[453] See the Life of Lykurgus, in Plutarch’s (I call it by that name, as it is always printed with his works) Lives of the Ten Orators, tom. iv. p. 382-384, Wytt. Κατῆγον δὲ τὸ γένος ἀπὸ τούτων καὶ Ἐρεχθέως τοῦ Γῆς καὶ Ἡφαίστου ... καὶ ἐστὶν αὐτὴ ἡ καταγωγὴ τοῦ γένους τῶν ἱερασαμένων του Ποσειδῶνος, etc. Ὃς τὴν ἱερωσύνην Ποσειδῶνος Ἐρεχθέως εἶχε (pp. 382, 383). Erechtheus Πάρεδρος of Athênê—Aristidês, Panathenaic. p. 184, with the Scholia of Frommel. Butês, the eponymus of the Butadæ, is the first priest of Poseidôn Erichthonius: Apollod. iii. 15, 1. So Kallias (Xenoph. Sympos. viii. 40), ἱερεὺς θεῶν τῶν ἀπ᾽ Ἐρεχθέως. [454] Herodot. viii. 55. [455] Harpokration, v. Αὐτοχθών. Ὁ δὲ Πίνδαρος καὶ ὁ τὴν Δαναΐδα πεποιηκὼς φασιν, Ἐριχθόνιον ἐξ Ἡφαίστου καὶ Γῆς φανῆναι. Euripidês, Ion. 21. Apollod. iii. 14, 6; 15, 1. Compare Plato, Timæus, c. 6. [456] Schol. ad Iliad, ii. 546, where he cites also Kallimachus for the story of Erichthonius. Etymologicon Magn. Ἐρεχθεύς. Plato (Kritias, c. 4) employs vague and general language to describe the agency of Hêphæstos and Athênê, which the old fable in Apollodôrus (iii. 14, 6) details in coarser terms. See Ovid, Metam. ii. 757. We may presume, from the testimony of Homer, that the first and oldest conception of Athens and its sacred acropolis places it under the special protection, and represents it as the settlement and favorite abode of Athênê, jointly with Poseidôn; the latter being the inferior, though the chosen companion of the former, and therefore exchanging his divine appellation for the cognomen of Erechtheus. But the country called Attica, which, during the historical ages, forms one social and political aggregate with Athens, was originally distributed into many independent dêmes or cantons, and included, besides, various religious clans or hereditary sects (if the expression may be permitted); that is, a multitude of persons not necessarily living together in the same locality, but bound together by an hereditary communion of sacred rites, and claiming privileges, as well as performing obligations, founded upon the traditional authority of divine persons for whom they had a common veneration. Even down to the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the demots of the various Attic dêmes, though long since embodied in the larger political union of Attica, and having no wish for separation, still retained the recollection of their original political autonomy. They lived in their own separate localities, resorted habitually to their own temples, and visited Athens only occasionally for private or political business, or for the great public festivals. Each of these aggregates, political as well as religious, had its own eponymous god or hero, with a genealogy more or less extended, and a train of mythical incidents more or less copious, attached to his name, according to the fancy of the local exegetes and poets.