Wars with Tegea for the most part unsuccessful; and with Argos, for the possession of Thyrea and the island of Cythera; by the accession of which the Spartan territory received an important augmentation, about 550. 12. These wars within Peloponnesus were not of such a nature as to give rise to any remarkable changes in the Spartan constitution, and for a long time the nation refused to take any share in foreign affairs. But no sooner did king Cleomenes, who in the end procured the deposition of his colleague, Demaratus, interfere in the affairs of the Athenians, than the seeds of strife were sown between these two republics. The Persian war next ensued, in which Sparta was obliged to bear a part, although Cleomenes had refused to participate in the insurrection of Aristagoras: that struggle, together with the idea of supremacy in Greece which now took its rise, introduced a series of political relations before unknown. 13. The history of Athens during this period is rendered important rather by domestic revolutions, which gradually tended to convert the state into a republic, than by external aggrandizement. The situation and peculiarities of Attica, which rendered it less exposed than other parts of Greece to the attacks and forays of wandering hordes, favoured the gradual and tranquil growth of national prosperity; the traces of which are incontestable, though it would be difficult for the most profound research to point out the whole course of its progress so perspicuously as the historian might wish. The history of Athens, of course, constitutes a main part of the works mentioned above, p. 119. Besides which: W. YOUNG, _The history of Athens politically and philosophically considered_. London, 1796. 4to. Argumentation rather than history. CORSINI, _Fasti Attici_. Florent. 1747. 4 vols. 4to. A most careful chronological essay. 1. Period of kingly government down to 1068. The history of Athens as a state begins properly with Theseus, who succeeded his father Aegeus, about B. C. 1300. Although certain institutions, such as that of the areopagus, the division of the people into nobles, ([Greek: eupatridai],) husbandmen, ([Greek: georgoi],) and mechanics: ([Greek: demiourgoi;]) a division which recals to our memory the Egyptian institution of castes, are perhaps of an earlier date, and may be ascribed to the colony of Cecrops. Theseus was, however, in some measure the founder of the state, since, instead of the four districts, ([Greek: demoi],) hitherto independent of one another, he constituted the city of Athens as the only seat of government. Among his successors the attention of the student is directed to Mnestheus, who fell before Troy; and the last king, Codrus, who by a voluntary sacrifice of his life rescued Attica from the inroads of the Dorians, 1068.