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39-685: The Parian Chronicle mentions that the Athenians expelled the Peisistratids from the " Pelasgikon teichos ". Herodotus relates that before the expulsion of the Pelasgians from Attica, the land under Hymettus had been given to them as a dwelling-place in reward for the wall that had once been built around the Acropolis. Said to have been built by the Pelasgians, there are some remains of this wall still evident in modern Athens. The wall

78-570: A hero of the Pelasgian race; and Müller remarks that the different mythical personages of this name connected with the towns in Boeotia and Euboea are only multiplications of the one original hero, whose name and story were transplanted from Attica to other places. The later Greek writers describe Cecrops as having immigrated into Greece with a band of colonists from Sais in Egypt . But this account

117-529: A salt sea which was known in later times by the name of the Erechthean well, from its being enclosed in the temple of Erechtheus . After him, Athena arrived and called on Cecrops to witness her act of taking possession. She planted an olive tree on the hill of the acropolis, which continued to be shown in the Pandrosium down to the latest times. But when the two gods continued to strive for possession of

156-549: A town named Athenae, such as in Boeotia , where he is said to have founded the ancient towns of Athenae and Eleusis on the Triton River , and where he had a heroön at Haliartus . Tradition there called him a son of Pandion . In Euboea , which also had a town named Athenae, Cecrops was called a son of Erechtheus and Praxithea , and a grandson of Pandion. From these traditions it appears, that Cecrops must be regarded as

195-662: A year-number from which the author of the Parian Chronicle was able to calculate the years to his own time, thus suggesting that the archives from which the information was taken were keeping track of the years since the founding of the kingship in Athens under Cecrops. Such framing chronicles are known to have been kept in Rome: the Anno Urbis Conditae , from which events were reckoned. 3) The annalistic style of

234-518: Is a Greek chronology , covering the years from 1582 BC to 299 BC, inscribed on a stele . Found on the island of Paros in two sections, and sold in Smyrna in the early 17th century to an agent for Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel , this inscription was deciphered by John Selden and published among the Arundel Marbles , Marmora Arundelliana (London 1628–9) nos. 1–14, 59–119. The first of

273-842: Is accessible under the External links below. The finding of the bottom portion of the tablet on Páros in 1897 has made Robertson's theory untenable. In 2013, Ben Altshuler of the Institute for Digital Archaeology oversaw reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) of the Parian Marble, revealing significant, previously illegible text. RTI scans are also available as part of the Digital Marmor Parium project. Cecrops I Cecrops ( / ˈ s iː k r ɒ p s / ; Ancient Greek : Κέκροψ , romanized :  Kekrops ; gen Κέκροπος , Kékropos )

312-827: The Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It combines dates for events which modern readers would consider mythic , such as the Flood of Deucalion (equivalent to 1529/28 BC) with dates we would categorize as historic. For the Greeks, the events of their distant past, such as the Trojan War (dated from 1217 to 1208 BC in the Parian inscription) and the Voyage of the Argonauts were historic : their myths were understood as legends to

351-559: The Chronicle is in keeping with the genre of annalistic records such as the Assyrian Eponym Canon , in which the purpose was not so much to describe events as to give an accurate record of when the events occurred, as related to the years since the founding of the kingship and also tying the event to the king or archon who was currently reigning. Young and Steinmann acknowledge several factors that make it less plausible

390-541: The Ashmolean. Until then, some of the most badly abraded letters could still be read because they preserved a yellow patina acquired many centuries ago. After the cleaning however the stone was restored to a brilliant white color and the old patina was lost. The controversy in Oxford was such that the Ashmolean issued a statement denying responsibility for the seemingly new appearance of the stone. In attempting to discern

429-457: The Attic legends as the author of the first elements of civilized life such as marriage, the political division of Attica into twelve communities, and also as the introducer of a new mode of worship. He was said to have been the first who deified Zeus, and ordained sacrifices to be offered to him as the supreme Deity. Cecrops was likewise affirmed to have been the first who built altars and statues of

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468-532: The Greeks. In fact the Parian inscriptions spend more detail on the Heroic Age than on certifiably historic events closer to the date the stele was inscribed and erected, apparently during 264/263 BC. "The Parian Marble uses chronological specificity as a guarantee of truth," Peter Green observed in the introduction to his annotated translation of the Argonautica of Apollonios Rhodios : "the mythic past

507-411: The Parian Marble, such reassurance would be given if the original word, for which the genitive plural ending - νῶν has survived, was not κοινῶν, but Ἀθηνῶν," i.e. "of Athens," taking the word as a noun (Athens was a plural noun in classical Greek). This restoration would give the reader the assurance that the writer of the tablet had an authoritative source for his information, as follows: [ From ] al[ l

546-528: The art of navigation; and, for the better administration of justice and intercourse among them, to have divided them into the four tribes called Cecropis, Autochthon, Actea, and Paralia. Some likewise make him the founder of the areopagus . The Acropolis was also known as the Cecropia in his honor. The Athenians are said to have called themselves Cecropidæ, during the reigns of the five following kings, in his honor. During his reign which lasted for 50 years,

585-419: The author used a variety of selections from diverse materials available in the third century BC. The Ashmolean Web site then translated this into English as shown above. Young and Steinmann, however, maintain that "The writer of an annalistic history that professes to give exact dates for events would not assure readers of his credibility by saying that his information was derived from the "common" folklore ... For

624-478: The country, Zeus parted them and appointed arbiters - not, as some have affirmed, Cecrops and Cranaus, nor Erysichthon, but the twelve gods. And in accordance with their verdict the country was adjudged to Athena, because Cecrops bore witness that she had been the first to plant the olive. Athena, therefore, called the city Athens after herself. Poseidon in hot anger flooded the Thriasian plain and laid Attica under

663-467: The early 20th century. This appeared in two works: his book Das Marmor Parium published in 1904, and as a part of the Fragmente der griechischen Historiker , first published in 1929. There has been no major study devoted to the entire stele since that time, although a few authors have dealt with specific time periods covered in the tablet. Furthermore, there apparently have been no critical studies of

702-446: The epithet διφυής to marriage, of which tradition made him the founder. Apparently Cecrops married Aglaurus , the daughter of Actaeus, former king of the region of Attica, whom he succeeded on the throne. It is disputed that this woman was the mother of Cecrops's son Erysichthon . Erysichthon predeceased him, and he was succeeded by Cranaus , who is said to have been one of the wealthiest citizens of Athens at that time. Cecrops

741-461: The gods resolved to take possession of cities in which each of them should receive their own peculiar worship. Athena became the patron goddess of the city of Athens in a competition with Poseidon , as judged by Cecrops. The two raced ferociously towards the Acropolis and it was a very close race. Poseidon was the first to reach Attica and struck the acropolis with his trident and thereby created

780-501: The gods, offered sacrifices, and instituted marriage among the Athenians, who, before his time, it seems, lived promiscuously. Pausanias tells us that he forbade the sacrificing of any living creatures to the gods, as well as any sort of other offering, only allowing cakes (πέλανοι) formed into the shape of an ox with horns, called by the Athenians Pelanous, which signifies an ox. He is likewise said to have taught his subjects

819-456: The kingship under Cecrops. Another argument against the Athenian provenance of the information in the Parian Chronicle is the reconstruction given by Jacoby of the first two lines of the tablet, which were largely effaced when Selden made his copy (this top part has since been lost), but of which enough remained that Selden could determine that it was intended as a statement of the source of

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858-480: The loss of the election, Poseidon flooded the country with the water of the sea, and to appease his wrath it was decided to deprive women of the vote and to forbid children to bear their mother's names for the future. The Athenians said that the contest between Poseidon and Athena took place on the second of the month Boedromion , and hence they omitted that day from the calendar. The name of Cecrops occurs also in other parts of Greece, especially where there existed

897-468: The name of Cecrops is not of Greek origin. It was said that he was born from the earth itself (an autochthon ) and was accordingly called a γηγενής ( gēgenḗs "native"), and described as having his top half shaped like a man and the bottom half in serpent or fish-tail form. Hence he was called διφυής ( diphuḗs , "of two natures"). Diodorus rationalized that his double form was because of his double citizenship, Greek and barbarian. Some ancients referred

936-508: The name of the king or archon ruling in Athens at the time, along with the number of years prior to the base date of the tablet (264/63 BC). The only exceptions are that in nine out of the 107 extant entries, the name of the archon or king is no longer readable, and in 14 entries the number of elapsed years is similarly effaced. The lack of embellishment is shown, for example, in the entry for Cecrops , which attributes nothing remarkable to him or to his reign, even though in later Greek mythology he

975-527: The original text on the stele itself since the work of Jacoby, as evidenced by the fact that the display of the Greek text on the Ashmolean Web site is a photocopy of the text that Jacoby published in his Fragmente . The legibility of the Oxford fragment was impaired in the late 1980s when it was apparently mechanically cleaned by a crew hired to pressure clean all the classical sculptures in that hall of

1014-416: The people of Attica were free to choose which of these deities they would worship. Accordingly, the question was submitted to a general assembly of the citizens and citizenesses; for in these days women had the vote as well as men. All the men voted for the god, and all the women voted for the goddess; and as there was one more woman than there were men, the goddess appeared at the head of the poll. Chagrined at

1053-508: The public records and histories of Ath ]ens I have recorded [ the previous times ], beginning from Cecrops becoming first king of Athens, until [____]uanax was archon in Paros, and Diognetus in Athens. One other conjecture for the source of the Parian Chronicle's information is of historical interest. In 1788, Joseph Robertson went to considerable length in arguing that the tablets were of relatively recent date and entirely fraudulent. His book

1092-507: The sea. A rationalistic explanation of the fable was propounded by the eminent Roman antiquary Varro . According to him, the olive-tree suddenly appeared in Attica, and at the same time there was an eruption of water in another part of the country. So king Cecrops sent to inquire of Apollo at Delphi what these portents might signify. The oracle answered that the olive and the water were the symbols of Athena and Poseidon respectively, and that

1131-467: The sections published by Selden has subsequently disappeared. A further third fragment of this inscription, comprising the base of the stele and containing the end of the text, was found on Paros in 1897. It has entries from 336/35 to 299/98 BC. The two known upper fragments, brought to London in 1627 and presented to Oxford University in 1667, include entries for the years 1582/81–355/54 BC. The surviving upper chronicle fragment currently resides in

1170-414: The source behind the Parian Chronicle was the state archives of Athens. The first is that there are no known examples of writing from Athens that date as early as 1582/81 BC, the date of the Chronicle's first entry. The earliest extant writing in Greek from any area is found in the syllabic Linear B script, for which the earliest instances date to about a century and a half after the reputed beginning of

1209-403: The source or sources of the Chronicle , Jacoby followed the rather subjective method that was popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, whereby a change in the subject matter or style of writing was taken to imply a different source. The style of the Chronicle , however, is quite uniform. Events are listed with little embellishment, and the primary purpose seems to be to give for each event

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1248-404: The tablet's histories. Jacoby's restoration of Selden's Greek text is followed on the Ashmolean Web site, which translates it into English as follows, with square brackets and italics indicating the portion of the text that is conjectural: [ From ] al[ l the records and general accounts ] I have recorded [ the previous times ], beginning from Cecrops becoming first king of Athens, until [____]uanax

1287-399: The ultimate source of the information in the Parian Chronicle was the archives of the city of Athens. Authors Rodger Young and Andrew Steinmann base their views on three key inferences from the available evidence. 1) The naming of the reigning king or archon in Athens for each entry is consistent with an Athenian provenance of the material. 2) The source behind each entry must have provided

1326-453: Was a legendary king of Attica which derived from him its name Cecropia, according to the Parian Chronicle having previously borne the name of Acte or Actice (from Actaeus ). He was the founder and the first king of Athens itself though preceded in the region by the earth-born king Actaeus of Attica. Cecrops was a culture hero , teaching the Athenians marriage , reading and writing , and ceremonial burial . According to Strabo ,

1365-540: Was a semi-human creature. The Chronicle's entries for Deucalion , who became the center of many flood-myths, are more consistent with the earliest Greek legends that merely state that he fled from a flooding river in his native Lycoreia near the Gulf of Corinth , arriving at Athens where his son later became king. In contrast to Jacoby's ideas, a 2012 study maintains that the style of the Chronicle's entries suggests that

1404-434: Was archon in Paros, and Diognetus in Athens. The critical word here is "general," which represents a Greek original for which Selden could read only the last three letters, νῶν; these are the ending of the genitive plural. Jacoby hypothesized the word was an adjective and restored it to κοινῶν, meaning "common, general, ordinary". This is consistent with Jacoby's theory for the source of the Chronicle's documents, namely that

1443-556: Was believed to be 6 m (20 ft) thick according to archaeological remains of the site. 37°58′17″N 23°43′31″E  /  37.9714°N 23.7253°E  / 37.9714; 23.7253 This Ancient Greece  related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a building or structure in Athens is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Parian Chronicle The Parian Chronicle or Parian Marble ( Latin : Marmor Parium , abbr.   Mar. Par. )

1482-504: Was rooted in historical time, its legends treated as fact, its heroic protagonists seen as links between the 'age of origins' and the mortal, everyday world that succeeded it." The shorter fragment base of the stele, found in 1897, is in the Archaeological Museum of Paros . It contains chronicle entries for the years 336/35–299/98 BC. The major analysis of the Parian Chronicle is that of Felix Jacoby , written in

1521-409: Was the father of three daughters: Herse , Pandrosus and Aglaurus . To them was given a box or jar containing the infant Erichthonius to guard unseen. They looked and, terrified by the two serpents Athena had set within to guard the child, they fled in terror and leapt from the Acropolis to their deaths. Some accounts say one of the sisters was turned to stone instead. Cecrops was represented in

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