During the fifty-year reign of King Cecrops of Athens the famous contest took place between Poseidon and Athena for possession of the city. According to one version Cecrops let the Athenians vote on which deity had given the city the best gift, Athena with her olive tree or Poseidon with his saltwater well. The men sided with Poseidon, but the women supported Athena, who won. Poseidon then flooded the countryside, and the men decided to deprive the women of the vote to appease him.
It was also in Cecrops' reign that Hephaestus scuffled with Athena, spilled his seed on the earth, and produced Erichthonius, whom Athena placed in a chest and gave to Cecrops' three daughters, warning them not to open the chest. The young women lifted the lid and saw an infant with writhing serpents for legs. This alone should not have surprised them, for their father Cecrops was a dragon from the waist down. But Athena drove the disobedient girls mad and they leapt from the Acropolis to their deaths. Under the protection of Athena, Erichthonius grew to manhood and assumed the Athenian throne. When he died his son Pandion reigned.
King Pandion had two daughters, Procne and Philomela. The king of Thrace, Tereus, took Procne as his wife and she gave him a son, Itys. An oracle declared that Itys would be killed by a blood relative, so Tereus slew his own brother in a rage of suspicion. Now Tereus fell in love with his wife's sister, Philomela. To get Procne out of the way he cut out her tongue, rendering her speechless, and put her in the slave quarters. Tereus then went back to Athens and told King Pandion that Procne had died. So Pandion gave him Philomela to marry, but Tereus raped her before the wedding. Procne wove a bridal robe for her sister that told where she was, and Philomela came to her aid. Both women hated Tereus, but it was Procne who killed her son Itys and sent the boiled flesh to Tereus for his dinner. On learning what he had eaten Tereus was dumbstruck. Then he seized an axe to pursue the fleeing sisters. Just as he was about to hack them to bits the gods changed the three of them into birds: Procne into a swallow, Philomela into a nightingale, and Tereus into a hoopoe or a hawk. When King Pandion heard he had lost both of his daughters he died of grief, and Athens went to his son Erechtheus.
But Erechtheus, too, had children fated to misfortune. One of his daughters, Orithyia, was courted by Boreas, the North Wind. Erechtheus did not approve of this blustering suitor, and he was rejected. Not to be thwarted, Boreas abducted Orithyia in a gust that carried her off to the North, where he ravished her. In time Orithyia gave birth to two sons that were to sail with Jason on the Argo.
Another of Erechtheus' daughters, Procris, married Cephalus, a man with a passion for hunting. He went off on a long expedition to hunt and Eos, the goddess of the dawn, fell in love with him. When she failed to seduce him Eos told Cephalus that surely his wife Procris had been unfaithful to him during his absence. To test his wife's fidelity Cephalus disguised himself, returned home and tried to tempt Procris. Although she never gave in to this stranger she softened considerably, and Cephalus revealed his true identity in a rage. Just as angry, Procis left him and went to Crete, where she cured Minos of a curse that Zeus had inflicted on him. In gratitude Minos gave her a spear that never missed its mark. Eventually Cephalus sought Procris out, having repented of his jealous fit, and the two were reconciled. As a token of her love Procris gave her husband the magic spear, and he took her with him on his next hunting trip. Seeing something move in the thicket before him, Cephalus hurled the spear, killing the only woman for whom he cared.
