Praxithea

In Greek mythology, Praxithea was a name given to five different figures, all of them connected with Athens or with the family of Heracles.

One of them was a Naiad nymph, a nymph of the rivers and lakes. She was married to King Erichthonius of Athens, and they had a son, Pandion I (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.6).

Another Praxithea was the daughter of Phrasimus and Diogeneia, who was herself a daughter of the river Cephisus. She was the wife of Erechtheus, with whom she had sons, Cecrops, Pandorus and Metion, and daughters, Procris, Creusa, Chthonia and Orithyia, who was carried off by Boreas (Apollodorus, Library 3.15.1). Of these, Chthonia married Butes, Creusa married Xuthus, and Procris married Cephalus. A later account says that Erechtheus was told in his war with Eumolpus that he would win if he sacrificed his daughter; he consulted his wife Praxithea and gave the girl up as a public sacrifice, a story told by Euripides in his lost play Erechtheus (Plutarch’s Parallel Stories 20).

A third woman by the same name appears in Apollodorus’ account of Demeter at Eleusis. When Demeter was nursing Demophon, the son of Metanira and Celeus, she tried to make the child immortal by laying him in the fire at night and stripping away his mortal flesh. Praxithea watched, discovered the boy buried in the fire, and cried out; as a result the child was consumed and the goddess revealed herself (Apollodorus, Library 1.5.1). In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, where the goddess gives her name as Doso, it is the boy’s mother Metaneira who sees what is happening and interrupts the rite (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 122, 234–255).

A different Praxithea is named in Athenian tradition as one of the daughters of Leos, the others being Theope and Eubule. Pausanias records that Leos gave up his daughters at the command of an oracle for the safety of the city (Pausanias 1.5.2).

Finally, the fifth mythological figure with the same name was one of the fifty daughters of Thespius and Megamede (Apollodorus, Library 2.4.10), who bore Heracles a son, Nephus (Apollodorus, Library 2.7.8).

Praxithea Sources

Apollodorus, Library 1.5.1, 2.4.10, 2.7.8, 3.14.6, 3.15.1; Homeric Hymn to Demeter 122, 234–255; Pausanias 1.5.2; Plutarch (attributed), Parallel Stories 20.

See Also: Erichthonius, Pandion I, Erechtheus, Cecrops, Procris, Metanira, Celeus, Demeter, Doso, Demophon, Heracles