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Ancient Athens consisted of both the city and the Attic peninsula, which extends southward into the AEGEAN SEA (BA 59). Inhabitants of the numerous towns and villages (demes) in the Attic countryside were as much Athenian citizens as those who dwelled in the urban center (Houby‐Nielsen 2009). The city itself was on a large coastal plain in northwest Attica, ringed by mountains, and grew up around the ACROPOLIS, a 156 meter‐high bluff at the southwestern end of the classical city (Hurwit 1999, 3–11). This was the location of the fortified citadel and main religious sanctuary of classical Athens, though numerous other TEMPLES AND SANCTUARIES surrounded the base of the hill (Wycherly 1978, 175–202). To the northwest of the Acropolis lay the AGORA, an open space that served as both civic center and marketplace (Camp 2001, 1–10; Wycherly 1978, 27–103). About 500 meters northwest of the Agora was the potters’ quarter, or Kerameikos, which also served as a cemetery (Wycherly 1978, 253–60).

Figure 8 Artist’s reconstruction of the Athenian acropolis in the late fifth century BCE. Charlotte M. Yonge (1882). A Pictorial History of the World’s Great Nations from the Earliest Dates to the Present Times, Vol. 1. New York, Selmar Hess (drawing by Friedrich Thiersch, 88).

To the southwest of the Agora is the AREOPAGUS, or “Hill of Ares.” This was the meeting place of the powerful council of elders that took its name from the location. Southwest of the Areopagus is the Pnyx, a huge theater carved from the rock where the ASSEMBLY gathered. PEIRAEUS, the great port of Athens, is approximately seven kilometers to the west on a rocky peninsula featuring three natural HARBORS, which were instrumental in the operation of the Athenian fleet and crucial to Athens’ extensive sea‐borne TRADE. In 479 BCE, at the urging of THEMISTOCLES, the Athenians built WALLS around the entire city, eventually including two Long Walls between the city and Peiraeus. This allowed access to the SEA while protecting the city from attacks by land (Thuc. 1.90–93, 107; Conwell 2008; Camp 2001, 3–10; Wycherly 1978, 7–25, 261–66).