windows between them which appear in old drawings and are still partially extant. It was used as a church in Christian times, and under Turkish rule as the harem of the governor of Athens. Lord Elgin carried off to London, about 1801–1803, one of the columns of the east portico and one of the caryatides; these were replaced later by terra-cotta casts. During the siege of the Acropolis in 1827, the roof of the north portico was thrown down and the building was otherwise much damaged. It was partially rebuilt between 1838 and 1846; the west front was blown down in a storm in 1852. Since 1900 the project of rebuilding the Erechtheum as far as possible with the original blocks has again been undertaken.
See Stuart, Antiquities of Athens; Inwood, The Erechtheum; H. Forster in Papers of American School at Athens, i. (1882–1883); J. H. Middleton, Plans and Drawings of Athenian Buildings (1900), pls. xiv.-xxii.; E. A. Gardner, Ancient Athens, chap. viii.; W. Dörpfeld, “Der ursprungliche Plan des Erechtheion” in Mitteil. Athen., 1904, p. 101, taf. 6; G. P. Stevens, “The East Wall of the Erechtheum,” in American Journ. Arch., 1906, pls. vi.-ix. (E. Gr.)
ERECHTHEUS, in Greek legend, a mythical king of Athens, originally identified with Erichthonius, but in later times distinguished from him. According to Homer, who knows nothing of Erichthonius, he was the son of Aroura (Earth), brought up by Athena, with whom his story is closely connected. In the later story, Erichthonius (son of Hephaestus and Atthis or Athena herself) was handed over by Athena to the three daughters of Cecrops—Aglauros (or Agraulos), Herse and Pandrosos—in a chest, which they were forbidden to open. Aglauros and Herse disobeyed the injunction, and when they saw the child (which had the form of a snake, or round which a snake was coiled) they went mad with fright, and threw themselves from the rock of the Acropolis (or were killed by the snake). Athena herself then undertook the care of Erichthonius, who, when he grew up, drove out Amphictyon and took possession of the kingdom of Athens. Here he established the worship of Athena, instituted the Panathenaea, and built an Erechtheum. The Erechtheus of later times was supposed to be the grandson of Erechtheus-Erichthonius, and was also king of Athens. When Athens was attacked by the Thracian Eumolpus (or by the Eleusinians assisted by Eumolpus) victory was promised Erechtheus if he sacrificed one of his daughters. Eumolpus was slain and Erechtheus was victorious, but was himself killed by Poseidon, the father of Eumolpus, or by a thunderbolt from Zeus. The contest between Erechtheus and Eumolpus formed the subject of a lost tragedy by Euripides; Swinburne has utilized the legend in his Erechtheus. The scene of the opening of the chest is represented on a Greek vase in the British Museum. The name Erichthonius is connected with χθών (“earth”) and the representation of him as half-snake, like Cecrops, indicates that he was regarded as one of the autochthones, the ancestors of the Athenians who sprung from the soil.
See Apollodorus iii. 14. 15; Euripides, Ion; Ovid, Metam. ii. 553; Hyginus, Poët. astron. ii. 13; Pausanias i. 2. 5. 8; E. Ermatinger, Die attische Autochthonensage (1897); article by J. A. Hild in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités; B. Powell in Cornell Studies, xvii. (1906), who identifies Erechtheus, Erichthonius, Poseidon and Cecrops, all denoting the sacred serpent of Athena, whose cult she first contested, but then amalgamated with her own. The birth of Erichthonius (as a corn-spirit) is interpreted by Mannhardt as a mythical way of describing the growth of the corn, and by J. E. Harrison (Myths and Monuments of Ancient Athens, xxvii.-xxxvi.) as a fiction to explain the ceremony performed by the two maidens called Arrephori. See also Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 270; and Frazer’s Pausanias, ii. 169.
ERESHKIGAL, also known as Allatu, the name of the chief
Babylonian goddess of the nether-world where the dead are
gathered. Her name signifies “lady of the nether-world.”
She is known to us chiefly through two myths, both symbolizing
the change of seasons, but intended also to illustrate certain
doctrines developed in the temple-schools of Babylonia. One of
these myths is the famous story of Ishtar’s descent to Irkalla
or Arālu, as the lower world was called, and her reception by
her sister who presides over it; the other is the story of Nergal’s
offence against Ereshkigal, his banishment to the kingdom
controlled by the goddess and the reconciliation between Nergal
and Ereshkigal through the latter’s offer to have Nergal share the
honours of the rule over Irkalla. The story of Ishtar’s descent
is told to illustrate the possibility of an escape from Irkalla,
while the other myth is intended to reconcile the existence of
two rulers of Irkalla—a goddess and a god.
It is evident that it was originally a goddess who was supposed to be in control of Irkalla, corresponding to Ishtar in control of fertility and vegetation on earth. Ereshkigal is therefore the sister of Ishtar and from one point of view her counterpart, the symbol of nature during the non-productive season of the year. As the doctrine of two kingdoms, one of this world and one of the world of the dead, becomes crystallized, the dominions of the two sisters are sharply differentiated from one another. The addition of Nergal represents the harmonizing tendency to unite with Ereshkigal as the queen of the nether-world the god who, in his character as god of war and of pestilence, conveys the living to Irkalla and thus becomes the one who presides over the dead. (M. Ja.)
ERETRIA (mod. Aletria), an ancient coast town of Euboea
about 15 m. S.E. of Chalcis, opposite to Oropus. Eretria,
like its neighbour Chalcis (q.v.), early entered upon a commercial
and colonizing career. Besides founding townships in the west
and north of Greece, it acquired dependencies among the Cyclades
and joined the great mercantile alliance of Miletus and Aegina.
Since the so-called Lelantine War (7th century B.C.) against
the coming league of Chalcis, it began to be overshadowed by
its rivals. The interference of Eretria in the Ionian revolt (498)
brought upon it the vengeance of the Persians, who captured
and destroyed it shortly before the battle of Marathon (490).
The city was soon rebuilt, and as a member of both the Delian
Leagues attached itself by numerous treaties to the Athenians.
The latter, through their general Phocion, rescued it from the
tyrants suborned by Philip of Macedon (354 and 341). Under
Macedonian and Roman rule Eretria fell into insignificance;
for a short period under Mark Antony, the triumvir, it became
a possession of Athens. Eretria was the birthplace of the
tragedian Achaeus and of the “Megarian” philosopher
Menedemus.
The modern village, which is sometimes called Nea Psará because the inhabitants of Psará were transferred there in 1821, is on unhealthy low-lying ground near the sea. The excavation of the site was carried out by the American School of Athens (1890–1895). At the foot of the Acropolis Hill, where the ground begins to rise, the theatre lies; and though the material of which this was built is rough, and only seven imperfect rows of seats remain, a good part of the scena and of the chambers behind it is preserved, and beneath these there runs a tunnel, which, together with other peculiar features, has raised interesting questions in connexion with the arrangement of the Greek theatre, the orchestra being at present on a level about 12 ft. below that of the rooms in the scena. Near by are the substructions of a temple of Dionysus and a large altar, and also a gymnasium with arrangements for bathing. Besides these, in 1900 the substructions of a temple of Apollo Daphnephoros were unearthed. Both the northern and the southern side of the hill are flanked by walls, which seem to have reached the sea, where there was a mole and a harbour; and the wall of the acropolis itself remains in one part to the height of eight courses.
Authorities.—Strabo x. 447 f.; Herodotus v. 99, vi. 101; Corpus Inscr. Atticarum, i. 339, iv. (2), pp. 5, 10, 22; H. Heinze, De rebus Eretriensium (Göttingen, 1869); W. M. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece (London, 1835), ii. 266, 443; B. V. Head, Historia numorum (Oxford, 1887), pp. 305-308; Papers of the American School at Athens, vol. vi. (E. Gr.)
ERETRIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. This Greek school
was the continuation of the Elian school, which was transferred
to Eretria by Menedemus. It was of small importance, and in
the absence of certain knowledge must be supposed to have
adhered to the doctrines of Socrates. (See Menedemus.)
ERFURT, a city of Germany, in Prussian Saxony, on the
Gera, and the railway Halle-Bebra, about midway between
Gotha and Weimar, which are 14 m. distant. Pop. (1875)
48,025; (1905) 100,065. The city, which is dominated on the
