Museum of Engravings and Graphic Arts

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Further information: Names of European cities in different languages (A) In Ancient Greek, the city's name was Ἀθῆναι ( Athênai, pronounced [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯] in Classical Attic ), which is a plural word. In earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη ( Athḗnē ). It was possibly rendered in the plural later on, like those of Θῆβαι ( Thêbai ) and Μυκῆναι ( Μukênai ). The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin, and is possibly a remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica.

In classical antiquity it was debated whether Athens took its name from its patron goddess Athena ( Attic Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, Ionic Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē, and Doric Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā ) or Athena took her name from the city. Modern scholars now generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city, because the ending - ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.

According to the ancient Athenian founding myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, competed against Poseidon, the God of the Seas, for patronage of the yet-unnamed city; they agreed that whoever gave the Athenians the better gift would become their patron and appointed Cecrops, the king of Athens, as the judge. According to the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring welled up. In an alternative version of the myth from Virgil 's poem Georgics, Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse. In both versions, Athena offered the Athenians the first domesticated olive tree.

Cecrops accepted this gift and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens. Eight different etymologies, now commonly rejected, have been proposed since the 17th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος ( áthos ) or ἄνθος ( ánthos ) meaning "flower", to denote Athens as the "flowering city". Ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- ( tháō, thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil.

Athenians were called cicada -wearers (Ancient Greek: Τεττιγοφόροι ) because they used to wear pins of golden cicadas. A symbol of being autochthonous (earth-born), because the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus was an autochthon or of being musicians, because the cicada is a "musician" insect. In classical literature the city was sometimes referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindar 's ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι ( iostéphanoi Athânai ), or as τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ ( tò kleinòn ásty, "the glorious city").

During the medieval period, the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα. Variant names included Setines, Satine, and Astines, all derivations involving false splitting of prepositional phrases. King Alphonse X of Castile credits Ovid with the false etymology 'the place without death' because of Athens' arts and sciences "that never die". In Ottoman Turkish, it was called آتينا ‎ Ātīnā.

- For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Athens. Historical affiliations - Kingdom of Athens 1556 BC–1068 BC - City-state of Athens 1068 BC–323 BC - Hellenic League 338 BC–323 BC - Hellenistic Athens 322 BC–86 BC - Roman Republic 86 BC–27 BC - Roman Empire 27 BC–395 AD - Eastern Roman Empire 395–1205 - Duchy of Athens 1205–1458 - Ottoman Empire 1458–1822 - First Hellenic Republic 1822–1827 - Ottoman Empire 1827–1833 - Greece 1833–present

- Main articles: Classical Athens, Hellenistic Greece, and Roman Greece The oldest known human presence in Athens is the Cave of Schist, which has been dated to between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Athens has been continuously inhabited for at least 5,000 years (3000 BC). By 1400 BC, the settlement had become an important centre of the Mycenaean civilisation, and the Acropolis was the site of a major Mycenaean fortress, whose remains can be recognised from sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls. Unlike other Mycenaean centres, such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is not known whether Athens suffered destruction in about 1200 BC, an event often attributed to a Dorian invasion, and the Athenians always maintained that they were pure Ionians with no Dorian element. However, Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for around 150 years afterwards. Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres of trade and prosperity in the region.

- Main articles: Classical Athens and Delian League By the sixth century BC, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in 508 BC. Athens had by this time become a significant naval power with a large fleet, and helped the rebellion of the Ionian cities against Persian rule. In the ensuing Greco-Persian Wars Athens, together with Sparta, led the coalition of Greek states that would eventually repel the Persians, defeating them decisively at Marathon under the leadership of Miltiades in 490 BC, and crucially at Salamis under the leadership of Themistocles in 480 BC. However, this did not prevent Athens from being captured and sacked twice by the Persians within one year, after a heroic but ultimately failed resistance at Thermopylae by Spartans and other Greeks led by King Leonidas, after both Boeotia and Attica fell to the Persians.

The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy, during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations for Western civilisation. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosophers Socrates and Plato. Guided by Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens (including the Parthenon ), as well as empire-building via the Delian League. Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states, which were led by Cimon, to continue the fight against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.

Nonetheless the city reemerged soon as a major power in the Greek world, forming the Second Athenian League during the time of the Spartan and Theban hegemonies. By the mid-4th century BC the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in Greek affairs. In 338 BC the armies of Philip II and his son Alexander the Great defeated an alliance of some of the Greek city-states led by Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea. After this defeat, Athens joined the Hellenic League under Philip and then Alexander.

The Ancient Agora of Athens, a major commercial centre ( agora ) of ancient Athens

The ruins of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, conceived by the sons of Peisistratus

The Tower of the Winds in the Roman Agora, the second commercial centre of ancient Athens

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus built in AD 161 by Herodes Atticus

- Main article: Athens under Roman rule Later, under Rome, Athens was given the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools. In the second century AD, the Roman emperor Hadrian, himself an Athenian citizen, ordered the construction of a number of public buildings. Paul the Apostle visited Athens on his second missionary journey. Athens was sacked in 267 AD by a Germanic tribe.

In the early 4th century AD the Eastern Roman Empire began to be governed from Constantinople, and with the construction and expansion of the imperial city, many of Athens's works of art were taken by the emperors to adorn it. The Empire became Christianised, and the use of Latin declined in favour of exclusive use of Greek ; in the Roman imperial period, both languages had been used. In the later Roman period, Athens was ruled by the emperors continuing until the 13th century, its citizens identifying themselves as citizens of the Roman Empire (" Rhomaioi "). The conversion of the empire from paganism to Christianity greatly affected Athens, resulting in reduced reverence for the city. Ancient monuments such as the Parthenon, Erechtheion and the Hephaisteion (Theseion) were converted into churches. As the empire became increasingly anti-pagan, Athens became a provincial town and experienced fluctuating fortunes.

The city remained an important centre of learning, especially of Neoplatonism —with notable pupils including Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil of Caesarea and the Roman emperor Julian ( r. 355–363 )—and consequently a centre of paganism. Christian items do not appear in the archaeological record until the early 5th century. The sack of the city by the Herules in 267 and by the Visigoths under their king Alaric I ( r. 395–410 ) in 396, however, dealt a heavy blow to the city's fabric and fortunes, and Athens was henceforth confined to a small fortified area that embraced a fraction of the ancient city. The emperor Justinian I ( r. 527–565 ) banned the teaching of philosophy by pagans in 529, an event whose impact on the city is much debated, but is generally taken to mark the end of the ancient history of Athens.

- Main articles: Byzantine empire and Byzantine Greece

Athens was sacked by the Slavs in 582, but remained in imperial hands thereafter, as highlighted by the visit of the emperor Constans II ( r. 641–668 ) in 662/3 and its inclusion in the Theme of Hellas. The city was threatened by Saracen raids in the 8th–9th centuries—in 896, Athens was raided and possibly occupied for a short period, an event which left some archaeological remains and elements of Arabic ornamentation in contemporary buildings—but there is also evidence of a mosque existing in the city at the time. In the great dispute over Byzantine Iconoclasm, Athens is commonly held to have supported the iconophile position, chiefly due to the role played by Empress Irene of Athens in the ending of the first period of Iconoclasm at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. A few years later, another Athenian, Theophano, became empress as the wife of Staurakios (r. 811–812).