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 CHAPTER XXVIII

THE LAST KING OF ATHENS

You remember how Cecrops came to Attica and built a city so beautiful that the gods marvelled, and how Athene made the first olive-tree and was therefore awarded the honour of naming the city and becoming its patron. The olive-tree was now said to grow on a rock in the stronghold or Acropolis of the city.

In ancient days Sparta was a more important city than the beautiful one built by Cecrops, but little by little, as the years passed, Athens became supreme in Greece and the most glorious city of the world.

At first Athens, like Sparta and the other States, was governed by kings. But while Sparta continued to be a monarchy, Athens became an oligarchy—that is, she was governed by a few, and these few were nobles.

When Codrus, the last king of Athens, was on the throne, the State was invaded by the Dorians. An oracle had declared that unless the Athenian king was slain in the camp of the enemy, Athens would be taken.

Codrus loved his city and determined to save it from the enemy. So he disguised himself as a peasant and went to the camp of the Dorians, where he killed the first soldier he met. The comrades of the dead man at once fell upon Codrus and, as he had hoped, he was speedily slain. Then as the oracle had foretold Athens was saved from the enemy.

The Athenians resolved that they would no longer have kings to rule over them, because they were sure that they could never find any worthy to follow Codrus who had