Before the Athenian democracy, the tyrants, and the Archons, the city-state of Athens was ruled by kings. Most of these are probably mythical or only semi-historical. The following lists contain the chronological order of the title King of Athens (also prescribed earlier as kings of Attica), a semi-mythological title.
Earliest kings
These three kings were supposed to have ruled before the flood of Deucalion.
Other sources mentioned two other ancient rulers of Athens:
Porphyrion - an earlier Athenian king than Actaeus. He was the reputed founder of the sanctuary of Heavenly Aphrodite on Athmoneis, an Athenian deme.[4]
Colaenus - Hellanicus, the Mitylenian historian, tells that this surname of Artemis is derived from Colænus, King of Athens before Cecrops and a descendant of Hermes. In obedience to an oracle he erected a temple to the goddess, invoking her as Artemis Colænis (the Artemis of Colænus).
Erechtheid dynasty
The early Athenian tradition, followed by the 3rd century BC Parian Chronicle, made Cecrops, a mythical half-man half-serpent, the first king of Athens.[5] The dates for the following kings were conjectured centuries later, by historians of the Hellenistic era who tried to backdate events by cross-referencing earlier sources such as the Parian Chronicle. Tradition says that King Menestheus took part in the Trojan War.
The following list follows that of 1st Century BC Castor of Rhodes (FGrHist 250), with Castor's dates given in modern terms.[6]
Mythological Royal House of Athens
Melanthid dynasty
Melanthus was the Neleides king of Pylos in Messenia. Being driven out by the Dorian and Heraclidae invasion, he came to Athens where Thymoestes resigned the crown to him. Codrus, the last king, repelled the Dorian invasion of Attica.
After Codrus's death, his sons Medon and Acastus either reigned as kings, or became hereditary archons.[10][11] In 753 BC the hereditary archonship was replaced by a non-hereditary system (see Archons of Athens).
Notes
^King of Agea, not Athens; The name of Ogyges is also connected with Attic mythology, for in Attica too an Ogygian flood is mentioned, and he is described as the father of the Attic hero Eleusis (Pausanias, 1.38.7)
^A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology: Oarses-Zygia. Edited by William Smith. Pg 20
Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0801853609 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0801853623 (Vol. 2).
Harding, Phillip, The Story of Athens: The Fragments of the Local Chronicles of Attika, Routledge, 2007. ISBN 9781134304479.
Jacoby, Felix, "Die Attische Königsliste", Klio 3 (1902), 406–439.
