Phoenix, son of Amyntor, accompanied him. Phoenix had been blinded by his father when Phthia, his father’s concubine, had falsely accused him of having seduced her;* but Peleus had taken him to Cheiron, who cured his eyes, and had made him king of the Dolopians.
Achilles was also accompanied by Patroclos, son of Menoitios and of Sthenele, daughter of Acastos, or of Periopis, daughter of Pheres, or according to Philocrates, of Polymele, daughter of Peleus. At Opous, during an argument over a game of knucklebones, Patroclos had killed a boy,* Cleitonymos, son of Amphidamas, and had fled with his father to live at the court of Peleus, where Achilles had become his lover.*
11. The kings of Athens
Cecrops and his descendants; the story of Adonis
lCecrops, who was born from the earth and had the body of
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a man and a serpent joined into one, was the first king of Athens, and he named the land, which was known as Acte in earlier days, Cecropia after himself. During his time, they say, the gods decided to take possession of cities where each of them would be honoured with his own special cult. So Poseidon was the first to come to Attica, and striking a blow with his trident on the middle of the Acropolis, he caused a sea to appear, which is now known as the Erechtheid Sea.* After Poseidon, Athene arrived; and taking Cecrops as her witness, she claimed possession by planting an olive tree, which is still shown to visitors in the Pandroseion.* When the two of them entered into conflict for possession of the land, Zeus separated them, and appointed as judges, not Cecrops and Cranaos as some have claimed, nor Erysichthon, but the twelve gods. In accordance with their decision, the country was awarded to Athene, because Cecrops had testified that it was she who had first planted the olive tree. So Athene named the city Athens after herself, while Poseidon, in a rage, flooded the Thriasian plain* and submerged Attica under the sea.
2Cecrops married Agraulos, the daughter of Actaios,* and had a son, Erysichthon, who died without offspring, and three daughters, Agraulos, Herse, and Pandrosos. Agraulos in turn had a daughter, Alcippe, by Ares. When Halirrhothios, son of Poseidon and a nymph, Euryte, tried to rape Alcippe, he was caught in the act by Ares and killed by him. Poseidon brought charges against Ares, who was tried on the Areiopagos* before the twelve gods, and was acquitted.
3Herse had a son, Cephalos, by Hermes. Dawn fell in love with him and carried him off; and after having intercourse with him in Sicily, she bore him a son, Tithonos, who in turn had a son, Phaethon,* whose son Astynoos had a son, Sandocos, who left Syria for Cilicia, where he founded a city, Celenderis, and after marrying Pharnace, daughter of Megassares, king of Hyria, became the father of Cinyras. Arriving in Cyprus with some followers, Cinyras founded Paphos, where he married Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, and became the father of Oxyporos and Adonis, and had three daughters in addition, Orsedice, Laogore, and Braisia. Victims of Aphrodite’s wrath, his daughters slept with foreigners* and finished their lives in Egypt.
4Through the anger of Artemis, Adonis died in a hunt while he was still a young boy, from a wound inflicted by a boar. According to Hesiod, however, he was a son [not of Cinyras but] of Phoenix and Alphesiboia, while according to Panyasis, he was a son of Theias,* king of Assyria, who had a daughter called Smyrna. And this Smyrna, through the wrath of Aphrodite (whom she had failed to honour), conceived a passion for her father, and enlisting the aid of her nurse, shared her father’s bed for twelve nights before he realized who she was. But when he found out, he drew his sword and chased after her. As he caught up with her, she prayed to the gods to be made invisible; and the gods, taking pity on her, turned her into a tree of the kind known as a Smyrna[or myrrh tree]. Ten months later the tree burst open and Adonis, as he is called, was brought to birth. Struck by his beauty, Aphrodite, in secret from the gods, hid him in a chest while he was still a little child, and entrusted him to Persephone. But when Persephone caught sight of him, she refused to give him back. The matter was submitted to the judgement of Zeus; and dividing the year into three parts, he decreed that Adonis should spend a third of the year by himself, a third with Persephone, and the remaining third with Aphrodite (but Adonis assigned his own share also to Aphrodite). Later, however, while he was hunting, Adonis was wounded by a boar and died.
Three early kings: Cranaos, Amphictyon, and Erichthonios
5When Cecrops died, Cranaos [became king]. He was born from the earth, and it was during his reign that Deucalion’s flood is said to have taken place. He married a woman from Lacedaimon, Pedias, daughter of Mynes, who bore him Cranae, Cranaichme, and Atthis. This Atthis died while still a young girl, and Cranaos named the country Attica after her.
6Cranaos was driven out by Amphictyon, who took over the throne. Some call him a son of Deucalion, while others say that he was born from the earth. When he had ruled for twelve years, Erichthonios drove him out. Some say that Erichthonios was a son of Hephaistos and Atthis, daughter of Cranaos, while according to others, he was born to Hephaistos and Athene,* in the following way. Athene visited Hephaistos, wanting to fashion some arms. But Hephaistos, who had been deserted by Aphrodite, yielded to his desire for Athene and began to chase after her, while the goddess for her part tried to escape. When he caught up with her at the expense of much effort (for he was lame), he tried to make love with her. But she, being chaste and a virgin, would not permit it, and he ejaculated over the goddess’s leg. In disgust, she wiped the semen away with a piece of wool* and threw it to the ground. As she was fleeing, Erichthonios came to birth from the seed that had fallen on the earth. Athene reared the child in secret from the other gods, wishing to make him immortal; and placing him in a chest, she entrusted it to Pandrosos, the daughter of Cecrops, telling her not to open it. Out of curiosity, however, the sisters of Pandrosos opened it, and beheld a snake* lying coiled beside the baby; and according to some, they were destroyed by the snake itself, while according to others, they were driven mad through the anger of Athene and hurled themselves from the Acropolis. After Erichthonios had been brought up by Athene herself within her sanctuary,* he expelled Amphictyon and became king of Athens. He erected the wooden image of Athene* on the Acropolis, and founded the festival of the Panathenaia;* and he married Praxithea, a naiad nymph, who bore him a son, Pandion.
Pandion I and his children; Icarios and Erigone; Tereus, Procne, and Philomela
7When Erichthonios died, he was buried in the same precinct of Athene, and Pandion became king. It was during his reign that Demeter and Dionysos came to Attica. But Demeter was welcomed by Celeos at Eleusis,* and Dionysos by Icarios, who received a vine-cutting from the god and learned the art of wine-making. Wanting to pass the god’s blessings on to mankind, Icarios visited some shepherds, who, after a taste of the drink, enjoyed it so much that they drank it down in quantities without water, and then, imagining that they had been poisoned, killed Icarios. When day came and they were sober again, they buried him. While his daughter, Erigone, was searching for her father, a pet dog named Maira, which had accompanied him, revealed his dead body to her; and in her grief for her father, she hanged herself.
8Pandion married his mother’s sister, Zeuxippe, and fathered two daughters, Procne and Philomela, and twin sons, Erechtheus and Boutes. When war broke out with Labdacos* over the boundaries of the land, he summoned Tereus, son of Ares, to his assistance from Thrace, and after he had brought the war to a successful conclusion with his help, he gave Tereus his own daughter, Procne, in marriage. Tereus had a son, Itys, by her, but he conceived a passion for Philomela also, and raped her; and telling her that Procne was dead, he hid her away in the country* and cut out her tongue. But she wove characters into a robe and used these to reveal her sufferings to Procne. After recovering her sister, Procne killed her son, Itys, boiled him, and served him as a meal to her unknowing husband; and then she fled in all haste with her sister. When Tereus realized what had happened, he snatched up an axe and set out in pursuit. Finding themselves overtaken as they reached Daulis in Phocis,* the sisters prayed to the gods to be turned into birds. Procne became a nightingale, and Philomela a swallow;* and Tereus, who was also transformed into a bird, became a hoopoe.