The mythical King Erichthonius of Dardania was the son of Dardanus

Dardanus

In Greek mythology, Dardanus was a son of Zeus and Electra, daughter of Atlas, and founder of the city of Dardania on Mount Ida in the Troad....

 or Darda, King of Dardania

Dardania (Asia minor)

Dardania in Greek mythology is the name of a city founded on Mount Ida by Dardanus from which also the region and the people took their name. It lay on the Hellespont, and is the source of the strait's modern name, the Dardanelles....

, and Batea

Batea (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the name Batea refers to the following individuals:* The daughter or the aunt of King Teucer. Her father was the ruler of a tribe known as the Teucrians . The Teucrians inhabited the area of northwest Asia Minor later called the Troad , and the term is sometimes used as...

, (although some legends say his mother was Olizone, descendant of Phineus

Phineus

Phineus may refer to:* Phineus, killed by Perseus. See Andromeda * Blind King Phineus or Phineas of Thrace, visited by Jason and the Argonauts* Phineas Nigellus, a deceased headmaster in the Harry Potter universe...

). He is said to have enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous reign.

Fundamentally, all that is known of this Erichthonius comes from Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, who says (Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler may refer to:*Samuel Butler , author of Hudibras*Samuel Butler , classical scholar, schoolmaster at Shrewsbury, Bishop of Lichfield...

's translation of Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

20.215-234):

"In the beginning Dardanos

Dardanus

In Greek mythology, Dardanus was a son of Zeus and Electra, daughter of Atlas, and founder of the city of Dardania on Mount Ida in the Troad....

 was the son of Zeus

Zeus

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

, and founded Dardania, for Ilion

Troy

Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

 was not yet established on the plain for men to dwell in, and her people still abode on the spurs of many-fountained Ida

Mount Ida

In Greek mythology, two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida, the "Mountain of the Goddess": Mount Ida in Crete; and Mount Ida in the ancient Troad region of western Anatolia which was also known as the Phrygian Ida in classical antiquity and is the mountain that is mentioned in the Iliad of...

. Dardanos had a son, king Erichthonios, who was wealthiest of all men living; he had three thousand mares that fed by the water-meadows, they and their foals with them. Boreas was enamored of them as they were feeding, and covered them in the semblance of a dark-maned stallion. Twelve filly foals did they conceive and bear him, and these, as they sped over the fertile plain, would go bounding on over the ripe ears of wheat and not break them; or again when they would disport themselves on the broad back of Ocean they could gallop on the crest of a breaker. Erichthonios begat Tros

Tros

In Greek mythology, Tros was a ruler of Troy and the son of Erichthonius by Astyoche or of Ilus I, from whom he inherited the throne. Tros was the father of three sons: Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymedes. He is the eponym of Troy, also named Ilion for his son Ilus...

, king of the Trojans,and Tros had three noble sons, Ilos, Assarakos

Assaracus

In Greek mythology, Assaracus was the second son of Tros, King of Dardania. He inherited the throne when his elder brother Ilus preferred to reign instead over his newly founded city of Ilium . He married Hieromneme, daughter of Simoeis; others say his wife was Clytodora, daughter of Laomedon....

, and Ganymede

Ganymede (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Ganymede is a divine hero whose homeland was Troy. Homer describes Ganymede as the most beautiful of mortals. In the best-known myth, he is abducted by Zeus, in the form of an eagle, to serve as cup-bearer in Olympus. Some interpretations of the myth treat it as an allegory of...

 who was comeliest of mortal men; wherefore the gods carried him off to be Zeus' cupbearer, for his beauty's sake, that he might dwell among the immortals."

John Tzetzes

John Tzetzes

John Tzetzes was a Byzantine poet and grammarian, known to have lived at Constantinople during the 12th century.Tzetzes was Georgian on his mother's side...

 and one of the scholia to Lycophron

Lycophron

Lycophron was a Hellenistic Greek tragic poet, grammarian, and commentator on comedy, to whom the poem Alexandra is attributed .-Life and miscellaneous works:...

 call his wife Astyoche

Astyoche

The name Astyoche or Astyocheia was attributed to the following individuals in Greek mythology.*Daughter of the river god Simoeis, mother of Tros by Erichthonius....

, daughter of Simoeis

Simoeis

Simoeis was a river of the Trojan plain and the name of its god. Like other river-gods, Simoeis was the son of Oceanus and Tethys . Simoeis had two daughters who were married into the Trojan royal family. One daughter, Astyoche, was married to Erichthonius, and the other daughter, Hieromneme was...

. Apollodorus

Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greek scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius the Stoic, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace...

 also adds Erichthonius' older brother Ilus

Ilus

Ilus is the name of several mythological persons associated directly or indirectly with Troy.-Ilus :Homer's Iliad mentions at several points the tomb of Ilus son of Dardanus in the middle of the Trojan plain...

, who died young and childless; presumably a doublet of the other Ilus, grandson of Erichthonius, eponym of Troy.

Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 (13.1.48) records, but discounts, the claim by "some more recent writers" that Teucer came from the deme

Deme

In Ancient Greece, a deme or demos was a subdivision of Attica, the region of Greece surrounding Athens. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside seem to have existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, but did not acquire particular significance until the reforms of Cleisthenes in...

 of Xypeteones in Attica

Attica

Attica is a historical region of Greece, containing Athens, the current capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea...

, supposedly called Troes (meaning Trojans) in mythical times. These writers mentioned that Erichthonius

Erichthonius

Erichthonius may refer to:*Erichthonius of Athens*Erichthonius of Dardania...

 appears as founder both in Attica and the Troad, and may be identifying the two.

Erichthonius reigned for forty six or, according to others, sixty five years and was succeeded by his son Tros.