Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Cranaus or Kranaos (;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

: Κραναός) was the second

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, succeeding Cecrops I.

Family

Cranaus married Pedias, a

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

n woman and daughter of Mynes, with whom he had three daughters: Cranaë, Cranaechme, and Atthis. Atthis gave her name to

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

after dying, possibly as a young girl,Apollodorus, 3.14.5; Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio'' 1.2.6;

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

, ''

Geographica The ''Geographica'' (, ''Geōgraphiká''; or , "Strabo's 17 Books on Geographical Topics") or ''Geography'', is an encyclopedia of geographical knowledge, consisting of 17 'books', written in Greek in the late 1st century BC, or early 1st cen ...

'' 9.1.18 although in other traditions she was the mother, by

Hephaestus Hephaestus ( , ; wikt:Hephaestus#Alternative forms, eight spellings; ) is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes.Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' 1985: III.2. ...

, of Erichthonius. Rarus was also given as a son of Cranaus.

Reign

Cranaus was supposed to have reigned for either nine or ten years and was an autochthon (born from the earth), like his predecessor. During his reign, the flood of the

Deucalion In Greek mythology, Deucalion (; ) was the son of Prometheus; ancient sources name his mother as Clymene (mythology), Clymene, Hesione (Oceanid), Hesione, or Pronoia (mythology), Pronoia.A Scholia, scholium to ''Odyssey'' 10.2 (=''Catalogue of W ...

story was thought to have occurred. In some accounts, Deucalion was said to have fled Lycorea to Athens with his sons

Hellen In Greek mythology, Hellen (; ) is the eponymous progenitor of the Greeks, Hellenes. He is the son of Deucalion (or Zeus) and Pyrrha, and the father of three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus (son of Hellen), Aeolus, by whom he is the ancestor of t ...

and

Amphictyon Amphictyon or Amphiktyon (; ), in Greek mythology, was a king of Thermopylae and later Athens. In one account, he was the ruler of Locris.Pseudo-Scymnus, Pseudo-Scymnos, ''Circuit de la terre'587 ff./ref> Etymology The name of Amphictyon is a ba ...

. Deucalion died shortly thereafter and was said to have been buried near Athens. Amphictyon is said to have married one of the daughters of Cranaus. Cranaus was deposed by Amphictyon son of Deucalion, who was himself later deposed by Erichthonius. Cranaus fled to Lamptrae, where he died and was buried. His tomb was still there in the times of Pausanias. Cranaus was venerated as

hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or Physical strength, strength. The original hero type of classical epics did such thin ...

in Athens; his priests came from the family Charidae. The people of Attica were referred to as ''Kranaoi'' after Cranaus, and Athens as ''Kranaa'' or ''Kranaai''.

Pindar Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar i ...

, ''Olympian Ode'' 7.82

Notes

References

Apollodorus Apollodorus ( Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: :''Note: A ...

, ''The Library'' with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
*

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

, ''Birds''. ''The Complete Greek Drama.'' ''vol. 2''. Eugene O'Neill, Jr. New York. Random House. 1938
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
*Aristophanes, ''Aristophanes Comoediae'' edited by F.W. Hall and W.M. Geldart, vol. 2. F.W. Hall and W.M. Geldart. Oxford. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1907
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, ''The Histories'' with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
Online version at the Topos Text Project.Greek text available at Perseus Digital Library
* Pausanias, ''Description of Greece'' with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. {{ISBN, 0-674-99328-4
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
*Pausanias, ''Graeciae Descriptio.'' ''3 vols''. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

, ''Odes'' translated by Diane Arnson Svarlien. 1990
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
*Pindar, ''The Odes of Pindar'' including the Principal Fragments with an Introduction and an English Translation by Sir John Sandys, Litt.D., FBA. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1937
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
*

, ''The Geography of Strabo.'' Edition by H.L. Jones. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
*Strabo, ''Geographica'' edited by A. Meineke. Leipzig: Teubner. 1877
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Autochthons of classical mythology Kings of Athens Kings in Greek mythology Mythological people from Attica