Painting on an Attic crater, dating to 410-400 B.C., now in the Museum
of the Fasanerie Castle, Eichenzell, Germany. The image shows one of
the rare representations of Erechtheus or Erichthonius, mythical Athenian
king. The more ancient traditions often conflates the two personages
which were later interpreted as two different individuals. A myth narrates
that Hephaestus, in his attempt to have intercourse with Athena and
refused by her, spread his semen on the earth, Gea, from whom Erichthonius
was born. The child, concealed in a basket, was entrusted by Athena
to the three daughters of the king Cecrops, regarded as the first king
of Attica, and who was himself regarded as part man, part serpent. The
goddess interdicted the girls to open the basket. But the maidens, unable
to resist to the curiosity, opened the container and saw a child in
the shape of a serpent, or of a snake-man and, prey to the folly, threw
themselves from the Acropolis. Erichthonius, born from the Earth and
ancestor of the Athenians, became the symbol of their autochthony and
of their linkage with the territory of Attica. The temple dedicated
to Athena on the Acropolis, which is ornamented on the south side with
the Porch of the Caryatids, was deemed founded by Erechtheus/Erichthonius
and is called still nowadays the Erechtheion. In this temple were kept
the material evidences of the primordial contest between Athena and
Poseidon for the control of the territory of Athens. Poseidon showed
his power making a well of sea-water gush out of the rock with a thrust
of his trident, while Athena made the first olive tree sprout out, thus
obtaining the primacy as the protectress of the city. Near the Erechtheion
it was possible to see the signs of Poseidon’s trident, where
it had stroke the rock to make the water spurt, and nearby the sacred
olive tree, that stands out in the pottery painting. In this image can
be detected, too, some symbolic elements that shall become part of the
Christian tradition, such as the olive branch, the lamb which Erechtheus
holds in his arm and the winged figures, similar to angels.
[Source: http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/XDB/ASP/recordDetails.asp?id=EEDE3A09-B840-4A28-BE4F-453F29D16F6D]
