by Shqipe Hoxha
According to Herodotus, Kekrops was the first king of Athens. He was the progenitor of the Kekropes clan. In ancient times, the Kekropes held the Acropolis and named it Kekropia.
Kekrops was the name not only of one of the four tribes that gave rise to Attica but also of one of the ten later tribes. “Geg-rop”—that is, the people of Gegëria (Northern Albanians), the Pelasgians who descended from the north—left behind this tribal toponym/name for the founders of Athens; a name that cannot be explained except through the Albanian language. Thucydides writes that the Kekropes were the earliest inhabitants of Attica.
Herodotus continues:
“…The Athenians, in the times when the Pelasgians held the land now called Hellas, were Pelasgians themselves, and they were called Kranai (Kranet/Krenët/Krerët)—meaning ‘the first’ or ‘the leaders’…”
According to Strabo, this name—Kekropia—is not of Greek origin.
The people known as the Gegs—or Geg-ropet (whom Strabo rightly identifies as bearing a non-Greek name)—were precisely those northern Pelasgians who founded Athens. Later, other populations would surge in from the East and drive these Pelasgians out of the territory.
Athena takes the child Erichthonius from Gaia’s hands and hands him to Cecrops, the serpent-king of Athens.
Sources
Athéna, Cécrops et Gaïa Date : 460 Nature de l’image : Bas-relief Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz (BPK), Johannes Laurentius.
- Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by George Campbell Macaulay. London: Macmillan, 1890. 8.44. Herodotus, “Histories” 8.44
- Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Richard Crawley. London: J. M. Dent, 1910. 2.15. Thucydides, “History of the Peloponnesian War 2.15
- Strabo. Geography. Translated by H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854. 7.7.1; 9.1.18–20. Strabo, “Geography” 7.7 Strabo, “Geography” 9.1
- Apollodorus. The Library. Translated by Sir James George Frazer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921. 3.14.1. Apollodorus, Library 3.14.1
- Aristotle. The Athenian Constitution. Translated by H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952. 21. Aristotle, “Athenian Constitution 21.”
