Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Pandion.
The gallery
Statue of Procne and Itys
Alkamenes, c. 430–420 BC
Alkamenes' Acropolis group freezes Procne beside Itys — the daughter of Pandion I whose marriage to Tereus the king arranged for Theban aid. The Attic father's household is the root of the nightingale tragedy: Pandion's daughters, not the king himself, become the myth's lasting image.
Philomela and Procne Preparing to Kill Itys
Unknown (Attic red-figure), c. 480 BC
An Attic cup shows Pandion's daughters steeling themselves to murder Itys — the revenge that Ovid says killed the Athenian king with grief. The vase keeps the Pandionid crisis at the centre of classical Athenian myth-painting.
Tereus Confronted with the Head of His Son Itylus
Peter Paul Rubens, 1636–1638
Rubens' Prado canvas stages the feast of Itys — the catastrophe that begins when Pandion gives Procne to Tereus. Baroque reception remembers the Athenian father through the daughters whose metamorphosis ends his line's peace.
In play
Metamorphoses
Ovid
Books 6 makes Pandion the Attic father who marries Procne to Tereus and dies of grief when Philomela's tragedy returns — the king as hinge of the nightingale myth.
Pandion I
Son of Erichthonius, father of Procne, Philomela, Erechtheus, and Butes — the fifth legendary king of Athens in the traditional succession.