Athens, Athenians

Amongst the Greeks themselves the vases of Athens were those which enjoyed the highest reputation. They have been found in grea t numbers in Athenian sepulchres, and many of the existing specimens are unquestionably... 

Chemical warfare began in prehistoric times with the use of such weapons as poisoned arrows. Later, during the siege of Athens in about 400 BC, the Athenians were attacked by the Spartans with irritating sulfur dioxide, produced by burning sulfur with pitch upwind of the city. 

Later, Athens extended the political elite so that it included all Athenian citizens and thus ceased to be an elite. This created a social system in which full equality in one respect went together with large degrees of inequality in another. As Aristotle notes in the Politics, this is not a stable situation "For the one party, if they are unequal in one respect, for example wealth, consider themselves to be unequal in all and the other party, if they are equal in one respect, for example free birth, consider themselves to be equal in all" (1280 23-25). Thus, whereas both offsetting inequalities and equality across the board may reduce envy, the coexistence of equality and inequality will exacerbate it ... 

The center of Greek philosophy shifted to Athens around 400 B.C.E., with the rise of Plato and his school, the Academy. Plato (428-347 B.C.E.) was an Athenian from a wealthy, patrician family. He had been the foremost pupil of Socrates (470-399 b.c.e.), but, unlike his teacher, he did not reject the necessity of understanding the physical world. For Socrates, only the Ideal and the nature of man were worthy of study. The Ideal was perfect, mathematical, and divine. Although Plato accepted the superiority of the Ideal over the material, he was also interested in human existence, writing extensively about politics and social organization. It followed that even if the material world might be an imperfect reflection of the Ideal, to make the best of one s life a person needed to understand both the material world and the Ideal. The best presentation of Plato s ideas is found in the Timaeus, which includes a description of the structure of the universe. 

Anson commissioned James Stuart, the Athenian, to build the antiquities of Athens in the park. This included replicas of the Lanthom of Demosthenes, the Triumphal Arch of Rome, Tower of the Winds, a Doric Temple, Chinese House, Cat s Monument, a cascade with a... 

In Thucydides s History of the Peloponnesian War, the 4th-century bc war between Athens and Sparta, we find the earliest description of chemical warfare. Thucydides describes how the Athenians were defending a fort at Delium in 423 bc, when the allies of Sparta attacked ... 

We have won may have been the last words of the Marathon runner Pheidip-pides, who brought the news to Athens of the battle between the Athenians imder MUtiades and the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC. He had run around 42 kilometres as fast as he could, before he collapsed and died (Fig. 5.35). 

Greek culture stood for humanism and aspired towards a rational explanation of our world and all its phenomena. This attitude has permeated the western world. The aim was and remained freedoms, moderation, balance. The Athenians laid the foundation. The element silver was a part of the spadework. The mineralogists of antiquity, who searched and found the silver veins in the mountains, and the 30 000 slaves doing the hard work of mining, created the material basis for Athens position as a great power among the Mediterranean countries. They should be remembered when Greek culture and its intellectual characteristics are described and assessed. 

While the eponymous archon supervised the Athenian orphans, the polemarch (the archon of war) oversaw guardianship cases with regard to metics (resident aliens of Athens). ... 

The Constitution of Athens demonstrates how great a role the Athenian polis assumed in supervising guardianship. Perhaps this public concern to ensure justice for orphans began with Solon s reforms. Certainly these measures were in place under the constitution of Cleis-thenes. ... 

The Athenians strictly limited the orphans they supported by admitting only the children of citizens. The offspring of heroic metics were excluded from any benefits. After 403, Athens refused to support the orphans of mixed families or of those who had received honorary citizenship. ... 

Although Athens did not continue supporting the minor children of fallen heroes beyond the mid-fourth century, Aristotle testified that other Greek cities had adopted the practice. As early as the fifth century, Hippodamos of Miletos, a city planner and poHtical philosopher, had recommended the Athenian program of public support as part of an ideal city constitution. In early Hellenistic times (305 b.c.), Rhodes... 

The most stupid thing of all, moreover, is to consider all things just which have been ratified by a people s institutions or laws. What about the laws of tyrants If the famous thirty tyrants at Athens had wanted to impose laws, or if all the Athenians were pleased with tyrannical laws, is that a reason for calling those laws just No more than the one carried by our interrex, that the dictator could put to death with impunity whatever citizens he wished, even without a trial, s There is only one justice, which constitutes the bond among humans, and which was established by the one law, which is right reason in commands and prohibitions. The person who does not know it is unjust, whether the law has been written anywhere or not. And if justice is obedience to the written laws and institutions of a people, and if (as these same people say)s everything is to be measured by utility, then whoever thinks that it will... 

ARISTODEMUS (fourth century). Originally from Metapontum in S. Italy but awarded Athenian citizenship a renowned actor, he served as an ambassador for Athens in negotiations with Philip of Mac-edon. 

DEMETRIUS of PHALERUM (. 350 to after 283). Peripatetic philosopher and pupil of Theophrastus he ruled Athens (317-307) on behalf of Cassander, the king of Macedonia. After the restoration of Athenian democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 307 he went into exile, ending up in Alexandria, where he was an adviser to Ptolemy I on cultural matters. Cicero admired both his writings and his combination... 

SOLON (early sixth century). As archon of Athens in 594/3 he reorganized the constitution on the basis of property classes and abolished debt servitude. He was generally considered to have been the creator of Athenian democracy. 

Most monetary values in this book are expressed as ancient Athenian drachmas. We should not, however, attempt to relate the value of this Athenian silver coinage to the unstable modem values of equivalent physical amounts of precious metals. In my opinion, the best (although not entirely satisfactory) choice is to understand the drachma in the context of its purchasing power at Athens (approximately a day s labor by a not unskilled individual see E. Cohen 1992 22, n.92)—although even this conversion must be adjusted for variations in labor costs and purchasing power in individual modem countries. ... 

GREEK HISTORY HAS long eschewed the mundane details of Athenian commerce and labor So long as classics is dominated by the concerns of liberal humanism, economic questions will be marginal (Morris 2001 14). The standard volume on many aspects of Athenian business endeavors (Boeckh s Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener) was written in 1817. Not... 

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