ATHENS

city, seat of McMinn county, southeastern Tennessee, U.S. It lies in the Tennessee River valley, between the Great Smoky Mountains (east) and the Cumberland Plateau (west), 55 miles (89 km) southwest of Knoxville. It was founded in 1821 as a seat of justice, and the courts were moved there in 1823 from a temporary courthouse that had been erected at nearby Calhoun. Originally an agricultural community producing tobacco, beef cattle, and milk, it is now primarily industrial. The city's chief products are kitchen stoves, furniture, electric motors, and farm machinery. Athens is the site of Tennessee Wesleyan College (1857). Inc. 1868. Pop. (1990) 12,054. Modern Greek Athnai, Ancient Greek Athenai, historic city and capital of Greece. Many of classical civilization's intellectual and artistic ideas originated there, and the city is generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization. Athens lies five miles (eight kilometres) from the Bay of Phaleron, an inlet of the Aegean (Aigaon) Sea where Piraeus (Piraivs), the port of Athens, is situated, in a mountain-girt arid basin divided north-south by a line of hills. Greater Athens has an area of 165 square miles (427 square kilometres). The Kifiss River, only a trickle in summer, flows through the western half; and the Iliss River, often dry, traverses the eastern half. The surrounding mountainsPrnis, 4,636 feet (1,413 metres); Pentelicus (Pendli), 3,631 feet; Hymettos (Imitts), 3,365 feet; and Aigleon, 1,535 feetadd to the impression of barrenness. Yet such considerations are superficial when compared with the fecundity of Athens' bequests to the world, such as its philosophy, its architecture, its literature, and its political ideals. For treatment of the city in its regional setting, see Greece; historical and cultural aspects are treated further in the article ancient Greek civilization. Modern Greek Athnai, ancient Greek Athenai, historic city and capital of Greece. Athens is generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization, and many of classical civilization's intellectual and artistic ideas originated there. Athens lies 5 miles (8 km) from the Bay of Phaleron, off the Aegean Sea, where its port, Piraeus (Piraivs), is situated. The Hymettos (Imitts) Mountains separate it from Petalion Bay to the east. The seasonal Kifiss River flows through western Athens, and the Iliss River crosses the eastern half. Greater Athens forms a dhiamersma (region) of modern Greece. The climate is temperate, with mild winters and hot, dry summers. Athens is the hub of Greek mercantile business, both import and export. Tourism, shipping, and publishing are of major importance, as are the production of textiles, pottery, and alcoholic beverages. The mining of marble and bauxite in the area is significant. Athens is best known for its temples and public buildings of antiquity. Chief among these is the Parthenon, a columned, rectangular temple built for the city's patron goddess, Athena; it is considered to be the culmination of the Doric order of classical Greek architecture. Also located on the Acropolis are the Erechtheum, originally the temple of both Athena and Poseidon, and the Propylaea, the entrance of which is through the wall of the Acropolis. At the foot of the Acropolis, to the south, are the theatres of Herodes and Dionysus, while to the northwest is the Agora, the ancient marketplace of the city. Old Athens is still evident in the streets near the excavated Agora and in the colourful Plka district on the northern slope of the Acropolis. Near the Parliament building is the National Garden and Sntagma (Constitution) Square, which caters to tourists with its luxury hotels and cafs. Important museums include the Acropolis, the National Archeological, and the Byzantine museums. Among the city's academic institutions are the University of Athens (refounded in 1837), the Greek Academy, and the National Library. Athens has long been a transportation centre. The city is connected by rail with the rest of the country, and Piraeus, the country's major port, is the centre of the Greek shipping industry. Modern roads surround Athens, and the Ellinikon Airport lies due south. Area, city proper, 15 square miles (39 square km); metropolitan area, 167 square miles (427 square km). Pop. (1981) city, 885,737; metropolitan area, 3,027,331. city, seat (1819) of Limestone county, northern Alabama, U.S., in the Tennessee River valley. Settled after 1810 and named for Athens, Greece, it grew as an agricultural and timber centre. Athens State College was founded there in 1822, originally as a female academy. During the American Civil War, the town was occupied at intervals by Union troops until recaptured by Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest in 1863. Cotton dominated the economy until 1934, when power from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) encouraged industrial development. At Browns Ferry (10 miles southwest) is a nuclear power plant. Inc. town, 1818; city, c. 1915. Pop. (1990) 16,901. city, seat (1872) of Clarke county, northeastern Georgia, U.S., on the Oconee River. Founded in 1801 as the seat of the University of Georgia (chartered 1785), it was probably named for Athens, Greece. It grew with the university and became a trading centre of a rich agricultural area, which supports dairy and beef cattle and poultry. The city's industrial activities include poultry processing and the manufacture of apparel, textiles, clocks, and electric motors and transformers. Notable antebellum buildings survive, including the Lucy Cobb Institute, the Taylor-Grady House, and the Joseph Henry Lumpkin House. Athens is the site of the U.S. Navy Supply Corps School. Inc. 1806. Pop. (1990) city, 45,734; Athens MSA, 156,267. city, seat (1805) of Athens county, southeastern Ohio, U.S. It lies along the Hocking River, 73 miles (117 km) southeast of Columbus. It was founded in 1800 by the territorial legislature as the seat of the American Western University, which was renamed Ohio University in 1804. Athens and the university campus were laid out by General Rufus Putnam and the Reverend Manasseh Cutler. The village (incorporated in 1811) grew with the expansion of educational and research facilities and subsequently underwent planned industrial development, with the establishment of facilities for the manufacture of business forms, printing machinery, tire molds, and tools. Athens lies between segments of Wayne National Forest. Lake Hope, within Zaleski State Forest, is 14 miles (23 km) west. Inc. city, 1912. Pop. (1990) 21,265. Additional reading History and antiquities Pausanias, Description of Greece, Book I, a description of Athens by the traveller Pausanias (2nd century AD), contains much of interest; among the best English translations of this work are the volume, with brief commentary, by Peter Levi, Guide to Greece, 2 vol. (1971); and the classic translation, with commentary, by J.G. Frazer, Pausanias' Description of Greece, 6 vol. (1898). Other works include T.B.L. Webster, Everyday Life in Classical Athens (1969), on the Athenian at home and in public, Art and Literature in Fourth Century Athens (1956), on the cultural life of the city when it was the intellectual capital of the world, and Athenian Culture and Society (1973), an overview for the general reader; Erika Simon, Festivals of Attica: An Archaeological Commentary (1983), an important study of origins; Richard E. Wycherley, The Stones of Athens (1978), a survey of the architecture; Angelo Procopiou, Athens, City of the Gods: From Prehistory to 338 BC (1964), richly illustrated; Gerhart Rodenwaldt, Acropolis (1957; 5th German ed., 1956); Homer A. Thompson and R.E. Wycherley, The Agora of Athens (1972), two detailed and learned expositions of classical Athens' important sites, with many illustrations; Susan I. Rotroff, Hellenistic Pottery: Athenian and Imported Moldmade Bowls (1982); and Martin Hrlimann, Athens (1956; German ed., 1956), chiefly photographic, with introductory text by Rex Warner and detailed historical notes accompanying the pictures. For the specialist A.W. Pickard-Cambridge, Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (1946, reissued 1973), a thorough study of the theatre and its various uses; Humfry Payne and Gerard Young, Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis (1950), a scholarly photographic catalog chiefly for the archaeologist and art historian; and Jon D. Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion (1983), an argument and theory based solely on forensic evidence. Blake Ehrlich Eugene Vanderpool The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica History The early period Factors inducing settlement The site of Athens has been inhabited since the Neolithic Period (before 3000 BC). Evidence for this has come from pottery finds on and around the Acropolis but particularly from a group of about 20 shallow wells, or pits, on the northwest slope of the Acropolis, just below the Klepsydra spring. These wells contained burnished pots of excellent quality, which show that even at this remote period Athens had a settled population, with high technical and artistic standards. There are similar indications of occupation in the Early and Middle Bronze ages (30001500 BC). The earliest buildings date from the Late Bronze Age, particularly about 1200 BC when the Acropolis was the citadel. Around its top was built a massive wall of cyclopean masonry (a type of construction using huge blocks without mortar). The construction of this wall probably marks the union of the 12 towns of Attica (the department in which Athens lies) under the leadership of Athens, an event traditionally ascribed to Theseus. The palace of the king was in the area of the later Erechtheum, but almost no traces of it have been identified. The town, insofar as it was outside the Acropolis, lay to the south, where wells and slight remains of houses have been found. The principal cemetery lay to the northwest, and several richly furnished chamber tombs and many smaller ones have been discovered in the area that later became the Agora. Whether through the strength of its walls, the valour of its citizens, or its geographical position away from the main route to the Peloponnesus, Athens seems to have weathered the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages, troubled times, better than other, more important centres. There is no evidence of complete or widespread destruction, as at Mycenae and Pylos; in fact, the pottery styles show an unbroken development through sub-Mycenaean (later than the Mycenaean but not yet Greek) to Protogeometric (the earliest phase of Geometric) and Geometric Period (1000 BC to about 750 BC). Furthermore, there is positive evidence that from about 1000 BC the city began to expand in a northwesterly direction, into the area that had previously been confined to cemeteries. Wells appear, indicating occupation by the living, and any graves in the area are increasingly confined to restricted plots or placed along the roads outside the town limits. The Agora and some of the public buildings seem, to judge from scattered notices in later writers, to have been located west and northwest of the Acropolis. Though there are few remains of buildings, the wealth and prosperity of the city can be appreciated from late Geometric graves found in the area of the later Dipylon and Erian gates. These graves were adorned with large vases, sometimes more than five feet high, decorated with geometric patterns and with scenes of battles, processions, and funeral ceremonies. Athens' expansion The 6th century BC was a period of phenomenal growth, particularly during the tyranny of Peisistratus and his sons (c. 560510 BC). On the Acropolis, the old primitive shrines began to be replaced with large stone temples. About 580 BC a temple to Athena, known as the Hecatompedon (Hundred-Footer), was erected on the site later to be occupied by the Parthenon. The pediments (triangular spaces forming the gable) of this temple were decorated with large-scale sculpture in gaily coloured, porous limestone, representing groups of lions bringing down bulls, and with snaky-tailed monsters in the angles. These sculptures are now displayed in the Acropolis Museum. In 566 BC Peisistratus reorganized the Panathenaic Games in honour of Athena on a four yearly basis. About 530 BC a large peripteral temple (one having a row of columns on all sides) to Athena Polias (Guardian of the City) was erected near the centre of the Acropolis, on the site of the old Bronze Age palace. It had marble pedimental sculpture representing the battle of the gods and giants. Besides these two major temples there were five smaller buildings, treasuries and the like, and a wealth of votive offerings in marble, bronze, and terra-cotta. The Acropolis thus became a full-fledged sanctuary. This change from citadel to sanctuary is also reflected in the arrangement of the entrance at the west. Instead of a winding path suitable for defense, there was, from about the middle of the 6th century BC, a broad ramp, designed as a ceremonial approach, leading up to the gate. This basic change of attitude toward the Acropolis must mean that the whole lower town was surrounded by a fortification wall and the Acropolis was no longer needed for defense. The ancient historians Herodotus and Thucydides tell of such a wall, but no trace of it has been found, and its course and date are uncertain. In the lower town, too, the 6th century was a period of growth and change. The old Agora, below the western approach to the Acropolis, was now inadequate, and a new one was therefore laid out in the low ground to the northwest. This was accomplished by demolishing houses and filling in wells and gullies, to create a broad, open square, which was used for gatherings of all sorts: political, judicial, religious, and commercial. Dramatic contests were held there, too, before the construction of a separate theatre. Various public buildings and shrines were erected around the borders of the square, including the Basileios (Royal) Stoa, where the archon Basileus, one of the chief magistrates of the city, had his headquarters; the Old Bouleuterion (or Council House); and a large enclosure (100 square feet) that probably housed the Heliaia, the largest of the popular lawcourts. At the southeast corner of the square a fountain house received water from outside the city through a conduit of terra-cotta pipes. In 480 BC this flourishing city was captured and destroyed by the Persians. The Acropolis buildings were burned and the houses in the lower town mostly destroyed, except for a few that had been spared to house the Persian leaders.