Αγλαυρος or Αγραυλος
Legend knows of two figures of this name.
1. The daughter of Actaeus first king of Athens, and the wife of Cecrops by whom she had a son, Erysichthon, and three daughters Aglaurus, Herse and Pandrosus (Table 4).
2. The daughter of the first, she was loved by Ares, by whom she had a daughter Alcippe. Aglaurus and her sisters come into the legend of Ericthonius. Athena had secretly preserved the life of the little Ericthonius, born of the desire that Hephaestus had shown for her. She hid the infant in a basket and entrusted him to the three daughters of Cecrops, especially Pandrosus. The sisters were too full of curiosity to refrain from opening the basket, in which they saw the child in the coils of a snake. Overcome with fear they all three became mad and threw themselves off the highest rocks of the Acropolis. A crow came to tell Athena of this rash deed.
Ovid tells a different story, saying that Aglaurus, though she was most to blame, was not struck with madness. Some time later Ovid shows her to be jealous of her sister Herse, who was loved by Hermes. The god finally changed her into a stone statue (see Ceryx).
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Apollod. Bibl. 3, 14, 2; 3, 14, 6
- Hyg. Fab. 166
- Ovid, Met. 2, 560ff.; 710ff.