ABSTRACT

Bastard son of Priam of Troy; he often acted as Hector’s charioteer and accompanied him in battle. Patroclus slew him and the Greeks stripped his body.

1. A snake-man sprung from the soil, the second mythical king of Attica. He married Aglaurus, daughter of Actaeus, and inherited his father-inlaw’s kingdom of Acte, as Attica was then called, giving it the name of Cecropia instead. He was believed to have had the body of a man and the tail of a snake. Aglaurus bore him a son, Erysichthon, who did not survive Cecrops, and three daughters, Pandrosus, Aglaurus, and Herse. When Athena and Poseidon strove for the possession of Attica, Cecrops awarded the land to Athena, because she made an olive tree grow on the Acropolis, whereas all Poseidon could produce was a spring of brackish water. Cecrops was believed to have foundcd the court of the Areopagus at Athens for a trial of Ares, who was accused of the homicide of Halirrhothius and acquitted. Cecrops put an end to human sacrifice in his kingdom, and was the first to recognise the supremacy of Zeus among the gods, offering him cakes (pelanoi) instead of human or animal flesh. He was succeeded by Cranaus.