Editing Pandrosus (section)

===Arrephoria===
[[File:Athens Acropolis Museum Marble Parthenon West Pediment Statues (28362292711).jpg|Pandrosus with her father Cecrops on the east pediment of the [[Parthenon]], [[Acropolis Museum]].|thumb|upright=1.5]]

The [[Arrephoria]] was a night festival that took place during the Greek month of Skiraphorion at the height of summer in the honor of Athena and [[Aphrodite]]. The myth of the Kekropidai was inherently connected to the festival and could be taken as a mythic paradigm for a yearly ritual that was carried out by the [[Arrephoroi]] during this time. The Arrephoroi consisted of two young girls selected from Athens' aristocratic families by the Archon Basileus (king archon/magistrate). After being selected, these girls would live in a home on the Acropolis for the duration of a year in order to serve Athena; the end of their period of service would culminate in the Arrephoria where they would perform the initiation ritual that would signify their passage into the next stage of their lives.

According to a description given by [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], the Greek geographer:

<blockquote>For a certain time the Arrephoroi have their living from the Goddess: and when the festival comes round they have to perform certain ceremonies during the night. They carry on their heads what Athena’s priestess gives them to carry, and neither she who gives it nor they who carry it know what it is she gives them. In the city not far from Aphrodite-in-the-Gardens is an enclosed place with a natural entrance to an underground descent; this is where the virgin girls go down. They leave down there what they were carrying, and take another thing and bring it back covered up. They are then sent away, and other virgin girls are brought to the Acropolis instead of them.<ref>Haland, "The Ritual Year of Athena," 260.</ref>''</blockquote>
 
In this context, the myth of the Kekropidai served as a warning for the consequences of disobedience to the Arrephoroi who were forbidden to look into the chests that they were given to carry on their heads. Pandrosos, as the obedient daughter who obeyed Athena's commands, served as a role model for the Arrephoroi who were expected to follow her example when carrying the ritual objects to the sanctuary of Aphrodite. It has been suggested in scholarship that Pandrosos’ obedience was acknowledged in the form of sacrifices; according to an old Attic law, whenever the sacrifice of a cow was made to Athena, it was necessary to sacrifice a ewe to Pandrosos as well, even outside of the time of the Arrephoria.<ref name="Rosenzweig">Rachel Rosenzweig, ''Worshipping Aphrodite: Art and Cult in Classical Athens'' (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004), 47.</ref>

The two disobedient daughters, Aglauros and Herse, were also acknowledged during the Arrephoria. It is generally accepted that the Arrephoroi themselves represented the two unfaithful Kekropidai. The nighttime descent of the Arrephoroi could be taken as a symbolic reenactment of the scene in which Aglauros and Herse fling themselves from the Acropolis after viewing the contents of the chest that Athena gave to them.<ref name="Rosenzweig"/>