History

Probably the oldest city in Europe, Athens has been continuosuly inhabited for over 4,500 years, becoming the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BC.
Athens began it's history in the neolithic as a hill-fort, on top of the Acropolis. By 1400 BC the settlement had become an important center of the Mycenaean civilization.

Athens got its name because of the dispute of the gods. The founder of the city was Cercrops, a creature half-man half-snake, and the name of tje city was Cercopia. The Olympian gods wanted to name it after them and become its patron. The rivals were Poseidon, the god of sea, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom. To solve their dispute, the king od gods, Zeus decided that each of them should make a gift to the city. Poseidon struck a rock with his trident and caused a spring of water. Athena planted a seed in the ground and turned into an olive tree. The citizen liked this gift better and named their city Athens; Ahtena become the patron of the city.

During the middle ages, Athens experienced decline and then a recovery under the Byzantine Empire. Athens was relatively prosperous during the Crusades, benefiting from italian trade. Athens re-emerged, after a period of decline under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, in the 19th century as the capital of the independent Greek state.