In Greek mythology , Thespius ( / ˈ θ ɛ s p i ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Θέσπιος Théspios ) or Thestius ( / ˈ θ ɛ s tʃ ə s , ˈ θ ɛ s t i ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Θέστιος) was a legendary founder and king of Thespiae , Boeotia . His life account is considered part of Greek mythology .
22-512: Thespius was reportedly son of Erechtheus , King of Athens , and possibly Praxithea , daughter of Phrasimus and Diogeneia . He was probably the brother of Protogeneia , Pandora , Procris , Creusa , Oreithyia , Chthonia , Merope , Cecrops , Pandorus , Metion , Orneus , Eupalamus and Sicyon . Other sources called him a descendant of Erechtheus while some said that he was the son of Teuthras , son of Pandion or Cepheus . Thespius' maternal grandparents were Phrasimus and Diogenia ,
44-401: A Homeric, pan-Hellenic name has been superimposed on an autochthonous , non-Greek name." Swinburne 's classical tragedy Erechtheus was published in 1876. He uses the framework of the classical myth to express the republican and patriotic ideals that preoccupied him at this era. Pandion I In Greek mythology , Pandion I ( / p æ n ˈ d aɪ ɒ n / ; Ancient Greek : Πανδίων)
66-441: Is carried by a son of Erechtheus, but Plutarch conflated the two names in the myth of the begetting of Erechtheus. Athenians thought of themselves as Erechtheidai , the "sons of Erechtheus". In Homer 's Iliad (2. 547–48) Erechtheus is the son of "grain-giving Earth", reared by Athena . The earth-born son was sired by Hephaestus , whose semen Athena wiped from her thigh with a fillet of wool cast to earth, by which Gaia
88-467: The "earth-born". The brothers divided the royal power possessed by Pandion, Erechtheus taking the physical rule but Butes taking the priesthood of Athena and Poseidon, this right being passed on to his descendants. This late origin myth or aition justified and validated the descent of the hereditary priesthood of the Boutidai family. His reign was marked by the war between Athens and Eleusis , when
110-600: The Eleusinians were commanded by Eumolpus , coming from Thrace . An oracle declared that Athens' survival depended on the death of one of the three daughters of Erechtheus. Perhaps this means the three unmarried daughters. In one version it is Chthonia, the youngest, who is sacrificed. In another, it is both Protogeneia and Pandora, the two eldest, who offer themselves up. In any case the remaining sisters (excepting Orithyia who had been kidnapped by Boreas ), or at least some of them, are said to kill themselves. The story of
132-573: The city". The Odyssey (VII.81) already records that Athena returned to Athens and "entered the strong-built house of Erechtheus". The archaic joint temple built upon the spot that was identified as the Kekropion , the hero-grave of the mythic founder-king Cecrops and the serpent that embodied his spirit was destroyed by the Persian forces in 480 BC, during the Greco-Persian wars , and
154-465: The city; he will be known for him who killed him, under the name of 'sacred Poseidon'; but among the citizens, when the sacrificial cattle are slaughtered, he shall also be called 'Erechtheus'. To you, however, since you have rebuilt the city's foundations, I grant the duty of bringing in the preliminary fire-sacrifices for the city, and to be called my priestess. In the Athenian king-list, Xuthus ,
176-568: The daughter of the river god Cephissus . He married Megamede , daughter of Arneus . They supposedly had fifty daughters together, although Thespius may have fathered some of the daughters from unnamed mistresses with Megamede being their stepmother. The daughters are often referred to as the Thespiades , also being the subject of an 1853 painting by Gustave Moreau . All his daughters came of marrying age but Thespius seems to have sought no husband for them; he instead desired grandchildren from
198-462: The earth with blows of his trident, The ending lines of Euripides' tragedy were recovered in 1965 from a papyrus fragment. They demonstrate for Burkert that "the founding of the Erechtheum and the institution of the priestess of Athena coincide." Athena resolves the action by instructing Erichtheus' widow Praxithea: ...and for your husband I command a shrine to be constructed in the middle of
220-488: The fighting, and it was during his reign that the gods Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica. After his death, the kingdom of Athens went to his son Erechtheus, while Butes received the priesthoods of Athena and " Poseidon Erechtheus" (in Athens, Erechtheus was a cult-title of Poseidon). He is said to have died of grief when he discovered that his daughters, Procne and Philomela, had died. Either Pandion I or Pandion II
242-507: The hero Heracles . When Heracles was assigned to kill a lion (not to be confused with the Nemean Lion ), Thespius offered his fifty daughters as a prize. The hunt for the lion lasted fifty days, and during each night of the hunt Heracles slept with each of the fifty daughters, who in turn each gave birth to one son. Alternate sources claim that Heracles slept with the daughters in a single night. In this version, only forty-nine slept with
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#1732775485237264-402: The hero, with the fiftieth being destined to serve as a virgin priestess of a temple to Heracles, as a punishment for her refusal to sleep with him. In another version, there were fifty-one grandsons of Thespius, forty of which colonized the island of Sardinia . The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus lists the following daughters and grandchildren. The grandchildren were all Heracleidae in
286-462: The son of Erichthonius (the earliest source for this) and says he ruled for 40 years (1437/6–1397/6 BC). It may be that either Pandion I or Pandion II was invented to fill a gap in the mythical history of Athens. According to the Bibliotheca , Pandion fought a war with Labdacus , the king of Thebes , over boundaries, and married his daughter Procne to Tereus in exchange for help in
308-505: The son-in-law of Erechtheus, was asked to choose his successor from among his many sons and chose Cecrops II, named for the mythic founder-king Cecrops . Thus Erechtheus is succeeded by Cecrops II, his brother, according to a fragment from the poet Casto. But according to pseudo-Apollodorus he was succeeded by his son. The central gods of the Acropolis of Athens were Poseidon Erechtheus and Athena Polias , "Athena patron-guardian of
330-443: The unfortunate daughters of Erechtheus is comparable to those of the daughters of Hyacinthus of Lacedaemon , and of the daughters of Leos . In the following battle between the forces of Athens and Eleusis, Erechtheus won the battle and slew Eumolpus, but then himself fell, struck down by Poseidon's trident. According to fragments of Euripides ' tragedy Erechtheus , Poseidon avenged his son Eumolpus' death by driving Erechtheus into
352-604: The wider sense of the term. According to Hellanicus , a certain Sthephanephoros ("crown bearer") was called one of the sons of Heracles who were born from the daughters of Thestios. Hippeus Erechtheus Erechtheus ( / ɪ ˈ r ɛ k θj uː s , - θ i ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Ἐρεχθεύς ) in Greek mythology was a king of Athens , the founder of the polis and, in his role as god, attached to Poseidon , as "Poseidon Erechtheus". The name Erichthonius
374-456: Was a legendary King of Athens , the son and heir to Erichthonius of Athens and his wife, the naiad Praxithea . Through his father, he was the grandson of the god Hephaestus . Pandion married a naiad, Zeuxippe , and they had two sons Erechtheus and Butes , and two daughters Procne and Philomela . In some accounts, he was also called the father of Teuthras , father of Thespius , and of Cephalus , lover of Eos (Dawn). Pandion I
396-424: Was father, by his wife Praxithea , of sons: Cecrops , Pandorus , Metion and of six daughters, the eldest was Protogeneia , Pandora , Procris , Creusa , Oreithyia and Chthonia . Sometimes, his other mentioned children were Orneus , Thespius , Eupalamus , Sicyon and Merope . According to Pseudo-Apollodorus , Erechtheus II had a twin brother named Butes who married Erechtheus' daughter Chthonia,
418-509: Was made pregnant. In the contest for patronage of Athens between Poseidon and Athena, the salt spring on the Acropolis where Poseidon's trident struck was known as the sea of Erechtheus . The second Erechtheus was given a historicizing genealogy as son and heir to King Pandion I of Athens by Zeuxippe , this Pandion being son of Erichthonius. This later king Erechtheus may be distinguished as Erechtheus II. His siblings were Philomela , Procne , Butes and possibly Teuthras . Erechtheus
440-640: Was replaced between 421 and 407 BC by the present Erechtheum . Continuity of the site made sacred by the presence of Cecrops is inherent in the reference in Nonnus ' Dionysiaca to the Erechtheion lamp as "the lamp of Cecrops". Priests of the Erechtheum and the priestess of Athena jointly took part in the procession to Skiron that inaugurated the Skira festival near the end of the Athenian year . Their object
462-492: Was the temenos at Skiron of the hero-seer Skiros, who had aided Eumolpus in the war between Athens and Eleusis in which Erechtheus II, the hero-king, was both triumphant and died. That Poseidon and Erechtheus were two names at Athens for the same figure (see below) was demonstrated in the cult at the Erechtheum, where there was a single altar, a single priest and sacrifices were dedicated to Poseidon Erechtheus , Walter Burkert observed, adding "An historian would say that
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#1732775485237484-401: Was the fifth king of Athens in the traditional line of succession as given by the third century BC Parian Chronicle , the chronographer Castor of Rhodes (probably from the late third-century Eratosthenes ) and the Bibliotheca . He was preceded by Cecrops I , Cranaus , Amphictyon , and Erichthonius , and succeeded by Erechtheus , Cecrops II , and Pandion II . Castor makes Pandion I
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