Parents of a nation

The rest of Greece also claimed descent from Deucalion and Pyrrha. One of their sons was Hellen, whose name means “Greek.” It is from the root Hell-, from which are derived Hellas, their name for their country, Hellenes, meaning “Greeks,” and Hellenikos, the adjective “Greek.”

Among the children and grandchildren of Hellen and his wife, the nymph Orseis, were the founders of each of the primary subethnic regional groups of Greece. Two of their sons were Aeolus, the first of the Aeolians, and Dorus, the first of the Dorians. Another son, Xuthus, married Creusa and had two sons: Ion, the founder of the lonians, and Achaeus, the founder of the Achaeans. The terms Aeolian, Dorian, Ionian, and Achaean are still used today to describe both the geographical and the dialect areas of Greece. They are surpassed in importance only by Athens and the surrounding district of Attica.

Deucalion and Pyrrha were the starting point to which all Greeks traced their origins. As their civilization

Below: The Parian Marble is a surviving chronicle of ancient Greece inscribed in marble. The chronicle dates the flood that wiped out all humans but Deucalion and Pyrrha to c. 1528—1527 BCE.

Developed, more and more cities and regions began to claim association with the couple, and that they were central to the story of the flood. The people of Dodona, for example, claimed that their city had been founded by Deucalion after his ark had landed there. The citizens of Kynos, the main port in Locri, maintained that Deucalion and Pyrrha had lived there, and that Pyrrha was buried there.

Meanwhile, the people of Athens responded to provincial rivalry by making new claims of their own. Deucalion was already buried among them; they later asserted that the land surrounding his grave contained a large cleft in the ground that marked the spot at which the floodwaters had first begun to recede. They commemorated this event in an annual ceremony at which they threw honey-wheat cakes into the crack.

The Parian Marble (Marmor Parium) is an ancient stone on the island of Paros with inscriptions that record significant events from the time of the earliest kings to the third century BCE. According to its account, Deucalion’s flood took place in 1528—1527 BCE, 53 years after Cecrops became the first king of Athens, 110 years before the introduction of agriculture by Demeter, and 320 years before the Trojan War.