updated 7-24-04

Chapter 15-a: The Myths of Athens
Pages 388-402

Athens, the "City of Athena," is perhaps the most famous of the cities of ancient Greece. Reflecting its ancient glory and fame, it is has at least 3 different types of foundation stories. The first is that its people were descendants of a mortal; the second is that its people arose spontaneously from the earth; the last is that Athenians are descended from Athena herself. As a result of centuries of retelling, these three foundation myths are often mingled together in the many versions that survive to modern times.

The snake occupies a prominent place in Athenian legends and rituals. Students immediately recall the legend in which Perseus gives the snaky head of Medusa to Athena, after whom Athens is named and who bears it ever after on her shield. The snake is meant to symbolize both the fertility of the land and the sexual fertility of the phallus. Because it both comes from the earth and returns to it, the snake also symbolizes the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

Another common thread in these myths of the founders of Athens is the destructive nature of unbridled sexual passion. In these stories, the gods play surprisingly small parts, leaving the mortal characters to become blinded by passion, to act without honor or reason, and thus to destroy themselves and others around them.

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The myth of Cecrops, the mortal founder who sprang from the earth

1. One version of Cecrops’ birth says that he sprang directly from the earth and that all Athenians were his descendants. What physical characteristic echoes his autochthonous beginning?

He had a snake’s body.

2. Athenian myths paint Cecrops as a great king and civilizer, mindful of the welfare of his people. What gifts make his reign "a golden age"? 

The arts of civilization, for example

• agriculture, fire, herding, etc
• abandonment of human sacrifice and acceptance of the worship of Zeus with its ritual sacrifices of food and wine
• The ability to build and govern cities
• Understanding the need to bury the dead properly so that their souls may be at rest
• The practice of monogamy with its emphasis on family structure and stability—I’m not sure they learned this lesson very well.

3. What two great deities vie to become the patron of Athens? What does each offer? Why do Athenians eventually choose Athena?

Poseidon offers salt water and command of the seas; Athena offers fresh spring water and the gift of the olive. The Athenians choose Athena in recognition of the value of water and olives to their survival.

4. How does this choice suggest that the story is very ancient in origin?

The myth of Erichthonius, another founder who sprang from the earth

1. How does Hephaestus come to chase Athena? Is his chase successful?

Hephaestus, lonely after his divorce from Aphrodite, becomes filled with lust when Athena brings him some of her weapons to repair. He chases and catches her but before he can rape her, he ejaculates on her leg (or variously, on a stone or on the ground). Whether his chase is successful or not depends on your point of view.

2. The Greeks loved puzzles, riddles, conundrums, and humor of all types. How would the story of "the manchild of earth and wool" have appealed to this Greek characteristic?

They would have found it difficult to decide if Erichthonius had the deities Hephaestus and Athena as parents or if he had no parents at all.

3. What does Athena do with Erichthonius? Become familiar with the names of Cecrops’ daughters because they will appear in other myths.

She puts him in a basket and gives him to the three daughters of Cecrops to raise.

4. The motif of the ignored warning is prominent in the stories of Cecrops’ and his descendants. What warning do the daughters of Cecrops ignore? Did you know right away that they would ignore the warning and let themselves in for a lot of trouble?

Aglaurus and Herse ignore Athena’s warning not to look into the basket. Seeing Erichthonius’ snakelike body drives them out of their minds and, according to this legend, Aglaurus and Herse hurl themselves from the Acropolis to their deaths. Pandrosus wisely heeds the warning. Of course we knew they would ignore the warning and get themselves in trouble.  In Greek myth a warning is almost always a foreshadowing of disaster to come.

5. What did Erichthonius do to honor Athena when he became king of Athens?

He put a wooden statue of Athena in the Acropolis.

6. The myth of Erichthonius and Cecrops’ daughters explains an Athenian ritual in which young girls pass from childhood and become ready for marriage. What is that ritual?

Festival of the Dew Carriers: a ritual related to the myth of the daughters of Cecrops

7. Two young girls live in a special house, weaving a robe for Athena and playing games.

This part of the ritual symbolizes the time of childhood when the girls lived as carefree children in their parents’ house. The robe they offer to Athena, the patron goddess of virginity, is a symbol of their sexual innocence.

8. At the Festival, the two girls, carrying baskets on their heads, are taken at night to a statue of Aphrodite.

The baskets probably contained snakes, a symbol of fertility and male sexuality. Being containers, the baskets themselves represented the womb and symbolized the female sexuality.  The ancient Greeks thought that female sexuality was so powerful in virgins that it could control male sexuality and thus the males themselves.  Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual attraction, further emphasizes this idea. In combination, the basket of snakes and the statue of Aphrodite symbolize the unmarried woman’s control of the male through her ability to so excite his passions that he loses all sense of reason and honor.

9. The girls climb down a flight of stairs, where they leave the baskets.

A downward journey almost always symbolizes an encounter with death and by extension in this context represents the loss of virginity. Once the girls are married and come under the control of their husbands, their sexuality is no longer threatening. Thus they leave behind the baskets, the symbol of their control over males.

10. The girls climb back up the stairs carrying a new basket containing something mysterious.

Procris and Cephalus, a man who loved not wisely but too well

1. In this story, Herse gets the god Hermes and a child named Cephalus. What does her sister Aglaurus get and why?

Aglaurus gets turned to stone when she first offers to show Hermes the way to Herse’s bed and then changes her mind and refuses to do so.

2. After Cephalus marries Procris, he annoys the gods by being altogether too happy. They respond by causing Cephalus to doubt and then to test Procris’s faithfulness. How does he test her and to what lure does she eventually succumb?

He disguises himself and tries to seduce her by offering her gifts, but she remains steadfast. Finally he offers her a golden crown, which she accepts.

3. In a panic, Procris flees to Crete, where she stirs the passions of its king, Minos. What problems arise in connection with this love affair?

Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, had placed a curse on him so that instead of semen he ejaculated spiders and scorpions which would devour the woman’s genitals.

4. After Procris cures Minos, he gives her two gifts. Name the gifts and their special qualities.

Procris cures Minos with a root which she got from the witch Circê, Pasiphaë’s sister. In thanks, Minos give Procris Laelaps, a magical hound who always catches what he chases, and a magical spear that always hits its target. Laelaps reappears when Amphitreon offers Cephalus money in exchange for a loan of the hound to catch a vixen that was plaguing Thebes. Thus the hound that always catches it prey endlessly chases the vixen that cannot be caught. Zeus, irritated by the conundrum, turned both the hound and the vixen to stone.

5. How do Procris and Cephalus get back together?

Procris, a woman who loved not wisely but to well, and Cephalus

6. After Procris and Cephalus get back together, Procris takes her turn to become suspicious.

7. What is she afraid of? (Ovid, Ars Amatoria [The Art of Love], 686-725)

When he goes hunting, Procris fears that he is not hunting but sneaking away to meet a lover. These fears are intensified when she secretly follows Cephalus and overhears him crying out for "Gail."

8. Is this fear justified? (726-29)

No. Her jealousy deprives her of her common sense. He’s asking for a cooling breeze, but Procris thinks he’s calling out for a lover named Gail. The Greeks would have appreciated both the irony and humor of this situation.

9. What does Procris do? (730-31)

At last, she realizes her mistake and joyously rushes to embrace her husband.

10. How does Cephalus respond? (732-35)

Cephalus thinks he’s being rushed by a wild animal, so he jumps up, grabs his spear and runs her through. Of course he does. You haven’t forgotten the evil omens that accompanied their wedding, have you? Like lovers in a soap opera, these people are not destined to find happiness.

11. What happens to Cephalus after Procris dies?

Cephalus is tried by the Aeropagus, a court in Athens, and is exiled. He travels to Thebes, where the city must regularly offer the son of a prominent citizen to a marauding vixen in order to forestall greater predation.

12. How does Cephalus put Laelaps to good use after his trial?

Procne and Tereus, another story of runaway passions—with a dash of metamorphosis

1. How do we know that the marriage of Procne and Tereus, king of Thrace, is not off to a good start? (Ovid, Metamorphosis, ll. 424-434)

Because Tereus is a descendant of Ares, the god of war, no one wants anything to do with him. Even the gods avoid the wedding, which is attended only by the Furies. The omens associated with the wedding are a torch stolen from a tomb and owls, both of which are symbolic of death.

2. After being married for five years and bearing a son, Itys, to Tereus, Procne longs to see her sister Philomela. How does Tereus respond? (ll. 438-44)

He assembles a fleet and sets out for Athens to convince Philomela’s father to allow her to come to Thrace to visit her sister.

3. What happens when Tereus sees Philomela? (ll. 445-70)

Tereus falls immediately in lust with Philomela and starts plotting about how to get her under his control. In lying to his host, he violates xenia. More seriously, we see Tereus promising to act as her father, and act which will by extension render him guilty of incest when at last he rapes her. The seriousness of the taboos Tereus violates explains the presence of the Furies in his wedding chamber and foreshadows the horror of the retribution he will face.

4. What happens to Philomela when Tereus brings her back to Thrace? (ll. 478-81)

He immediately rapes her.

5. How does Philomela propose to repay Tereus for his deeds? (ll. 482-494)

She’s going to tell the world, and thus reveal his terrible blood-guilt, shaming him, causing him to be an outcast—expelled from the company of all men—and to have his story told by singers around the known world.

6. How does Tereus respond to her threat? (ll.495-506)

He rips out her tongue and locks her up in a guarded stone cell.

7. What story does Tereus concoct to explain why Philomela is not with him? (ll. 507-13)

Tereus tells Procne that her sister is dead.

8. Robbed of speech and locked in her prison, Philomela devises a way to get a message to her sister. What is her plan? (ll. 514-523)

She weaves the story into a tapestry, which she sends by messenger to her sister.

9. How does Procne respond to Philomela’s message? (ll. 524-29)

She flies into a rage and begins to plan revenge.

10. Why is the feast of Baccus a good cover for Procne’s plan? (ll. 530-42)

The festival allows Procne to go out from the castle without her husband going along. She is also able to disguise herself with the grape leaves and costumes of animal skin and take her supporters with her as she searches for Philomela, frees her, and takes her back to the castle also disguised as a Bacchanalian reveler.

11. How does Procne respond to Philomela’s apologies? (ll. 543-548)

Procne tells Philomela not to waste time being ashamed or apologizing but to start planning revenge.

12. What revenge does Procne plan? (ll. 559-60) How does she justify this plan? (ll. 561-75)

Realizing that their son Itys is very much like his father, Procne decides to kill him—partly in revenge but also partly to keep the son from committing similar sins. She also justifies her right to kill her husband by recalling the "spirit of her sires," which she also carries, and by saying that killing Tereus "is the truest virtue of all."

13. But the revenge is not complete. What does Procne do with Itys’s body? (ll. 576-590)

She and Philomela hack it into pieces, boil it up, and serve it to Tereus.

14. What words reveal the cruel irony of Tereus' meal? (ll. 591-97)

"Let Itys be brought inside."  While Tereus means for his slaves to bring Itys to him inside the banquet hall, the reader knows that the words have a second and terrible meaning:  Tereus has already brought Itys inside not only the hall but inside his own body by having eaten him. 

15. Why does Tereus call on The Furies of Hades? (l. 600)

He wants them either to enable him to disembowel himself or to validate his killing of his wife Procne. They do neither.  They have already carried out the revenge for which they are responsible, and that revenge is on Tereus himself, not on Procne or Philomela.

16. What happens to the three when Tereus tries to kill Procne and Philomela?