4 Whichever of the two accounts is true, it would make very little difference in the dates but that this was the last of these offices to be instituted is also indicated by the fact that the Archon does not administer any of the ancestral rites, as do the King and the War-lord, but merely the duties added later on account of which also the Archonship only became great in recent times, when augmented by the added duties.

The last of these three offices established was that of the Archon, the institution of which is dated by a majority of authorities in the time of Medon, 2 though some put it in that of Acastus, 3 adducing in evidence the fact that the Nine Archons swear that they will perform their oaths even as in the time of Acastus, showing that in his time the house of Codrus retired from the Kingship in return for the privileges bestowed on the Archon. The second established was the office of War-lord, which was added because some of the Kings proved cowardly in warfare (which was the reason why the Athenians had summoned Ion to their aid in an emergency).

Of these the office of King was the oldest, for it was ancestral. The greatest and oldest of the offices were the King, the War-lord and the Archon.

Appointment to the supreme offices of state went by birth and wealth and they were held at first for life, and afterwards for a term of ten years. The form of the ancient constitution that existed before Draco was as follows.

Aristotle constitution of athens