Cecrops I

Apparently Cecrops married Aglaurus, the daughter of Actaeus, former king of the region of Attica, whom he succeeded on the throne.

They looked and, terrified by the two serpents Athena had set within to guard the child, they fled in terror and leapt from the Acropolis to their deaths.

[7] Cecrops was represented in the Attic legends as the author of the first elements of civilized life such as marriage, the political division of Attica into twelve communities, and also as the introducer of a new mode of worship.

Cecrops was likewise affirmed to have been the first who built altars and statues of the gods, offered sacrifices, and instituted marriage among the Athenians, who, before his time, it seems, lived promiscuously.

He is likewise said to have taught his subjects the art of navigation; and, for the better administration of justice and intercourse among them, to have divided them into the four tribes called Cecropis, Autochthon, Actea, and Paralia.

Poseidon was the first to reach Attica and struck the acropolis with his trident and thereby created a salt sea which was known in later times by the name of the Erechthean well, from its being enclosed in the temple of Erechtheus.

The oracle answered that the olive and the water were the symbols of Athena and Poseidon respectively, and that the people of Attica were free to choose which of these deities they would worship.

Accordingly, the question was submitted to a general assembly of the citizens and citizenesses; for in these days women had the vote as well as men.

Chagrined at the loss of the election, Poseidon flooded the country with the water of the sea, and to appease his wrath it was decided to deprive women of the vote and to forbid children to bear their mother's names for the future.

[16] In Euboea, which also had a town named Athenae, Cecrops was called a son of Erechtheus and Praxithea, and a grandson of Pandion.