The Athenians, more than most Greeks, could boast that they were autochthonous, earth-born children of their own soil. Isocrates in his “Panegyricus” makes proudly the claim: “We dwell in the land not after expelling others, nor even finding it a desert, nor even coming as a mixed breed collected from many nations, but ... sprung from the soil and able to address our city by the same names as we give to the closest relations.” The prehistoric Greek invaders of Attica had fused with rather than driven out the former occupants, the Pelasgians or whoever they may have been. Erichthonius, Erechtheus, or Poseidon, “one form for many names,” was born of Earth but mothered on Athena, and it would have been as futile as it was impious to challenge the pedigree of the Erechtheidæ. Erechtheus-Poseidon might coil forever undisturbed beneath the sheltering shield of the Virgin-goddess. Cecrops, too, the mythical king and Attic hero, owned a perpetual ground-rent on the Acropolis and the Athenians were Cecropidæ. They were also the “Sons of Hephæstus,” who was often associated with Athena, a partnership of the heavenly wisdom with the arts and crafts. An ancient festival of the whole city, held in honour of Athena, became afterwards specialized among the artisans, under the name of Chalkeia, in honour of Hephæstus; and the god may yet win back as his own “Hephæsteum” the so-called “Theseum” on the hill above the classic market-place. The age of the heroes merges with that of the Kings. Theseus moves, a grandiose figure, through art and literature. Thus when the “Hill party” of Pisistratus became preëminent, Theseus, the aristocrat, came into prominence in vase painting. He appears in all the forms of didactic sculpture, and the “City of Theseus,” the older Athens, is recalled again in the Roman renaissance by the Arch of Hadrian. This still offers to the modern pilgrim, on the west side facing the Acropolis, the inscription: “This is the Athens of Theseus, the old city,” and on the other, facing the Olympieum of Hadrian: “This is the City of Hadrian and not the City of Theseus.” Thus meet the old and the new, with classic Athens ignored.