Erichthonius- Greek HeroHero"King of Athens"

Born from the Earth

When Hephaestus pursued Athena and the virgin goddess fought him off, his seed fell upon the earth. Gaia conceived from it and bore a child — Erichthonius, born from the ground of Attica with no conventional mother or father. The infant was part serpent.

Athena took the child though she had not borne him. She placed him in a sacred chest and entrusted it to the three daughters of King Cecrops — Aglauros, Herse, and Pandrosus — commanding them never to look inside. But Aglauros and Herse could not resist their curiosity. They lifted the lid and saw the infant entwined with serpents — or himself partly serpentine, depending on the source. The sight drove them mad, and they threw themselves from the cliffs of the Acropolis to their deaths. Only Pandrosus had obeyed. Athena's sacred crow, which had witnessed the transgression, brought the goddess word, and in her fury she turned the bird's plumage from white to black.

King and Charioteer

Under Athena's protection, Erichthonius grew to manhood and became one of the earliest kings of Athens, succeeding Cecrops in the legendary king-list. He established the Panathenaea, the great festival in Athena's honor, and set up the ancient wooden cult image of Athena on the Acropolis — the sacred xoanon that was the focus of the Panathenaic procession, carried up the Sacred Way in a new robe woven by the women of Athens.

He was also credited with inventing the four-horse chariot, which he demonstrated at the Panathenaic games. Some traditions hold that Athena herself taught him to drive it. After his death, Zeus set him among the stars as the constellation Auriga, the Charioteer.