Erechtheus, Or Erichthonins, a fabulous hero of Attica, or according to some later writers the name of two persons, one the grandson of the other. Homer describes Erechtheus as an autochthon and king of Athens, and the son of Gasa (Earth); he was educated by Minerva. The one whom Apollodorus mentions under this name was the son of Vulcan and Atthis. Minerva, who reared him secretly, gave him in a chest to Pandrosos and her sisters, who, opening it from curiosity, saw in it a serpent, were seized with madness, and threw themselves down the Acropolis or into the sea. Having expelled Amphictyon, he became king of Attica, established the festival of the Pana-thena?a, and founded on the Acropolis the temple which after him was called the Erechtheum. By his wife Pasithea he was the father of Pan-dion. He is said to have decided the dispute between Minerva and Neptune for the possession of Attica in favor of the goddess, and to have introduced the use of chariots with four horses, for which he was set among the stars as Auriga. The myths connected with the life of the second Erechtheus, the son of Pandion by Zeuxippe, are the Eleusinian war, the sacrifice of one of his daughters, and the suicide of the three others in consequence of a response of the oracle, and his being killed by Jupiter with a flash of lightning at the request of Neptune. The Erechtheus of Diodorus came from Egypt to Athens with grain in time of famine, was made king, and established the Eleusinian festivals.

Another Erechtheus, the son of Dar-danus and father of Tros in Ilium, is fabled as the richest of mortals, in whose fields grazed 3,000 beautiful mares.