554 THE GREEK SAGAS: GREEK LOCAL LEGENDS
by her incoherent chatter. The Latin authors, however, changed the names, mak-
ing Philomela the nightingale and Procne the swallow.THE ION OF EURIPIDES
Pandion was said to have been succeeded as king by Erechtheus, whose myths
we discussed earlier. Among his daughters was Creusa, the heroine of Euripi-
des' play Ion. Creusa was the only one of the daughters not to have been sacri-
ficed by her father before the battle against Eumolpus. She was loved by Apollo
and bore him a son, Ion, whom she exposed out of fear of her father. Ion was
saved by Hermes at Apollo's request and taken by him to Delphi, where he was
brought up as a temple servant and became treasurer of the sanctuary. Creusa,
meanwhile, was given as wife to Xuthus as a reward for aiding Erechtheus in
defeating the Chalcodontids of Euboea. After years of childlessness, Xuthus and
Creusa consulted the Delphic oracle as to how they might have children; Xuthus
was told to greet as his son the first person he met on going out of the temple.^10
This person was Ion, but Creusa, who did not know that he was her own son,
took him for a bastard son of Xuthus and attempted to kill him. The attempt
miscarried, and with the intervention of Athena mother and son recognized each
other. Xuthus, Creusa, and Ion returned together to Athens, where Ion became
the ancestor of the four Ionic tribes (which were the main units of the early
Athenian political structure). His descendants colonized part of the coast of Asia
Minor and the islands, thereafter called Ionia.^11ORITHYIA AND BOREAS AND THEIR CHILDREN
Another daughter of Erechtheus, Orithyia, was loved by the North Wind, Boreas.
He carried her off to Thrace as she was playing by the river Ilissus.^12 In Thrace
she became the mother of the winged heroes Zetes and Calais, and of two daugh-
ters, Cleopatra and Chione. Zetes and Calais were prominent in the Argonauts'
expedition (see pp. 576-578). Phineus was married to Cleopatra, who was said to
have caused the blindness of her stepsons (born to Phineus from another woman)
by falsely accusing them of attempting to seduce her. Chione became the mother,
by Poseidon, of Eumolpus, whose expedition against Athens we discussed earlier.THE CONFUSED GENEALOGY OF THE KINGS OF ATHENS
According to Apollodorus, Erechtheus was succeeded by his son Cecrops, and
Cecrops by his son Pandion; Cecrops and Pandion thus repeat the names of ear-
lier kings. Pandion was driven out of Attica by his uncle Metion and fled to
Megara, where he became the father of four sons: Aegeus, Pallas, Nisus, and Ly-
cus. After Pandion's death, the four brothers recovered the throne at Athens and
shared the power; Aegeus, however, as the oldest, was in effect the sovereign,
while Nisus returned to Megara as its king.