Erechtheus and His Daughters (page 244)

Chapter 7: The Royal House of Athens

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♠ HDem 2.154 – Homeric Hymn to Demeter

…and Polykseinos and blameless Eumolpos… (translated by Aaron J. Ivey)  Greek Text

♠ HDem 2.475 – Homeric Hymn to Demeter

and to doughty Eumolpus and Celeus, leader of the people, she showed the conduct of her rites and taught them all her mysteries.  Greek Text

♠ Euripides, Erechtheus fr 349 N² – Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, p. 465, ed. A. Nauck, 2nd ed. Leipzig 1889.

Greek Text

♠ ApB 3.15.4 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)

Chione had connexion with Poseidon, and having given birth to Eumolpus unknown to her father, in order not to be detected, she flung the child into the deep. But Poseidon picked him up and conveyed him to Ethiopia, and gave him to Benthesicyme（a daughter of his own by Amphitrite） to bring up. When he was full grown, Benthesicyme’s husband gave him one of his two daughters. But he tried to force his wife’s sister, and being banished on that account, he went with his son Ismarus to Tegyrius, king of Thrace, who gave his daughter in marriage to Eumolpus’s son. But being afterwards detected in a plot against Tegyrius, he fled to the Eleusinians and made friends with them. Later, on the death of Ismarus, he was sent for by Tegyrius and went, composed his old feud with him, and succeeded to the kingdom. And war having broken out between the Athenians and the Eleusinians, he was called in by the Eleusinians and fought on their side with a large force of Thracians. When Erechtheus inquired of the oracle how the Athenians might be victorious, the god answered that they would win the war if he would slaughter one of his daughters; and when he slaughtered his youngest, the others also slaughtered themselves; for, as some said, they had taken an oath among themselves to perish together. In the battle which took place after the slaughter, Erechtheus killed Eumolpus Greek Text

♠ Andron FGrH 10F13 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, pp. 163-64, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.

Greek Text

♠ Istros FGrH 334F22 –  Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 3 pt. B, p. 175, ed. F. Jacoby, 2d ed. Leiden 1957.

Greek Text

♠ Hesiod fr. 10a.20-24 MW – Hesiodi Theogonia, Opera et Dies, Scutum, pp. 227-28, ed. Solmsen. 3d ed. Oxford 1990.

♠ 14 GLP – Euripides, Melanippe Sophe – Fragments of more recent Greek literary papyri cited according to D.L. Page, Select Papyri III, pp. 116-19. London 1941.

Greek Text and English Translation

♠ Hdt 8.44 – Herodotus, Historiae

When, however, Ion son of Xuthus was commander of the Athenian army, they were called after him Ionians.  Greek Text

♠ Paus 1.31.3 – Pausanias, Description of Greece

At Potami in Attica is also the grave of Ion the son of Xuthus—for he too dwelt among the Athenians and was their commander-in-chief in the war with Eleusis.  Greek Text
♠ Paus 2.14.2 – Pausanias, Description of Greece
They say that it was Dysaules, the brother of Celeus, who came to their land and established the mysteries, and that he had been expelled from Eleusis by Ion, when Ion, the son of Xuthus, was chosen by the Athenians to be commander-in-chief in the Eleusinian war.  Greek Text
Revised by Elena Bianchelli, Retired Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, March 2023

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