veloped ; but it was stimulated and enriched by ex. tended political action and political experience. His- tory and philosophy, as the words are understood in modern Europe, had their birth in Athens about the time of the Peloponnesian war. Then first, also, the oratory of the bar and of the popular assembly was sys- tematically cultivated, and the elements of mathemati- cal science were admitted into the education of an ac- complished man. This was the period of the youth of Plato, whose philosophy was destined to leave so deep an impress on the Jewish and Christian schools of Alexandria. Its great effort was to unite the con- templative mysticism of Eastern sages with the accu- rate science of Greece ; to combine, in short, the two qualities — intellectual and moral, argumentative and spiritual — into a single harmonious whole ; and what- ever opinion may be formed of the success which at- tended the experiment, it is not wonderful that so mag- nificent an aim attracted the desires and riveted the attention of thoughtful and contemplative minds for ages afterward. In the imitative arts of sculpture and painting, as well as in architecture, it need hardly be said that Athens carried off the palm in Greece ; yet, in all these, the Asiatic colonies vied with her. Miletus took the start of her in literary composition ;
Coin of Athens
and, under slight conceivable changes, might have be- come the Athens of the world. That Athens after the Peloponnesian war never recovered the political place which she previously held, can excite no surprise — that she rose so high toward it was truly wonderful. Sparta and Thebes, which successively aspired to the "leadership" of Greece, abused their power as fla- grantly as Athens had done, and, at the same time, more coarsely. The never-ending cabals, the treaties made and violated, the coalitions and breaches, the alliances and wars, recurring every few years, destroyed all mutual confidence, and all possibility of again uniting Greece in any permanent form of independence ; and, in consequence, the whole country was soon swallow- ed up in the kingdom of Macedonia. With the loss of civil liberty, Athens lost her genius, her manly mind, and whatever remained of her virtue: she long continued to produce talents, which were too often made tools of iniquity, panders to power, and petty artificers of false philosophy. Under the Roman em- pire, into which it was absorbed with the rest of Greece, its literary importance still continued, and it was the great resort of students from Rome itself. During the Middle Ages it languished under the Ottoman yoke in every respect, but since Greece regained its independ- ence Tin 1834), it has revived (see Schubert, Eeisen, iii, 473 sq.) as the capital of the new European king- dom. (For a detailed account of the history and to- pography of Athens, see the Prtin?/ Cyclopcedia, s. v. ; M'Culloch's Gazetteer, s. v.; Smith's Diet, of Class. Geoejr. s. v. Athenai.) See Greece. In order to understand the localities mentioned in the sacred nar- rative, it may be observed that four hills of moderate height ri<e within the walls of the city. Of these, one to the north-east is the celebrated Acropolis, or citadel, boin^ a square craggy rock of about 150 feet high. Immediately to the west of the Acropolis is a second hill of irregular form, but inferior height, called the
ATHENS
51:
ATHENS
Areopagus. To the south-west rises a third hill, the Pnyx, on which the assemblies of the citizens were held ; and to the south of the latter is a_ fourth hill, known as the Museum. — Kitto. See Areopagus.
A Christian Church existed in Athens soon after the apostolic times, having doubtless been planted by the labors of Paul (although no allusions to it occur in the N. T.), but as the city had no political importance, the Church never assumed any eminent position (see Ba- ronius, Annal. Eccl. an. 354, n. 25, 26). Tradition, however (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii, 4), assigns as its first bishop Dionysius (q. v.) the Areopagito (Acts xvii, 34). There are two points requiring special elucidation con- nected with the N. T. mention of Athens (from Winer):
(1.) Respecting the " altar on which was inscribed, To the Unknown God," referred to in Acts xvii, 23, various opinions have been expressed by interpreters (see Fabric. Bibliogr. antlq, p. 29G ; Wolf, Cur. ii, 12G1 sq. ; Dougtasi Anal. p. 86 sq. ; Kuinol, Comment, iv, 598 sq. ; comp. also Grube [Sogers], De ara ignoti dei, Regiom. 1710; Heller, Be deo ignoto Athen. in Gronov. Thes. vii, 223 sq. ; Schickendanz, De ara ig- noto deo consecrata, Tervest. 1748; Geiger, De ignoto A then, deo, Marb. 1754 ; Wallenius, De deo ignoto, Gryph. 1797; Baden, Diss, arm deo ignoto dicatce, Havn. 1787). It by no means follows from the classi- cal passages usually adduced (Pausan. i, 1, 4; Phi- lostr. Apoll. vi, 3 ; comp. Lucian, Philopatr. 9, 29), that an}' of the single altars mentioned in these writers had the inscription " to unknown gods" (ayvMaroic Stole), in the plural, but more naturally that each was dedi- cated separately to on unknown deity (ayv&OTip 9"«rp) ; yet these instances in the singular must have been col- lectively employed with a plural reference, since they unitedly speak of all such altars. There appear, more- over, to have been several altars in various parts of Athens with the inscription "to an unknown god," a circumstance that is not invalidated by the mention (Pausan. v, 14, 6) of a single (in Elis!) "altar of un- known gods (fiwphe, ayvu"TTU)v Siioi'). One plausible interpretation respecting the altar in question (in Eich- horn's Bibl. d. bibl. Lit. iii, 414) supposes that, as in ancient times the art of writing was not generally known, or but little practised, there were (perhaps several) altars at Athens without any inscription (/3w- /joi avwiwfioi, Diog. Laert. i, 10, 3). Eventually these, when found standing thus indefinite by the religious K K