Founding Athens I: Creating History
from Classical Mythology Hosted by Dr Gillian Shepherd
Origins of cities and peoples are an important component of Greek mythology, and were central to ancient Greeks’ conception of their own identity. The most famous Greek origin myth is that of the Athenians, who, unlike most other Greeks, thought of their ancestors as strongly connected to and even born from the earth, in other words as autochthonous. This lecture explores the birth myths of the early, mythical kings of Athens, such as Kekrops, Erichthonius and Erectheus, and ends withsome discussion Ion, who gave his name to the Ionians, and the various genealogies asssociated with him (N.B. Euripides’ version of Ion is discussed in more detail in Lecture 14). Copyright 2013 Rhiannon Evans / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
Embed this episode
No transcript yet.