ABSTRACT
Athenian kingship myth was central to the city’s religious cult and festivals. The mythical king Theseus was a continual presence in the city’s iconography. This presence extends to accounts of the city’s history. The incorporation of foundation myths into the early history of cities within a continuous timeline was a feature of local Greek historiography that developed in the fourth century, most notably in the works of the Athenian Atthidographies, which survive only as fragments reported by authors such as Plutarch. King lists provided a chronological structure which enabled historians to reach into a distant, heroic past, in which founder kings acted on behalf of their cities. Athens’ orators and political writers also used kingship stories. More complete texts from Isocrates (Helen) show the changing use of Theseus from democratic king to individual saviour of the city, with the figure of the king as saviour deployed by Atthidographers and in the developing rhetoric of orators such as Lycurgus (Against Leocrates).
