Aglaurus

Aglaurus: The Athenian Princess and Her Role in Greek Mythology

Aglaurus (also Aglauros or Agraulus) was one of the three daughters of Cecrops, the first king of Athens. She appears in the myth of the chest in which Athena hid the infant Erichthonius, in the story of Hermes and her sister Herse, and in a tradition that she gave her life to save the city. Athens kept a sanctuary of Aglaurus on the slope of the Acropolis.

The Birth and Family of Aglaurus

Aglaurus was the daughter of Cecrops, the first king of Attica, who was born from the earth with a body compounded of man and serpent (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.1). Cecrops married Agraulus, daughter of Actaeus, and had a son Erysichthon, who died childless, and three daughters: Agraulus, Herse and Pandrosus (Apollodorus, Library 3.14.2). Pausanias gives the same family and calls the daughters Herse, Aglaurus and Pandrosus (Pausanias 1.2.6). The name is therefore shared with Cecrops’ wife, Aglaurus the daughter of Actaeus; the two are different figures.

Apollodorus says that Agraulus had a daughter, Alcippe, by Ares; when Halirrhothius, a son of Poseidon, tried to rape Alcippe, Ares killed him, and this was the origin of the trial of Ares on the hill of the Areopagus (Library 3.14.2). Pausanias adds that the Ceryces, the Eleusinian family of heralds, said that their ancestor Ceryx was a son of Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops, and of Hermes (Pausanias 1.38.3).

The Tale of Aglaurus and the Sacred Basket

In one of the most well-known stories involving Aglaurus, the goddess Athena hid the infant Erichthonius, a child of Hephaestus and the earth, in a chest and gave it to the daughters of Cecrops with an order not to pry into what they guarded (Pausanias 1.18.2; Apollodorus, Library 3.14.6). Apollodorus says she wished to make the child immortal and committed the chest to Pandrosus; the sisters of Pandrosus opened it out of curiosity and saw a serpent coiled around the infant.

The versions differ on who looked and what followed:

• In Pausanias, Pandrosus obeyed, but the other two sisters, Aglaurus and Herse, opened the chest, went mad at the sight of Erichthonius, and threw themselves down the steepest part of the Acropolis (Pausanias 1.18.2).
• Apollodorus gives two endings: some say the sisters were destroyed by the serpent, others that Athena’s anger drove them mad so that they threw themselves from the Acropolis (Library 3.14.6).
• In Euripides’ Ion, Athena set two serpents to guard the child and gave him to the daughters of Aglauros to protect; the maidens, it is said, opened the chest and died, staining the rock with blood (Euripides, Ion 20–26, 267–274).
• In Ovid, only Aglauros is the one who opens the chest. Pandrosos and Herse keep faith with the goddess, but Aglauros calls them timid, unties the knots, and the three see the child and a serpent stretched beside him; a crow tells Minerva (Athena) what happened (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.552–562).

Aglaurus and Hermes

In another myth, told by Ovid, Aglauros became intertwined with the story of the god Hermes (Mercury) and her sister Herse. Hermes, flying over Athens, saw Herse among the maidens and fell in love with her. He came to the house of Cecrops, where Pandrosus, Aglauros and Herse had separate bedrooms, and Aglauros was the first to see him and to ask his name and purpose. When he asked for her help in winning Herse, she demanded a great weight of gold for her service (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.708–751).

Athena, remembering that Aglauros had opened the chest, asked Envy (Invidia) to poison Aglauros with jealousy, and she wasted away watching her sister’s good fortune. She sat down on the threshold to bar the god from Herse’s room, and when she would not move, Hermes touched the door with his wand. The cold crept up her body and she turned to stone (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.752–832).

The Legacy of Aglaurus in Ancient Athens

In the tradition reported from the Athenian historian Philochorus, Aglauros gave her life to save Athens. When the Athenians were hard pressed in the war with Eumolpus, Apollo declared that the war would end if someone died willingly for the city; Aglauros threw herself from the wall, and when the war was over the Athenians built a temple to her near the gateway of the Acropolis. Philochorus also called her a priestess of Athena (Philochorus, fragment 14).

Her sanctuary is mentioned by two ancient authors. Pausanias saw a sacred enclosure of Aglaurus above the sanctuary of the Dioscuri, below the Acropolis, at the steep place where he says the sisters threw themselves down and where the Persians later climbed up (Pausanias 1.18.2). Herodotus says that in 480 BC the Persians who captured the Acropolis climbed up by the precinct of Cecrops’ daughter Aglaurus, at a sheer part of the rock where no guard was posted (Herodotus 8.53).

Aglaurus Sources

Apollodorus, Library 3.14.1–2, 3.14.6; Pausanias 1.2.6, 1.18.2, 1.38.3; Euripides, Ion 20–26, 267–274; Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.552–562, 2.708–832; Herodotus 8.53; Philochorus, fragment 14.

See Also: Cecrops, Herse, Pandrosus, Erechtheus, Athena, Hephaestus, Gaea, Procris