ATHENS (Atli enz ), (Gr. 'AOirat, ath-oVnahee). This celebrated city, as the birthplace of Plato, and through him so widely influential on Juda ism and Christianity, deserves something else than a geographical notice here. We shall briefly al lude to the stages of her history and remark on some of the causes of her pre-eminent greatness in arms, arts and intellectual subtlety (1) Early History. The earlier and more ob scure period of the Grecian province named At tica reaches down nearly to the final establish ment of democracy in it. Yet we know enough to see that the foundations of her greatness were then already laid Even the unfertile soil and dry atmosphere of Attica, in connection with the sicilder appetite of the people, have been thought as favorable to their mental development as the fertility of the neighboring Berotia was injurious to its voracious inhabitants. The barrenness of the soil, moreover, prevented invaders from covet ing it, so that through a course of ages the popu lation remained unchanged, and a mural union grew up between the several districts. To a king named Theseus is ascribed the credit of uniting all the country towns of Attica into a single state, the capital of which was Athens. This is the first political event that we can trust as historical, although its date and circumstances arc by no means free from obscurity.
(2) Population. The population of this prov ince was variously called Pelasgian, Achaian and Ionian, and probably corresponds most nearly to what was afterwards called sEolian (Prichard, Phys. Mist. of Man. hi isto4)• The first name carries the mind back to an extremely primitive period. When the Dorians, another tribe of Greeks of very different temperament, invaded and occupied the southern peninsula. great num bers of its Achaian inhabitants took refuge in Attica. Shortly after, the Dorians were repulsed in an inroad against Athens, an event which has transmitted to legendary renoee n the name of King Codrus; and thenceforward Athens was looked upon as the bulwark of the Ionian tribes against the barbarous Dorians.
Overloaded with population, Attica now poured forth colonies into Asia: some of which, as Ali letus, soon rose to great eminence, and sent out numerous colonies themselves; so that Athens was reverenced as a mother of nations, by powerful children scattered along the western and northern coasts of Anatolia.
(3) Tradition. Dim tradition shows us isolated priesthoods and elective kings in the earliest times of Attica; these however gradually gave way to an aristocracy, which in a series of years established themselves as a hereditary ruling caste. But a country 'ever unravaged' (and such was their boast) could not fail to increase in wealth and numbers; and after two or three centuries, while the highest commoners pressed on the nobles, the lowest became overwhelmed with debt.
(4) Laws of Solon. The disorders caused by the strife of the former were vainly sought to be stayed by the institutions of Draco; the sufferings of the latter were ended, and the sources of violence dried up, by the enactments of Solon.
Henceforth the Athenians revered the taws of Solon (Nompi) as the groundwork of their whole civil polity, yet they retained by the side of them the ordinances of Draeo teecretoli in many mat ters pertaining to religion. The date of Solon's reforms was probably It. C. 591.
The usurpation of Pisistratus and his sons made a partial breach in the constitution: hut upon their expulsion a more serious change was effected by Cleisthenes, head of the noble house of the Alcmi•onidie (It C 5oS ). almost in the same year in which Tarquin was expelled from Rome. An entirely new organization of the Attic tribes was framed. which destroyed whatever remained of the power of the nobles as an order. and estah. fished among the freemen a democracy in fact, as well as in form. Out of this proceeded all the good and all the evil with which the name of Athens is associated. and though greatness which shot tip co suddenly could not be permanent, there can be no difficulty in deciding that the good greatly preponderated (5) Hostilities with Persia. Very soon after this commenced hostilities with Persia. and the self-denying, romantic, successful bravery of Athens, with the generous affability and greet talents of her statesmen, soon raised her to the head of the whole Ionian confederacy. As long as Persia was to be feared. Athens was loved ; but after tasting the sweets of power her sway degenerated into a despotism, and created at length, in the war called the Peloponnesian, a coalition of all Dorian and lEolian Greece against her (B. C. 431). In spite of a fatal pestilence and the revolt of her Ionian subjects, the naval skill of Athenian seamen and the enterprise of Athenian commanders proved more than a match for the hostile confederacy, and when Athens at last fell (B. C. 404), she fell by the effects of internal sedition more truly than by Spartan lances or Persian gold, or even by her own rash and overgrasping ambition. The demoralizing effects of this war on all Greece were infinitely the worst result of it, and they were transmitted to succeeding generations. It was substantially a civil war in every province, and, as all the inhab itants of Attica were every summer forced to take of Alexandria. Its great effort was to unite the contemplative mysticism of Eastern sages with the accurate science of Greece ; to combine, in short, the two qualities—intellectual and moral, argumentative and spiritual—into a single har monious whole; and whatever opinion may be formed of the success which attended the experi ment, it is not wonderful that so magnificent an aim attracted the desires and riveted the atten tion of thoughtful and contemplative minds for ages afterwards.