Athens (Greece) - geography. I INTRODUCTION Athens (Greece), city in southeastern Greece, capital and largest city of the country. Athens dominates the economic, cultural, and political life of modern Greece. Athens is a sprawling city located on the Attic Plain of southeastern Greece. Mountains rise in a semicircle around the city. They include the peaks of Parnitha (Párnis), Pendéli, and Hymettos (Imittós). At least one of these peaks can be seen from nearly every street in Athens. Located about 8 km (about 5 mi) southwest of Athens is Piraeus (Pireás), Greece's largest seaport. Piraeus overlooks the Gulf of Saronikós (Saronic Gulf), an arm of the Aegean Sea. Two rivers, the Kifisós in the west and the Ilisós in the east, flow through the city. Athens is often called the cradle of Western civilization for its momentous cultural achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The city still holds a wealth of ancient buildings, monuments, and artworks from the classical age of Ancient Greece, as well as museums devoted to Greek art, culture, and history. Many of the cultural highlights of Athens were renovated in preparation for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games. II POPULATION The greater Athens metropolitan area had an estimated population of about 3.2 million in 2003, nearly one-third of the total population of Greece. Athens expanded rapidly during the 20th century and today covers nearly the entire Attic Plain. In addition to ethnic Greeks, the Athens region is home to many thousands of immigrants. The city's high population density has contributed to urban problems such as traffic congestion, air pollution, and overcrowding. Religious affiliation in Athens is overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox Christian (see Orthodox Church). There are also small numbers of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. About 100,000 Muslims live in the Athens area, mostly immigrants from Albania and the Balkan Peninsula, with others from countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. The main language spoken in Athens is Greek. English is commonly used as a second language. III ECONOMY AND TRANSPORTATION A large portion of industrial activity in Greece is concentrated in and around Athens. Manufactures include textiles, cement, alcoholic beverages, soap, flour, chemicals, paper products, leather, and pottery. Other industries include machinery and transportation equipment, and printing and publishing. The city's port at Piraeus is the country's most important shipping and transportation center. More than two-thirds of the current workforce in Athens is employed in services, including government administration, banking, education, health care, and transportation. Recent construction related to the 2004 Olympics, including modernization of the city's transportation system, has provided a significant economic boost to Athens. Tourism is of major importance to the city's economy. The 2004 Olympic Games, and their legacy of improvements to the infrastructure, museums, and monuments of Athens were expected to further develop the city's tourism industry. Athens serves as the hub of Greece's national transportation network. The Greek railway system is centered in Athens, and ferries sail to the rest of the country from the port at Piraeus. The urban area itself in Athens is served by taxis and public buses that must contend with heavily congested traffic. The major part of the city's metro subway, Attiko Metro (Athens Metro), was completed in 2000 and serves the heart of Athens; extensions to residential districts are planned over the next few years. A tram system under construction was expected to begin service in 2004. Light rail will also provide a link to Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport at nearby Spáta. The airport, completed in 2001, replaced Ellinikon International Airport. Economic development aid provided by the European Union (EU) has been a crucial source of funding for the city's ongoing transportation projects. They include the construction of avenues circling Athens to help relieve traffic congestion in the city center. However, improvements to the transportation system in and around Athens often proceed slowly due to archaeological discoveries made during excavations and construction. IV ANCIENT HISTORICAL SITES The city's most famous feature is the Acropolis, a flat-topped hill capped with the ruins of ancient temples, monuments, and works of art. The ruins include temples such as the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, and the Temple of Athena Nike, as well as the Propylaea (a monumental marble gateway that provides the main entrance to the Acropolis). All of these ruins date to the 5th century BC, and each is considered a masterpiece of classical Greek architecture. The southern slope of the Acropolis was once the cultural center of the ancient city. It includes the ruins of the Theater of Dionysus and other buildings. Also below the Acropolis are remains of the agora, the ancient market and public meeting place. Northwest of the Acropolis is the Areopagus (Ares Hill), the site of an ancient court. Other major archaeological sites in Athens include the Kerameikos, named for the Kerameis, or potters, who inhabited the neighborhood in antiquity. The Kerameikos is home to the remains of the official gateways to Athens as well as the city's ancient cemetery. Located near the Kerameikos is the road that led to Plato's Academy, a site in a suburb of the ancient city where the Greek philosopher Plato instructed his followers. The Olympieion sanctuary in Athens holds the ruins of a number of ancient temples dedicated to the gods, including a temple of Zeus finished in Roman times. The Pnyx occupies a hill below the Acropolis where the Assembly of the Athenians held its meetings. The Panathenaic Stadium, used for athletic competitions during the ancient festival of Panathenaea, was restored for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Among the city's Roman-period sites are the Roman agora, Hadrian's Library, Hadrian's Arch, and the octagonal Tower of the Winds, which once served as a sundial and housed an ancient water clock. A few medieval churches survive from the period in which Athens was a provincial capital of the Byzantine Empire. The most notable of these include the Church of Panaghia, the Church of Aghioi Theodoroi, and the Church of Panaghia Gorgoepikoos. The Athens Greek Orthodox Cathedral was constructed in a neo-Byzantine style in the 19th century using material from demolished medieval churches. V THE MODERN CITY Much of Athens was rebuilt in the 19th century after Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire. After World War II (1939-1945), another period of rebuilding began as the city's population rapidly expanded. New suburbs emerged, the seacoast was developed, and hotels and villas sprang up everywhere to accommodate the growing tourism industry. By the late 20th century, the city's traditional one- and two-story homes had largely given way to six-story apartment complexes, and busy thoroughfares had replaced the old tree-lined streets. At the heart of the modern city is Syntagma (Constitution) Square, located east of the Acropolis. The square is bordered by the national Parliament Building, originally a royal palace completed in 1842 for King Otto I. Nearby is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which features a daily changing of the guard. Several of the city's principal hotels as well the offices of major banks and airline companies also face the square. Behind the Parliament Building is the National Gardens, a public park that is a popular place to stroll. Within the gardens is the magnificent Zappeion Megaron (1888), an international exhibition center built in the neoclassical style. Other notable modern buildings in Athens include the National University of Athens, the Academy of Athens, and the National Library. These buildings, located along Panepistimiou Street north of Syntagma Square, form a so-called Neoclassical Trilogy. The buildings were designed by the Danish brothers Hans and Theofil Hansen and completed in 1864, 1887, and 1902. Parallel to Panepistimiou Street is Akadimias Street, famous for a 19th-century building that houses the Cultural Center of the Municipality of Athens. The center includes the Theatrical Museum of Athens and the city's public library. Favorite sightseeing spots in Athens include Lycabettus (Lykavittos) Hill, the highest point in the city. A short railway carries passengers to the top of the hill. Other popular tourist spots include the Pláka, the oldest residential area in Athens. With its narrow winding streets, the Pláka retains the older character of the city, and it is home to many restaurants, shops, art galleries, and cafes. The Monastiraki district has a popular flea market. VI CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS The National Archaeological Museum houses one of the world's greatest collections of ancient Greek art and artifacts. Among the famous works on view are the bronze Poseidon of Artemision, the marble relief of Demeter and Persephone, and the Mycenaean gold death mask dubbed the "Mask of Agamemnon." The Acropolis Museum displays artwork, decorations, and objects from the temples and buildings of the Acropolis. The museum's collection includes sculpture from the Parthenon and the original marble caryatids (statue columns) from the Erechtheum temple. (The columns were moved to the museum in the 1980s to protect them from air pollution; the temple now displays cement copies.) The Archaeological Museum of Kerameikos has a noted collection of ancient Greek ceramics and sculpture, and the Museum of Cycladic Art has objects dating back between 3200 and 2000 BC, as well as later examples of ancient art. An unusual feature of the city's subway system is the Metro Museum. The museum uses major subway stations to exhibit ancient artworks, structures, and objects discovered during the excavation of the subway. More recent artworks are found at the National Art Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum. The Benaki Museum contains objects and artworks covering Greek history from ancient to modern times, along with other items from around the world. Among the many other notable museums in the city are the Byzantine Museum of Athens, the City of Athens Museum, the National Historical Museum, and the War Museum of Athens. Notable theaters include the National Theater and Lykabettus Theater. The Roman-period Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a theater that seats 5,000 people, is used for outdoor performances in the summer. It is known for productions by the National Opera as well as ballet and classical concerts. Among the city's institutions of higher education are the National and Capodistrian University of Athens (1837), the National Technical University of Athens (1836), the Agricultural University of Athens (1920), Athens University of Business and Economics (1920), and Athens School of Fine Arts (1837). VII HISTORY A Athena's City Athens (Ath?nai in Ancient Greek; Athina in Modern Greek) is said to be named for the Greek goddess Athena. According to Greek mythology, Zeus, the ruler of the gods, staged a contest between Athena and the sea god Poseidon to choose a patron for the city. In one version of the story, the people judged Athena's gift of an olive tree more useful to humanity than Poseidon's gift of a freshwater spring, and they dedicated their city to her. Athena was the ancient city's divine protector, represented for centuries by a giant seated bronze statue (Athena Promachos) near the entrance to the Acropolis and by a standing ivory and gold statue (Athena Parthenos) inside the Parthenon. Both of these masterpieces, created by the famed Greek sculptor Phidias in the 5th century BC, are now destroyed. The main temple to Athena on the Acropolis, the Parthenon, also served as the city's treasury, and it became the crowning symbol of ancient Greek civilization. B Earliest Origins The Acropolis of Athens has been inhabited since Neolithic times. As early as 1400 citadels. At that time and in the subsequent "dark age" (1200-900 BC) BC it was fortified in the manner of Mycenae, Tiryns, and other late Bronze Age that followed widespread warring among the Mycenaean Greeks, Athens was one of a number of petty states in Attica. C The Early City-State In the mid-9th century BC, the surrounding territory, including the nearby seaport of Piraeus, was incorporated into the city-state of Athens. When the monarchy was replaced by an aristocracy of nobles, the common people had few rights. The city was controlled by the Areopagus (Council of Elders), who appointed three (later nine) magistrates, or archons. The archons were responsible for the conduct of war, religion, and law. Discontent with this system led to a short-lived dictatorship by Cylon (632 BC). Continued unrest in Athens led to the imposition of the Draconian Code, a harsh code of laws enacted in 621 BC and named for Athenian lawgiver Draco. The code initially compounded the social and economic crises in Athens, but eventually it brought about the consensus appointment of Solon as chief archon in 594 BC. Solon established a council (boulé), a popular assembly (ekklesía), and law courts. He also encouraged trade, reformed the coinage, and invited foreign business people to the city. Although his reforms were only partially successful, they are widely considered to be the foundations of Athenian democracy. In 560 BC the tyrant Pisistratus, supported by the aristocracy, gained control of Athens. He enlarged the meeting place of Solon's council in the agora (marketplace) and built a new temple of Athena on the Acropolis. Pisistratus also sponsored public events such as the festival of Greater Panathenaea, held every fourth year in Athena's honor. Many other public works were undertaken by the tyrant and his sons between 560 and 510 BC. The sons of Pisistratus did not enjoy the popularity of their father, however, and eventually fell from power: Hipparchus was assassinated about 514 BC, and Hippias was exiled in 510 In 509 BC Cleisthenes led a democratic revolution. He reorganized the city's tribal structure and consolidated a base of support in the more democratic urban center of Athens and in Piraeus. The powerful popular assembly met on the Pnyx hill below the Acropolis. D BC. The Classical Period During the Persian Wars (490-479 BC), the Persian Empire attempted to conquer the Greek city-states. In 480 BC Athens was sacked and nearly destroyed by the Persians under King Xerxes I after Athenians had abandoned the city. Shortly afterward, the Athenian leader Themistocles defeated the Persian invaders at the decisive naval Battle of Salamís. The Greeks secured their independence after a final battle against the Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Themistocles then began to restore the city, building circuit walls around both Athens and Piraeus. He also began construction of the Long Walls connecting Athens with the port. His work was continued by Pericles in the 450s BC. Pericles, more than any other democratic leader, made Athens a great city. His period in office is often called the Golden Age of Athens or the Age of Pericles. Public funds were used to build the Parthenon, the temple of Nike, the Erechtheum, and other great monuments. He developed the agora, which began to display imported goods from around the known world, and he further fortified the protective walls that connected the city to Piraeus. As head of the Delian League of Greek city-states, Athens was now an imperial power; its courts tried legal disputes from all over the Aegean region. Under Pericles, Athens experienced an extraordinary cultural flowering. Great tragedies and comedies were produced in the Theater of Dionysus, below the Acropolis. Among the famous figures active in Athens at the time were the architects Callicrates and Ictinus, the sculptors Phidias and Alcamenes, the painters Polygnotus and Apollodorus, the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the philosophers Anaxagoras and Protagoras, and the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. The city, with its democratic constitution and brilliant culture, became known as the school of Hellas. At its height, the population of Athens was perhaps 200,000 people, of whom 50,000 males were citizens; the rest--including women, foreigners, and slaves--were not granted citizenship. Military service and property ownership were the two basic conditions for citizenship in Athens. When freeborn males turned 18, they were required to attend military school for two years, after which they became full-fledged citizens of Athens. Thereafter, they could be called for military duty until they reached the age of 60. The imperial policies and ambitions of Athens, however, helped bring on the destructive Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) with its archrival Sparta. During the conflict, the Spartans ravaged the surrounding countryside while Athenians held out behind their city's walls. The walls allowed food and supplies from Piraeus to reach the city. An epidemic struck the crowded urban populace beginning in 430 in the destruction of their fleet and army at Syracuse in 413 The final defeat of Athens came in 405 BC BC BC and eventually killed thousands, including Pericles. Risky military actions by the Athenians resulted after they attempted to invade Sicily, an ally of Sparta. at the naval Battle of Aegospotami, and the city surrendered in 404 BC. The victorious Spartans imposed their own leadership, and they removed most of the city's fortifications, including the Long Walls. Importantly, Sparta chose not to destroy Athens itself nor enslave its inhabitants. Athens survived the war but had lost its empire and its democracy. A democratic coup against the pro-Spartan Thirty Tyrants restored democracy in Athens in 403 BC. However, the string of defeats, betrayals, and disasters that had struck Athens deeply troubled many citizens, who saw a need to strengthen moral values and established religion in Athens. In a famous incident, the great Greek philosopher Socrates was put on trial and forced to take his own life when he questioned traditional ideas. Although an attitude of pessimism prevailed, art and philosophy continued to flourish. The sculptor Praxiteles and the painter Zeuxis created famous works. In the 4th century BC influential schools were founded by the philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and Demosthenes, Isocrates, Lysias, and others made rhetoric a fine art. Demosthenes also tried to rally the Athenians against the Macedonians, who had begun conquering their Greek neighbors. See also Western Philosophy. E Foreign Domination Philip II of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great, defeated the Athenians and Thebans at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, becoming the master of Greece. Despite losing its independence to Macedonia, Athens remained an important cultural center and symbol of Greek civilization. When Alexander the Great's troops burned and looted the Persian capital of Persepolis in 330 BC, it was said to be in revenge for the destruction of Athens by the Persians in 480 Athens, along with most of Greece, fell to the Roman Empire in 146 BC. Athenians maintained good relations with the Romans. However, Greek support for King Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus led to a new Roman invasion during the First Mithridatic War (88-84 Athens in 86 century BC BC BC. BC). Troops under the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla sacked and destroyed many of the city's monuments. Nonetheless, Athens remained a center of learning for prominent Greeks and Romans from the 1st until the 6th century Saint Paul arrived in Athens in AD. AD 51 to preach Christianity. He reportedly debated with the city's pagan philosophers (see Paganism), an event commemorated by a modern bronze plaque on the Areopagus. In the 3rd century AD Athens was damaged by invading Goths, who were repelled with some difficulty. After the fall of the western Roman Empire in 476, Greece became part of the Byzantine Empire, successor to the eastern Roman Empire. In AD 529 the Christian Byzantine emperor Justinian I closed the pagan philosophical schools, virtually ending the city's classical tradition. During the Byzantine period Athens became a cultural backwater. Many of the city's artworks, including Phidias's monumental statues of Athena, were moved to Constantinople (present-day ?stanbul), and the temples became Christian churches. Byzantine emperors occasionally visited Athens, but the city was largely ignored and impoverished. After the Latin (Roman Catholic) Crusaders conquered Constantinople in 1204, Athens became a French feudal duchy. The Catalans took over the city in 1311, but they were expelled when a Florentine dynasty successfully installed itself in the late 14th century. The Ottoman Empire gained complete control of Athens in 1458 after the capture of Constantinople in 1453 and the conquest of the Balkan Peninsula. The Parthenon, built as the major temple of the goddess Athena and later converted to a Christian church, was made into a Muslim mosque. Under Ottoman rule the town was still run by Greeks and had a mixed population of Turks, Greeks, and Slavs. The Parthenon was badly damaged in 1687, when a Venetian bombardment ignited gunpowder that had been stored inside the building. F The Modern Period The Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) liberated the city from Ottoman rule and made it the capital of modern Greece. Athens was largely rebuilt during the reign (1832-1862) of King Otto I by German architects, notably Eduard Schaubert. Before its emergence as a major European commercial and industrial center in the 20th century, Athens was important mainly as a tourism destination celebrated for its ancient monuments. The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in the summer of 1896 as a way to promote a more peaceful world in the spirit of the ancient Olympic Games. The ancient Olympics had taken place at Olympia west of Athens every four years from 776 BC until the late 4th century AD, when they were criticized as a pagan religious festival and banned by Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius I. F1 Athens During the World Wars Greece joined the Allied Powers in World War I (1914-1918) and claimed Smyrna (now ?zmir) after the Ottoman Empire was dismantled. Turkish forces seized Smyrna in 1922. Under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that determined the borders of modern Turkey, more than 1 million Christian Greeks were forced to leave Asia Minor. Many settled in Athens, rapidly expanding the city's population. During World War II (1939-1945) German forces occupied Athens and set up a collaborationist regime. Under the brutal occupation that began in 1941, the economy of Athens was devastated, and shortages and famine led to starvation for thousands of the city's inhabitants. British and Greek troops liberated Athens in October 1944 without major combat. However, armed clashes broke out in the city in December 1944 between Communist-led rebels and the new British-backed Greek government. The so-called Battle of Athens killed thousands of people and ended with an armistice in early 1945. F2 Conflict and Recovery The following year the main phase of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) began between the Athens-based government and Communist-backed groups; fighting occurred mainly in the northern regions of Greece away from Athens. Thanks to aid from the United States, the city's economy improved rapidly after the end of the civil war, bringing an influx of new inhabitants from impoverished and war-ravaged rural areas. Older parts of the city were replaced with modern buildings beginning in the 1950s. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Athens continued to grow rapidly, producing urban sprawl and traffic congestion. Serious air pollution, largely from automobiles, posed health problems and damaged a number of the city's ancient monuments. F3 The 2004 Olympic Games In 1997 the International Olympic Committee chose Athens to host the 2004 Summer Olympic Games. Athenians welcomed the Olympics as an opportunity to modernize their city's transportation systems and infrastructure, as well as a way to raise the international profile of Athens and to highlight its cultural riches. Funding assistance for many of the projects came from the Greek government, the European Union (EU), and private sources. Completing the Olympic facilities on schedule, in addition to the planned transportation projects and renovations to museums and monuments, proved challenging, however. Bureaucratic and political conflicts delayed some of the work. Serious security concerns about the threat of terrorism arose after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. Such concerns were heightened following terrorist attacks in Madrid, Spain, on March 11, 2004, and by subsequent bombing incidents in Athens itself. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) agreed to help with security for the games, and a special unit of the Greek armed forces trained to deal with terrorist threats. In an unusual step, the International Olympic Committee took out insurance in the event the Olympics were canceled in part or in full because of terrorism or other catastrophes. Despite the many difficulties Athens faced in preparing for the event, the 28th Summer Olympic Games took place on time and as planned in August 2004, with few problems. Olympic officials, athletes, and fans hailed the Games as a major success. Although spectator numbers at some events were much lower than hoped for, television viewership of the Olympics was high around the world. The final cost of staging the Olympics with such massive security, however, was estimated at more than $7 billion, most of which was borne by the Greek government and not met by revenues generated by the Games themselves. Government officials hoped that increased tourism and future international sporting events, coupled with improved trade and economic growth for Athens and Greece alike, would eventually pay off the debt. In September 2004 Athens hosted the Summer Paralympic Games, which drew athletes with disabilities from 140 countries. In another modernizing effort, Athens installed new facilities around the city to help accommodate people with disabilities, including an elevator up the side of the Acropolis. Contributed By: Jay Bregman Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
