The economy of Athens was supervised by numerous boards of officials in charge of the mint, the marketplace, weights and measures, and the grain and water supplies. Most of these officials held office ...
Searching for models for the new government they were creating, America's Founding Fathers studied both the democracy of Athens and the republic of Rome, but they favored the latter. In The Federalist ...
A group of ostraka found together in a pit on the North Slope of the Acropolis is of special interest. There were 190 ostraka, mostly the round feet of drinking cups, all inscribed with the name of Themistokles ...
Classical Athens saw the rise of an achievement unparalleled in history. Perikles, Aischylos, Sophokles, Plato, Demosthenes, and Praxiteles represent just a few of the statesmen and philosophers, playwrights ...
In 338 B.C. Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander defeated the Athenians and other Greek states in a battle at Chaironeia in central Greece. In the following year (337/6 B.C.) the Athenians passed ...
In 514 B.C. the tyrant Hipparchos was stabbed to death. The murder, actually the result of a love feud, was quickly deemed a political act of assassination and the perpetrators, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, ...
Each tribe was divided into three parts, and each third (trittys) was from one of the three regions of Attica, plain, coast, or hills. Every trittys was itself made up of several smaller units called ...
Soon after their victory over the Persians at the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C., the Athenians began the practice of ostracism, a form of election designed to curb the power of any rising tyrant. They ...
Also excluded from political participation were two other large segments of the population: slaves and metics (resident aliens).
Slavery was common in antiquity, and the Athenians used thousands of slaves ...
The philosopher Sokrates was one of many Athenians critical of the people and their control over affairs of state. His probing public debates with fellow citizens led to his trial for impiety and corrupting ...
