Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, was assaulted by Apollo in a cave on the Athenian Acropolis (the Long Rocks). She bore a son in secret, exposed him in a cradle with tokens, and believed him dead; Hermes, at Apollo’s command, carried the infant to Delphi, where the Pythia raised him as a temple servant—Ion, nameless of parentage. Years later Creusa married Xuthus (son of Hellen, ally of Athens against Euboea or Chalcodon). Childless, the couple consulted Delphi. The oracle told Xuthus that the first person he met on leaving the temple would be his son; he met Ion and joyfully claimed him. Creusa, thinking the temple youth a rival heir foisted on her house, attempted to poison him at a feast; the plot failed when a dove died tasting the libation. Ion would have killed Creusa at Apollo’s altar, but the Pythia produced the exposure tokens. Mother and son recognized each other; Athena appeared to confirm Apollo’s plan: Ion is Creusa’s and Apollo’s child, to be presented as Xuthus’s heir, and through him the Ionian tribes will take their name. Xuthus remains unknowing of the divine paternity. So Euripides weds Attic autochthony (Erechtheid Creusa) to Delphic Apollo and to the Ionian colonial charter, while Apollodorus’s briefer stemma simply makes Ion son of Xuthus (or of Apollo) and ancestor of the Ionians.