什么是雅典

现代希腊语作Athínai

希腊城市（1991年人口772,000）和首都。地处希腊东部的萨罗尼克湾（Saronic Gulf），雅典港口比雷埃夫斯位於湾内。为西方智慧和文化概念来源，亦为民主资源地。原为古代城邦国家，西元前6世纪时开始发挥其影响力。西元前480年被薛西斯一世所毁，後又立即重建。西元前450年在伯里克利的领导下，成为商业繁荣、占尽文化和政治优势的城市。接下来的四十年间，完成了许多重要建筑，如：卫城和巴特农神庙。雅典的黄金时代出现许多着名大师：哲学家有苏格拉底、柏拉图、亚理斯多德；剧作家有：索福克里斯、亚里斯多芬（Aristophanes）、尤利比提斯；历史学家有：希罗多德、修斯提底斯和色诺芬（Xenophon）；雕刻家有：普拉克西特利斯（Praxiteles）和菲迪亚斯。西元前404年，伯罗奔尼撒战争结束，雅典败於斯巴达；但又迅速恢复其独立和繁荣。西元前338年以後，臣服於马其顿，在西元前197年与罗马的库诺斯克法莱战役中曾出兵协助马其顿。西元前146年受罗马统治。13世纪时，雅典被十字军占领，1465年被鄂图曼土耳其人占领至1833年成为独立的希腊的首都为止。雅典目前是希腊重要的商业和对外贸易中心。因有许多遗址和博物馆，使得旅游业很发达。

Athens

City (pop., 1991: 772,000), capital of Greece. It is located inland near its port, Piraeus, on the Saronic Gulf in eastern Greece. The source of many of the West's intellectual and artistic conceptions, including that of democracy, Athens is generally considered the birthplace of Western civilization. An ancient city-state, it had by the 6th century BC begun to assert its influence. It was destroyed by Xerxes in 480 BC, but rebuilding began immediately. By 450 BC, led by Pericles, it was at the height of its commercial prosperity and cultural and political dominance, and over the next 40 years many major building projects, including the Acropolis and Parthenon, were completed. Athens' “Golden Age” saw the works of the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; the dramatists Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides; the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; and the sculptors Praxiteles and Phidias. The Peloponnesian Wars with Sparta ended in Athens' defeat in 404, but it quickly recovered its independence and prosperity. After 338 BC Athens came under Macedonia's hegemony, which was lifted with the aid of Rome in 197 BC in a battle at Cynoscephalae. It became subject to Rome in 146 BC. In the 13th century Athens was taken by the Crusaders. It was conquered in 1456 by the Ottoman Turks, who held it until 1833, when it was declared the capital of independent Greece. Athens is Greece's principal center for business and foreign trade. Its ruins and many museums make it a major tourist destination.