Geography

​Therefore, it is sufficient to add this much, namely that Philochorus says that, while the country was being plundered from the sea by the Carians, and from the land by the Boeotians, whom they used to call Aones, Cecrops first settled the multitude into twelve cities, of which the names are Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelea, Eleusis, Aphidna (they also use the plural, Aphidnae), Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia; and again later, Theseus is said to have gathered the twelve into one city, the current one. At first they were ruled by kings, then they changed to a democracy; and when tyrants attacked them, namely Peisistratus and his sons, and later when oligarchies arose, both that of the Four Hundred and that of the Thirty Tyrants, whom the Lacedaemonians established, they easily shook these off, and guarded their democracy until the Roman supremacy. For even if they were somewhat harassed by the Macedonian kings so as to be forced to obey them, they nevertheless preserved the same general form of government. And some say that they governed themselves best during that ten-year period when Cassander ruled the Macedonians. For this man, while in other respects he seems to have been rather tyrannical, was well-disposed towards the Athenians after taking the city as a subject; for he placed over them as ruler Demetrius of Phalerum, one of the associates of the philosopher Theophrastus, who not only did not destroy the democracy but even reformed it. This is shown by the memoirs which that man wrote about this constitution. But envy and hatred towards the few was so strong that after the death of Cassander he was forced to flee to Egypt; and those who revolted pulled down his statues, of which there were more than three hundred, and melted them down, and some even add that they melted them into chamber-pots. At any rate, the Romans, receiving them under a democratic government, preserved their autonomy and freedom for them. But when the Mithridatic War came upon them, it established tyrants over them whom the king wanted; and Sulla, the Roman commander, having taken by siege and punished Aristion, who had become the most powerful and had forced this city, granted pardon to the city; and until now it is in freedom and honor among the Romans.

​After Peiraeus, the deme of Phaleris is on the adjacent coast; then the Halimusians, the Aexonians, the Halaeans of Aexone, the Anagyrasians; then the Thoraeans, the Lamptrians, the Aegilians, the Anaphlystians, the Azenians; these are the ones as far as the promontory of Sunium. And between the said demes are long promontories: the first, after the Aexonians, is Zoster, then another, after the Thoraeans, is Astypalaea; off the former lies the island Phabra, off the latter Elaeussa; and off the Aexonians is Hydroussa. And near Anaphlystus is both the Paneium and the temple of Aphrodite Colias, to which place they say the last of the wreckage from the Persian sea-fight near Salamis was washed up, concerning which they say Apollo also foretold: “And the Colian women shall cook with oars.” And off these places also lies the island of Belbina, not far away, and the Palisade of Patroclus; and most of these are deserted.