Ath'ens, the capital of the kingdom of Greece and formerly the center of Greek culture and the capital of Attica. Athens is situated in a plain about 5 miles from the harbor of Piraeus, on the Gulf of Aegina. It is 350 feet above sea level and enjoys a dry and warm climate. ANCIENT ATHENS. When one speaks of ancient Athens, one means Athens in the time of Pericles, rather than Athens throughout the period of its long growth or the subsequent period of decay. In the Age of Pericles, then, Athens was a strong walled city, built about the Acropolis, which was a rocky elevation about 300 feet above the level of the city, having on its summit a comparatively level area of somewhat less than ten acres. It was accessible only on the west, where a stairway of sixty marble steps led to a series of colonnades and porticoes called the Propylaea, or Gateway. This was a magnificent structure built of white Pentelic marble and trimmed with black marble. Just within the entrance was the colossal statue of Athena, the patron and defender of the city. On the right, and a little to the rear, was the Temple of the Wingless Victory (Nike Apteros), and to the right of the open space rose the Parthenon, an exquisitely beautiful temple dedicated in 438 B. C. It was entirely of fine Pentelic marble and was the sacred abode of the goddess Athena, in whose honor it was erected (See PARTHENON). To the left of the entrance stood the Erechtheum, a beautiful temple of which there still remains the famous Porch of the Maidens (See CARYATIDES). The city surrounded the Acropolis on every side, extending to a distance of about a mile there-from. To the north and directly in front of the Acropolis was the Tower of the Winds, a beautiful structure erected in 159 B. C. and still well preserved. To the west were the Hill of the Nymphs and the Areopagus (Mars Hill), the rocky eminence from which Paul is supposed to have preached to the Athenians. To the northwest lay the Theseum, a beautiful temple which is still in a fine state of preservation. On the southwest slope of the Acropolis was the ancient Theater of Dionysus, and beyond it the stately Olympieum, begun about 535 B. C., but not finished until seven hundred years later. Under the Romans, Athens was a flourishing city which in the second century Hadrian ornamented with many new buildings; but after that time much of the beauty of the city was destroyed, the Parthenon was lost to pagan religion and became a church of the Virgin Mary. In 1456 Athens fell into the hands of the Turks, and the Parthenon became a mosque. During the siege of Athens by the Venetians in 1687 this beautiful building was greatly damaged by an explosion, but enough of it was left to attest its original splendor. MODERN ATHENS. Modern Athens, laid out by King Otto in 1835. lies principally to the north of the Acropolis. It is built in the form of a crescent and has broad boulevards and a number of handsome public buildings, of which the most interesting are the royal palace, the national museum and the new public library. An elegant Stadium has been erected, in which the modern Olympic games are celebrated. Railroads have been laid in the principal streets, and the city is connected by rail with the Piraeus and with Patras. There are in the city many museums, some of which contain very valuable collections of antiquities, which are being increased by the continual studies and excavations that are going on throughout Greece. The city has good schools and a large university with over 3000 students. Archaeological schools are maintained by the United States, England, France and Germany. Athens, though it is the financial center of Greece, does but little manufacturing, and engages only in domestic trade. Rugs, silks, scarfs, brass and copper ware are among its most important native manufactures. The population in 1907, 167,479. HISTORY. According to tradition, the founder and first king of Athens was Cecrops. Theseus, who united under his leadership the twelve independent townships of Attica, was the most famous of the early Athenian kings and the favorite national hero. The last king was Codrus, whom it was felt there was no one worthy to succeed, and the state was accordingly organized as an oligarchy, with an executive officer known as the archon. The number of archons was later increased to nine. The aristocratic form of government grew to be very unsatisfactory to the people, because the rulers, bound by no written laws, could practice any oppressions they chose, and the lower classes finally revolted and demanded written laws. Draco, one of the archons, drew up a code of laws (See DRACO), but the people saw that these old laws were thoroughly inadequate and demanded new ones, which were accordingly formulated by Solon (See SOLON). In 561 B. C., Pisistratus, by the aid of a dissatisfied class in the state, made himself tyrant of Athens, and the city prospered under his rule and that of his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, who succeeded him. In 509 B. C. a new constitution, proposed by Clisthenes, was adopted, and under it a democratic government was set up. This new constitution introduced little that was new into the government of Athens, but provided for the new conditions which had grown up since the constitution of Solon was formed. Athens was divided into one hundred divisions called demes; each citizen was enrolled in one of these divisions and took his surname from the deme, instead of from his clan. Ten of the demes, not adjacent, but scattered as widely as possible so as to include the various local interests, composed a ward, and thus the political unity of the old clans was destroyed. Many of the aliens throughout Attica were under this new constitution enrolled as citizens. The aid which Athens sent to the Ionian colonies in Asia Minor in 499 brought on the Persian wars (See GREECE, subhead History), and at the close of this struggle Athens found herself the leader of Greece. The Confederacy of Delos, organized in 476 for the purpose of freeing Greek colonies from Asiatic control, became in time a consolidated empire with Athens as its capital. The fifty years which followed were the most brilliant in Athenian history; especially under Pericles was Athens the literary and artistic center of the world (See PERICLES). In 431 Sparta, jealous of the position of influence which Athens held as head of the Delian League, demanded that Athens free all of the Greek cities. Athens in reply demanded that Sparta let go her own conquests in the Peloponnesus, and the result was the Peloponnesian War (See GREECE, subhead History. At the close of this conflict, Athens was deprived of much of her power, and her democratic government was replaced by an oligarchy under the Thirty Tyrants (See THIRTY TYRANTS). Although even under the reestablished democracy Athens never regained her former political position, she remained the intellectual center of Greece. After Philip of Macedon had conquered Greece (338 B. C.), Athens was still the center of Hellenic culture, until rivaled by Alexandria in the second century B. C. Under Roman rule, the city was greatly favored by some of the emperors, especially Hadrian, who built up a new quarter in the northwest of the city. From the time of Justinian, who closed the schools of philosophy at Athens, until the eleventh century, the history of Athens is almost a blank. During the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries she was sometimes independent and at other times subject to some Italian city or to Turkey. Turkish rule was firmly established late in the seventeenth century and continued until after the Greek revolution in 1835, when Athens became the capital of the new kingdom of Greece.