Pherecydes of Athens was an early 5th-century BCE mythographer and genealogist. He is distinguished from the earlier philosopher Pherecydes of Syros. According to the Suda, he was born on Leros but lived in Athens as a citizen and was active during the 79th Olympiad, a contemporary of Hellanicus of Lesbos. He is recognised as one of the earliest writers of Attic prose.
His only known work is the Historiai or Genealogiai, a ten-book prose compilation of myths, heroic genealogies, and local Attic traditions. The work is lost and survives only in fragments quoted by later authors.
Pherecydes is among the earliest of the Greek historians and mythographers. His systematic genealogical work represents the transition from poetic to prose accounts of the past and was an important source for later writers like Hellanicus and potentially Herodotus. Alongside figures like Acusilaus and Hecataeus, his fragments are a principal source for early Athenian mythography and the development of historical writing before Herodotus.
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