Athens, Greek Athínai, City (pop., 2001: 745,514), capital of Greece. It is located inland near its port, Piraeus, on the Saronic Gulf in eastern Greece. The source of many of the West’s intellectual and artistic conceptions, including that of democracy, Athens is generally considered the birthplace of Western civilization. An ancient city-state, it had by the 6th century bc begun to assert its influence. It was destroyed by Xerxes in 480 bc, but rebuilding began immediately. By 450 bc, led by Pericles, it was at the height of its commercial prosperity and cultural and political dominance, and over the next 40 years many major building projects, including the Acropolis and Parthenon, were completed. Athens’s “Golden Age” saw the works of the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; the dramatists Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides; the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; and the sculptors Praxiteles and Phidias. The Peloponnesian Wars with Sparta ended in Athens’s defeat in 404, but it quickly recovered its independence and prosperity. After 338 bc Athens came under Macedonia’s hegemony, which was lifted with the aid of Rome in 197 bc in a battle at Cynoscephalae. It became subject to Rome in 146 bc. In the 13th century Athens was taken by the Crusaders. It was conquered in 1456 by the Ottoman Turks, who held it until 1833, when it was declared the capital of independent Greece. Athens is Greece’s principal centre for business and foreign trade. The city’s ruins and many museums make it a major tourist destination. It was selected to host the 2004 Olympic Games.
