History of Athens name edit
This is the name section of History of Athens
Name edit
Origin and etymology edit
In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι (Athênai, pronounced [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯] in Classical Attic) a plural. In earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη (Athḗnē).[1] It was possibly rendered in the plural later on, like those of Θῆβαι (Thêbai) and Μυκῆναι (Μukênai).
The name of Athens, connected to the name of its patron goddess Athena, originates from an earlier Pre-Greek language.[2]
The root of the word is probably not of Greek or Indo-European origin,[3] and is possibly a remnant of the Pre-Greek substrate of Attica.[3] In antiquity, it was debated whether Athens took its name from its patron goddess Athena (Attic Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnâ, Ionic Ἀθήνη, Athḗnē, and Doric Ἀθάνα, Athā́nā) or Athena took her name from the city.[4] Modern scholars now generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city,[4] because the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names.[4]
Foundation myth edit
The origin myth explaining how Athens acquired this name through the legendary contest between Poseidon and Athena was described by Herodotus,[5] Apollodorus,[6] Ovid, Plutarch,[7] Pausanias and others. It even became the theme of the sculpture on the west pediment of the Parthenon. Both Athena and Poseidon requested to be patrons of the city and to give their name to it, so they competed with offering the city one gift each. Poseidon produced a spring by striking the ground with his trident,[8] symbolizing naval power.
Athena created the olive tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. The Athenians, under their ruler Cecrops, accepted the olive tree and named the city after Athena. (Later the Southern Italian city of Paestum was founded under the name of Poseidonia at about 600 BC.) A sacred olive tree said to be the one created by the goddess was still kept on the Acropolis at the time of Pausanias (2nd century AD).[9] It was located by the temple of Pandrosus, next to the Parthenon. According to Herodotus, the tree had been burnt down during the Persian Wars, but a shoot sprung from the stump. The Greeks saw this as a symbol that Athena still had her mark there on the city.[5]
According to the ancient Athenian founding myth, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, competed against Poseidon, the God of the Seas, for patronage of the yet-unnamed city;[10] they agreed that whoever gave the Athenians the better gift would become their patron[10] and appointed Cecrops, the king of Athens, as the judge.[10] According to the account given by Pseudo-Apollodorus, Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring welled up.[10] In an alternative version of the myth from Vergil's poem Georgics, Poseidon instead gave the Athenians the first horse.[10] In both versions, Athena offered the Athenians the first domesticated olive tree.[10][11] Cecrops accepted this gift[10] and declared Athena the patron goddess of Athens.[10][11] Eight different etymologies, now commonly rejected, have been proposed since the 17th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος (áthos) or ἄνθος (ánthos) meaning "flower", to denote Athens as the "flowering city". Ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- (tháō, thē-, "to suck") to denote Athens as having fertile soil.[12] Athenians were called cicada-wearers (Ancient Greek: Τεττιγοφόροι) because they used to wear pins of golden cicadas. A symbol of being autochthonous (earth-born), because the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus was an autochthon or of being musicians, because the cicada is a "musician" insect.[13] In classical literature, the city was sometimes referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindar's ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι (iostéphanoi Athânai), or as τὸ κλεινὸν ἄστυ (tò kleinòn ásty, "the glorious city").
Philosophical etymologies edit
Plato, in his dialogue Cratylus, offers his own etymology of Athena's name connecting it to the phrase ἁ θεονόα or hē theoû nóēsis (ἡ θεοῦ νόησις, 'the mind of god').[14]
Prehistory edit
Neolithic edit
Athens has been inhabited from Neolithic times, possibly from the end of the fourth millennium BC, or over 5,000 years.[15]
Bronze Age edit
By 1412 BC, the settlement had become an important center of the Mycenaean civilization and the Acropolis was the site of a major Mycenaean fortress whose remains can be recognised from sections of the characteristic Cyclopean walls.[16] On the summit of the Acropolis, below the later Erechtheion, cuttings in the rock have been identified as the location of a Mycenaean palace.[16] Between 1250 and 1200 BC, to feed the needs of the Mycenaean settlement, a staircase was built down a cleft in the rock to reach a water supply that was protected from enemy incursions,[17] comparable to similar works carried out at Mycenae.
The dark age edit
Unlike other Mycenaean centers, such as Mycenae and Pylos, it is unclear whether Athens suffered destruction in about 1200 BC, an event traditionally attributed to a Dorian invasion (though now commonly attributed to a systems collapse, part of the Late Bronze Age collapse). The Athenians always maintained that they were 'pure' Ionians with no Dorian element.[citation needed] However, Athens, like many other Bronze Age settlements, went into economic decline for around 150 years following this.
The Iron Age edit
Iron Age burials, in the Kerameikos and other locations, are often richly provided for and demonstrate that from 900 BC onwards Athens was one of the leading centres of trade and prosperity in the region; as were Lefkandi in Euboea and Knossos in Crete.[18] This position may well have resulted from its central location in the Greek world, its secure stronghold on the Acropolis and its access to the sea, which gave it a natural advantage over inland rivals such as Thebes and Sparta.
According to legend, Athens was formerly ruled by kings, a situation which may have continued up until the 9th century BC. From later accounts, it is believed that these kings stood at the head of a land-owning aristocracy known as the Eupatridae (the 'well-born'), whose instrument of government was a Council which met on the Hill of Ares, called the Areopagus and appointed the chief city officials, the archons and the polemarch (commander-in-chief). The most famous king of Athens was Theseus, a prominent figure in Greek Mythology who killed the Minotaur.
Proto-history edit
During this period, Athens succeeded in bringing the other towns of Attica under its rule. This process of synoikismos – the bringing together into one home – created the largest and wealthiest state on the Greek mainland, but it also created a larger class of people excluded from political life by the nobility. By the 7th century BC, social unrest had become widespread, and the Areopagus appointed Draco to draft a strict new code of law (hence the word 'draconian'). When this failed, they appointed Solon, with a mandate to create a new constitution (in 594 BC).
- ^ As for example in Od.7.80 Archived 18 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Name of Athena". greeka.com.
- ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2009), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden and Boston: Brill, p. 29
- ^ a b c Burkert, Walter (1985), Greek Religion, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, p. 139, ISBN 0-674-36281-0
- ^ a b Herodotus, The Histories, 8.55
- ^ Bibliotheca, 3.14
- ^ Plutarch, Themistocles Them. 19
- ^ Instead of a spring, Ovid says Poseidon offered a horse.
- ^ [Pausa%3D1%3Achapter%3D27%3Asection%3D2 Paus. 1.27.2]
- ^ a b c d e f g h Kerényi, Karl (1951), The Gods of the Greeks, London, England: Thames and Hudson, p. 124, ISBN 0-500-27048-1
- ^ a b Garland, Robert (2008). Ancient Greece: Everyday Life in the Birthplace of Western Civilization. New York: Sterling. ISBN 978-1-4549-0908-8.
- ^ Great Greek Encyclopedia, vol. II, Athens 1927, p. 30.
- ^ "ToposText". topostext.org. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
- ^ Plato, Cratylus, Plat. Crat. 407b
- ^ Immerwahr, S. 1971. The Athenian Agora XII: the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Princeton.
- ^ a b Iakovides, S. 1962. 'E mykenaïke akropolis ton Athenon'. Athens.
- ^ Broneer, Oscar. 1939. 'A Mycenaean Fountain on the Athenian Acropolis', Hesperia VIII.
- ^ Osborne, R. 1996, 2009. Greece in the Making 1200 – 479 BC.