(ancient Athens), the city-state (polis) in Attica that, together with Sparta, played a leading role in the history of ancient Greece. The archaeological study of Athens was begun in the 1830’s, but the excavations took on a systematic character only with the formation of French, German, and British archaeological institutes in Athens during the 1870’s and 1880’s. The literary sources and archaeological material that have been preserved are of great help in re-creating the history of the Athenian polis. The basic literary source for the history of Athens during the period of its formation as a state is Athenian Politics by Aristotle (fourth century B.C). According to Athenian traditional belief, this polis came into being as the result of the so-called synoecism—the unification of the separate clan communities of Attica around the Athenian Acropolis, where even during the Mycenaean period there existed a fortified settlement and “palace” from the 16th to the 13th centuries B.C. Ancient Greek legend attributes responsibility for this unification to King Theseus (according to tradition, around the 13th century B.C.); actually, the process of unification lasted for several centuries, starting in the first millennium B.C.
To Theseus is also attributed the introduction of the oldest structure of Athenian society, which divided its population into the eupatridae (aristocrats), geomoroi (peasants), and demiourgoi (public workers). Gradually, the clan aristocrats (the eupatridae) concentrated large landholdings in their hands, and the majority of the free population (petty landowners) became dependent upon them. A system of debt bondage arose. Insolvent debtors had to pay back their creditors not only with their possessions but also with their personal freedom and the freedom of their own families. The debt bondage system was one source of slavery, which had already developed significantly. Besides slaves and freemen, an intermediate class existed in Athens—the metics—who were personally free but were deprived of political and certain economic rights. The old division of the demos into phylae, phratries, and clans was preserved.
Athens was governed by nine archons who were elected annually from the aristocratic class and by the Areopagus—a council of elders composed of former archons. With the growth of inequality in property, socioeconomic contradictions became more profound, and the struggle grew more acute between the clan aristocracy and the demos, who were striving for equal rights, division of the land, liquidation of debts, and abolition of the debt bondage system. In the middle of the seventh century B.C. the aristocrat Cylon made an unsuccessful attempt to seize power. Around 621 B.C., during the archonship of Draco, the legal customs were first written down, thus somewhat limiting the arbitrary actions of the aristocratic judges.
In 594–593, under pressure from the common people, Solon carried out certain reforms that essentially changed the entire structure of Athenian sociopolitical life. The system of debt bondage was abolished, the further selling of citizens into slavery for debt was prohibited, land debts— which had been oppressive for the petty landowners—were eliminated, the freedom to make wills was established—this facilitated the growth of private property—and a new state organ was set up—the Council of the Four Hundred. Finally, a number of measures were implemented to extend crafts and commerce. Also attributed to Solon is the division of the citizenry into four categories according to property qualifications; the category to which a citizen belonged determined his rights and duties before the state. Nevertheless, the sociopolitical struggle did not come to an end. The reforms were unsatisfactory to both the peasants, who had not gained any reallotment of land, and to the clan aristocracy, which had lost its previous privileged position.
Around 560 B.C. there was a political revolution, and the tyranny of Pisistratus was established. He carried out policies favorable to the peasantry and the layer of tradesmen and artisans among the demos and unfavorable to the clan aristocracy. Under his rule Athens achieved great success in its foreign policy; its influence was extended to a number of islands in the Aegean Sea and was strengthened on both shores of the Hellespont. Athens grew and was beautified by new buildings and statues. A main water conduit was constructed. Under Pisistratus and his sons the best poets were invited to court.
After the death of Pisistratus in 527, power passed to his sons Hippias and Hipparchus, but, as was the case throughout Greece, tyranny did not last long. Hipparchus was murdered by conspirators, and Hippias was overthrown in 510. An effort by the clan aristocracy to seize power brought about an uprising of the common people led by Cleisthenes in 508. Their victory strengthened the reforms; the four old clan phylae were replaced by ten new ones based on territorial recognition. Two new organs of government, the Council of the Five Hundred and a board of ten strategists, were created. As a result of Cleisthenes’ reforms, the last vestiges of the clan aristocracy were abolished, and there was a culmination of the process of establishing the state as an instrument for the domination of the slave-owning class.
Athens took a leading part in the Greco-Persian Wars (500–449 B.C). Of the Greek poleis, it was the only one to support the uprising of the Ionian cities, winning a brilliant victory over the Persians at Marathon (490). Athens was also among the first to join a defensive alliance of the Greek states. The Battle of Salamis (480), which was a turning point in the war, took place on the initiative of the Athenians; in particular, it was because of them and their strategist Themistocles that the Persian fleet was completely destroyed. The role of Athens in the battles fought in 479 at Plataea and the cape of Mycale was no less significant. In the succeeding years Athens, which had become the head of the Delian League, completely took over the direction of military actions. (In fact, the Delian League was soon transformed into an Athenian maritime power—an Athenian empire.) At this time Athens entered the period of its greatest supremacy. Piraeus, the port of Athens, became the trading crossroad for many countries in the ancient world.
The state structure was an ancient slave-owning democracy, which at that time was the most progressive type. It was based on well-developed craft, commerce, and sea trade and existed within a situation of sharp conflict between the oligarchic group—led by Aristides and then by Cimon—and the democratic group—led by Themistocles and later by Ephialtes and Pericles. It reached its peak under Pericles, who was a strategos from 444 or 443 to 429. Supreme power was transferred to the Popular Assembly, and all other organs were made subordinate to it. Legal cases were tried in a court of jurors (the Heliaea), whose members were chosen by lot from the citizenry. Funds were allotted for carrying out state functions, which were decided by a vote of the people; these funds were paid out of the state treasury. This policy made possible the political participation of citizens with low incomes. The theoricon, whereby citizens were given money to attend the theater, was also established. The growing expenses for these state rolls were covered by a tax called the phoros, which had to be paid regularly by allied cities that were members of the empire.
During the second half of the fifth century B.C., Athens reached its greatest cultural flowering (the so-called Golden Age of Pericles). Important scholars, artists, and poets lived and worked in Athens—for example, the historian Herodotus, the philosopher Anaxagoras, the sculptor Phidias, the poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the writer of comedies Aristophanes. The Athenians’ political and legal eloquence was imitated by orators from all the Greek cities. The language used by Athenian writers—an Attic dialect—received universal acceptance and became the literary language of the Hellenes. In Athens an enormous amount of building was done. Piraeus was redesigned according to a plan by Hippodamus, and the so-called long walls were connected with the fortified hills so that they formed a single defensive unit. Construction was also completed on the principal structures of the Acropolis, a masterpiece of world architecture. The Parthenon (built 447–438; architects Ictinus and Callicrates), the statues of Phidias, and other works of fifth-century Athenian fine art have served as models for artists throughout the centuries.
However, the Golden Age lasted a comparatively short time. The prosperity of the Athenian citizens was based not only on the exploitation of slaves but also on the exploitation of people from the allied cities. This gave rise to continual conflicts within the Athenian Empire. These conflicts were aggravated by Athens’ unrestrained striving to extend its sphere of political and economic domination, which led to confrontations with another group of Greek poleis, in which the oligarchic order predominated—the Peloponnesian League, headed by Sparta. In the final analysis the antagonisms between these groups led to the Peloponnesian War (431–404). After being defeated, Athens forever lost its leading position in Greece. During the first half of the fourth century B.C., it managed at times to improve its position and even achieved some successes. Thus, during the Corinthian War (395–387), Athens, which was supported to a large extent by Persian subsidies, managed to reconstruct its fleet and restore the fortifications around the city (which had been torn down in accord with the terms of surrender of 404). In 378 and 377 the Athenian alliance was received, although in a limited form, but it did not survive long. After the defeat at Chaeronea (338) of an anti-Macedonian coalition headed by the Athenian political leader Demosthenes, Athens was forced into subordination to Macedonian hegemony, as were the other Greek poleis.
During the Hellenistic period, when Greece became the arena of combat among the large Hellenic states, the position of Athens changed several times. There were short periods when Athens managed to achieve relative independence, but there were times when Macedonian garrisons were stationed there. In 146 B.C., sharing the fate of all Greece, Athens fell under Roman rule; it found itself in the position of being an allied city (civitasfoederata), which enjoyed only a fictitious freedom. In 88, Athens joined the anti-Roman movement begun by Mithridates VI Eupator, the king of Pontus. In 86 the army of Cornelius Sulla captured Athens by storm and sacked the city. Out of respect for its past, Sulla preserved the fictitious freedom of Athens. In 27, after the formation of the Roman province of Achaea, Athens became a part of that. Beginning in the third century A.D., when Balkan Greece began to be invaded by barbarians, Athens went into a decline.
D. P. KALLISTOV
(Greater Athens), the capital of Greece and the political, economic, and cultural center of the country.
The name “Athens” was linked by the ancient Greeks to that of the goddess Pallas Athena, considered the city’s protectress. Athens is located on the Attica Peninsula, close to the shores of the Aegean Sea, on a plain watered by the Cephissus River and its tributary stream, the Ilissus. The plain is intersected by a chain of limestone hills, the principal peaks of which—the Acropolis (c. 125 m) and Mount Lycabettus (c. 275 m)—dominate the city. The plain is surrounded on three sides by mountains and opens onto the Saronic Gulf.
The climate is typically Mediterranean, with dry hot summers and rainy winters. The average temperature in July is 27° C and in January is 9° C; during the winter, however, there may be a few slight frosts and, in rare instances, snow.
At a distance of 8 km from Athens lies Piraeus, the country’s largest seaport, which has actually merged with the capital.
In Athens the population has grown as follows: 14,900 in 1839; 112,000 in 1896; 293,000 in 1920; 481,000 in 1940; and 628,000 in 1961. Greater Athens, including Piraeus and the suburbs, occupies an area of 433.28 sq km; in 1961 it had a population of 1,852,700, more than 20 percent of the entire population of Greece.
Municipal government. The organ of self-government in Athens is the municipal council, elected by the population for a term of four years; it is composed of 31 members. The mayor of Athens and the council are elected together. There is also a municipal commission, consisting of three or four members, which is elected by the council. The commission is headed by the mayor and deals principally with problems of city finance.
Historical information. The exact date of the founding of Athens has not been established. According to tradition, the first settlement on the site of present-day Athens appeared in the 16th—13th centuries B.C. Athens was a very large economic, political, and cultural center of ancient Greece; it was a city-state in Attica. In 146 B.C., Athens fell under Roman domination. From the fourth century A.D. to 1204 it was part of the Byzantine Empire. From 1204 to 1458, Athens was the capital of the Duchy of Athens, and in 1458 it was captured by the Turks. Since the time of the Greek national liberation revolution (1821–29), Athens has been the administrative as well as the cultural and political center of Greece; since 1834 it has been the capital. On Apr. 27, 1941, it was occupied by German fascist invaders. The population of Athens undertook a struggle against the occupying forces. On Oct. 13, 1944, the city was liberated by ELAS—the army of the Greek National Liberation Front. Since the military-fascist coup of Apr. 21, 1967, Athens has become the principal center of the struggle of democratic forces against the dictatorial regime.
Economic sketch. Athens has grown economically since the second half of the 19th century. The proclamation of Athens as the capital and the rise of the city’s “capital functions,” as well as the appearance of industry in the city, transformed Athens, under conditions of intensive rural overpopulation in Greece, into the largest center to which the population was drawn. The growth of Athens was facilitated by its convenient geographic location near the crossing of the country’s principal north-south land routes and its east-west maritime routes (including the Corinth Canal). The location of Greater Athens near the sea opened up possibilities for expanding foreign trade. An important stimulus to population growth was the resettlement there of Greek refugees during the first quarter of the 20th century, after the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–22.
Greater Athens is a very important transportation center; the railroads and highways to Salonika and to the peninsulas of Peloponnesos, Lavrion, and Piraeus (Greece’s “gateway to the sea”), as well as the Athens airport at Hellinikon, are all of international importance. In 1961 more than half of those employed in the processing industry of the whole country were concentrated within Greater Athens. The capital’s industries consume about 80 percent of all the electric power produced and provide approximately 70 percent of the total Greek industrial output. Textile, garment, shoe and leather, food, metalworking.and metallurgical, chemical, printing, and other industrial enterprises are located in Great-er Athens. During the postwar years new installations sprang up in the environs of Athens—for example, the oil refinery at Aspropirgos, which refines more than 2.5 million tons of petroleum per year; the shipyard at Skaramagas; and the metallurgical plant at Eleusis. Greater Athens is the country’s largest trade, distribution, and financial center; through it passes 70 percent of the country’s imports and 40 percent of its exports. The two largest banks in Athens—the National and the Ionic-Trade—are the principal Greek banks.
Architecture. The combination of the great monuments of antiquity, the landmarks of the Byzantine Middle Ages, and the districts of new construction gives Athens a unique architectural appearance. The spontaneous development of the ancient city had taken place by the end of the seventh century B.C. The rocky hill of the Acropolis, the historical core of the city, became a cult center. The Agora (southwest of the Acropolis) and the Areopagus and Pnyx Hills (west of the Acropolis) were the centers of social and political life.
Most of the monuments of ancient art are situated on the Acropolis or near it. During the time of Pericles (444/443–429 B.C.) the principal structures of the Acropolis were built, and this citadel, which had been devastated by the Persians, was transformed into one of the most splendid architectural complexes in the world. The basis of this complex is a free design joining elements of symmetry and asymmetry and sequentially unfolding a series of architectural panoramas before the viewer. The general director of the construction of the Acropolis during the rule of Pericles was Phidias. The most important monuments of the Acropolis are the Prop-ylaea, which served as a processional entrance (437–432 B.C, architect Mnesicles); the temple of Nike Apteros, located on a projection of the fortress wall in front of the Propylaea (completed c. 420 B.C., architect Callicrates); the Erechtheum (421–406 B.C.); and the Parthenon, the principal structure of the Acropolis (447–438 B.C., architects Ictinus and Callicrates). The sculptural decoration of the Parthenon was completed by 432 B.C. by masters of Phidias’ circle.
Within the city are a considerable number of structures in varying degrees of preservation that date back to ancient Greek and Roman times—the temple of Olympian Zeus (begun in 175–164 B.C. by the architect Cossutius and completed in 129–132 A.D.), the Hephaesteum (second half of the fifth century B.C), the choragic monument of Lysicrates (c. 335 B.C), the Tower of the Winds (middle of the first century B.C.), and the cemetery monument to Philopappus (114–116 A.D.). Near the Dipylon—the main gate of ancient Athens—is the Dipylon necropolis, with tombstones dating back to the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.
From the Middle Ages principally church architecture of the Byzantine period has survived; examples are the Church of St. Eleuthere (11th century) and the Church of the Holy Apostles in the Agora (11th century).
Regular city planning of the 19th century, which included the main squares (Syntagma and Omonia) and streets (Panepistimiou, Stadiou, and Patission), was based on a design proposed in 1832 by the architect S. Kleanthis and the German architect E. Schaubert and revised by the German architect L. Klenze”. In this new center of the city the following public buildings were erected in the neoclassical style: the old royal palace, which is now the Parliament building (1834–38, the work of the German architect F. Gärtner with the participation of L. Klenze); the National Library (1832) and the university (1837—both by the Danish architect H. Hansen); and the Academy of Sciences (1859, by the Danish architect T. E. Hansen, completed in 1885). Housing before the beginning of the 20th century consisted mainly of one-, two-, or three-story, single-family dwellings (the architects included S. Kleanthis, L. Kautatzoglou, and E. Koumeles).
Present-day Athens is being built according to a strictly geometric design and is growing in all directions from the central streets. Among the major buildings of the 20th century are the Hilton Hotel (1959–63, architects P. Vassiliades, E. Vourekas, and S. Staikos), and the US Embassy building (1957–61, by a group of American architects headed by W. Gropius).
Educational, scientific, and cultural institutions. Athens has a university, a polytechnical institute, colleges of commerce and political science, the Academy of Sciences, and the Architectural Scientific Research Institute.
The principal museums are the National Archaeological Museum (founded in 1874), the Acropolis Museum (opened in 1878), the Agora Museum (founded in 1956), the Byzantine Museum (founded in 1914), the National Picture Gallery (founded in 1900), the Benaki Museum (founded in 1931), and the Ceramic Museum.