Erectheus or Erichthonius, the mythical first king of Athens; favoured and protected from infancy by Athena, to whom accordingly he dedicated the city; he was buried in the temple of Athena, and worshipped afterwards as a god; it is fabled of him that when an infant he was committed by Athena in a chest to the care of Agraulos and Herse, under a strict charge not to pry into it; they could not restrain their curiosity, opened the chest, saw the child entwined with serpents, were seized with madness, and threw themselves down from the height of the Acropolis to perish at the foot.