ABSTRACT
THE origins of Athens, like those of Sparta, remain wrapped in mystery. It is not for want of historical investigation. Whereas Sparta gave birth to no historian, and is only known from the evidence of foreign writers, many Athenians devoted themselves to the history of their city. The earliest times in particular gave rise to a whole literature. Of the work of those who were called the Atthidographers, of Androtion or Philochoros, for example, only minute fragments survive, preserved by the lexicographers, but we find the echo of them in Plutarch, and we can get an idea of the results which they thought they had obtained from the Πολιτεία ’Αθηναίων of Aristotle.
