him Pallas [Athena] hid in a box woven of Actaean osiers, and gave this to the three daughters of double-shaped Cecrops, with the strict command not to look upon her secret. Hidden in the light leaves that grew thick over an elm, I [crow] set myself to watch what they would do. Two of the girls, Pandrosos and Herse, watched the box in good faith, but the third, Aglauros, called her sisters cowards, and with her hand undid the fastenings. And within they saw a baby-boy and a snake [draco] stretched out beside him.
„
| Author: |
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Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC-17 AD) |
Metamorphoses |
● II: 552-561 |
Frank Justus Miller; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 042) © Harvard
University Press, 1916 |
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“
⟨...⟩ the ancients called Cecrops twy-formed [Translator's note: Cecrops, the first king of Attica, was half man and half serpent.] not, as some say, because from a good king he changed into a savage and snakelike [δράκων] tyrant, but on the contrary because he began with devious and fearsome courses and ended by ruling with mildness and humanity.
„
| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
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Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
(c. 46-120 AD) |
Moralia VII: On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance |
● 6, 551 F |
Phillip Howard De Lacy |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 405) © Harvard
University Press, 1959 |
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“
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.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Pausanias
(c. 110-180 AD) |
Description
of Greece |
● I. Attica: ii, 6 |
William Henry Samuel Jones |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 093) © Harvard
University Press, 1918 |
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“
My view is that Lycaon was contemporary with Cecrops, the king of Athens, but that they were not equally wise in matters of religion. For Cecrops was the first to name Zeus the Supreme god, and refused to sacrifice anything that had life in it, but burnt instead on the altar the national cakes which the Athenians still call pelanoi. But Lycaon brought a human baby to the altar of Lycaean Zeus, and sacrificed it, pouring out its blood upon the altar, and according to the legend immediately after the sacrifice he was changed from a man to a wolf (lycos). I for my part believe this story; it has been a legend among the Arcadians from of old, and it has the additional merit of probability.
„
| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Pausanias
(c. 110-180 AD) |
Description
of Greece |
● VIII. Arcadia: ii,
2-4 |
William Henry Samuel Jones |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 272) © Harvard
University Press, 1933 |
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“
RICHES: ⟨...⟩ better looking than Nireus, better born than Cecrops or Codrus, sharper witted than Odysseus and richer than sixteen Croesuses in one ⟨...⟩
„
| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
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Lucian of Samosata
(c. 120s-180s AD) |
Timon or the Misanthrope |
● 23 |
Austin Morris Harmon |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 054) © Harvard
University Press, 1915 |
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“
Cecrops, a son of the soil, with a body compounded of man and serpent [δράκων], was the first king of Attica, and the country which was formerly called Acte he named Cecropia after himself [Translator's note: According to the Parian Chronicle (Marmor Parium [Parian Marble], lines 2-4), with which Apollodorus is in general agreement, the first king of Attica was Cecrops, and the country was named Cecropia after him, whereas it had formerly been called Actice (sic) after an aboriginal named Actaeus. Pausanias (Description
of Greece I. Attica ii, 6) represents this Actaeus as the first king of Attica, and says that Cecrops succeeded him on the throne by marrying his daughter. But Pausanias, like Apollodorus (Library III, xv, 5), distinguishes this first Cecrops from a later Cecrops, son of Erechtheus (Library I, v, 3). Apollodorus is at one with Pausanias in saying that the first Cecrops married the daughter of Actaeus, and he names her Agraulus (see Library III, xiv, 2). Philochorus [c. 340-261 BC] said, with great probability, that there never was any such person as Actaeus; according to him, Attica lay waste and depopulated from the deluge in the time of Ogyges down to the reign of Cecrops. See Eusebius Praeparatio Evangelii X, 10. John Tzetzes [c. 1110-1180 AD] (Chiliades, v. 637) and Hyginus (Fabulae 48) agree in representing Cecrops as the first king of Attica; Hyginus calls him a son of the earth. As to his double form, the upper part of him being human and the lower part serpentine, see Aristophanes Wasps 438, with the Scholiast; Euripides Ion 1163-1164; Tzetzes Scholia on Lycophron, 111; id. Chiliades, v. 638 sqq.; Scholiast on Aristophanes Plutus, 773; Diodorus Siculus Library of History I, xxviii, 7, who rationalizes the fable after his usual fashion.]. In his time, they say, the gods resolved to take possession of cities in which each of them should receive his own peculiar worship. So Poseidon was the first that came to Attica, and with a blow of his trident on the middle of the acropolis, he produced a sea which they now call Erechtheis. After him came Athena, and, having called on Cecrops to witness her act of taking possession, she planted an olive-tree, which is still shown in the Pandrosium [Translator's note: The olive-tree seems to have survived down to the second century of our era. See Herodotus Histories VIII, 55; Dionysius of Halicarnassus De Dinarcho Judicium 3; Pausanias Description of Greece I. Attica xxvii, 3; Cicero On the Laws I, i, 2; Hyginus Fabulae 164; Pliny Natural History XVI, ccxl. Dionysius agrees with Apollodorus in representing the tree as growing in the Pandrosium, which is proved by inscriptions to have been an enclosure to the west of the Erechtheum.]. But when the two strove for possession of the country, Zeus parted them and appointed arbiters, not, as some have affirmed, Cecrops and Cranaus, nor yet Erysichthon, but the twelve gods. And in accordance with their verdict the country was adjudged to Athena, because Cecrops bore witness that she had been the first to plant the olive. Athena, therefore, called the city Athens after herself, and Poseidon in hot anger flooded the Thriasian plain and laid Attica under the sea.
„
“
When Cecrops died, Cranaus came to the throne; 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. 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. Cranaus was expelled by Amphictyon, who reigned in his stead; 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. 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 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. 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 [δράκων] coiled about the babe; and, as some say, they were destroyed by the serpent [δράκων], but according to others they were driven mad by reason of the anger of Athena and threw themselves down from the acropolis. Having been brought up by Athena herself in the precinct [Translator's note: "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.], Erichthonius expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens; and he set up the wooden image of Athena in the acropolis, and instituted the festival of the Panathenaea, and married Praxithea, a Naiad nymph, by whom he had a son Pandion. When Erichthonius died and was buried in the same precinct of Athena, Pandion became king, in whose time Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica.
„
| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Pseudo-Apollodorus
(c. 100s AD?) |
Library |
● III: xiv, 1
● III: xiv, 5-7 |
James George Frazer |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 122) © Harvard
University Press, 1921 |
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“
Cecrops son of Earth. Cephalus son of Deion. Aegeus son of Pandion. Pandion son of Erichthonius. Theseus, son of Aegeus. Erichthonius son of Vilcan. Erechtheus son of Pandion. Demophon son of Theseus.
„
| Author: |
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Translator(s): |
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Pseudo-Hyginus
(c. 100s AD?) |
Fabulae |
● 48. The Kings of Athens |
Stephen M. Trzaskoma |
Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology © Hackett Publishing, 2007 |
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“
Vulcan made thrones out of gold and adamant for Jupiter and the rest of the gods. When Juno sat in hers, she was suddenly suspended in midair. When the order reached Vulcan telling him to free his mother, whom he had confined, he, still angry over having been thrown from heaven, said that he did not have a mother. When Father Liber got him drunk and led him back to the assembly of the gods, he could no longer disregard his duty as son. Then Jupiter offered him the choice of whatever he wanted from them. So then Neptune, who was hostile to Minerva, urged Vulcan to ask for Minerva as his wife. This request was granted, but when he came into her chamber, Minerva, under Jupiter's orders, defended her chastity by putting up a fight, and while they were grappling, his semen fell on the ground and a boy was born who was a serpent [draco] below the waist. They named him Erichthonius because the Greek words for "struggle" and "earth" are eris and chthon. Minerva raised him in secret, put him in a small chest, and gave it to Cecrops' daughters, Aglaurus, Pandrosus, and Herse, for safekeeping. When they opened the chest, a crow snitched on them. They were driven mad by Minerva and hurled themselves into the sea.
„
| Author: |
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Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Pseudo-Hyginus
(c. 100s AD?) |
Fabulae |
● 166. Erichthonius |
Stephen M. Trzaskoma |
Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology © Hackett Publishing, 2007 |
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“
In Athens, Cecrops was the first to join individual men and women in marriage; before this, they had sex with anyone they wanted, and all relationships were open. This is why, some people believed, he was thought to have a double nature [Translator's note: The mythical king Cecrops was commonly represented as half-snake, half-man. But here the point is that he somehow embodied the two sexes he brought together in marriage.], since no one before this could identify his father, given the number of candidates.
„
| Author: |
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Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Athenaeus
of Naucratis
(c. late 100s-early
200s AD) |
The Learned
Banqueters |
● XIII: 555 D |
S. Douglas Olson |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 327) © Harvard
University Press, 2010 |
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“
⟨...⟩ Minerva was already worshipped as a goddess when Cecrops was king of the Athenians, during whose reign they say that the city was either re-established or founded. Now this is the reason Varro [Marcus Terentius Varro, 116-27 BC] gives for the city's being called Athens, a name that is certainly derived from Minerva, who is called Athena in Greek. When an olive tree had suddenly appeared there, and on another spot water had gushed forth, these portents alarmed the king, and he sent to Delphic Apollo to ask what the meaning of this was and what was to be done. Apollo answered that the olive signified Minerva and the spring Neptune, and that it rested with the citizens to decide from which of the two gods, whose symbols these were, they preferred that the city should take its name. When Cecrops received this oracle he called together all the citizens of both sexes - for at that time it was customary in that area that the women also should have a part in public deliberations - to take a vote. When therefore the multitude was consulted, the men voted for Neptune and the women for Minerva, and because the women were found to be one more, Minerva was victorious.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Augustine of Hippo
(354-430 AD) |
City of God Against the Pagans |
● XVIII: viii-ix |
Eva Matthews Sanford, William McAllen Green |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 415) © Harvard
University Press, 1965 |
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“
And now I hear a loud din from the depths of the earth, the temple of Cecrops re-echoes and Eleusis waves its holy torches. The hissing snakes [anguis] of Triptolemus raise their scaly necks chafed by the curving collar, and, uptowering as they glide smoothly along, stretch forth their rosy crests towards the chant.
„
| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Claudius Claudianus
(c. 370-404 AD) |
Rape of Proserpine |
● I (XXXIII): 9-14 |
Maurice Platnauer |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 136) © Harvard
University Press, 1922 |
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“
Burn with your blazing torch the burgher heavy-chained of the city of maiden Athena [Athens], the offspring of fiery Hephaistos whom they call Erechtheus; for he too has the blood of that illustrious Erechtheus [Erichthonius?], whom un-mothered Pallas [Athena] once nursed at her beast, she the virgin enemy of wedlock, secretly guarding him by the wakeful light of a lamp: let him remain hidden in a shining Indian box, and enclosed in an empty cell of her dark-some maiden chamber.
„
| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
| Nonnus of Panopolis (c. late 300s-400s AD) |
Dionysiaca |
● XXVII: 110-119 |
William Henry Denham Rouse |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 354) © Harvard
University Press, 1940 |
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“
⟨...⟩ primeval Cecrops, who crawled and scratched the earth with snaky [ὄφις] feet that spat poison as he moved, dragon [δράκων] below, but above from loins to head he seemed a man half made, strange in shape and of twyform flesh ⟨...⟩ savage form of Erechtheus [Erichthonius?], whom Hephaistos begat on a furrow of earth with fertilizing dew ⟨...⟩
„
“
⟨...⟩ Cecrops the union of two ⟨...⟩
„
| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
| Nonnus of Panopolis (c. late 300s-400s AD) |
Dionysiaca |
● XLI: 58-64
● XLI: 384 |
William Henry Denham Rouse |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 356) © Harvard
University Press, 1940 |
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“
But as for Pallas [Athena] of old, so for the appeal of Bacchos, may a new Cecrops come as umpire, that the vine may be celebrated as citysustainer, like the olive.
„
| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
| Nonnus of Panopolis (c. late 300s-400s AD) |
Dionysiaca |
● XLIII: 125-127 |
William Henry Denham Rouse |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 356) © Harvard
University Press, 1940 |
|
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