Facts about Athens
- 10
Mount Lycabettus rises 277 meters above Athens and contains a chapel dedicated to Saint George that was built in the 19th century atop the city's highest point.
- 09
Democracy in Athens was established around 508 BCE when Cleisthenes reformed the government by dividing citizens into 10 tribes and introducing ostracism, a voting process to exile unpopular leaders for 10 years.
- 08
In 1834, Athens was chosen as the capital of independent Greece, transforming from a town of approximately 4,000 residents into a planned neoclassical city designed by Bavarian architect Eduard Schaubert.
- 07
Approximately 750,000 residents lived in Athens during the Classical period around 430 BCE, making it the largest city-state in ancient Greece.
- 06
Aristotle founded his school, the Lyceum, in Athens in 335 BCE, where he taught while walking through covered walkways, earning his followers the name Peripatetics from the Greek word for walking.
- 05
Socrates never wrote anything down, yet his student Plato documented his philosophical teachings in dialogues written around 380 BCE that shaped Western philosophy for over 2,400 years.
- 04
The Acropolis in Athens sits 156 meters above sea level and contains ruins spanning over 1,300 years of construction from the 5th century BCE through the 19th century CE.
- 03
Over 30,000 people gathered in the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens on April 10, 1896, to watch the first modern Olympic Games opening ceremony.
- 02
During the 2004 Summer Olympics, Athens spent approximately 9 billion dollars hosting the games, making it one of the most expensive Olympic events in history.
- 01
Built in 447 BCE under Pericles, the Parthenon in Athens required approximately 13,400 tons of marble and took 15 years to complete.