The ancient Athenians held two major Panhellenic festivals: the Great Panathenaia in celebration of the goddess Athena and the Great Mysteries in honor of Demeter. This chapter compares and contrasts the rituals of these two festivals in relation to the topography and monuments of Athens, focusing on how the celebrations drew together different parts of the community of Athens.

In the Hellenistic period, cities were the cornerstones of imperial rule. Cities were the loci for the acquisition of capital and manpower, and imperial agents (philoi) were recruited for a large part among Greek civic elites. This chapter departs from the dual premise that premodern empires are negotiated enterprises and that they are often networks of interaction rather than territorial states. The relentless competition between three rival superpowers in the Hellenistic Aegean – the Seleukid, Ptolemaic and Antigonid Empires – gave cities a good bargaining position vis-à-vis these empires. The fact that the imperial courts were dominated by philoi from the Aegean poleis moreover meant that these cities held a central and privileged place in Hellenistic imperialism, and benefited greatly from it. Royal benefactions structured imperial-local interactions. They were instrumental in a complex of reciprocal gift-exchange between empires and cities. Empires most of all needed capital, loyalty and military support. As kings were usually short of funds, the gifts by which they hoped to win the support of cities against their rivals often came in the form of immaterial benefactions like the granting of privileges and the protection of civic autonomy.

Athens represents a special case in the history of Greek public benefactions. It is probably the polis that most resisted the emergence of civic euergetism, that is, the establishment of an organized exchange of benefactions for honors between polis and citizens. At the same time, no other classical polis contributed so much to the development of the practice and to its transformation into a defining institution of the Hellenistic age. This chapter examines these two sides of the history of Athenian euergetism in order to explain the widespread integration of citizens into an institution born before the classical period to regulate the relationship between poleis and foreigners. It deals with the reasons for the opposition to donations and honors for citizens, the factors that contributed to overcoming resistance to euergetism, and the elitist content of classical civic euergetism. Finally, it discusses some developments that counterbalanced this elitist component: the ‘democratization’ of euergetism through grants of honors to non-wealthy citizens, the organization of epidoseis, and other measures that served to prevent the rise of a class of great financial benefactors, along with the relaxation of this policy in the time of Lycurgus.

The family was the basis of the Athenian polis, both structurally and conceptually. This chapter supports and investigates that claim by engaging with evidence from three different perspectives: law, drama, and funerary monuments.

Against the common view that the creation of obligations through generosity in gift-giving and hospitality is a pervasive feature of the Homeric world and an antecedent of the classical and later culture of euergetism and benefactions, a survey of the epic evidence shows that this type of generosity is in effect confined to ‘international’ relations. Within Homeric communities, ‘gifts’ are almost always forms of payment for services rendered or tributes to those of higher status, and the flow of wealth is from the community to the elite more than vice-versa. The origins of public benefactions therefore do not lie in a culture of gift-giving but in an ideology of ‘public service’ owed by the elite to the community. In Homer, such service is ideally performed in war, counsel and the administration of justice, but as political and military changes reduced the scope for elite performance in these arenas while public spending needs increased during the archaic period, the community increasingly came to expect financial services instead from the elite.

This chapter presents concluding thoughts by the editors, identifying some of the main themes that have emerged from the chapters, and outlining some areas for further study.

This chapter explores water management in ancient Athens, including the local climate and natural resources of water in the city, underground water installations (e.g. wells, cisterns, aqueducts, and drains), and fountain-houses and bathing facilities. The archaeological evidence is supplemented by inscriptions and ancient texts referring to water legislation, illustrating the role of water in cult and in many other aspects of everyday life.

This chapter deals with sculpture in Athens and Attica in the Archaic and Classical periods. Marble sculpture was introduced to Athens from the Cyclades in the late seventh century. Bronze became the dominant medium for sculpture from the late sixth century on.

Throughout the many centuries of their existence, the Academy, the Peripatos, the Garden, and the Stoa complemented and competed with each other in promoting distinctive ways of being in the world. The development of their philosophical thought amid the historical and topographical realities of ancient Athens turned their adherents into enduring models of how people should think, act, live, and die.

This chapter studies the four branches of the Athenian armed forces. For each branch, it discusses the legal and social positions of branch members, the means by which they were recruited and called up, and the history and the organization of their branch.

Drawing on textual and material evidence, this chapter sketches the topography of different kinds of sex within the built environment of classical Athens. It also examines the role that the social and political structures of the city played in the sex lives of its citizens.

This chapter details the distribution and organization of cemeteries along roads leading out of the ancient city walls and provides an overview of the monuments that adorned burials and plots. In addition, the various types of industrial workshops, sanctuaries, and other structures that populated these cemeteries are discussed.

This chapter explores the history of the Akropolis, the focal point of the cult and the architectural display of the Athenian city-state. It presents of all the buildings with their architectural innovations and sculptural decoration, delving into their meaning and the objectives of their creators.

This chapter traces the life, both public and private, and the career of an Athenian aristocrat of the Late Archaic and Early Classical period, through a combination of textual and archaeological sources, including a major dedication in the Agora and inscriptions on vases praising his beauty in his youth.

In 1833, Athens became the capital of the newly created Kingdom of Greece after some 600 years of foreign domination. The creation of the new capital city from its ruins called upon the talents of local and foreign planners, architects, archaeologists, and philhellenes, who emphasized its Classical heritage and cultural achievements, often at the expense of the practicalities of government and the concerns of the local population.