Athens : Innercities Cultural Guides

Athens is an historical anomaly. Excavations date itsfirst settlement to over seven thousand years ago, yet itonly became the capital of Greece in 1834. During theintervening centuries it was occupied by almost everymobile culture in Europe: from its earliest likelysettlers, tribes from what is now Albania, to Nazi forcesduring the second World War, and in between by successivewaves of Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Slavs, Goths,Venetians, French, Catalans, Turks, Italians, Bulgariansand the clans of various kings and tyrants of theregion's early city-states. There has been a structure onits 'high city', the acropolis, since at least the bronzeage, although it was subsequently altered by successiveoccupiers, becoming a fort, castle, temple, mosque,church and even a harem. its 'Golden Age' peaked in thefifth century BCE, with the great building projects ofPericles and Themistocles, and its later history is oneof a city already nostalgic for its past, although at atime when other European cities had yet to beginconstructing a past.