Cecrops

“ Of the western pediment, the remaining figures are Cecrops, the first King and founder of Athens, and Aglaura, his wife, and the river god, Ilissus, or Cephisus. The metopes, which generally represent single contests between the Athenians and the Centaurs, are in strong high relief, full of bold action and passionate exertion—though this is for the most part softened by great beauty of form and a masterly style of composition which knows how to adapt itself with the utmost freedom to the strict conditions of the space. ”

“ Cecrops was certainly a title of the Deity, who was worshipped under this emblem. Something of the like nature was mentioned of Triptolemus and Ericthonius, and the like has been said of Hercules. The natives of Thebes in Bœotia, like the Athenians, esteemed themselves of the serpent race. The Lacedæmonians likewise referred themselves to the same original. Their city is said of old to have swarmed with serpents. The same is said of the city Amyelæ in Italy, which was of Spartan origin. ”

“ When Cecrops founded Athens, it was agreed that whoever of these two deities could produce the most beneficial gift to mankind, should have the honor of giving their name to the city. Neptune, with a stroke of his trident, formed a horse, but Minerva causing an olive-tree to spring from the ground, obtained from the god the prize. She was the goddess of war, wisdom, and arts, such as spinning, weaving, music, and especially of the pipe. In a word, she was patroness of all those sciences which render men useful to society and themselves, and entitle them to the esteem of posterity. ”

“ I. In allowing that there does not appear sufficient evidence to induce us to reject the tale of the Egyptian origin of Cecrops, it will be already observed, that I attach no great importance to the dispute: and I am not inclined reverently to regard the innumerable theories that have been built on so uncertain a foundation. An Egyptian may have migrated to Attica, but Egyptian influence in Attica was faint and evanescent;—arrived at the first dawn of historical fact, it is with difficulty that we discover the most dubious and shadowy vestiges of its existence. ”

“ Ægeus of Athens, according to Androtion, was of the serpent breed, and the first king of the country is said to have been a dragon. Others make Cecrops the first who reigned. He is said to have been of a two-fold nature, being formed with the body of a man blended with that of a serpent. ”

“ In these times, when Cranaos reigned at Athens as the successor of Cecrops, as Varro writes, but, according to our Eusebius and Jerome, while Cecrops himself still remained, the flood occurred which is called Deucalion’s, because it occurred chiefly in those parts of the earth in which he reigned. ”

“ At last she spies Tritonia's city, splendid with art and wealth and peaceful joy; and she can scarce restrain her tears at the sight, because she sees no cause for others' tears. Put, having entered the chamber of Cecrops' daughter, she performed the goddess' bid- ding, touched the girl's breast with her festering hand and filled her heart with pricking thorns Then she breathed pestilential, poisonous breath into her nostrils and spread black venom through her very heart and bones. ”

“ The tale ran that in the reign of Cecrops, the first king of Athens, the two deities contended for the possession of the city. The gods decreed that it should be awarded to that one who produced the gift most useful to mortals. ”

“ He decided in favour of the goddess, who planted the first olive tree, which he adjudged to be more useful than the horse (or water) which Poseidon caused to spring forth from the Acropolis rock with a blow of his trident (Herodotus viii. 55; Apollodorus iii. 14) . As one of the autochthones of Attica, Cecrops is represented as human in the upper part of his body, while the lower part is shaped like a dragon (hence he is sometimes called διφυής or geminus, Diod. Sic. i. 28; Ovid, Metam. ii. 555) . ”

“ By this, the daughter of Cecrops being irritated, is gnawed by a secret grief, and groans, tormented by night, tormented by day, and wastes away in extreme wretchedness, with a slow consumption, as ice smitten upon by a sun often clouded. She burns at the good fortune of the happy Herse, no otherwise than as when fire is placed beneath thorny reeds, which do not send forth flames, and burn with a gentle heat. Often does she wish to die, that she may not be a witness to any such thing ”

“ But do ye now at length quite give up your superstition, feeling ashamed to regard sepulchres with religious veneration. In the temple of Athene in Larissa, on the Acropolis, is the grave of Acrisius; and at Athens, on the Acropolis, is that of Cecrops, as Antiochus says in the ninth book of his Histories. ”

“ It may be due partly to the natural conformation of the rock and the differences of level, partly to the necessity of enclosing within a single building several objects of ancient sanctity, such as the mark of Poseidon’s trident and the spring that arose from it, the sacred olive tree of Athena, and the tomb of Cecrops. ”

“ Afterwards the tribes of the shores of Asia Minor came across; in the first place the Carians, who introduced the worship of the Carian Zeus and Posidon, and were followed by Cretans, Lycians, Dardanians and Old Ionians. The population became mixed. ... This first epoch of the national history the ancients connected with the name of Cecrops. It forms the transition from the life of rural districts and villages to that of a state. Attica has become a land with twelve citadels, in each of which dwells a chieftain or king, who has his domains, his suite, and his subjects. ”

“ Let us, maidens, that bring fresh showers, go unto Pallas’s brilliant land to turn our eyes on the country of Cecrops, favoured of heroes, rich in its loveliness, there where is honour to consecrate secrets; there where the temple that welcomes its votaries flings wide its doors at the mysteries sacred; there where are gifts for the gods up in heaven; stately-roofed temples and statues of splendour; there are processionals unto the blessed ones, hallowed exceedingly; 146fair are the chaplets entwining the offerings unto the deities ”

“ The most ancient temples known to us served a double purpose: they were not only consecrated to the service of the gods, but were at the same time venerable monuments in honour of the dead. Thus, for instance, the temple of Pallas-Athene, in the tower of the city of Larissa, served as the sepulchre of Acrisius, and the Acropolis at Athens received the ashes of Cecrops, founder of the city. ”

“ He proceeds to give the reasons for his view: The presence of the ancient temples on the Acropolis itself, the fact that the ancient precincts outside the Acropolis were προς τουτο το μέρος της πολεως, and the neighborhood of the fountain Enneacrounus. We know, that the Acropolis was still officially called πολις in Thucydides' day; and πόλις so used would have no meaning if the Acropolis itself was not the ancient city. Προς τουτο το μέρος, in the passage quoted, refers to the city of Cecrops, the Acropolis and Pelasgicum taken together ”

“ Is it not plain and manifest, either that you worship dead men for immortal gods, or that an inexpiable affront is cast upon the deities, whose shrines and temples have been built over the tombs of the dead? Antiochus, [1] in the ninth book of his Histories, relates that Cecrops was buried in the temple of Minerva, [2] at Athens; again, in the temple of the same goddess, which is in the citadel of Larissa, [3] it is related and declared that Acrisius was laid, and in the sanctuary of Polias, [4] Erichthonius ”

“ Minos prepares a fleet, clears the Greek seas of Pyrates, and sends Colonies to the Islands of the Greeks, some of which were not inhabited before. Cecrops II. Reigns in Attica. Caucon teaches the Mysteries of Ceres in Messene.
1005. Andromeda carried away from Joppa by Perseus. Pandion the brother of Cecrops II. Reigns in Attica. Car, the son of Phoroneus, builds a Temple to Ceres.
1002. Sesac Reigns in Egypt and adorns Thebes, dedicating it to his father Ammon by the name of No-Ammon or Ammon-No, that is the people or city of Ammon: whence the Greeks called it Diospolis, the city of Jupiter. ”

“ Gothard; but what a contrast in the vigour and richness of the vegetation! The white trunks of the cecropia rise majestically amid bignonias and melastomas. They do not disappear till we are within a hundred toises above the level of the ocean. A small thorny palm-tree extends also to this limit; the slender pinnate leaves of which look as if they had been curled toward the edges. This tree is very common in these mountains; but not having seen either its fruit or its flowers, we are ignorant whether it be the piritu palm-tree of the Caribbees, or the Cocos aculeata of Jacquin. ”

“ Our travellers shuddered, and opening with trembling hand the ponderous gates, they entered the tomb of Cheops.
In the centre of the chamber, stood a superb, highly ornamented sarcophagus of alabaster, beautifully wrought; over this hung a lamp of wondrous workmanship, supplied by a potent mixture, so as to burn for ages unconsumed; thus awfully lighting up with perpetual flame the solemn mansions of the dead, and typifying life eternal even in the silent tomb. ”

“ CHAPTER III The Robin Moth: Cecropia When only a little child, wandering alone among the fruits and flowers of our country garden, on a dead peach limb beside the fence I found it—my first Cecropia. I was the friend of every bird, flower, and butterfly. I carried crumbs to the warblers in the sweetbrier; was lifted for surreptitious peeps at the hummingbird nesting in the honeysuckle; sat within a few feet of the robin in the catalpa; bugged the currant bushes for the phoebe that had built for years under the roof of the corn bin ”

“ The Cecropia moth resembles the robin among birds; not alone because he is grey with red markings, but also he haunts the same localities. The robin is the bird of the eaves, the back door, the yard and orchard. Cecropia is the moth. My doorstep is not the only one they grace; my friends have found them in like places. Cecropia cocoons are attached to fences, chicken-coops, barns, houses, and all through the orchards of old country places, so that their emergence at bloom time adds to May and June one more beauty, and frequently I speak of them as the Robin Moth. ”

“ Here, at the moist edge of the road, the ditch stone-crop is opening its yellow-green flowers, each one a study in perfect symmetry. With the showy, straw-colored cyperus it flourishes under the friendly shade of the overhanging cord-grasses whose flowering stalks already have shot up beyond the reach of a man. ”

“ Long and black rows of cypresses cast their shadows to the east, lengthening, as the sun departs; then, hark! the red evening guns peal from the strong tower of the Seraskier; the ships of war reply, and the muezzins, from a thousand mosques, shout the shrill cry 'to prayer!' while over tower and temple, cypress-grove and guarded ship, over the Seven Towers, the giant façade of the Seraglio, and over all the sparkling sea the sunlight dies away. ”

“ Peter, “Simon Cephas (the rock) is in the City of Great Rome, in its largest church within a silver ark hanging by chains from the ceiling.” (Lee, Ibn Batutah, p. 161) .
93. Here the fillets are hung instead of the normal rag-strips to denote an honoured tomb. Lane (iii. 242) and many others are puzzled about the use of these articles. In many cases they are suspended to trees in order to transfer sickness from the body to the tree and whoever shall touch it. ”

“ The aï does not descend to the ground at all when it can help it, but passes from one tree to another by means of the outspreading branches. Sometimes, when these do not meet, it has cunning enough to wait for a windy day, and then, taking advantage of some branch blown nearer by the wind, it grasps it and passes to the next tree. As it requires no drink, and can live without any other food than the leaves of the cecropia, of course it remains on a single tree so long as it has plenty of leaves. See!” exclaimed Don Pablo, pointing up ”

“ At the back of a marvellous garden and with all of its whiteness reflected in a canal of dark water, sleeping inertly among thick masses of black cypress and great clumps of red flowers, this perfect tomb rises like a calm apparition. It is a floating dream, an aërial form without weight, so perfect is the balance of the lines, and so pale, so delicate the shadows that float across the virginal and translucent stone. ”

“ A single cypress stands yonder on the hill, kindled by the red glow of evening, like an altar taper. It is a tree that suits the hour and the mood—an Ave Maria tree, monumental as an obelisk, dark and mournful. Those avenues of cypresses leading to the cloisters and burying-grounds in Italy are very beautiful. We have the weeping-willow. ”

“ Cheops and Chephren, and the kings of the early dynasties, had the power and the means of raising mountains over their embalmed and mummified remains; but for the people, must suffice a more humble resting-place;—for them a hole was scooped out on the platform of rock, to be built up at its entrance until the day of resurrection should arrive. ”

“ It is an Oriental practice, to plant a tree at the birth, and another at the death, of any member of a family. When one, therefore, is deposited in the earth, the surviving relatives place a cypress at the foot, while a stone marks the head of the grave; and the pious son, whose birth his father had commemorated by a platanus, is now seen carefully watering the young tree which is to preserve the undying recollection of his parent. Thus it is that the cemetery extends by constant renovation. ”

“ Adjoining the Pyramid of Cephrenes on the south, are the ruins of a large enclosure, formed of huge stones; while on the north and west are scattered a great number of tombs, of heavy and solemn architecture, forming entire streets. In these the [95] stones are also large; they had flat roofs, above which rose a parapet with heavy mouldings; some are in good preservation, but most have suffered greatly from the hand of time, or, more probably, of human violence; the roofs having fallen in, and the sands of the desert having entered and filled them up. ”