He is said to have instructed the Athenians to till the land, and to watch the produce of the seasons; to have imported from Egypt the olive-tree, for which the Attic soil was afterward so celebrated, and even to have navigated to Sicily and to Africa for supplies of corn.

That such advances from a primitive and savage state were not made in a single generation, is sufficiently clear.

With more probability, Cecrops is reputed to have imposed upon the ignorance of his subjects and the license of his followers the curb of impartial law, and to have founded a tribunal of justice (doubtless the sole one for all disputes), in which after times imagined to trace the origin of the solemn Areopagus.
VIII.

Passing from these doubtful speculations on the detailed improvements effected by Cecrops in the social life of the Attic people, I shall enter now into some examination of two subjects far more important.

The first is the religion of the Athenians in common with the rest of Greece; and the second the origin of the institution of slavery.
The origin of religion in all countries is an inquiry of the deepest interest and of the vaguest result.