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The Bronze
Age (3600-1050 BC)
Athens, named after its patron goddess Athena, was inhabited in the Bronze Age. Its citizens later proudly claimed that their ancestors had lived in the city even before the settlements of Attica were moulded into a single state.
Athens started to grow around the Acropolis. Archaeologists have shown that the Acropolis was fortified in the Bronze Age and it was the crown of the city. Tradition says that Theseus united Attica in the generation before the Trojan War, but in the Iliad there is mention of Athenian Heroes but just a little. This suggests that Athens was not an important centre in the Bronze Age.
Early history
According to tradition, Athens was governed until 1000 BC by Ionian kings, who had gained suzerainty over all Attica.
The first
colonisation (1050-700 BC)
The Achiers colonize Cyprus; the dorerna rules over Peloponnesos and the joniska and aioliska are founded in the middle Asia.
The Persian
Wars (500-449 BC)
The Persian Wars made Athens the strongest Greek city-state. Much smaller and less powerful than Sparta at the start of the wars, Athens was more active and more effective in the fighting against Persia.
Pericles
(443-429 BC)
During the time of Pericles, Athenian statesman 443-429 BC, Athens reached the height of its cultural and imperial achievement. Socrates and the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were active during this period. The incomparable Parthenon was built, and sculpture and painting flourished. Athens became a centre of intellectual life.
Peloponnesian
War (431 BC)
The rivalry with Sparta had not ended, and in 431 BC the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens began.
Hellenistic
epoch (323-146 BC)
After the death of Alexander the Great, 323 BC, Athens revolted, 323-322 BC, against control by Macedon, but the revolt was quashed, and Athens lost its remaining dependencies and declined into a provincial city. Through the troubled times of the Peloponnesian War and the wars against Philip, Athenian achievements in philosophy, drama, and art had continued. As the city's glory waned in the 3d cent. BC, its earlier contributions were spread over the world in Hellenistic culture.
Roman epoch (146-395 BC)
Greece fell to the Romans. Athens became a minor ally of growing Rome, and a period of stagnation was broken only when the city unwisely chose to support Mithradates VI of Pontus against Rome. As a result, Athens was sacked by the Roman general Sulla in 86 BC Nevertheless, Athens sent out many teachers to Rome and retained a certain faded glory as a moderately prosperous small city in the backwash of the empire. It remained so until the time when the Eastern Empire began to fall to the barbarians. Athens was captured in AD 395 by the Visigoths under Alaric I.
Byzantine
epoch (395-1460)
Athens became a provincial capital of the Byzantine Empire and a centre of religious learning and devotion. When the Roman Empire divides Constantinople; also known as the empire of Romania, start ruling over Greece. The Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks in 1453 and the Greeks remained under the Ottoman yoke for nearly 400 years. During this time their language, their religion and their sense of identity remained strong.
Turkish epoch
(1460-1829)
The fall of the Acropolis to the Ottoman Turks in 1458 marked the beginning of nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule, and Athens once more declined. Venice, which had held Athens from 1394 to 1402, recovered it briefly from the Turks in 1466 and besieged it in 1687-88. During the siege the Parthenon, used by the Turks as a powder magazine, was largely blown up in a bombardment.
Modern epoch
(1829-)
The War for freedom against Turks started 25 of Mars 1821, which now is the National Day of Greece. The two countries made peace in 1829 and in 1832 Greece become a monarchy. Modern Athens was constructed only after 1834, when it became the capital of a newly independent Greece. Otto I, first king of the Hellenes, 1832-62, rebuilt much of the city, and the first modern Olympic games were held here in 1896.
Revert to Republic
In 1967 a dictatorship was imposed by a group of army colonels. The political leaders of the conservative, liberal and leftist parties were arrested and thousands of party members and followers were jailed or exiled. The dictatorship of the colonels collapsed in 1974 and was followed by a government of National Unity under Constantine Karamanlis. A plebiscite was held by which the Greek people chose the regime of a Presidential Republic and the first elected president was Constantine Tsatsos, a university professor and academician. Since 1974 Greece revert to be a republic country (as it were1924-1935).
Today
In 1981 Greece became a full member of the European Union. The 9th of April 2000 Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) once again won the election of the Greek government. Mr. C. Stefanopoulos is the President of the Hellenic Republic today, elected by the members of Parliament for a five-year term, and Mr. K. Simitis is the Prime Minister.
A future great challenge for Greece is the Olympic Games 2004.
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