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Erechtheus

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Erechtheus (ĕrĕk`thēəs), in Greek mythology, king of Athens. On the advice of an oracle he sacrificed one of his daughters during the battle between the Athenians and the Eleusinians. This enabled him to win the battle, but Poseidon later destroyed him and all his house. Erechtheus is often confused with Erichthonius Erichthonius , in Greek mythology, son of Hephaestus and Athena, half man and half serpent. After his birth Athena concealed him in a chest that she gave to the daughters of Cecrops to keep.
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, his grandfather. Both were associated with the worship of Athena; one or the other is said to have built a temple which was the forerunner to the Erechtheum Erechtheum [for Erechtheus], Gr. Erechtheion, temple in Pentelic marble, on the Acropolis at Athens. One of the masterpieces of Greek architecture, it was constructed between c.421 B.C. and 405 B.C.
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 built in the 5th cent. B.C., and to have established the Panathenaea (see Athena Athena , or Pallas Athena , in Greek religion and mythology, one of the most important Olympian deities. According to myth, after Zeus seduced Metis he learned that any son she bore would overthrow him, so he swallowed her alive.
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Erechtheus

Legendary god-king of Athens. According to Homer's Iliad, he was born from the earth and raised by Athena, who established him in her temple at Athens. Later tradition associates him with a huge snake that was thought to live in the temple. In a lost play by Euripides, Erechtheus sacrificed his daughter Chthonia to ensure a victory in war, and as punishment was destroyed by either Poseidon or Zeus.


Erechtheus
inventor of chariots. [Gk. Myth.: Kravitz, 91]


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And they that held the strong city of Athens, the people of great Erechtheus, who was born of the soil itself, but Jove's daughter, Minerva, fostered him, and established him at Athens in her own rich sanctuary.
 
 
 
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