Ion in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Ion

19 passages from 2 ancient authors that tell of Ion, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Ion was the illegitimate child of Creusa and the god Apollo in Greek mythology. Creusa abandoned Ion in his cradle, and Apollo asked Hermes to take hi... For the story in one place, read our article on Ion.

Euripides (15)

Euripides, Ion 510–584Second episode: Xuthus greets Ion as his sonIon asks the handmaids whether Xuthus is still in the temple, and the Chorus says that he is coming out. Xuthus greets Ion as his son, saying that the first person he met on leaving the temple, as the god had said, is his child. Ion thinks him mad, but Xuthus insists, and Ion accepts him as his father and longs to find his mother. Xuthus then urges him to come to Athens as his heir.
Euripides, Ion 1439–1511Exodos: mother and son; Creusa reveals Apollo as fatherIon greets his mother, and Creusa, in her joy, takes him in her arms, saying that she never hoped to find him. Ion asks about his father, and Creusa admits, in riddles, that Phoebus forced her, and that she bore Ion in secret. She tells how she exposed him in a cave to die, and Ion says that he almost killed her, and the Chorus says that no man should despair.
Euripides, Ion 1–81Prologue: Hermes at Delphi tells of Apollo, Creusa and the hidden childHermes, whose mother Maia was a daughter of Atlas, tells how Apollo took Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, in a cave under the cliffs of the Acropolis at Athens, and how she bore a son in secret and left him to die in the cave. At the god's request Hermes carried the child in his basket to Delphi, where the priestess reared him as a servant of the temple. He says that Creusa and her husband Xuthus are coming to consult the oracle about children, and that Apollo means to give Xuthus his own son, who will be called Ion.
Euripides, Ion 1165–1228Messenger speech: the poisoned cup and the dovesThe Messenger tells how the banquet was set, and how the old man gave Ion a cup mixed with the potion, but a servant spoke a word of ill omen, and Ion poured the wine on the ground and ordered fresh. A dove that drank the spilt wine fell in convulsions and died, so that Ion seized the old man, who confessed Creusa's plot. Ion denounced her before the Delphians, who have decreed that she be hurled from the rock, and the whole city is now hunting for her.
Euripides, Ion 1312–1354Fifth episode: Ion denounces the altar's sanctuary; the Priestess shows the arkIon cries out that the god has made laws for mortals contrary to sound judgment, since the wicked should not be allowed to claim sanctuary. The Pythian priestess leaves the tripod and tells him to refrain, and Ion greets her as a mother, since she brought him up. She shows him the basket in which she found him as a baby, and he hopes that its tokens will help him to find his mother.
Euripides, Ion 255–310First episode: Creusa tells Ion of Athens and her ancestryIon asks why Creusa weeps, and she gives her name and tells him that she is the daughter of Erechtheus of Athens, whose family springs from Erichthonius, born from Earth. She tells how Athena gave the infant to the daughters of Cecrops to guard, how they opened the chest and died, and how she herself, of her father's children, alone survived. She says that her husband, Xuthus, a foreigner who won her by helping Athens in war, has come with her to ask the oracle about children.
Euripides, Ion 585–667Second episode: Ion's doubts about going to AthensIon says that things look different near and far, and that he is glad to have found a father, but he fears that Athens, a city of the earth-born, will not accept a foreigner's bastard. He tells Xuthus that in the great house he will be hated by Xuthus' wife and by the nobles, and that he would rather live a quiet life in the temple. Xuthus answers that he will bring him to Athens as a guest rather than as a son, to spare Creusa, and that his name shall be Ion, and he warns the handmaids to keep silent.
Euripides, Ion 1553–1622Exodos: Athena appears and foretells the IoniansAthena appears and tells them not to fly, saying that she is Pallas, after whom the land is named, sent in haste by Apollo, who would not appear himself for fear of reproaches for the past. She declares that Creusa is Ion's mother and Apollo his father, and that the god gave him to Xuthus only to bring him to a house of high repute, and she foretells the Ionians, and that Xuthus and Creusa will have Dorus, ancestor of the Dorians, and Achaeus. Ion and Creusa accept her words, and the Chorus ends with praise of Apollo.
Euripides, Ion 337–368First episode: Creusa asks the oracle's question for 'a friend'Creusa says that she has a friend who was wronged by Phoebus, and asks Ion to put her question to the god for her. She tells how the friend bore a child to the god in secret, exposed it, and does not know whether it lives or was torn by beasts. Ion refuses to speak against Phoebus in his own temple, and says that the god is ashamed of the deed, and that she should not question him.
Euripides, Ion 429–508Ion rebukes Apollo; first choral song on childrenLeft alone, Ion wonders why the stranger lady hints at reproaches against the god, and rebukes Apollo for ravishing a maiden and leaving her child to die, saying that the gods should keep the laws that they make for men. The Chorus calls on Athena, Victory and Artemis, and prays that the house of Erechtheus may have the blessing of children. It sings that the childless life is hateful, and recalls Creusa's exposed baby on the slopes of Macrae.
Euripides, Ion 987–1047Third episode: Creusa plans to poison Ion with Gorgon's bloodCreusa tells of the war of the earth-born, of how Athena slew the Gorgon and wears its skin on her aegis, and of how Athena gave Erichthonius two drops of the monster's blood, one that kills and one that heals. She says that she wears the poisonous drop in a golden bracelet, and that it is to be put in the cup of the boy at the feast, in Delphi rather than Athens. She gives the bracelet to the Old Servant, who goes to do the deed.
Euripides, Ion 1106–1164Fourth episode: a servant describes Ion's feast tentA servant asks the Chorus where the daughter of Erechtheus is, and says that the rulers of Delphi are pursuing her to stone her, because the plot against the boy has been discovered. He begins to tell how Xuthus, leaving the shrine with his new son, went to sacrifice, and how Ion had a great tent made from tapestries of the temple, with hangings showing the heavens and the sea.
Euripides, Ion 1261–1311Fifth episode: Ion confronts Creusa at the altarIon cries out that this woman is a viper, a dragon with fiery eyes, who hoped to escape punishment by crouching at Apollo's altar, and demands that she be seized. Creusa warns him not to kill her in his own name or in the name of the god at whose altar she sits, and says that the altar protects her, and Ion answers that he will take her from it.
Euripides, Ion 1355–1394Exodos: the Priestess gives Ion the ark and its tokensThe Priestess tells Ion to take the relics and to seek his mother, since he will learn the truth when he has traversed Asia and the bounds of Europe, and she says that she has kept the cradle in which he was found. Ion, in tears, thinks of the day his mother bore him and then abandoned him, and takes the cradle.
Euripides, Ion 1395–1438Exodos: Creusa and Ion recognize each otherCreusa sees the ark in which she exposed the child, and leaves the altar even though death awaits her. Ion tells his men to seize her as mad, but she says that she knows the ark and its contents, and names the tokens before he opens it. She describes the robe that she wove with a Gorgon in its centre, the golden serpents and the olive-wreath from Athena's tree, and Ion embraces her as his mother.

Pausanias (4)

Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.1.1–9Achaia: Aegialus, Ion and the expulsion of the IoniansPausanias opens his account of Achaia, which was formerly called Aegialus. He tells how Xuthus fled from Thessaly to Athens and then to Aegialus, and how his son Ion married Helice, the daughter of King Selinus, and founded the city of Helice. The Achaeans, driven from Argos and Lacedaemon by the Dorians, then fought the Ionians under Tisamenus. The Ionians were defeated and left for Attica, where the Athenians under Melanthus received them.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.31.1–6Attica: the townships of Alimus, Prasiae, Phlya, Myrrhinus and AcharnaePausanias surveys the small townships of Attica in order: Alimus, Zoster, Prospalta, Anagyrus, Cephale, Prasiae, Lamptrae, Potami, Phlya, Myrrhinus, the Athmonians and Acharnae. He records their cults and altars, the route of the Hyperborean first-fruits to Prasiae, the tombs of Erysichthon, Cranaus and Ion, and offers his own explanation of the goddesses Colaenis and Amarysia.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 2.14.1–4Phlius: the mysteries of Demeter at Celeae and the tomb of DysaulesPausanias describes the Phliasian mysteries of Demeter at Celeae, held every third year and modelled on Eleusis. He disputes the Phliasian account that Dysaules brought them after being expelled from Eleusis by Ion, citing the Homeric hymn to Demeter, and discusses the tomb of Dysaules, the earlier tomb of Aras and the chariot of Pelops on the roof of the Anactorum.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 7.4.1–10Samos and Chios: the Heraeum, Smilis and DaedalusPausanias recounts the Ionian settlement of Samos under Procles of Epidaurus, quoting Asius on the earlier line of Phoenix and Ancaeus, and the Ephesian attack under Androclus. He discusses the sanctuary of Hera, which the Samians say was founded where the goddess was born by the Imbrasus under a willow, and the old image by the Aeginetan Smilis. A digression on Daedalus, his flight from Athens to Minos and then to Cocalus in Sicily, follows. The section ends with the legendary history of Chios according to Ion, from Poseidon and Oenopion to King Hector.