The mountaineers who conquered the south land passed
by the country without invading it; Attica was hardly a temptation to
them.
Attica is composed of a mass of rocks which in the form of a triangle
advances into the sea. These rocks, renowned for their blocks of
marble and for the honey of their bees,[66] are bare and sterile.
Between them and the sea are left three small plains with meagre soil,
meanly watered (the streams are dry in summer) and incapable of
supporting a numerous population.
=Athens.=--In the largest of these plains, a league from the sea,
rises a massive isolated rock: Athens was built at its foot. The old
city, called the Acropolis, occupied the summit of the rock.
The inhabitants of Attica commenced, not by forming a single state,
but by founding scattered villages, each of which had its own king and
its own government. Later all these villages united under one
king,[67] the king of Athens, and established a single city. This
does not mean that all the people came to dwell in one town. They
continued to have their own villages and to cultivate their lands; but
all adored one and the same protecting goddess, Athena, divinity of
Athens, and all obeyed the same king.
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