Like many autochthonous beings, Erichthonius was associated with snakes. Snakes are symbolically complex. While their shape suggests the male sexual organ, the fact that they can shed their skin suggests the ability to regenerate themselves unaided. That, and the fact that they lived within the earth, were both regarded as female characteristics. An Athenian vase painting represents Cecrops, the first king of Athens, as human from the waist up and serpentine below. Erichthonius might have had a snakelike torso instead of legs, or perhaps snaky feet. Another version gave him human form.
After the creation of Erichthonius, Athena hid him in a covered basket, either alone or with a snake, and entrusted it to Cecrops’s virgin daughters (Pandrosus, Aglaurus, and Herse), with strict orders not to look inside. The girls peeked, and saw either a baby coiled up in a snake or a biform creature. For defying the will of Athena, they were then either slain by the snake or were driven mad, hurling themselves to their deaths from the top of the Acropolis.
In Greek mythology, knowledge and sight are intimately connected. In light of the snake’s sexual connotations, the sight of it could symbolize the young girls’ initiation into sexuality. Alternatively, the snake could represent the secret of creation itself. This knowledge is too powerful for mortals to comprehend and results in their madness or death.
When Erichthonius grew up, he banished Cecrops and seized the crown. As king he erected the wooden statue of Athena in what became the Erechtheum, and instituted the Panathenaic festival. During this festival, virgin girls called arrephoroi (“bearers of unspeakable things”) reenacted his myth, transporting baskets containing sacred objects from the Parthenon to an underground cave in the grove of Aphrodite. This rite, too, suggests sexual awakening.
ERICHTHONIUS
Above: The Finding of Erichthonius (1632—1633) by Peter Paul Rubens. As her nurse watches, Aglaurus opens the lid of the basket containing the infant Erichthonius.
Erichthonius was also said to have invented the enclosed chariot, perhaps to conceal his snaky feet. He later became the constellation Auriga, the charioteer. On Athena’s gold-and-ivory statue in the Parthenon, Erichthonius appeared as a snake hiding behind the goddess’s shield.
The best sources for the story of Erichthonius are the mythological handbook written by Hyginus in the first century CE and the ancient travel guide to Greece by Pausanias (143—176 CE).
Bibliography
Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. New York: Penguin,
1993.
Pausanias, and Peter Levi, trans. Guide to Greece. New York: Viking Press, 1984.
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