A First History of Greece Author:Elizabeth Missing Sewell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: niembranee of their own country; and to this day it is called Messina. CHAPTER VI. THE CONSPIRACY OP CYLON AT ATHENS. B. c. 812. We must now turn to th... more »e history of Athens, a state which has been mentioned before as the rival of Sparta. The Spartans were a Dorian people ; the Athenians came from a race called lonians; and there was as great a distinction between them as between the French and the English, at least in many respects. They spoke the same language, indeed, but it was with another accent; a like difference could be discovered amongst several of the other Grecian states. Some were Dorian and some Ionian. The Dorian states usually sided with the Spartans, and the Ionian with the Athenians. Attica, of which Athens was the capital, was but a small state, yet in the earliest times it is said to have been divided into several districts, each governed by a chief, who took the title of king. Athens was one of these districts, and Cecrops, a king of Athens, persuaded his people and those of the other districts to form a union or confederacy, to protect themselves from pirates and invaders. In after years the districts were united into one state, by Theseus, one of the early Grecian heroes, about whom almost as many wonderful stories are told as about Hercules. Theseus was the king of Athens, and he made his city the capital of the country, and it soon became of so much importancethat the name of Athenians is used commonly for the inhabitants of the whole state. The last king of Athens was Codrus ; he was king about the time that the Dorians were preparing to invade Peloponnesus, and the following story is related of him :— On one occasion, the Dorians, it is said, came near Athens, and were going to attack it, but they were not sure of success, because it had bee...« less