Athens

Athens, the capital of modern Greece, is the city of Attica whose patron goddess was Athena. In myth it was ruled by kings such as Cecrops, Erechtheus and Aegeus, it was the home of Theseus, and it sheltered suppliants who fled other cities. In history it became one of the leading city-states of Greece, a rival of Sparta, Corinth and Thebes.

The Contest of Athena and Poseidon

Athens took its name from Athena, who won the land in a contest with Poseidon. Apollodorus (Library 3.14.1) tells it in connection with Cecrops, the first king of Attica, who was born from the earth and had the body of a man joined to that of a serpent. When the gods were claiming cities for themselves, Poseidon arrived first and struck the rock of the Acropolis with his trident, producing a sea of salt water. Athena then came, called Cecrops to witness that she had taken possession, and planted an olive tree. Zeus separated the quarrelling gods and appointed arbiters, who in Apollodorus are the twelve gods. They gave the land to Athena because Cecrops testified that she had planted the olive first. Poseidon, in anger, flooded the Thriasian plain and put it under the sea.

The story was tied to real places. Herodotus (8.55) says that in the sanctuary of Erechtheus on the Acropolis there stood an olive tree and a pool of salt water, which the Athenians held to be the tokens left by Poseidon and Athena in their contest. When the Persians burned the Acropolis in 480 BC, the Athenians reported that a shoot a cubit long had sprung from the burned stump of the olive tree.

The Early Kings

Cecrops, who renamed the country Cecropia, married Agraulus and had a son, Erysichthon, who died childless, and three daughters, Agraulus, Herse and Pandrosus (Apollodorus 3.14.2). It was in his time that Ares was brought to trial before the twelve gods on the hill that became the Areopagus, for killing Halirrhothius, a son of Poseidon, who had tried to force Ares’ daughter Alcippe, a child of Ares and Cecrops’ daughter Agraulus. The gods acquitted Ares.

Later Athena brought up Erichthonius, who became king, set up the wooden image of Athena on the Acropolis and founded the festival of the Panathenaea (3.14.6). His grandson Erechtheus fought a war against Eumolpus, son of Poseidon, who came with the Eleusinians; an oracle promised victory if Erechtheus slaughtered one of his daughters, and when he sacrificed the youngest her sisters killed themselves too, having sworn to die together (Apollodorus 3.15.1–4). Erechtheus killed Eumolpus in the battle, and Poseidon then destroyed Erechtheus and his house in anger for his son’s death (3.15.5). He was followed by his son Cecrops, then by Cecrops’ son Pandion, whose sons Aegeus, Pallas, Nisus and Lycus later divided Attica between them, with Aegeus holding the chief power (3.15.5–6).

Theseus, Aegeus and the Minotaur

The city was the starting point of the story of Aegeus and Theseus. Aegeus was king of Athens, and Androgeos, the son of Minos of Crete, was killed in Attica. Minos made war on the Athenians and, according to Apollodorus (3.15.8), required them to send seven young men and seven young women, unarmed, to be given to the Minotaur, the monster kept in the labyrinth at Knossos; Plutarch (Theseus 15) says the tribute fell due every ninth year. When it came due for the third time, Theseus, son of Aegeus, volunteered to go, apart from the lottery, as Plutarch tells it (Theseus 17).

Aegeus gave the ship a black sail and told his son to hoist white sails if he came back alive. Theseus killed the Minotaur and left Crete with Ariadne and the rescued young Athenians, but on the way he put in at Naxos, where, in Apollodorus’ account, Dionysus fell in love with Ariadne and carried her off. Grieving for her, Theseus, as Apollodorus writes (Epitome 1.9–10), forgot to spread the white sails. Aegeus, watching from the Acropolis, saw the ship with the black sail, took his son to be dead, and threw himself down and died. In Plutarch’s version (Theseus 22) both Theseus and his pilot forgot in their joy and exultation, and Aegeus in despair threw himself down from the rock and was dashed to pieces. The Roman mythographer Hyginus (Fabulae 43) has him throw himself into the sea instead, which was called the Aegean after him. Theseus then took the kingship.

Theseus Unites Attica

Plutarch (Theseus 24) credits Theseus with turning Attica from a scatter of separate townships into a single city. He went from township to township persuading people, and offered the powerful a government without a king, keeping for himself only the command in war and the guardianship of the laws. He abolished the separate local councils, made one centre for the whole country, and founded the festival of the Metoecia and the Panathenaic festival. According to Plutarch, an oracle from Delphi encouraged him.

A Refuge for Suppliants

Athens also had a reputation in myth for protecting those in need. When Heracles became a god, his children fled from Eurystheus and sat down as suppliants on the altar of Mercy at Athens. The Athenians would not give them up, fought Eurystheus’ army and defeated it, and Hyllus killed Eurystheus himself (Apollodorus 2.8.1). The story belongs to the page on the Children of Heracles. Medea, too, is said to have escaped to Athens after her crimes at Corinth (Apollodorus 1.9.28).

The Acropolis and Its Cults

The Acropolis was the sacred centre of the city. The sanctuary of Erechtheus held the olive tree and the salt pool that recalled the contest of the two gods, and the Panathenaea gave Athena her great festival. Because the sanctuary stood on the rock itself, the contest was not only a story about the past: anyone going up to the Acropolis could see its two proofs, and Herodotus records that when the Persians burned the sanctuary in 480 BC the Athenians reported the fresh shoot that sprang from the burned olive. The Athenians also remembered that Poseidon’s anger had once flooded the plain at Thria, so the sea god stayed a power to be reckoned with in the land that Athena held.

See Also: Athena, Poseidon, Cecrops, Erechtheus, Aegeus, Theseus, Minos, Minotaur