The earliest writer to mention her is
Euripides in his play
Ion, lines 22–23 and 484–485. In Moses Hadas and John Mclean's 1960 Bantam Classics translation they have
Euripides say: :"(Athena) gave Erichthonius to Aglaurus' daughters to keep" Later, speaking of "a haunt of
Pan": :"There the daughters of Aglaurus still tread the measures of their dance, on the green lawns before the shrine of
Pallas (Athena)" In another version of the story, as told by the
Bibliotheca,
Hephaestus attempted to rape
Athena but was unsuccessful. His semen fell on the ground, impregnating
Gaia. Gaia did not want the infant
Erichthonius, so she gave the baby to the goddess
Athena. Athena gave the baby in a box to three women — Aglaurus and her two sisters — and warned them to never open it. Nonetheless, Aglaurus and Herse opened the box. The sight of the infant caused them both to go insane and they threw themselves off the
Acropolis, or, in the
Fabulae, into the sea. An alternative version of the same story is that, while Athena was away bringing a limestone mountain from the
Pallene peninsula to use in the Acropolis, the sisters, minus Pandrosus again, opened the box.
A crow witnessed the opening and flew away to tell Athena, who fell into a rage and dropped the mountain (now
Mount Lycabettus). Once again, Herse and Aglaurus went insane and threw themselves to their deaths from a cliff. Another legend represents Aglaurus in a totally different light.
Athens was at one time involved in a long and protracted war, and an
oracle declared that the war would cease if someone would sacrifice himself for the good of his country. Agraulos (as she is spelled in this version) came forward and threw herself off the Acropolis. The Athenians, in gratitude for this, built her a temple on the Acropolis, in which it subsequently became customary for the young Athenians, on receiving their first suit of
armor, to take an oath that they would always defend their country to the last. According to
Ovid,
Mercury loved Herse but her jealous sister, whom Ovid calls Aglauros, stood between them, barring Mercury's entry into the house and refusing to move. Mercury was outraged at her presumption and turned her to stone. It is in reference to this myth that
Dante places her on the second terrace of
Purgatory, alongside
Cain, to serve as God's reins against jealousy. ==Worship==