Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/223

 ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES CHAPTER XI. ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES. THE most ancient name in Attic archaeology, as far as our means of information reach, is that of Erechtheus, who is men- tioned both in the Catalogue of the Iliad and in a brief allusion of the Odyssey. Born of the Earth, he is brought up by the goddess Athene, adopted by her as her ward, and installed in her temple at Athens, where the Athenians offer to him annual sac- rifices. The Athenians are styled in the Iliad, " the people of Erechtheus." 1 This is the most ancient testimony concerning Erechtheus, exhibiting him as a divine or heroic, certainly a su- perhuman person, and identifying him with the primitive ger- mination (if I may use a term, the Grecian equivalent of which would have pleased an Athenian ear) of Attic man. And he was recognized in this same character, even at the close of the fourth century before the Christian gera, by the Butadae, one of the most ancient and important Gentes at Athens, who boasted of him as their original ancestor: the genealogy of the great Athenian orator Lykurgus, a member of this family, drawn up by his son Abron, and painted on a public tablet in the Erechthe- ion, contained as its first and highest name, Erechtheus, son of Hephsestos and the Earth. In the Erechtheion, Erechtheus was worshipped conjointly with Athene" : he was identified with the god Poseidon, and bore the denomination of Poseidon Erech- 1 Iliad, ii. 546. Odyss. vii. 81. Oi (5' dp' 'Ai?^vaf el%ov &r/fiov 'EpF#;?oc //eya/l^ropof, 6v TTOT' 'A&rjvii Qpeipe, Atdc dvyaTqp, TEKS (5e fridupoe "Apavpa t Ka6 6' Iv ' ' A.&Tjvria' elaev iu kvl niovi vyy, 'Ev#a<Je fuv ruvpoiai xal upveiotf iXaovrai Kovpoi 'Atfj/ixiHJV- irtoire^ouEvuv cviavruv.