Pandion I

In Greek mythology, Pandion I (Ancient Greek: Πανδίων) was a legendary King of Athens, the son and heir to Erichthonius of Athens and his wife, the naiad Praxithea.^[1] Through his father he was the grandson of the god Hephaestus. He married a naiad, Zeuxippe, and they had two sons Erechtheus and Butes, and two daughters Procne and Philomela.^[2]

Pandion I was the fifth king of Athens in the traditional line of succession as given by the third century BC Parian Chronicle, the chronographer Castor of Rhodes (probably from the late third-century Eratosthenes) and the Bibliotheca.^[3] He was preceded by Cecrops I, Cranaus, Amphictyon, and Erichthonius, and succeeded by Erechtheus, Cecrops II, and Pandion II. Castor makes Pandion I the son of Erichthonius (the earliest source for this)^[4] and says he ruled for 40 years (1437/6–1397/6 BC).^[5] It may be that either Pandion I or Pandion II was invented to fill a gap in the mythical history of Athens.^[6]

According to the Bibliotheca, Pandion fought a war with Labdacus, the king of Thebes, over boundaries, and married his daughter Procne to Tereus in exchange for help in the fighting^[7] and it was during his reign that the gods Demeter and Dionysus came to Attica.^[8] After his death, the kingdom of Athens went to Erechtheus, but the priesthoods of Poseidon Erechtheus and Athena went to Butes.^[9] He is said to have died of grief when he discovered that his daughters, Procne and Philomela, had died.^[10]

Either Pandion I or Pandion II was usually identified with Pandion, the eponymous hero of the Attic tribe Pandionis.

Notes

1. Smith, "Pandion"; Apollodorus, 3.14.6; Hyginus, Fabulae 48.
2. Hesiod Works and Days, 568; Apollodorus, 3.14.8; Pausanias, 1.5.3; Thucydides, 2.29.
3. Harding, p. 14, 42, Gantz, p. 234.
4. Gantz, p. 239.
5. Harding, p. 42.
6. Harding, p. 42: "It is usual to believe that one or the other of the two was invented for the purpose of fixing the chronographic calculations".
7. Apollodorus, 3.14.8.
8. Apollodorus, 3.14.7.
9. Apollodorus, 3.15.1.
10. Grimal, "Pandion" p. 342; Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.675.

References

• Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
• Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 9780631201021.
• Harding, Phillip, The Story of Athens: The Fragments of the Local Chronicles of Attika, Routledge, 2007. ISBN 9781134304479.
• Hesiod, Works and Days, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Hyginus, Gaius Julius, The Myths of Hyginus. Edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960.
• Kearns, Emily, The Heroes of Attica (Bulletin Supplement 57), University of London Institute of Classical Studies 1989. ISBN 978-0900587603.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, Brookes More. Boston. Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Pausanias, Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Thucydides, Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1., Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Smith, William; A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. William Smith, LLD. William Wayte. G. E. Marindin. Albemarle Street, London. John Murray. 1890. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.