Ogygês is said to have reigned in Attica[458] 1020 years before the first Olympiad, or 1796 years B. C. In his time happened the deluge of Deukaliôn, which destroyed most of the inhabitants of the country: after a long interval, Kekrops, an indigenous person, half man and half serpent, is given to us by Apollodôrus as the first king of the country: he bestowed upon the land, which had before been called Actê, the name of Kekropia. In his day there ensued a dispute between Athênê and Poseidôn respecting the possession of the acropolis at Athens, which each of them coveted. First, Poseidôn struck the rock with his trident, and produced the well of salt water which existed in it, called the Erechthêis: next came Athênê, who planted the sacred olive-tree ever afterwards seen and venerated in the portion of Erechtheion called the cell of Pandrosus. The twelve gods decided the dispute; and Kekrops having testified before them that Athênê had rendered this inestimable service, they adjudged the spot to her in preference to Poseidôn. Both the ancient olive-tree and the well produced by Poseidôn were seen on the acropolis, in the temple consecrated jointly to Athênê and Erechtheus, throughout the historical ages. Poseidôn, as a mark of his wrath for the preference given to Athênê, inundated the Thriasian plain with water.[459] [458] Hellanikus, Fragm. 62; Philochor. Fragm. 8, ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. x. 10. p. 489. Larcher (Chronologie d’Hérodote, ch. ix. s. 1. p. 278) treats both the historical personality and the date of Ogygês as perfectly well authenticated. It is not probable that Philochorus should have given any calculation of time having reference to Olympiads; and hardly conceivable that Hellanikus should have done so. Justin Martyr quotes Hellanikus and Philochorus as having mentioned Moses,—ὡς σφόδρα ἀρχαίου καὶ παλαιοῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἄρχοντος Μωϋσέως μέμνηνται—which is still more incredible even than the assertion of Eusebius about their having fixed the date of Ogygês by Olympiads (see Philochor. Fragm. 9). [459] Apollod. iii. 14, 1; Herodot. viii. 55; Ovid. Metam. vi. 72. The story current among the Athenians represented Kekrops as the judge of this controversy (Xenoph. Memor. iii. 5, 10). The impressions of the trident of Poseidôn were still shown upon the rock in the time of Pausanias (Pausan. i. 26, 4). For the sanctity of the ancient olive-tree, see the narrative of Herodotus (_l. c._), relating what happened to it when Xerxes occupied the acropolis. As this tale seems to have attached itself specially to the local peculiarities of the Erechtheion, the part which Poseidôn plays in it is somewhat mean: that god appears to greater advantage in the neighborhood of the Ἱπποτὴς Κολωνὸς, as described in the beautiful Chorus of Sophoklês (Œdip. Colon. 690-712). A curious rationalization of the monstrous form ascribed to Kekrops διφυὴς in Plutarch (Sera Num. Vindict. p. 551).