Athens (Greek: Αθήνα, Athína) is the capital of Greece, and also the capital of the Attica region of Greece. In addition to being a modern city, Athens is also famous for being a powerful city-state and a very important center of learning in ancient times. It is named after its patron goddess, Athena.

In Ancient Greek Athens was called Athinai (Αθήναι, plural for Athena), and in the 19th century this name was formally re-adopted as the city's name. Since the official abandonment of Katharevousa Greek in the 1970s, however, the popular form Athina has become the city's official name.

The Greeks were people who migrated to Greece at two different stages. During the Bronze Age civilisations (c. 2000-1050 BC, and later by Hellenic Greeks from the Dorian Invasion at the beginning of the Iron Age.

The Bronze Age Greeks, which I called pre-Hellenic Greeks, occupied Greece around the beginning of Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000 BC), displacing the originally inhabitants, who spoke a non-Greek language. Greek writers had called these people Pelasgi (Pelasgians). What languages that were spoken before the first Greek had settled in this land are unknown. The names of some cities had survived the Greek occupation, such as Tiryns and Corinth on the mainland, and Cnossus on the island of Crete.

The Dorian Invasion (c. 1200-1050 BC) had brought the Hellenic people that spoke three different Greek dialects, Aeolian, Dorian and Ionian. These Hellenic Greeks were the true ancestors of the people living in modern Greece today. The proper name for the Greek people is Hellenes.

In Greek mythology, the Hellenes were descendants of Hellen, the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, survivors of the Deluge.

The Aeolians, Dorians and Ionians were descendants of Hellen's sons, Aeolus and Dorus, and Hellen's grandson Ion.

In the Iliad, Homer often called the Greek forces at Troy as Argives, Danaäns and Achaeans. Though the Achaeans geographically referred either to Achaea, the northern region of Peloponneses, or to Achaea southern region of Thessaly, which is sometimes called Phthiotis. Both Argives and Danaäns more precisely referred to the people of Argolid or the city Argos.

It is in Bronze Age Greece that the people were called pre-Hellenic Greeks, who probably arrived in the early 2nd millennium BC. Before their arrival, Greece was occupied by non-Greeks. Who they were, we are not certain. What we do know is that some of the cities had survived after the arrival of the pre-Helladic Greeks; mainly because of the names of the cities, such as Corinth and Tiryns.

However, there was already a Greek civilisations established in Greece and on the Greek islands, long before the arrivals of the Hellenic people. Evidences of pre-Hellenic people had being founded in sites on the mainland, such as Orchomenus and Thebes in Boeotia, Athens in Attica, Corinth on the isthmus, Lerna, Argos, Tiryns and Mycenae in Argolis, Pylos in Messenia.

The history of Greece during ancient time only existed between the migration period of the Hellenic people and before the fall of Rome. No written literature or history existed before the time until the Greek alphabets were invented shortly after the settlement in Greece was completed.

So between the time of the destruction of Mycenaean centres and the invention of the Greek alphabets, the new of Greece were actually illiterate. This is one of the reasons why this chaotic period was called the Dark Ages.

It was shortly after the invention of the Greek alphabets that the poet Homer composed the epic poem Iliad in the 8th century BC. It was the oldest literature in Greece that had survived, but it had inspired other poets to developed other forms of writing and subjects. Homer had also written the Odyssey, centering on the hero, Odysseus, after the Trojan War. Writing helped preserve the oral traditions, but it also sparked different field of study, such as history, philosophy and science.

It was some time near the end of the Dark Ages in Greece that the Hellenic Greek began a new expansion, mainly east and west (10th-7th century BC). In the East, they colonising much of the western coast of Asia Minor by 950 BC. I have already mentioned them colonising the islands and Asia Minor. They had even ventured into Black Sea. In the south, they founded the city of Cyrene in Libya.

Wealth from trades allowed Athens to flourish in the mid-5th century BC. Arts and architecture reached new heights, when Pericles had the great Parthenon built on the Acropolis, in honour of their great patron goddess, Athena. This perfect temple symbolised the greatness of Athens. Athens was not only a place of wealth and power, it was also a centre of learning. Other fields had reached new heights, such as medicine, science, philosophy and literature. There were many geniuses in Athens that was not to be seen again until the Italian Renaissance. Phidias in arts, Ictinus and Callicrates in architecture. Sophocles and Euripides were great tragedians, while Aristophanes wrote his comedy, ridiculing the Athenian politicians and the heroes of the past. In philosophy, Socrates taught people through asking questions that made people think.

 

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