Talk:History of Athens

Talk:History of Athens/Archive1

Civilisation/Civilization?
In the introduction, should the article refer to "Western Civilisation" or "Western Civilization"? Bigdaddy1204 14:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Image of the Byzantine Church in this article
I have inserted a photograph I took when I was in Athens during April 2004. Bigdaddy1204 15:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Image of the Roman Agora
Changed "The ruins of the Agora, the commercial centre of ancient Athens" to "The ruins of the Roman Agora, the second commercial centre of ancient Athens.". The image shows the Roman Agora, not the Ancient Agora commonly refered to as "Agora". The latters was the first commercial centre of Athens. --Evzone 03:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Typos
Seem to be a lot of spurious characters and whatnot.

I'll skim through it a little, i'm not the best at spelling however. Cleotheo (talk) 21:05, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't have time to go through it all, but I found 6-7 typos that I fixed. Otherwise I don't know if it matters but center was spelled centre a few times. I didn't fix that because I was unsure if I was changing the meaning of the word or not. Cleotheo (talk) 21:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Artists and Philosophers section
As far as I know, Aristotle, Plato, and Xenophon did not write during the 5th century (Aristotle wasn't even alive then), as the beginning of this section implies. Iridius 05:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Athens the oldest?

 * ''The History of Athens is the longest of any city in Europe:

I'm prepped to be shot down here, but Argos is still a city, and isn't it MUCH older? You could rejoinder that it's not on the same site as ancient Argos (its citadel) but neither, really, is Athens. Maybe the wording might be "the longest of any major city in Europe"? Skookum1 18:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Population Problems
"At its peak, in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Athens and its suburbs probably had approximately 1,527,327.23 inhabitants. " According to that Athens and the surrounding areas had .23 people. Now how does that even happen????? I can understand 1,577,327 people, but not .23. El Greco 16:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

According to my Classics professor, Athens had a population of about 20,000 in the 4th and 5th centuries, BCE. The political structure could not have accommodated anything over 100,000- let alone 1.5 million. Anyone care to sort my head outt? 76.81.218.167 07:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

A few months ago, the sentence used to read: "At its peak, in the 5th and 5th centuries BC, Athens and its suburbs probably had approximately 300,000 inhabitants." It was changed without explanation, so 1.5 million is almost certainly wrong, but the 300,000 didn't have a citation either. Does anyone have access to a source that would give us something to cite? --Delirium 14:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The Encyclopedia Of Ancient Greece by Nigel Guy Wilson, pages 214, 215, gives some statistics on this. I edited them in the article. Odysses (&#9756;) 12:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Mistakes
Jizzers? Thats a Greek word? And Alexander in the 5th century? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cpom (talk • contribs).

Early History Section
This section cites the "Doric invasion", but as far as I've heard the theory of a Doric invasion causing the Greek decline around this time period has pretty much been abandoned. Might this be in need of revision? Pandacantante 03:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Ac.athens44.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:42, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Some minor points
In the section dealing with the name of the city it is correctly stated that Αθήναι is actually a plural form. I believe that it would be worth noting that the name is considered prehellenic and that the plural is probably the outcome of the συνοικισμός, the unification of prehistoric hamlets scattered around the Acropolis (see the introduction in John Travlos, A Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens and the first chapter in Τραυλός Ιωάννης, Η Πολεοδομική Εξέλιξις των Αθηνών). The section on Roman Athens reads Various Roman emperors would construct a concert hall, a law court, a library, a gymnasium, a small temple on the Acropolis, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, and an aqueduct which is still in use today. This is not accurate. The Odeion (concert hall) was built by Agrippa who was indeed a Roman but not an emperor, whereas the small temple (alluding to the round monopteros temple of Rome and Augustus in front of the Parthenon) was -strictly speaking- built by the Demos with a view to honoring Augustus. I believe that the Roman Forum -the major commercial market during the Roman period and one of the best preserved building complexes still standing- would deserve some mention in this context as it is indeed related with Augustus himself. I know of no Law Court built in Athens by a Roman Emperor and I find it highly improbable. I should add that so far I haven't been able to find any relevant reference to such a court (the Delpinion maybe?). As for the rest (the aqueduct, the Temple of Olympian Zeus [in its latest form], the Gymnasium and the Library) they are all attributed to Hadrian. Most notably the emperor was responsible for the planning and construction of a whole new suburb. The inscription on the east facade of Hadrian's Arch is quite telling in this respect (Αίδε εις Αδριανού κ'ουχί Θησέως πόλις, This is the city of Hadrian and not Theseus). Old 19th century and recent excavations have unearthed a significant portion of this 2nd century addition, which roughly coincides with the National Gardens (see Paul Graindor, Athenes sous Hadrien; Walter Judeich, Topographie von Athen; Thompson-Whycherly, The Athenian Agora, Vol. 14, The Agora of Athens The History, Shape and Uses of an Ancient City Center and Parlama - Stampolidis (ed.), Athens: The City Beneath the City. Antiquities from the Metropolitan Railway Excavations ). In an earlier comment user Pandacantante has made a good point about the Dorian invasion. Modern scholarship has largely discredited the Dorian invasion theory and this should somehow be stated in the text. Athenians maintained that their city had escaped the onslaught, as it is correctly mentioned in the article, but it should be made clear that this was only an Athenian belief of later periods. I am not yet familiar with the WP editing habits, therefore I am going to live the article as it is for the time being. I would very much welcome any piece of information, especially on this elusive Roman law court. --Giorgos Tzimas (talk) 21:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Cratylos
Although the passage from Cratylos incorporated in the etymology section is quite interesting, it is actually referring to the theonym of the godess Athena and not to the city name per se. It is not at all sure that this was a widely held Athenian view. It has probably more to do with the subtleties of platonic "linguistic" argumentation. This whole quotation is in my view redundant--Giorgos Tzimas (talk) 02:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Please i have one qestion. Befour 1830 lived in Athens Arvanites or attic minority of Greeks? Thanks --213.151.217.131 (talk) 11:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Copyright violation
An editor has removed a section of this article as a copyright violation. Google does show one possibility:

http://referaty.atlas.sk/cudzie-jazyky/anglictina/31503/?print=1

However various internal evidence suggests this article is a copyright violation of Wiki, not vice versa. Thoughts?? Piano non troppo (talk) 03:54, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

ALBANIANS
Why is the Albanian majority of Athens during the Ottoman Era not even mentioned (modern day Arvenites)? Mactruth (talk) 19:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * will someone please explain or i will have it added Mactruth (talk) 06:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Wrong. They have always been called Arvanites, then and now. And they were not a majority in Athens itself, but in the surrounding countryside of Attica. Get your facts right before getting all cocky. · ΚΕΚΡΩΨ · 17:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

thats right in athens and megara greek speakers were the majority followed by turks and not arvanites actually... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.220.38 (talk) 22:33, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You should all take a look at Arvanites, especially the very interesting quotes in the footnote and what they have to say about the Plaka. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, the pre-revolution population of Plaka was thought to be primarily Albanians followed by Greeks and Turks. Generally, in the Ottoman period, Greeks lived in the countryside and it was Turks in the cities and towns. Plaka appears to have been an exception -- but Greeks were mostly missing from it. There is little published on this, but that is no excuse for racial bias. 85.72.196.187 (talk) 23:20, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Copyedited
Richard asr (talk) 16:33, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Athens Greece - For Kids
Big text ::Government:: Athens had about 200,000 people living it's city state in 300 BC. Athens have tried 2 different governments before they had a Direct Democracy. First, they had an Oligarchy. An Oligarchy government is when a group of aristocrats, ::Rich noble landowner:: rule the government. Soon after that, the people of Athens over thrown the Oligarchy government. Soon after that, a type of government, Tyranny. It was a person who was ruling the government through force. Later on, the aristocrats took over. Then, a man created the democracy. It was named "Rule by the people." That was successful. A direct democracy is when every citizen's opinion affects the government. Mean who were born in Athens were citizens. Women and foreigners cannot become a citizen or be part of the government. 300 years later when the Macedonians invaded Athens, their democracy stopped to an end forever.


 * Geography:: Athens is near Attica and on a peninsula. It is near water. This is good for fishing, transportation, and fishing. Athens is near Megara and Corinth.


 * Religion:: Athens is named after Athena, the goddess of wisdom. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acientgreekhistory (talk • contribs) 00:56, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
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Smiley Faces
Somebody put a couple of faces after the first paragraph; I took the liberty of removing them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.102.89.130 (talk) 18:04, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Timeline of Athens
What is missing from the recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content. Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 15:18, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Infobox former country
Images used elsewhere on this website, even other articles, seem to indicate that Athens was an independent state during the Mycenaean era. Its mention of kings during this period and of the Eupatridae during the Dark Ages shows that the country goes back way before democracy. This also raises other questions as "Direct Democracy" wasn't always in place. It was only the method of government for 140 years. On a slightly different note, maybe we could separate the city of Athens from the country of Athens on this website? Andreas George Skinner (talk) 22:36, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Probably we do need to indicate some historical continuity from the Mycenaean to the Classical era. The infobox should reflect the information in the text of the article, and not vice versa. Dimadick (talk) 11:44, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

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A big claim with no reference cited.
"Prior to the rise of Athens, Sparta considered itself to be the leader (or hegemon) of the Greeks." doesn't seem to have any sources cited, so is it really alright to keep it in? It doesn't even flow well in the paragraph, and looks like it's forcefully slipped in. 118.137.29.172 (talk) 20:46, 5 May 2023 (UTC)