Rome may be the ‘Eternal City’ but Athens has been around longer. According to tradition the city of Rome was founded in 753 BC. Archeologists have found remains indicating that the Palatine hill was occupied around that time, making the city around 2,700 years old. There is some evidence of earlier occupation, but the clear evidence of a permanent existence would seem to support the mid-eight century founding and the beginning of continual occupation down to the present.
However, Athens seems to have been occupied for 7,000 years. It was an important Mycenaean city in the 15th century BC. There are traces of that era found on the Acropolis. When Rome was founded, Athens was a major Mediterranean power and had colonies on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and in the Italian peninsula.
The Roman Republic traditionally began in 509 BC with the overthrow of the monarchy. Nearly a century earlier Solon had given the city a constitution and laws which would provide a foundation for later democracy. In 510 BC Cleisthenes was establishing a democracy in Athens. The Persian King Darius angry over the Athenian colonization of the western coast of Asia invaded Greece but was repelled in 490 BC when the Athenians defeated his army at Marathon.
The great classical period of Athens was from 508 to 322 BC. This was the era of Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Sophocles, Euripides etc. that we associate with ancient Athens. Athens was the dominant Mediterranean economic and naval power of the time. Meanwhile Rome was slowly extending its power over the surrounding areas of the Italian peninsula. Rome had yet to fight the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars (264 BC to 146 BC) establishing its dominance over the Italian peninsula, Sicily, northern Africa and Spain and beginning involvement in Greece and Asia.
Athens is named after the goddess of wisdom and war, Athena, who, according to the tradition, sprang full grown from the head of Zeus. Homer consistently calls her ‘owl-eyed Athena’ and she was consistently associated with an owl. The ‘Athenian owl’ was a silver coin widely used in commerce when Athens ruled the seas. The obverse of the coin showed the helmeted head of Athena and the reverse an owl. The reverse also featured an olive branch, olives being is major agricultural product which was (and still is) greatly prized among connoisseurs of olives and olive oil. The coins also featured a waning moon – a political dig at the rival Sparta. When Darius had invaded Greece, Athens had sent to Sparta for aid in repelling the invasion. But Sparta declined because the moon was waning and they could not religiously fight until the new moon. Athens stopped the invasion at Marathon without Spartan help.
I do not anticipate blogging on Monday. I’ll be in airports and on planes. I may tweet (@canicusmodius) if I find free Wi-Fi for my smartphone. My laptop will be in my carryon, but I don’t anticipate using it.
P.S. The graphic I am using is not in Greece, it is in Italy. It is, however, a Greek temple dedicated to Poseidon located in the Greek colony of Paestum. I took the picture last summer when I visited.
Canicus Modius