The first king of what is now Attica in Pausanias' royal roll — ruler of the land then called Actaea, whose throne passed to Cecrops as his son-in-law when he died, a reign that vanishes when Apollodorus and Hyginus begin instead with the earth-born Cecrops.1
Pausanias opens the Attic succession with Actaeus. He was the first to reign over what is now Attica; when he died, Cecrops received the kingdom as the son-in-law of Actaeus, and to Cecrops were born Herse, Aglaurus, and Pandrosus, and a son Erysichthon who did not succeed. So in this telling Attica had a throne before its first autochthon, and the land's old name Actaea — from which Cranaus' daughter Atthis would later give Attica its name — belonged to Actaeus' age.2
Apollodorus sets Cecrops at the head of the list as a son of the soil who renamed Acte Cecropia, yet still records that Cecrops married Agraulus, daughter of Actaeus. The marriage ties the autochthonous founder to an older royal house even where the Bibliotheca does not count Actaeus among the kings.3
Amphictyon won the kingdom long after this first pair. Pausanias tells how he rose against Cranaus, his kinsman by marriage and king of Athens, and banished him — in a succession that had begun with Actaeus and run through Cecrops and Cranaus before Amphictyon took the throne.4
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story