Agraulos

(Ἄγραυλος). (1) Daughter of Actaeus, first king of Athens, and wife of Cecrops.

(2) Daughter of Cecrops and Agraulos, of whom various stories are told. Athené is said to have given Erichthonius in a chest to Agraulos and her sister Hersé, with strict injunctions not to open it; but they disobeyed the command. (See Erichthonius.) Agraulos was subsequently punished by being changed into a stone by Hermes, because she attempted to prevent the god from entering the house of Hersé, with whom he had fallen in love. Another legend relates that Agraulos threw herself down from the Acropolis because an oracle had declared that the Athenians would conquer if some one would sacrifice himself for his country. The Athenians in gratitude built her a temple on the Acropolis, in which the young Athenians, on receiving their first suit of armour, took an oath that they would always defend their country to the last.