Athena produced the olive-tree, Poseidon the salt well and the trident-mark as ‘tokens’ or evidence of their claim. This is manifest aetiology. There had been on the Acropolis from time immemorial certain things reputed sacred, a gnarled olive-tree, a brackish well, three holes in a rock. It was the obvious policy of any divinity who wished to be worshipped at Athens to annex these tokens. Pandrosos had the olive-tree before Athena. The name of the well Erechtheïs shows that it was a ‘token’ of Erechtheus rather than of Poseidon.
Such sacred trees, such ‘seas,’ such curious marks existed elsewhere; Pausanias[125] himself notes in another inland place, Aphrodisias in Caria, there was a sea-well. What impressed him as noteworthy about the well at Athens was that when the South wind was blowing it gave forth the sound of waves, but then as he does not say if he waited for a South wind, the ‘sound of waves’ may have been a detail supplied by the guides.
The trident-mark belongs to a class of sacred things that will repay somewhat closer attention. Fresh light has been thrown upon it by a recent discovery. In examining the roof of the North Porch, with a view to repairs, it was observed that immediately above the trident-mark an opening in the roof had been purposely left. The object is clear; the sacred token had to be left open to the sky; it had to be sub divo. This is manifestly more appropriate to a sky-god than to a sea-god.
Our best analogies are drawn from Roman sources. Ovid[126] tells us that when the new Capitol was being built a whole multitude of divinities were consulted by augury as to whether they would withdraw to make place for Jupiter. They tactfully consented, all but old Terminus. He stood fast, remaining in his shrine, and still possesses a temple in common with mighty Jupiter:
And still, that he may see only heaven’s signs
In the roof above him is a little hole.
When place was wanted for an Olympian, be he Zeus or Poseidon or Athena, the elder divinities were not always so courteously consulted. We do not even know whose open air token Poseidon seized.
Servius[127], commenting on ‘the steadfast stone of the Capitol,’ tells the same story. There was a time when there was no temple of Jupiter, that is there was no Jupiter. Augury said that the Tarpeian mount was the place to build one, but on it were already a number of shrines of other divinities. Ceremonies were performed to ‘call out’ by means of sacrifice the other divinities to other temples. They all willingly migrated, only Terminus declined to move: this was taken as a sign that the Roman empire would be for all eternity, and hence in the Capitoline temple the part of the roof immediately above, which looks down on the very stone of Terminus, was open, for to Terminus it is not allowable to sacrifice save in the open air. Terminus was just a sacred stone or herm, incidentally to the practical Romans a boundary god. Another Roman god, Fidius[128], had in his temple a roof with a hole in it (perforatum tectum), and Fulgur, Caelum, Sol and Luna had all to dwell in hypaethral temples[129]. Wherever the lightning struck was in Greece holy ground, to be fenced in but open always above to the god who had sanctified it, to the ‘descender,’ Kataibates[130]. Kataibates became Zeus Kataibates, Fulgur Jupiter Fulgur, but the lightning and the ‘descender’ were there before the coming of the Olympian, and the threefold mark preceded Poseidon.
In picturing to ourselves therefore the ancient sanctities of the Acropolis, we have to begin with certain natural holy things that were there from time immemorial, that were holy in themselves, not because they were consecrated to this or that divinity. Such were the olive-tree, the salt sea-well, the trident-mark—we are back in a time rather of holy things than divine persons. Successive heroic families, in possessing themselves of the kingship, take possession of these sanctities; they are as it were the regalia. In the time of the Kekropidae, Pandrosos, daughter and paredros of Kekrops, owns the olive-tree; in the time of the Erechtheidae the well is called Erechtheïs, and all the sacred things are included in an Erechtheion. It is worth noting that though Poseidon claimed the well and the trident-mark he never gave his name to either, and though Athena boasted of the olive-tree and snake, neither was ever called after her.
The name of Erechtheus or Erechthonios marks a stage definitely later than that of Kekrops. In the reign of Kekrops we hear nothing of foreign policy. He is engaged in civilizing his people, in marrying them, in teaching them to offer bloodless sacrifice. But the reign of Erechtheus is marked by a great war. He fought with and conquered Eumolpos, king of the neighbouring burgh Eleusis. Kekropia has taken the first step towards that hegemony she was to obtain under Theseus.