[10] See the useful tables of T. Figueira, “Colonisation in the Classical Period,” in G. R. Tsetskhladze (ed. During its classical period, Athens had a population between 350,000 and 610,000. [7] The Assembly or Ecclesia was open to all full citizens and was both a legislature and a supreme court, except in murder cases and religious matters, which became the only remaining functions of the Areopagus. Bryn Mawr PA 19010. Learn more about the history and significance of Athens in this article. By 432 BC, Athens had become the most populous city-state in Hellas. First, however, he summarizes earlier approaches to the Athenian male citizen population, beginning with J. Beloch and A. W. Gomme. This content was originally written for an undergraduate or Master's program. Chapter 7, “Beyond Food and Fuel,” brings us to possible implications of Athens’ mid-fifth-century population boom and subsequent contraction. Ben [7] J. Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian Land Frontier, 404-322 BC (Leiden 1985); C. Taylor, Participation in Athenian Democracy (Unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge 2005). That supposedly worked after a number of times, and Cleomenes led a Spartan force to overthrow Hippias, which succeeded, and instated an oligarchy. In 490 the Athenians, led by Miltiades, prevented the first invasion of the Persians, guided by king Darius I, at the Battle of Marathon. Expressions of thanks or praise should be sent directly to the reviewer, using the email address in the review. The silver mines of Laurion contributed significantly to the development of Athens in the 5th century BC, when the Athenians learned to prospect, treat, and refine the ore and used the proceeds to build a massive fleet, at the instigation of Themistocles.[8]. Around the tenth century B.C., the settlers … The Parthenon, a lavishly decorated temple to the goddess Athena, was constructed under the administration of Pericles.[9]. The reforms of Cleisthenes replaced the traditional four Ionic "tribes" (phyle) with ten new ones, named after legendary heroes of Greece and having no class basis, which acted as electorates. The methodology of earlier scholars has been criticised in general terms but their conclusions have not been seriously challenged. Since many citizens were incapable of exercising political rights, due to their poverty or ignorance, a number of governmental resources existed … It is estimated that by 400 B.C, ancient Greece had a population of 13 million. A.D. (Dale) Trendall (1909-1995) was a leading authority on ancient Greek vase painting and one of the foremost classical art historians of his time. Fifth-century Syracuse was roughly the same size as Athens, and a century later had between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. The discussion of metics omits further recent contributions by R. F. Kennedy, D. Kamen, and J. Sosin, among others. It is published as part of our mission to showcase peer-leading papers written by students during their studies. A population as large as that of classical Athens could be supported only by the regular importation of food 2 from abroad, which had to be financed by trade and other revenues. [6] A (too) brief discussion of the Brea Decree (IG I3 46) concludes that “it is hard…to take the [decree] as unambiguous evidence for the Athenian poor benefitting hugely from the empire” (220). Akrigg’s statement that “the role of metic women in the Panathenaic procession can hardly have been seen as anything other than servile” (134) finds its mirror opposite in the recent study of S. Wijma, with which the author does not engage. In a much shorter concluding section on sex structures, the author suggests that the practice of infanticide was relatively rare in Classical Athens, given that war casualties were consistently replaced. This set a mo… Athens began as a small, Mycenaen community and grew to become a city that, at its height, epitomized the best of Greek virtues and enjoyed such prestige that the Spartans refused to sack the city or enslave the citizens, even after Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War. [Oxford 1933] 34, cf. To sum up my conclusions at the outset, I would observe that much more space is given to question 1 than to question 2, and that when the author turns to the bigger picture, the results must, given the state of the evidence, remain ambiguous. Upon their exile, they went to Delphi, and Herodotus[6] says they bribed the Pythia always to tell visiting Spartans that they should invade Attica and overthrow Hippias. Athens remained a wealthy city with a brilliant cultural life, but ceased to be an independent power. According to the Greek mythology, Cecrops, who was half man and half serpent, founded Athens and became the first king. Hence, he gave his name to the Athenian Golden Age. ×Your email address will not be published. Free shipping for many products! On the west side the walls embraced the Hill of the Nymphs and the Pnyx, and to the southeast they ran along beside the Ilissos. Given the current state of our evidence, the author’s assumption that fifth-century Athens was on the road to perdition, as well as his comment that “the upheavals of the Peloponnesian War…can be seen as purgative” for an otherwise ruinously unequal society (243), cannot, I think, constitute the final word on the subject. Scheidel has suggested that the redistributive and military aspects of the Athenian democracy put a brake on the usual runaway inequality involved in growth, but Akrigg rightly points out that Scheidel’s picture of Athens stems from the fourth century, after the ruinous effects of the war and the plague. Further, the conquests of his son, Alexander the Great, widened Greek horizons and made the traditional Greek city state obsolete. Between the Parthenon and Erechtheion was the colossal Statue of Athena Promachos, or the "Fighter in the Front," whose helmet and spear was the first object on the Acropolis visible from the sea. Hippias exiled 700 of the Athenian noble families, amongst them Cleisthenes' family, the Alchmaeonids. However, other Greek cities, including Athens, turned against Thebes, and its dominance was brought to an end at the Battle of Mantinea (362 BC) with the death of its leader, the military genius Epaminondas. It may be, then, that Athens was no less a “beneficiary” of two of Scheidel’s “four horsemen” of inequality reduction, war and disease. The story of Athena is very similar to the story of the founding of Greece. Upon their exile, they went to Delphi, and Herodotus says they bribed the Pythiaalways to tell visiting S… Athens was in Attica, about 30 stadia from the sea, on the southwest slope of Mount Lycabettus, between the small rivers Cephissus to the west, Ilissos to the south, and the Eridanos to the north, the latter of which flowed through the town. 'θi.na]) during the classical period of ancient Greece (480–323 BC)[1] was the major urban centre of the notable polis (city-state) of the same name, located in Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. They established themselves near the crag, which later would become the Acropolis. Population & Map Approximately 140,000; Approximately 40,000 men were citizens; and slaves (about 40,000). Slaves were the lowest class in Athenian society, but according to many contemporary accounts they were far less harshly treated than in most other Greek cities. The author also now attends to the issue of the wealth distribution of Attica, discussing previous arguments by R. Osborne, L. Foxhall, and G. Kron. Athens - Athens - History: The site of Athens has been inhabited since the Neolithic Period (before 3000 bce). However, that delaying action was not enough to discourage the Persian advance, which soon marched through Boeotia, setting up Thebes as their base of operations, and entered southern Greece. Resentment by other cities at the hegemony of Athens led to the Peloponnesian War in 431, which pitted Athens and her increasingly rebellious sea empire against a coalition of land-based states led by Sparta. Many of Classical civilization’s intellectual and artistic ideas originated there, and the city is generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization. At the time of the Peloponnesian war only the north part of this wall remained, and this portion was still called the Pelasgic Wall; while the south part which had been rebuilt by Cimon, was called the Cimonian Wall. Yet for all its vital import, the issue of classical Greek demography is poorly understood. (Herning 1985). 2 (Leiden 2008): 427-523. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions remained in place for 180 years, until 322 BC (aftermath of Lamian War). The ensuing discussion of metics is striking for its insistence that the label “metic” connoted servility and that Athenian citizens aligned metics more closely with slaves than citizens. Akrigg applauds the work of B. 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