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Athens became a significant
naval power as well as leading culltural center after the Persian invasions.
see Athens.
By the 6th century, widespread social unrest led to the reforms of Solon. These
would pave the way for the eventual introduction of democracy by Cleisthenes in
508. 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 in 490,
and crucially at Salamis in 480.
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 civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides
flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and
Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. 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 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), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta. By the
mid-4th century, the northern Greek kingdom of Macedon was becoming dominant in
Athenian affairs. In 338 the armies of Philip II defeated an alliance of some
of the Greek city-states including Athens and Thebes at the Battle of
Chaeronea,
effectively ending Athenian independence. Later, under Rome, Athens was given
the status of a free city because of its widely admired schools.
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