Erechthonius

Some people might ask, what the hell kind of religion is this? Well-

THE FOUNDING OF ATHENS

One Day, after a long time secretly lusting after Athene, the lame ugly smith god Hephaestos decided he could no longer contain himself, literally, and so made his move on the beautiful goddess of wisdom. He lunged at her and grabbed her, pinning her down as he forced his way on top of her. His hard penis soon found itself moving up her long, sexy smooth legs as it sought out her female delights, so making it’s way up her inner thighs as he desperately tried to pry her legs apart.

It was too much for him, as he suddenly ejaculated prematurely on her inner thigh, after which Athena managed to free herself from the lecherous clutches of Hephaestos, who, due to his affliction of being crippled in both legs, could not catch the goddess. After she had removed herself a safe distance from her lecherous half-brother, Athena wiped the semen from her thighs and, in a state of disgust and humiliation, flung it upon the ground.

Some months later, the earth goddess Gaea thus gave birth to the god Erechthonius, who in due time became the founder of and the first king of Athens, a city that was founded by settlers from a distant land who traveled in place of a new home and were lead to the exact spot where Athene wanted her city built.

Athene, it turns out, was presented with the child Erechthonius by Gaea, the mother who had actually received him into her womb and gave him birth, then nursed him through infancy. The goddess of wisdom would have been well within her rights to have rejected the child as much so as she had rejected the unwarranted and unwelcome advances of Hephaestos, and the sperm which had invaded her dignity.

Still, Athene felt some degree of not only compassion for the child, but responsibility as well, and so accepted him as a kind of surrogate mother.

Athens at it’s height became arguably the greatest city of it’s age, and without any doubt the greatest of all cities of ancient Greece. But it’s beginnings were humble, and are still shrouded in mystery. All that is really known is that it’s existence reaches back into the Mychaenaean era. What it’s status was at this time is unknown, still it was probably always of at least some importance, as a center for the goddess for whom it was evidently named, Atenoi Potnoi (Lady Athene).

As for the shadowy Erechthonius, look closely at his name, and you can begin to work out a possible meaning as, quite simply,”Great King of Athens”, “Priest King Of Athene” or some similar such meaning.

Was there ever really such an individual whose birth and life was so mythologized, while still remaining relatively obscure? Possibly.

Bear in mind, Athene may not have always been so virginal, until the arrival of the Argives after the fall of the Mychaenaean civilization, after which Zeus became ever more predominant. It got to the point where his priesthood actually displaced the original Priesthood of Athene in Athens, actually replacing it with an all male cult of devotees charged with maintaining the political as well as religious alliance between the two cult of worshipers.

Prior to this, Erechthonius might have been considered to be a semi-divine being like the Pharoah. I can almost detect the traces of a mythology in which Athene gives birth to a child she must hide from enemies who wish to destroy him, and so hands him over to the care of Gaea the earth mother, after which Erechthonius grows to adulthood and establishes the sacred city. From that point on, it is believed Athens would become the center of all civilization and afford to it’s citizens protection from the barbarian forces that soon would overrun the earth.

In other words, the mythology might have eventually ended up turned on it’s head. Still, there is meaning to be found in either version.

As a god of the earth, Erecthonius represents our material existence, while at the same time representing our yearnings to grow and ascend to the heavens. Athens, of the ancient world, would prove to be a formidable and admirable expression of that ages old human aspiration.