Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Brief history
Athens has been inhabited continuously for over seven thousand years. Its acropolis,
commanding views of all seaward approaches and encircled by protective mountains,
was a natural choice for prehistoric settlement and for the
Mycenaeans
, who
established a palace-fortress on the rock. Gradually, Athens emerged as a city-state that
dominated the region, ruled by kings who stood at the head of a land-owning
aristocracy known as the
Eupatridae
(the “well-born”), who governed through a
Council which met on the Areopagus - the Hill of Ares.
The birth of democracy
As Athens grew wealthier, dissatisfaction with the rule of the
Eupatridae
grew, above all
among a new middle class excluded from political life but forced to pay rent or taxes to
the nobility. Among the reforms aimed at addressing this were new, fairer laws drawn
up by
Draco
(whose “draconian” lawcode was published in 621 BC), and the
appointment of
Solon
as ruler (594 BC), with a mandate to introduce sweeping
economic and political reform. Although Solon's reforms laid the foundations of what
eventually became Athenian democracy, they failed to stop internal unrest, and
eventually
Peisistratos
, his cousin, seized power in the middle of the sixth century BC.
Peisistratos is usually called a tyrant, but this simply means he seized power by force:
thanks to his populist policies he was in fact a well-liked and successful ruler who
greatly expanded Athens' power, wealth and influence.
His sons
Hippias and Hipparchus
were less successful: Hipparchus was assassinated in
514 BC and Hippias overthrown in 510 BC. A new leader,
Kleisthenes
, took the
opportunity for more radical change: he introduced ten classes or tribes based on place
of residence, each of which elected fifty members to the
Boule
or Council of State,
which decided on issues to be discussed by the full Assembly. The Assembly was open
to all citizens and was both a legislature and a supreme court. This system was the basis
of
Athenian democracy
and remained in place, little changed, right through to Roman
times.
Around 500 BC Athens sent troops to aid the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, who were
rebelling against the Persian Empire; this in turn provoked a Persian invasion of
Greece. In 490 BC the Athenians and their allies defeated a far larger Persian force at
the
Battle of Marathon
. In 480 BC the Persians returned, capturing and sacking Athens,
and leaving much of the city burned to the ground. That same year, however, a naval
triumph at
Salamis
sealed victory over the Persians, and also secured Athens' position as
Greece's leading city-state.
The rise and fall of Classical Athens
Perhaps the most startling aspect of Classical Athens is how suddenly it emerged to the
glory for which we remember it - and how short its heyday proved to be. In the middle
of the
fifth century BC
, Athens was little more than a country town in its street layout
and buildings - a scattered jumble of single-storey houses or wattle huts, intersected by
narrow lanes. On the Acropolis, a site reserved for the city's most sacred monuments,
stood only the blackened ruins of temples and sanctuaries.
There was little to suggest that the city was entering a unique phase of its history in
terms of power, prestige and creativity. But following the victory over the Persians at
Salamis, Athens stood unchallenged for a generation. It grew rich on the export of olive
oil and silver from the mines of Attica, but above all it benefited from its control of the
Delian League
, an alliance of Greek city-states formed as insurance against Persian
resurgence. The Athenians relocated the League's treasury from the island of Delos to
their own acropolis, ostensibly on the grounds of safety, and with its revenues their
leader
Pericles
(see p.767) was able to create the so-called
Golden Age
of the city. Great
endowments were made for monumental construction, arts in all spheres were
promoted, and - most significantly - it was all achieved under stable,
democratic rule
.
