Oh, Athens… the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence. The Cradle of Western Civilization.note The Cradle of Hellenic Civilization. The birthplace of Democracy. The School of Hellas. The Renaissance city before The Renaissance itself. The violet-crowned city. The Glorious City. You name it…
It is the capital of Greece and its largest city, with a population of 4 million residents. It dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years. The basin is bounded by four large mountains: Mount Aigaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Pentelicus to the northeast and Mount Hymettus to the east.
It has a large financial sector, and its port Piraeus is both the largest passenger port in Europe and the second largest in the world. The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which actually constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire city, had a population of 664,046 (in 2011) within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km2 (15.04 sq mi). The Athens Urban Area (Greater Athens and Greater Piraeus) extends beyond its administrative municipal city limits, with a population of 3,090,508 (in 2011) over an area of 412 sq km (159 sq mi). According to Eurostat in 2011, the functional urban area (FUA) of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union (the 6th most populous capital city of the EU), with a population of 3.8 million people. Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland and the warmest major city in Europe.
In ancient times, it was a powerful city-state and a "Center of Arts and Philosophy", a title it hold even in the Roman times. Nowadays, while it may pale compared to much larger and more economically powerful capitals, like London or Paris, for the Greeks it's an important city and a significantly commercial and cultural place.
Popular Landmarks
Athens is a world centre of archaeological research. Except from the Acropolis and the Parthenon, it also features:
- The Athens Concert Hall (Megaro Moussikis), which attracts world class artists.
- The National Archaeological Museum, the largest archaeological museum in the country, and one of the most important internationally, as it contains a vast collection of antiquities; its artifacts cover a period of more than 5,000 years, from late Neolithic Age to Roman Greece.
- The New Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, and replacing the old museum on the Acropolis. The new museum has proved considerably popular; almost one million people visited during the summer period June–October 2009 alone. A number of smaller and privately owned museums focused on Greek culture and arts are also to be found.
- The Olympic Stadium of Athens with the characteristic rooftop designed by Santiago Calatrava, especially for the 2004 Olympics and has since gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world, and one of its most interesting modern monuments.
- The Athens Planetarium, which is one of the largest and best equipped digital planetaria in the world.
- The Zappeion, which is currently being used as a Conference and Exhibition Center for both public and private purposes.
- The Benaki Museum with its several branches for each of its collections including ancient, Byzantine, Ottoman-era, and Chinese art and beyond.
- The Numismatic Museum, housing a major collection of ancient and modern coins.
- The Museum of Cycladic Art, home to an extensive collection of Cycladic art, including its famous figurines of white marble.
- The Kerameikos Archaeological Museum, a museum which displays artifacts from the burial site of Kerameikos. Much of the pottery and other artifacts relate to Athenian attitudes towards death and the afterlife, throughout many ages.
- The Jewish Museum of Greece, a museum which describes the history and culture of the Greek Jewish community.
The Parthenon
- "Earth proudly wears the Parthenon as the best gem upon her zone."
You know it, you love it, you cry at its current state.
One of the wonders of the ancient world and a brilliant piece of architecture, designed by Iktinos and Kallikrates. It's regarded as an enduring symbol of Ancient Greece, Athenian democracy and Western civilization and one of the world's greatest cultural monuments. To the Athenians who built it, the Parthenon and other Periclean monuments of the Acropolis were seen fundamentally as a celebration of Hellenic victory over the Persian invaders and as a thanksgiving to the gods for that victory.
It derives from the Greek word παρθενών (parthenon), which referred to the "unmarried women's apartments".
History
Due to being such an old city (and the oldest capital of Europe), it has a long and complicated history. So, we will try to resume it as best as we can.
Although there is evidence of settlements as early as around 7000 BCE, Athens became a big important city around 1400 BCE, smack dab in the Mycenaean period of Greece and part of the wider Bronze Age. Athens most likely became important because of its acropolis, where there is archeological evidence of a citadel being built on the naturally defensible hill (like many other Bronze Age cities such as Mycenae, Pylos and Thebes). There is virtually nothing left of these fortifications apart from a wall of Cyclopean masonry note that can still be seen today.
The Bronze Age collapse (from roughly 1200 BCE to 1100 BCE) that affected other Mycenaean sites like Mycenae (and the wider eastern Mediterranean) appears to have spared Athens to some extent. We don't know much of what happened afterwards because of the Greek Dark Ages, where the Linear B
writing system of Mycenean Greece disappeared and no documents from that period are known note , but judging by the opulence of certain tombs and the presence of trade goods it seems Athens had recovered to a pretty good shape as early as 900 BCE, while the Dark Ages as a whole are considered to end circa 750 BCE (around the time Homer rolls around and writes down tales from the oral tradition such as The Iliad and The Odyssey in a fancy new alphabet borrowed from the Phoenicians).
In 622 BCE, by popular demand (effectively making this a form of proto-democracy) the lawmaker Draco was installed, who immediately began to work on a written constitution and written laws to replace the system of oral law and blood feuds. However Draco's laws proved quite harsh, giving us the term "draconian". Still, as harsh as they were, the laws and punishments were at least consistent and ended cycles of revenge.
Athens is famous for installing democracy in 508/507 BC., after its citizens overthrew two tyrants, Hippias and Hipparchus, however other polis had similar democratic institutions, but Athens' democracy (and especially its beginnings) is the most well-documented. It's not entirely clear if it's the first democracy ever. The father of the Athenian democracy is Cleisthenis, who divided citizens in ten groups based on where they lived, rather than on money, which permanently broke the absolute power of the nobility. While not the only democratic lawmaker of Athens, he's arguably the most important. Before its democratic institutions the rulers of Athens were aristocrats known as Archons. Democracy here meant only male citizens could vote, foreigners (known as metics), women and slaves were effectively shit out of luck, and citizenship was only rarely granted, so people could live for generations in Athens without gaining citizenship. It's estimated that at its peak no more than 30% (usually between 10% to 20%) of Athenians were eligible to vote. Still, the system was fairly progressive in certain ways, as there was no monetary or property ownership requirements, meaning a poor citizen had more political power than a wealthy metic note .
In the lead up to the Greco-Persian Wars, Athenian struck the silver motherlode in the mines of the Laurion mountains south of Athens. The general and politician Themistocles convinced the Athenian legislature to use this money to fund a huge navy of around 200 triremes, giving Athens a major Badass Navy that allowed it to project influence into the Aegean sea and beyond. Contrary to the popular image of oar-powered ships being crewed by slaves, ships at the time (at least military ships) were crewed by free men who were well-payed and well-trained (see the Analysis on Slave Galley for why military slave ships are a bad idea). In fact, poor citizens (who couldn't afford to buy and maintain weapons and armor for military service as a hoplite (heavy infantry)) often pushed for war because being a rower meant better pay than working class jobs.
The city played a huge role in the Greco-Persian Wars, which started in 499 BC., when Athens helped its colonies in Asia Minor rebel against The Achaemenid Empire. The rebellion failed, although the Athenians did manage to burn down Sardis.
The Great King, Darius I, furious for this, wanted to punish Athens and Eretria, so he started an Invasion in 492 BC. The Invasion ended in 490 BC., when the Athenians faced the Persian Army at the Battle of Marathon and received a major victory. This victory secured Greece's safety for another ten years. note
During the second invasion (480 BC.) Athens and Sparta led a coalition of city states against the Persians, who were led by the king Xerxes who was getting seriously pissed off with the whole wars and wanted to get over it. The coalition's strategy involved 300 Spartans note led by King Leonidas delaying the Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae while the Athenian navy held back the Persian navy at Artemisium in a stalemate. The eventual defeat at Thermopylae made the naval blockade at Artemisium irrelevant, so the navy retreated at the Saronic Gulf and evacuated Athens civilian population. Athens was burned to the ground, and the remaining Greek armies fortified at Corinth while their navies held the line at Salamis. This was Greece's Last Stand, if either Corinth or Salamis was overrun, the Persians now had access to the Peloponnese and it was game over. Themistocles (the guy who came up with the idea of Athens building a navy) lured the (more numerous) Persian navy in a trap at Salamis where the combined Greek fleets mauled it (adding to the Persian casualties was the fact most of them couldn't swim). The loss of naval superiority made Xerxes fear that the Greeks would destroy the bridges on the Hellespont note and trap him and his forces in Europe, so he quickly hauled ass back home with the bulk of his troops, leaving behind one of his best generals (Mardonius) and his most elite units to try and salvage the war.
The Athenians returned to their burnt city and tried to rebuild, while Mardonius and his forces wintered in Boetia, and returned in 479 BCE to raze Athens once again. This time the coalition chased the remnants of the Persian forces to the north, and in the nearly simultaneous battles of Platae (on land) and Mycale (at sea) the Persians were defeated for good.
From 478 BC. to 431 BC., Athens became one of the two most powerful city-states in Ancient Greece (alongside Sparta) and, with Pericles' contribution, enjoyed a period of cultural growth and influence throughout the Greek world, which came to be known as "The Golden Age of Pericles". It's during this period (starting in 447 BCE) that Athens built the Parthenon on the sites of an older temple destroyed in 480 BCE, as a way of showing thanks to the goddess Athena for saving their bacon (and also to have a place where they could stash the city's treasury). Fearing another war with Persia, Athens decided to create a defensive pact with other cities that they would call the Delian League (named after the island of Delos where the League's money was stored). Athens quickly started using the League to further their own imperial ambitions, to the point that the difference between "Athenian Empire" and "Delian League" became effectively nonexistent. To highlight the point Pericles moved the treasury from Delos to Athens.
The threat from the league to Sparta's power, combined with the weaker polis members of the League who weren't happy with the Athenians using the League's treasury for their own whims, led to The Peloponnesian War, which lasted for 27 years. Long story short, Athens lost to a Sparta-led coalition in 404 BCE and was forced to install an oligarchic system, also known as "The Thirty Tyrants", who were in power for 8 months but managed to kill off 5% of Athens population through their cruelty and oppression before an uprising restored the democratic institutions.
Despite these shortcomings, it still remained a big city and a "Centre of Arts and Philosophy", though it had lost its military and political influence. Just like the rest of the greek city-states, it was eventually conquered by the Macedons and replaced its democracy with plutocracy (and that's how the world's first democracy ended, folks, having lasted around 185 years and it was severely critiqued for all of its existence, with figures like Plato and his pupil Aristotle being the most notable. While today Athenian democracy is considered flawed for being too restrictive, contemporaries generally criticized it for being too inclusive note .
It still remained a rich city (though, it had lost its autonomy), until the Romans arrived and, just like every other greek city-state, it turned into a tourist attraction. While it lost its power in the Byzantine period, it regained it in the 9th century AC.… only to lose it again when Constantinople (and the rest of the Greek world) fell to the Ottomans, first in 1397 for a short while, and permanently in 1458. The Sultan Mehmed II was so impressed by the city and its history that he issued an order to not have its monuments damaged on penalty of death, and the Parthenon was turned into a mosque. In the following years Athens declined in importance, becoming little more than a small town. In 1687 a task force sent by the Republic of Venice to attack Athens fired a mortar shell that landed on the Parthenon, which was used by the Ottomans as a gunpowder storage... this is partly why the structure is in relatively poor shape, it fucking exploded.
With the Ottoman Empire gradually declining in power in the 18th century, more and more Europeans visited the city (and Greece in general). This triggered a wave of philhellenism in Europe and many became interested in the cause of Greek Independence. After Greece earned its independence in 1830 from the Ottomans, Athens was merely a small town (the 1833 census giving the population as 4000) full of ancient and Byzantine ruins, while Nafplio held the title of "the Capital of Greece". It was anything like its former glory. All this changed when King Otto of Bavaria (a huge ancient Greece nerd who had studied Classical Literature) decided that Athens should be instead, for its glorious past and for being the "Cradle of Hellenic Civilization".
Once he removed the title of "Royal Seat and Capital", constructions started immediately.
In the years to come, Athens became the pole of attraction for Greeks, who arrived from all parts of the country. A significant population boost occurred in 1921-1922 when Athens became a refugee camp as a result of war between Turkey and Greece displacing thousands and thousands of ethnic Greeks living in Anatolia. The Germans and some Italians occupied the city during World War II, causing a famine as part of the usual wartime problems. It has since expanded and now was a city of 140,000 residents with great buildings and important archeological sites, and the commercial and cultural intellectual center of the country. It held the "Modern Olympic Games" twice, first, in 1896 and later, in 2004, after failing to secure the centenary 1996 bid due to rampant pollution problems at the time. Thankfully investments from the European Union yielded a significant improvement in only 8 years and has now become a metropolis. Its port (the Piraeus) is the second biggest in the world and the biggest in Europe.
Athens In Fiction
Due to being the capital of Greece, Athens appears in a lot of works of Greek fiction. Here are some examples:
- Konstantinou Kai Elenis
- Savvatogenneimenes
- To Soi Sou
- Democracy
- Erotocritos
- Lysistrata
- Hippolytus
- Eumenides
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Timon of Athens
- 300: Rise of an Empire
- Logicomix
- O Megalos Peripatos Tou Petrou
- Min Arxizeis Tin Mourmoura
- H Polykatoikia
- Ta Kalitera Mas Xronia
- Jason Bourne
Tropes Associated with Athens
Notable Athenians
Defined as people born and raised in areas now part of the modern metropolitan area, or who worked there for significant periods.
- Aeschylus
- Giannis Antetokounmpo
- Aristophanes
- Aristotle — born and raised in northern Greece, but made his initial reputation in Athens
- Plato
- Socrates
- Sophocles
- Thucydides
- Xenophon
- Pericles
- Solon - One of Athens's first lawgivers and of the Seven Sages of Greece
- Aliki Vougiouklaki - Greece's most famous actress, well known for her blonde hair and for starring in many, many films of the 1960s
- Peisistratus - charismatic tyrant
- Cleisthenes - "The Father of the Athenian Democracy"
- Miltiades - general, famous for his victory at the Battle of Marathon
- Cimon - Miltiades' son and a prominent general
- Themistocles - a trickster statesman, remembered for his victory at the Battle of Salamis
- Alcibiades - Pericles' nephew and Socrates's student, who had a big impact in the Second Half of the Peloponnesian War
- Aspasia - born in Miletus, Pericles' mistress and one of the few prominent women of Ancient Athens
- Phocion - elected general for 45 years straight
- Demosthenes - orator, Phillip of Macedon's greatest enemy and Cicero's main inspiration
- Theseus - mythical king of Athens
- Irene of Athens - empress of the Byzantine Empire
- Melina Mercouri - actress, singer and politician
