59 Fun Facts About Athens

In the founding myth, Athena won patronage of the city by giving Athenians what?

Athena struck the rock and produced the first domesticated olive tree, judged more useful than Poseidon's salt spring; the olive became the emblem of the city and of its coinage.

How do modern scholars think Athens and Athena got their matching names?

Most scholars hold that the deity was named after the place: the ending -ene is common in Greek place names but rare in personal names, and the root is probably pre-Greek.

Ancient Athenians were nicknamed Tettigophoroi, meaning wearers of what?

Thucydides notes older Athenians fastened their hair with golden cicada pins; the cicada, believed born from the earth, symbolised the Athenians' claim to be autochthonous like the legendary earth-born Erechtheus.

Who introduced democracy to Athens in 508 BC?

Solon's reforms had paved the way a century earlier; Cleisthenes reorganised citizens into ten tribes by residence rather than wealth.

Which Athenian general led the victory over the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC?

Miltiades persuaded his fellow generals to attack and led the hoplite charge that routed the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC; Themistocles' naval victory at Salamis came ten years later.

Which statesman guided the building programme that produced the Parthenon?

Pericles, Athens' dominant statesman for some three decades, channelled Delian League tribute into the Acropolis building programme, with the sculptor Phidias overseeing the Parthenon's construction.

What was ostracism in Athenian democracy?

Citizens scratched names on potsherds; it let the Assembly restrain powerful men without harsher punishment.

Construction of the Parthenon began in which year?

Work on the Parthenon began in 447 BC, with Ictinus and Callicrates as architects; the temple was finished in 438 BC and its sculptural decoration completed in 432 BC.

The Acropolis rock rises how far above sea level?

The Acropolis rises about 150 m above sea level; its flat top covers roughly 3 hectares and held a Mycenaean fortress before the classical temples were built.

What is the monumental gateway at the western end of the Acropolis called?

The Propylaea, designed by Mnesicles and begun in 437 BC, forms the monumental western entrance to the Acropolis; the small Temple of Athena Nike stands on a bastion beside it.

The Erechtheion's Porch of the Maidens is held up by how many sculpted female figures?

Six Caryatids support the porch; Elgin's agents removed one, now in the British Museum, while the other five are displayed in the Acropolis Museum, with replicas standing on the building.

The Parthenon was badly damaged in 1687 when a Venetian bomb hit what inside it?

The Ottomans had turned the temple-turned-mosque into a powder magazine during Morosini's siege.

Roughly what share of the surviving Parthenon sculptures did Elgin's agents remove between 1801 and 1812?

Elgin's agents removed about half of the surviving Parthenon sculptures, including much of the frieze; Parliament bought them for the British Museum in 1816 after an inquiry upheld the acquisition.

Which Roman emperor finished Athens' Temple of Olympian Zeus some 638 years after it began?

Hadrian dedicated the Temple of Olympian Zeus in about 131 AD; it had 104 Corinthian columns and was the largest temple in Greece, and 16 survive, one of which fell in an 1852 storm.

Which emperor's 529 ban on pagan philosophy teaching is usually taken as the end of ancient Athens?

Justinian I's edict of 529 banned pagans from teaching, closing the Neoplatonic Academy in Athens; the city had remained a philosophical centre that had taught the future emperor Julian.

Which sultan captured Athens in 1458 and forbade the looting of its monuments on pain of death?

Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople five years earlier, took Athens in 1458 and, impressed by its antiquities, issued a firman forbidding their looting or destruction on pain of death.

Athens replaced which city as capital of independent Greece in 1834?

Nafplio, in the Peloponnese, had been the first capital of independent Greece; in 1834 King Otto moved the government to Athens, chosen for its classical past though war had left it a small town.

Greece's first king, who commissioned a modern city plan for Athens, came from which country?

Otto, son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, became Greece's first king in 1832; he commissioned the architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert to draw up a neoclassical plan for the new capital.

The Panathenaic Stadium is the only stadium in the world built entirely of what?

The Panathenaic Stadium is built entirely of white Pentelic marble, hence its nickname Kallimarmaro ('beautiful marble'); rebuilt in marble in the 2nd century AD, it was restored for the first modern Olympics.

The first modern Olympic Games opened in Athens on which date?

The Games opened on 6 April 1896 (25 March in the Julian calendar then used in Greece), when King George I declared them open in the Panathenaic Stadium; James Connolly won the triple jump that day.

Which Greek won the marathon at the 1896 Olympics, to the delight of the home crowd?

Spyridon Louis, a water-carrier from the outskirts of Athens, won the 1896 marathon in 2 hours 58 minutes 50 seconds ahead of fellow Greek Charilaos Vasilakos, as the packed Panathenaic Stadium erupted.

The marathon race takes its name from the legend of which Greek messenger?

Pheidippides, in the legend told by Plutarch and Lucian, ran from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens in 490 BC to announce victory and died; Herodotus records only his run to Sparta.

Athens and its port of Piraeus lie on the shore of which gulf?

Athens and Piraeus face the Saronic Gulf, an arm of the Aegean whose islands Salamis and Aegina lie within sight of the city; the Corinthian Gulf is beyond the isthmus to the west.

Which architect added steel arches and a glass roof to the Athens Olympic Stadium for 2004?

Santiago Calatrava's renovation crowned the Olympic Stadium with two steel arches spanning over 300 m carrying a translucent roof, finished only weeks before the 2004 opening ceremony.

What did the 1922 refugees from Asia Minor bring to Athens that later became the basis of Greek popular music?

The refugees of 1922, settled after the population exchange with Turkey, brought rebetiko, the urban song style of Smyrna and Constantinople, which became the basis of Greek laiko popular music.

What are the kilted Greek presidential guards outside Parliament at Syntagma called?

Evzones of the Presidential Guard wear the pleated fustanella kilt and pom-pommed tsarouchia shoes, a uniform recalling the mountain fighters of the War of Independence; they change guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Which hill is the highest point in central Athens at 277 m?

Lycabettus rises to 277 m; myth says Athena dropped the rock there while carrying it to fortify the Acropolis, and a funicular climbs to the chapel of St George on its summit.

Which is the tallest of the four mountains ringing the Athens basin, at 1,413 m?

Parnitha, a national park at 1,413 m, is the highest of the mountains around Athens; a fire in June 2007 destroyed a large part of its fir forest.

Plaka, below the Acropolis, is described as what?

Plaka is the oldest district of Athens, built over ancient residential quarters and inhabited continuously since antiquity; within it, Anafiotika was built like a Cycladic village by 19th-century settlers from Anafi.

Which Athens suburb hosts the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, designed by Renzo Piano?

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2016 in Kallithea, south of the centre, houses the Greek National Opera and the National Library of Greece beneath a landscaped park.

Line 1 of the Athens Metro first opened in which year?

Line 1 began in 1869 as a steam railway between Piraeus and Thiseio, later extended and electrified; Lines 2 and 3, opened in January 2000, display artefacts dug up during construction.

Athens International Airport, opened in 2001, is named after which statesman?

Athens International Airport 'Eleftherios Venizelos', near Spata east of the city, opened in March 2001 and honours the liberal prime minister who led Greece through the Balkan Wars and the First World War.

The Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, was designed by which architect?

Bernard Tschumi, working with Michael Photiadis, designed the Acropolis Museum, opened in June 2009; glass floors reveal the excavations beneath, and the top gallery is aligned with the Parthenon to display its sculptures.

Which Athens institution holds the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities?

The National Archaeological Museum on Patission Street holds the world's richest collection of Greek antiquities, including the Mask of Agamemnon from Mycenae, spanning more than 5,000 years from the late Neolithic to Roman Greece.

Athens claims to have more of what than any other city in the world?

Athens counts 148 theatrical stages, more than any other city in the world, ranging from ancient open-air theatres to the many small playhouses that fill its winter season.

Elefsina, west of Athens, held Europe's official temperature record until 2021 with what reading?

Elefsina recorded 48.0 °C on 10 July 1977, the official European maximum until a 48.8 °C reading at Floridia in Sicily on 11 August 2021 was validated.

Which two clubs, from Athens and Piraeus, are the 'eternal enemies' of Greek football?

Panathinaikos and Olympiacos contest the 'derby of the eternal enemies'; Panathinaikos reached the 1971 European Cup final at Wembley, and Olympiacos became the first Greek club to win a European trophy, the 2023-24 Conference League.

How many EuroLeague titles had Panathinaikos's basketball team won by the end of 2024?

Panathinaikos won seven EuroLeague titles, in 1996, 2000, 2002, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2024; Olympiacos had three, and AEK in 1968 became the first Greek team to win a European team trophy.

What was the name of the Athenian founder-king who judged the contest between Athena and Poseidon?

Cecrops was said to be half man, half serpent; Theseus later unified Attica.

The National Garden of Athens, completed in 1840, lies between Parliament and which building?

The 15.5-hectare garden was Queen Amalia's project; the Zappeion hosted fencing at the 1896 Games.

What was Athens's population when it became capital in 1834?

When King Otto moved the capital there in 1834, Athens had only about 4,000 inhabitants, the War of Independence having reduced it to a cluster of houses below the Acropolis.

Athens is described as the southernmost capital on which landmass?

Athens is the southernmost capital on the European mainland; Valletta and Nicosia lie further south but on the islands of Malta and Cyprus.

Besides the Acropolis, which other Athens site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

Daphni Monastery, on the old Sacred Way to Eleusis west of the centre, was inscribed in 1990 together with Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni for its 11th-century Byzantine mosaics, including a famous Christ Pantocrator.

Which UNESCO title did Athens hold for 2018?

UNESCO named Athens World Book Capital for 2018, citing its year-long programme of reading events; the city had been the first European Capital of Culture in 1985.

How many countries competed at the 2004 Athens Olympics?

A then-record 201 National Olympic Committees sent 10,625 athletes to contest 301 events in 2004; the flame was lit at Ancient Olympia on 25 March 2004.

The pedestrian archaeological walk through Athens ends just past which sanctuary in Thiseio?

The walk starts by the Temple of Olympian Zeus, follows Dionysiou Areopagitou and Apostolou Pavlou beneath the Acropolis, and ends past the Temple of Hephaestus, the best-preserved Doric temple in Greece, in Thiseio.

On which hill did the ancient Athenian citizens' Assembly, the Ekklesia, meet?

The Ekklesia met on the Pnyx, a hill west of the Acropolis, where a rock-cut platform, the bema, served as the speakers' stand; orators such as Demosthenes addressed the citizens there.

What colour is Line 1 of the Athens Metro, the oldest line, running from Piraeus to Kifissia?

Line 1 is the Green Line: its 24 stations cover 25.6 km from Piraeus to Kifissia, with transfers to the blue Line 3 at Monastiraki and the red Line 2 at Omonia and Attiki.

Athens lost its bid to host the 1996 Summer Olympics to which city?

Atlanta beat Athens in the 1990 IOC vote for the 1996 centenary Games; Athens won the right to host its second Games at a vote in Lausanne on 5 September 1997.

What was Kerameikos, one of the three points of the first modern city plan of Athens, in ancient times?

Kerameikos was the potters' quarter and the main cemetery of ancient Athens, outside the Dipylon gate; the 1833 city plan made it one corner of a triangle with the Acropolis and the new royal palace.

Which American-born soprano settled in Athens in 1937 and debuted with the Greek National Opera?

Maria Callas, born in New York in 1923, moved to Athens with her mother in 1937, studied at the Athens Conservatoire under Elvira de Hidalgo and sang her first leading roles with the Greek National Opera.

The Athens Festival, running from May to October, is staged in which ancient venue?

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a Roman-era stone theatre built in 161 AD on the south slope of the Acropolis, seats about 5,000 and is the main stage of the Athens Festival each summer.

In which year did the Fourth Crusade conquer Athens?

Athens fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the year Constantinople was sacked, and became the seat of a Latin duchy; it passed from the Latins to the Ottomans in 1458.

Athens became the first European city to appoint what kind of official in response to rising temperatures?

In 2021 Athens appointed Eleni Myrivili as Europe's first chief heat officer, tasked with cooling a city whose urban heat island makes it one of the hottest capitals on the continent.

The 'Athens Trilogy' on Panepistimiou Street comprises the Academy, the National Library and what?

All three neoclassical buildings went up in the mid-19th century.

Along with the Cephissus and the Ilisos, which stream is counted among the historical rivers of Athens?

The Eridanos, a small stream that flowed through the ancient Agora and out through the Kerameikos district, was channelled underground in antiquity; its bed was uncovered during construction of Monastiraki metro station.

How many municipalities make up the Athens metropolitan area?

The Athens metropolitan area comprises 58 municipalities across seven regional units of Attica, with a combined population of 3,744,059 at the 2021 census.

Which mountain bounds the Athens Basin to the west?

Mount Aigaleo, the lowest of the four mountains round Athens at 468 m, closes the basin on the west and separates it from the Thriasian Plain around Elefsina.

AEK, the third of Greater Athens's big multi-sport clubs, is based in which suburban town?

AEK, founded in 1924 by refugees from Constantinople, is based in Nea Filadelfeia, a refugee settlement north of the centre, where its stadium opened in 1930.