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Special Feature:
Heritage Walks in Athens |
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ATHENS
OVER THE AGES |
 The "city of the violet crown", as she was
described by the Theban poet Pindar, was in
remote antiquity inhabited by Pelasgians and
by Greek speaking Ionians. Both considered
themselves "autochthones", and in the 5th
century, the father of history, Herodotos
from Halicarnassos, wrote that Athenians of
his time believed these two peoples had
lived together for a period and that some
Athenian customs were derived from the
Pelasgians.
In myth, the city's origin was ascribed to
Kekrops, and its name "Kekropia". Myth again
related that two great Olympian gods,
Poseidon and Athena, offered its inhabitants
symbolic gifts. They chose the bountiful
olive tree Athena offered instead of the
salt sea, and came to be called "Athenians".
Also in myth, Athens' most important king
was Theseus, son of Aigeus, who defeated the
Minotaur and released the city from the
vassal's tax paid to Crete. Another
important achievement ascribed in myth to
Theseus was the unification of all the towns
of Attica with Athens as their centre.
Tradition related that the last king, Kodros,
sacrificed himself to hold back the invasion
of the Dorians, Greek speakers of another
dialect. Thus the city remained entirely
Ionian.
The first archaeological remains around the
Acropolis date to the Neolithic period
(4000-3200 BCE). There is archeological
evidence of important changes on the Greek
mainland about the end of the third
millennium BC, which may possibly also
indicate the arrival of new language groups.
During the Mycenaean period (16th-13th
centuries), Athens seems to have been less
important than Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos and
Thebes. In the 13th century, however, a
Cyclopean Wall was built around the
Acropolis, including a spring and the
ruler's palace.
 It
is in the 11th century that Athens first
emerged in the artistic avantgarde of Greek
culture, with its protogeometric pottery
style. The geometric period (900-700) is
distinguished in art by the high quality of
its pottery. Horizontal, diagonal and
vertical lines, triangles, circles and
semicircles, are carefully interwoven with
secondary geometric motifs. Here the harmony
and balance that will mark Greek art are
already evident. Around 700, as a
consequence of increased trade, the
colonization movement and, above all,
orientalising influence, archaic art
appears, revolutionary in its time because
of its wider range of themes and freedom of
artistic interpretation.
At some stage monarchy was replaced by an
aristocratic oligarchy. This change of
regime resulted in the Acropolis being
converted from the ruler's residence into
the city's religious centre.
Political development continued with the
first written code introduced by the harsh
lawgiver Draco around 620. He was followed
by the lawgiver and poet, Solon, the
forerunner of democracy. As archon in
594-593 Solon introduced the "Seisachthia',
or shaking free of burdens ("achthi"),
relieving the Athenians of debts guaranteed
by the persons or the land of citizens. He
forbade future enslavement for debt. He
founded the popular Assembly of the people,
with a Council to prepare business and with
the Heliaia as a people's law court. Since
no salary attached to public office however
and since the traditional tribes were not
abolished, only the wealthy could serve the
city and the aristocratic class retained to
the full its influence over the people.
Political conflict between the powerful
allowed the tyrant Peisistratos to attain
power on three occasions between 561 and
546. Pesistratos, who reorganized the
Panathenaic Festival, and, after his death
in 527, his two sons Hippias and Hipparchos,
maintained the forms of the Solonian laws
but in fact ruled the city autocratically.
Solon's legislation, revolutionary for its
time, was reinforced by Pesistratos'
policies in encouraging the rise of
merchants, seamen and craftsmen producers.
The tyrants patronized letters and the fine
arts. The oral poetry of Homer was put into
writing. In 534 theatrical competitions were
instituted in honor of the god Dionysos.
Temples and public buildings were set up,
including the first public library.
Sculptors, with an impressive series of
Kouroi (statues of young men) and Korai
(statues of young women), constantly stove
to master human proportion, thus moving
steadily towards classical perfection.
Athenian potters and painters created
masterpieces both in the black-figure and
in the red-figure style, which last they
invented around 525 BC. Athens was now the
chief centre of ceramic art in the
Mediterranean.
In 514 the tyrannicides Harmodios and
Aristogeiton assassinated Hipparchos, soon
afterwards to become heroes of democracy.
Despite harsh repression, in 510 the tyranny
was overthrown. This time however the
ensuing conflict between powerful families
was resolved in 508-507 by the decision of
Cleisthenes to draw the people in on his
side. Thus was the first ever democratic
constitution established in Athens offering
Athenian citizens liberty, equality under
the law and equality in the exercise of
their political rights. The Athenians were
now divided into ten new tribes based on
local municipalities and not on descent.
Decisions were taken by the majority of male
citizens in the Assembly after preliminary
discussion in the Council. Most public
appointments were made by lot, and were
salaried. Every Athenian male had the right
to vote, and from the age of 30 to hold
public office.
In 499 the Ionian cities in Asia Minor
revolted against the Persian yoke. Athens
sent assistance, without success. The
Persians took revenge, sending an expedition
in 490, and bringing the deposed tyrant
Hippias in tow. The battle of Marathon,
where 10,000 Athenians and 1,000 Plataeans
on their own roundly defeated the
numerically superior Persians, represents
the first ever instance in world history of
a democracy defeating an expansionist
autocracy. Miltiades' success inspired many
other cities to resist Xerxes' expedition
(480-479). In the intervening years a rich
vein of silver was discovered at the Lavrion
mines. Its explotation by means of the labor
of thousands of slaves led, as a result of
Themistocles' prompting, to the construction
of the Athenian fleet which played as
crucial a role in the battles of Salamis
(480) and Mycale (479) as did the Spartan
army at Thermopylae (480) and Plataia (479).
This moment represents the peak of
achievement in the history of the Greek
citystates, when political and artistic
achievement were equally impressive, with
the tragedian Aeschylus fighting at Marathon
and Sophocles, as a youth of 16, taking part
in the victory celebrations at Salamis.
Art had now entered the period known as the
"severe style", with the archaic smile
disappearing from sculpture. Simultaneously
the human body was freed from its hitherto
static appearance to be represented in
action, just as the Athenian citizen became
politically and socially active in the first
decades of democracy.
The fifty years that elapsed between the end
of the Persian invasion (479) and the
beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431) saw
Athens become the first empire in history
ruled by a democracy. Outstanding political
leaders such as the elected generals Kimon
and Perikles, gifted personalities in
learning and the arts, but also simple
citizens, together created the ideal
atmosphere of the "glorious city". The
Parthenon of Iktinos and Kallikrates and the
Propylaia of Mnesicles represent the high
points of classical architecture. The
Parthenon frieze and its pedimental statues
by Pheidias, bringing together figures
mortal and divine, have become eternal
symbols of classical perfection in art.
It was the first time in history a city
state had proved so able perfectly to embody
the ideals of its age. Perikles, who
dominated the political scene for about 30
years, has left us in his Funeral Oration
over the first dead of the war, as presented
by the historian Thucydides, an idealized
image of the Athenian constitution at the
very beginning of the long and fatal
conflict that tore apart the Greek world.
The Peloponnesian War, the consequence of
antagonism between Athens and Sparta, lasted
for a full 27 years from 431, with the
destruction of Athens' Sicilian Expedition
in 413 as the critical turning point and the
final fall of Athens to the Spartans in 404.
During the war, the tragedian Euripides and
the comic playwright Aristophanes were at
the height of their powers, while in their
different ways the Sophists and Socrates
encouraged philosophical investigation. The
Erechthion and the temple of Athena Nike
were built during this period. In sculpture
the "elaborate style" made its appearance,
with special interest in the movement of the
human body and in elaborate drapery
covering it. Through such drapery the
female form was gradually revealed with
sensitivity and grace.
After the war, Athens underwent a loss of
political power but not a cultural decline.
Democracy was restored in 403. The 4"
century was that of the greatest orators,
such as Lysias, Isocrates, Demosthenes, who
led the struggle against King Philip of
Macedon, and Lycurgus, who restored the
city's finances during the last difficult
years of democracy. It was in the 4" century
that Plato and Aristotle, who came from
Stagira in Halkidiki, titanic figures in the
history of thought, set up their schools in
Athens.
During the Macedonian ascendancy (338-323)
Alexander the Great, to whom Aristotle had
once been tutor, respected the Athenian
Constitution and spread the city's culture
to the ends of the known world. His untimely
death soon led to the abolition of Athenian
democracy in 322 at the hands of the
Macedonian Antipater. After this the city
decayed politically, but continued to serve
as the world's philosophical and cultural
centre. The important schools, apart from
Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lykion, were
those of the Stoa, founded by Zenon from
Cyprus, and the Garden, founded by Epicurus,
an Athenian from Samos. These schools
dominated philosophical thought until late
antiquity. Thus Athens, from being a great
political power, developed into the first
Western centre of philosophical enquiry.
The Hellenistic period (323-146) was a
troubled one. Art was dominated by a marked
realism. Athens witnessed a partial revival
with the building activities of the
Pergamene kings Eumenes and Attalos, who
enriched the city with beautiful stoas in
the first half of the second century.
In 146 Athens, like the other cities of
continental Greece, became subject to the
Romans. A tragic moment came in 86 BCE when
the Roman general Sulla captured and looted
the city, which had at that time
joined a revolt against rule from Rome.
Athens' revival from this blow was gradual
and reached its peak in the second century
of our era, chiefly under the philhellene
Emperor Hadrian (117-138) who extended the
city, built the great Library and completed
the temple of Olympian Zeus. Herodes, son of
Atticus, a man of extraordinary wealth, set
up the last great building of antiquity, the
Odeion, during the reign of the philosopher
king Marcus Aurelius (161-180). In 267 the
first barbarians, the Herules, broke into
the city, plundering and destroying. The
city shrank within a newly constructed
wall. Just as the Roman Empire as a whole
recovered however, so also did Athens.
"Waiting for the barbarians ...", the city
was yet full of life. It hosted innumerable
foreign students and travelers, and
continued to be a centre of teaching. Among
its visitors was the Apostle Paul around 50
CE. Three figures who studied in Athens
played decisive roles in the history of that
critical turning-point, the fourth century.
One was the future Emperor Julian (361-3), a
Neo-Platonist and the last anti-Christian
Emperor. The other two were amongst the
greatest figures of Christian history, Basil
from Caesarea and his friend Gregory of
Narianzus in Cappadocia. They formulated the
faith of the Church in the Holy Trinity in
its definitive form, developed a pioneering
social witness through the creation of
hostels and hospitals open to all human
beings and opened the road for classical
culture to become thenceforth a valued
support to Christian education.
In 395 the barbarian Goths under Alaric
attacked, but the city was able to withstand
them. Athens gave Constantinople the wife of
the Emperor Thodosios 11 (408-450), Athenais,
daughter of a pagan philosopher who changed
her name to Eudocia, and the city hosted the
Neo-Platonist philosopher Proclus, from
Lycia. Its philosophical brilliance was only
extinguished in 529 when the Emperor
Justinian (527-565) closed its philosophcal
schools on account of their pagan teaching.
Through the dark centuries, which followed
the repeated appearance of the bubonic
plague after 541-542, the incursion of Slavs
from 580, and the invasions first of the
Persians into Asia Minor, and then the Arabs
in the 7th century, Athens remained under
the rule of Constantinople, but there was a
dramatic demographic decline in Athens, as
there was in the Empire. The Empress Irene
(780-802), who summoned the Second Council
of Nicaea in 787 to define the theological
content of the doctrine of the veneration of
icons, and who was also the first woman
formally to rule in her own right, came from
Athens. As in the wider Greek-speaking world
so also in Athens this was a period of
suffering and insecurity, until the
expulsion of the Arabs from Crete in 961.
There was a noticeable revival in the 10th,
11th and the larger part of the 12th
century, when Athens and Attica as a whole
were enriched with the many beautiful
churches that still adorn them, the
expression of a school of architecture
distinct from that in Constantinople and
based in the region of Hellas. Examples are
the churches of Soteira Lykodimou, a copy of
the Katholikon of the Monastery of Osios
Loukas in Boeotia, the Holy Apostles in the
Agora, the St. Theodore in Klathmonos
Square, the Kapnikarea in Ermou Street, the
Gorgoepikoos (or little Metropolis); and,
outside the city, the monasteries of Dafni
with its important mosaics and of Kaisariani.
The Parthenon was by now a Christian church
dedicated to the Virgin Athiniotissa, where
the Emperor Basil 11 (976-1025) gave thanks
for his victories against the Bulgarians.
The scholarly bishop of Athens, Michael
Choniates (1182-1204), brother of the
historian Niketas, in his letters mourns the
city's condition, and his laments joined
with those of the Athenians when in 1204
French Crusaders captured the city, setting
up the Duchy of Athens. This was the
beginning of Frankish rule. There followed
the mercenary Catalan Grand Company
(1311-1385) and, finally, the Florentine
dukes Acciajioli (13851394 and 1403-1446)
and Venice (1394-1403), who alternated in
power.
 In
1456 Ottoman rule began. Important monuments
of the 16th century are the Hamam of Abit
Efendi, the Fetiye Cami and the church of
the Metohi of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem, which was built around 1600. A
notable figure of the 16th century was the
new martyr Filothei, the most popular
Athenian saint, who was noted for social
work, as for instance her founding of the
first school for Athenian girls and her
efforts to repatriate enslaved women to
their homes. She died from wounds received
at the hands of a group of the city's
conquerors.
After the failure of the Ottomans to capture
Vienna in 1683 there was a counterattack by
the Christian powers under the leadership of
Austria in the Balkans and of Venice in the
Mediterranean, which led to the capture of
the Peloponnese and then an attack on
Athens.
On 26th September 1687 the Venetian general
Morosini bombarded the Acropolis, setting
off an explosion in the powder store
established in the Parthenon, thus causing
great damage to one of the greatest
monuments ever created, which had until then
remained almost intact. The six-month long
Venetian occupation ended with the forced
abandonment of the city by most of its
inhabitants, chiefly to the Peloponnese.
Three years later, however, a gradual return
to Athens began. There followed a second
period of Ottoman rule during which the
Tsidaraki Mosque was erected (1750). In 1778
the Governor Hadji Ali Haseki built a new
wall after the defeat of an attempted
incursion by Muslim Albanian irregulars.
Haseki then imposed heavy taxation and
behaved with great severity towards the
people.
The second half of the 17th century saw the
gradual increase of scholarly and artistic
interest manifested by the visits of
European travelers while in the 18th century
a series of publications for the first time
revealed Athens' classical monuments to the
western world. The opening of the 19th
century was marked by the plundering of the
Parthenon and other Athenian monuments by
Europeans of high rank.
On the 25th April 1821 the people of Athens
rose in revolt against the Ottoman
occupation and twice besieged the Acropolis.
The siege ended with a Greek victory and
from 10th June 1822 Athens enjoyed four
years of freedom. In 1825 however the
Ottomans, strengthened by the arrival of an
Egyptian army, gained the upper hand in the
war. The Acropolis was again besieged from
August 1826 and the Greeks surrendered in
June 1827. The conquerors occupied a city of
ruins.
After the naval battle of Navarino in 1827
with the victory of the united navies of
Britain, France and Russia, the protocol of
London in 1830 established Greece's
independence. It was only in 1833 however
that the Ottoman guard left the Acropolis.
In December 1834 Athens was declared capital
of the state, with a population of about
10,000. Slowly but surely its appearance
changed from that of a town ruined by war to
that of a neoclassical city "worthy of her
ancient past", as was the dream of Ludwig of
Bavaria, father of independent Greece's
first ruler, King Otho (1833-1862).
Important European architects come to Athens
to work, together with native architects, in
what was described as "the Mother of Letters
and of Arts". "To build for Athens today,"
wrote the famous Bavarian architect Leo von
Klenze, "is an act of European
significance."
The contribution of generous benefactors
from the Hellenic Diaspora was of great
importance. Amongst the examples are the
National Library, the gift of the
Cephallenian brothers Vallianos, the
hospital Evangelismos, gift of the Chiot
businessman Andreas Syngros, the Zappion,
gift of Evangelos and Constantine Zappas
from Northern Epiros, the Polytechnic, gift
of Nickolas Stournaras from Metsovo, the
Academy, a gift of Simon Sina, and the
reconstruction of the Panathenaic Stadium
for the Olympic Games of 1896, the gift of
George Averof from Metsovo, a successful
cotton trader in Alexandria. Athens, with a
population of about 130.000 successfully
hosted the first Olympic Games in 1896 and
reached its aesthetic high point before
World War I. The census of 1910 showed a
population of 217.820 and that of 1921,
292.991. This number more than doubled with
the mass arrival of Asia Minor refuges in
1922 and was estimated at 642,000 in 1926.
 The
worst years of Athens' recent history were
those during the Fascist and Nazi occupation
(1941-1944) immediately after the Greek
victory against Mussolini's aggression on
the Albanian front (1940-1941). During the
great famine of the winter of 1941 tens of
thousands of people died. The joy of
liberation on 12th October 1944 was followed
by a painful Civil War (Dec. 1944 - Jan.
1945). After the war Athens' population
rapidly and continually increased as a
result of the poverty and insecurity in many
regions of the country and administrative
centralization in the capital.
The twenty years from 1955 to 1975 proved a
disaster for the city's appearance. One by
one beautiful neoclassical buildings were
demolished, to be replaced by apartment
blocks built out of a cynical motivation for
profit and hence with insufficient provision
of open public spaces. This building
activity was based on a system under which
the original owner of a house obtained in
return one or more of the resulting
apartments. Neoclassical Athens was replaced
by a gigantic cement city of four million
people.
When this situation seemed to have reached a
point of no return, around 1975, some
Athenians, appreciating the crime that had
been committed, began the long battle to
improve the situation, especially in certain
traditional quarters, such as Plaka, north
and east of the Acropolis.
Elliniki Etairia, founded in 1972, has taken
a prominent part in this ongoing campaign,
helping local inhabitants to organize and
arousing public opinion both within and
outside Greece. In 1982 Europa Nostra, the
Federation of European Conservation
Organizations, acknowledged the progress
achieved by the Greek Government with the
award of a medal for the extensive
improvement program in Plaka.
The restoration of old houses, the creation
of pedestrian areas, and the small oases of
green send a message of optimism. In the
shadow of the Acropolis the new pedestrian
streets named after the city's patron saint,
Dionysios the Aeropagite, and the Apostle
Paul, together with the hill of Philopappos,
give citizens and visitors alike the
opportunity to walk and to wonder at the
magic of a city whose contribution to human
civilization has been matched by that of few
others.
Excerpt from: "Heritage Walks in Athens"
by the Municipality of Athens Cultural
Organization,
and by the Elliniki Etairia Hellenic Society
for the Protection of the Environment and
the Cultural Heritage
(Next Month's Article: Heritage Walk #1 - The Acropolis)
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