are both chthonic (because they live in holes in the ground) and immortal (because
they shed their skins). While the immortalization process was taking place, she
entrusted the chest and its contents to three girls, the daughters of King Kekrops,
instructing them not to look inside. But as is the way when Greek mythological
characters are instructed not to look inside a container, they disobey. One of the
daughters, Pandrosus, remained obedient, but the others, Herse and Aglauros, opened
the chest. What they saw terrified them and they leapt to their deaths off the Acropolis.
Athena’s plan to make the child immortal was now thwarted. Quite why this is the case
is unclear except that deification seems to have required conditions of secrecy. Certainly
when Demeter was trying to make the Eleusinian child Demophoo ̈n immortal in the
Homeric Hymn to Demeter, she did so at night, and it was when another person (his
mother Metaneira) intruded that the magic stopped working.
The Athenian foundation myth, then, hinges on failure. Although he was supposed
to become immortal, Erichthonius had to remain human instead. But it is not all
about failure. As a hero, Erichthonius still had an intimate relationship with Athena;
indeed, he had a closeness to the goddess that exceeded that possessed by another
hero of Greek myth, even Athena’s special prote ́ge ́, Heracles (see Deacy 2005). When
the immortalization plan failed, Athena took Erichthonius into her temple on the
Acropolis and reared him there. The maternal tendencies evident in earlier stages of
the myth are taken further here in that she actually brought up the child.
As the ‘‘son’’ of Athena, Erichthonius is the foundation hero par excellence. On
attaining adulthood, he performed two acts that enhanced Athena’s cult: the erection of
the statue of Athena Polias, and the foundation of the Panathenaea. The story about
Erichthonius is also the story of Athena, who is now established even more firmly as the
major deity of the Athenian state. It is also the story of the origins of the Athenian
citizenry, who as the descendants of Erichthonius are in a sense the descendants of Athena.
In mythic terms, the Athenians are not just the people of Athena, but her ‘‘children.’’
The myths take on an even deeper level of significance when we consider their
connection with the cults of the Acropolis. The two major deities worshiped on
the summit were Athena and Poseidon, the gods who fought to be Athens’ patron,
and the tokens that they produced were visible on the rock. As for the myth of
Erichthonius, the altar of Hephaestus was located on the north side of the rock,
together with the statue of Athena. The precinct of the ‘‘good’’ daughter Pandrosus
was also situated here. (As befits the girl who leapt to her death off the rock, Aglauros’
sanctuary, in contrast, was situated on the slopes.)
In the final decades of the fifth century, these and other cults were incorporated
into the temple known to us (though not to the ancients) as the Erechtheum
(see Figure 14.2). Its main function was to house the cult of Athena Polias, hence
its ancient name, ‘‘the temple on the Acropolis in which the ancient image is,’’
although it also housed the cults of Poseidon, Hephaestus, Pandrosus, Kekrops,
Boutes, and Zeus in his guises of Hypatos (‘‘most high’’) and Herkeios (‘‘of the
fence’’), that is Zeus in dual guises as chief Olympian and as protector of the temple.
The crevice of the guardian snake of the Acropolis was found here too, as were
Poseidon’s salt spring and Athena’s olive tree.
A Greek temple is normally the home of the cult of a single deity. Why, then, was
this curious multi-function building constructed? To address this question we need to
consider the context in which it was built. It was part of the great Acropolis
The Religious System at Athens 227