Ἀλκὴν μὲν γὰρ ἔδωκεν Ὀλύμπιος Αἰακίδαισι, Νοῦν δ᾽ Ἀμυθαονίδαις, πλοῦτον δ᾽ ἔπορ᾽ Ἀτρείδῃσι. Polyb. v. 2.— Αἰακίδας, πολέμῳ κεχαρηότας ἠΰτε δαιτί. [450] See his Æginetica, p. 14, his earliest work. [451] Pindar, Olymp. ix. 74. The hero Ajax, son of Oïleus, was especially worshipped at Opus; solemn festivals and games were celebrated in his honor. CHAPTER XI. ATTIC LEGENDS AND GENEALOGIES. The most ancient name in Attic archæology, as far as our means of information reach, is that of Erechtheus, who is mentioned both in the Catalogue of the Iliad and in a brief allusion of the Odyssey. Born of the Earth, he is brought up by the goddess Athênê, adopted by her as her ward, and installed in her temple at Athens, where the Athenians offer to him annual sacrifices. The Athenians are styled in the Iliad, “the people of Erechtheus.”[452] This is the most ancient testimony concerning Erechtheus, exhibiting him as a divine or heroic, certainly a superhuman person, and identifying him with the primitive germination (if I may use a term, the Grecian equivalent of which would have pleased an Athenian ear) of Attic man. And he was recognized in this same character, even at the close of the fourth century before the Christian æra, by the Butadæ, one of the most ancient and important Gentes at Athens, who boasted of him as their original ancestor: the genealogy of the great Athenian orator Lykurgus, a member of this family, drawn up by his son Abrôn, and painted on a public tablet in the Erechtheion, contained as its first and highest name, Erechtheus, son of Hêphæstos and the Earth. In the Erechtheion, Erechtheus was worshipped conjointly with Athênê: he was identified with the god Poseidôn, and bore the denomination of Poseidôn Erechtheus: one of the family of the Butadæ, chosen among themselves by lot, enjoyed the privilege and performed the functions of his hereditary priest.[453] Herodotus also assigns the same earth-born origin to Erechtheus:[454] but Pindar, the old poem called the Danais, Euripidês and Apollodôrus—all name Erichthonius, son of Hêphæstos and the Earth, as the being who was thus adopted and made the temple-companion of Athênê, while Apollodôrus in another place identifies Erichthonius with Poseidôn.[455] The Homeric scholiast treated Erechtheus and Erichthonius as the same person under two names:[456] and since, in regard to such mythical persons, there exists no other test of identity of the subject except perfect similarity of the attributes, this seems the reasonable conclusion. [452] Iliad, ii. 546. Odyss. vii. 81.— Οἳ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἀθήνας εἶχον ... Δῆμον Ἐρεχθῆος μεγαλήτορος, ὅν ποτ᾽ Ἀθήνη Θρέψε, Διὸς θυγάτηρ, τέκε δὲ ζείδωρος Ἄρουρα, Κὰδ δ᾽ ἐν Ἀθήνῃσ᾽ εἷσεν ἑῷ ἐνὶ πίονι νηῷ, Ἐνθάδε μιν ταύροισι καὶ ἀρνειοῖς ἱλάονται Κοῦροι Ἀθηναίων, περιτελλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν.