Compare with this passage, Demosthen. Λόγος Ἐπιταφ. p. 1397,
Reisk. Just before, the death of the three daughters of Kekrops,
for infringing the commands of Athênê, had been mentioned.
Euripidês modified this in his Erechtheus, for he there
introduced the mother Praxithea consenting to the immolation
of one daughter, for the rescue of the country from a foreign
invader: to propose to a mother the immolation of three daughters
at once, would have been too revolting. In most instances we find
the strongly marked features, the distinct and glaring incidents
as well as the dark contrasts, belong to the Hesiodic or old
Post-Homeric legend; the changes made afterwards go to soften,
dilute, and to complicate, in proportion as the feelings of the
public become milder and more humane; sometimes however the later
poets add new horrors.
[483] See the striking evidence contained in the oration of
Lykurgus against Leocratês (p. 201-204. Reiske; Demosthen. Λόγ.
Ἐπιταφ. _l. c._; and Xenophon, Memor. iii. 5, 9): from the two
latter passages we see that the Athenian story represented the
invasion under Eumolpus as a combined assault from the western
continent.
Though Erechtheus gained the victory over Eumolpus, yet the story
represents Poseidôn as having put an end to the life and reign of
Erechtheus, who was (it seems) slain in the battle. He was succeeded
by his son Kekrops II., and the latter again by his son Pandiôn
II.,[484]—two names unmarked by any incidents, and which appear to be
mere duplication of the former Kekrops and Pandiôn, placed there by
the genealogizers for the purpose of filling up what seemed to them a
chronological chasm. The Attic legends were associated chiefly with
a few names of respected eponymous personages; and if the persons
called the children of Pandiôn were too numerous to admit of their
being conveniently ascribed to one father, there was no difficulty in
supposing a second prince of the same name.
[484] Apollodôr. iii. 15, 5; Eurip. Iôn, 282; Erechth. Fragm. 20,
Dindorf.
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