Ancient Athens

Hegias or Hegesias of Athens (Ancient Greek: Ἡγησίας) was a famous sculptor of Athens, a member of the Late Archaic school of the generation before Pheidias. No surviving work can be securely identified as his, though Pliny mentions a Pyrrhus Supported by Pallas Athena.

Pausanias (8.42.4 and 8.42.10) mentions Hegias as the contemporary of Onatas and of Agelatus of Argos. Lucian of Samosata mentions Hegesias, in common with Kritios and Nesiotes, as belonging to the Archaic school, whose productions were constrained, harsh, stiff and rigid, though accurate in the outline. Quintilian says of Hegesias and Callon that their works were harsh and resembled the Etruscan style. (Smith). Pliny's Natural History (vol. xxxiv.8.19) places Hegias among the rivals of Phidias.

Phalerum or Phaleron (Ancient Greek: Φάληρον Phálēron [pʰálɛːron]; Greek: Φάληρο (Fáliro), [ˈfaliro]) was a port of Ancient Athens, 5 km southwest of the Acropolis of Athens, on a bay of the Saronic Gulf. The bay is also referred to as "Bay of Phalerum" (Greek: Όρμος Φαλήρου Órmos Falíru).

The area of Phalerum is now occupied by the towns Palaio Faliro, Kallithea, Moschato and Neo Faliro, all of which are part of the Athens agglomeration.

Pisistratus (also spelled Peisistratus or Peisistratos; Ancient Greek: Πεισίστρατος Peisistratos; c. 600 BC – 527 BC) was a politician in ancient Athens, ruling as tyrant in the late 560s, the early 550s and from 546 BC until his death. His unification of Attica, the triangular peninsula of Greece containing Athens, along with economic and cultural improvements laid the groundwork for the later pre-eminence of Athens in ancient Greece. His legacy lies primarily in his institution of the Panathenaic Games, historically assigned the date of 566 BC, and the consequent first attempt at producing a definitive version of the Homeric epics. Pisistratus's championing of the lower class of Athens is an early example of populism. While in power, he did not hesitate to confront the aristocracy and greatly reduce their privileges, confiscating their lands and giving them to the poor. Pisistratus funded many religious and artistic programs, in order to improve the economy and spread the wealth more equally among the Athenian people.

Pisistratids is the common family or clan name for the three tyrants, who ruled in Athens from 546 to 510 BC, referring to Pisistratus and his two sons, Hipparchus and Hippias.

Nafpaktos (Greek: Ναύπακτος) or Naupactus, is a town and a former municipality in Nafpaktia, Aetolia-Acarnania, West Greece, situated on a bay on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, 3 km (2 mi) west of the mouth of the river Mornos.

It is named for Naupaktos (Ναύπακτος, Latinized as Naupactus), an important Athenian naval station in the Peloponnesian War. As a strategically crucial possession controlling access to the Gulf of Corinth, Naupaktos changed hands many times during the Crusades and the Ottoman–Venetian Wars. It was under Venetian control in the 15th century, and came to be known by the Venetian form of its name, Lepanto. It fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1499 and was used as a naval station by the Ottoman Navy in the 16th century, being the site of the decisive victory by the Holy League in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Except for a brief period of Venetian control in 1687–1699, Lepanto remained under Ottoman control until Greek independence in 1829.

Astacus or Astakos (Ancient Greek: Ἄστακος) was a town on the west coast of ancient Acarnania, on a bay, one side of which is formed by the promontory anciently named Crithote. Astacus is said to have been a colony of Cephallenia. At the commencement of the Peloponnesian War, it was governed by a tyrant, named Evarchus, who was deposed by the Athenians in 431 BCE, but was shortly afterwards restored by the Corinthians. It is mentioned as one of the towns of Acarnania in a Greek inscription, the date of which is subsequent to 219 BCE.

Its site is located near the modern Astakos.

A scholarch (Ancient Greek: σχολάρχης, scholarchēs) was the head of a school in ancient Greece. The term is especially remembered for its use to mean the heads of schools of philosophy, such as the Platonic Academy in ancient Athens. Its first scholarch was Plato himself, the founder and proprietor. He held the position for forty years, appointing his nephew Speusippus as his successor. The members of the Academy elected later scholarchs.

A list of scholarchs of the four main philosophy schools during the Hellenistic period, with the approximate dates they headed the schools, is as follows:

Colonus or Kolonos (/kəˈloʊnəs/; Ancient Greek: Κολωνός, translit. Kolōnós) was a deme of the phyle Aegeis, of ancient Attica, celebrated as the deme of Sophocles, and the scene of one of the poet's tragedies, was situated ten stadia from the gate of the city, called Dipylum, near Plato's Academy and the river Cephissus. It derived its name from two small but conspicuous heights, which rise from the plain a little to the north of the Academy. Hence it is called by Sophocles "the white Colonus". It was under the especial care of Poseidon, and is called by Thucydides the ἱερόν of this god. It is frequently called Colonus Hippius or Kolonos Hippeios (Κολωνός Ἵππειος) or Hippius Colonus or Hippeios Kolonos (Ἵππειος Κολωνός), both meaning "Colonus of the Horses", to distinguish it from the "Colonus Agoraeus" in Athens. Besides the temple of Poseidon, it possessed a sacred grove of the Eumenides, altars of Athena Hippia, Demeter, Zeus, and Prometheus, together with sanctuaries of Peirithous, Theseus, Oedipus, and Adrastus. According to Greek mythology, Oedipus was buried there, as described by Sophocles, who was born there, in his Oedipus at Colonus. The natural beauties of the spot are described by Sophocles in the magnificent chorus: "Here the nightingale, a constant guest, trills her clear note under the trees of green glades, dwelling amid the wine-dark ivy and the god's inviolate foliage, rich in berries and fruit, unvisited by sun, unvexed by the wind of any storm. Here the reveller Dionysus ever walks the ground, companion of the nymphs that nursed him."

In the Athenian oligarchic revolution of 411 BCE, the oligarchs convened at the sanctuary of Poseidon Hippios at Colonus to frame their new constitution.

A trireme (/ˈtraɪriːm/ TRY-reem; from Latin trirēmis 'with three banks of oars'; cf. Ancient Greek: τριήρης, romanized: triḗrēs, lit. 'three-rower') was an ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greeks and Romans.

The trireme derives its name from its three rows of oars, manned with one man per oar. The early trireme was a development of the penteconter, an ancient warship with a single row of 25 oars on each side (i.e., a single-banked boat), and of the bireme (Ancient Greek: διήρης, diērēs), a warship with two banks of oars, of Phoenician origin. The word dieres does not appear until the Roman period. According to Morrison and Williams, "It must be assumed the term pentekontor covered the two-level type". As a ship, it was fast and agile and was the dominant warship in the Mediterranean from the 7th to the 4th centuries BC, after which it was largely superseded by the larger quadriremes and quinqueremes. Triremes played a vital role in the Persian Wars, the creation of the Athenian maritime empire and its downfall during the Peloponnesian War.

Eion (Ancient Greek: Ἠϊών, Ēiṓn), one of two ancient cities named Chrysopolis, was an ancient Greek Eretrian colony in Thracian Macedonia specifically in the region of Edonis. It sat at the mouth of the Strymon River which flows into the Aegean from the interior of Thrace. It is referred to in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War as a place of considerable strategic importance to the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War.

Athenians for the first time attempted to capture Eion in 497 BC during the Ionian Revolt, which was unsuccessful as the revolt ended with Persians re-establishing control over the Thrace, including Eion, and a Persian fortress meant for permanent stay was built there, probably in 492 BC. Eion functioned as one of the main Achaemenid cities in Thrace where food was stored for the Persian king Xerxes I and his great armies. Herodotus and Diodorus speak of Persian garrisons, of which the one at Eion was amongst them, which meant that its senior commander was apparently ethnically Persian. Xerxes had recalled most of the Persian troops from the area in the winter of 480/479 BC. It was then captured by the Delian League in 476 BC under the leadership of the Athenian general Cimon, the son of Miltiades the Younger, who started a siege on the city. Refusing Cimon's offer of an honorable withdrawal, the Persian commander Boges destroyed the treasure, killed his family, and committed suicide as the food ran out. Cimon turned the course of the River Strymon so that it flowed against the city walls, causing the mud brick fortifications to dissolve. The inhabitants were enslaved. The capture of Eion was the beginning of a military campaign undertaken by the newly formed Delian League, whose objective was to clear the Aegean Sea of Persian fleets and pirates in order to facilitate Athenian access to the Hellespont.