Primitive Athens as described by Thucydides

by Jane Ellen Harrison

And had Creousa, guerdon of his aid,

No home-born hero he, but son of Zeus

And Aiolos, Achaean.

And again[180], when Ion questions his unknown mother as to her husband:

Ion. And what Athenian took thee for his wife?

Cre. No citizen: an alien from another land.

Ion. Who? For a well-born man he needs had been.

Cre. Xuthos, of Zeus and Aiolos the offspring he.

The tomb of Ion, significant fact, was not at Athens but at Potamoi, and Pausanias[181] saw it there. Well may the sanctuaries of Zeus and Apollo stand together.

To return to the question of topography. That the cave marked Β on the plan is sacred to Apollo admits, in the face of the inscribed votive tablets, of no doubt. But a difficulty yet remains. It was noted in speaking of the cave above the Klepsydra that it was too shallow and too exposed to be a natural scene of the story of Creousa. The same objections, though in a somewhat less degree, apply to the cave marked Β. The difficulty, however, admits of an easy solution.