Creusa

Also known as: CREUSA · Family: Erechtheus' house · Role: wife of Xuthus · First appears: Euripides, Ion — Scene 1

Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, was still an infant when she alone of her sisters escaped, and at Macrae Apollo forced his love on her. She bore his son in secret and left the newborn in a cave, believing the god would save him; she then married Xuthus, who had helped end the war between Athens and Chalcodon’s people. Years later, though she and Xuthus remained childless, Creusa heard that Apollo had fathered a child with her and exposed him, while Xuthus had been given a grown son, Ion, by an oracle.

In Delphi, Creusa told Ion her secret and asked him not to tell Xuthus. Believing Ion threatened her household and inheritance, she planned to poison him; the plot was exposed, and she fled her pursuers to the altar. At the cavern of Cecrops, she recognized the ark in which she had left her baby, and tokens from it helped prove Ion’s identity. Mother and son reunited, and Creusa confessed that fear had led her to expose him and that she had nearly killed him.

In Scene 11, Athena proclaimed that Creusa was Ion’s mother and Apollo his father, and told them to conceal Ion’s true parentage from Xuthus. Athena also spoke of a common line from Creusa and Xuthus, from which Dorus and Achaeus would arise.