Attica in the context of "Tetralogy"

Attica (/ˈætɪkə/ AT-ih-kə; Greek: Περιφέρεια Αττικής, romanized: Periféria Attikís, [periˈferi.a atiˈcis]) is an administrative region of Greece that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, the core city of which is the country's capital and largest city, Athens. The region is coextensive with the former Attica Prefecture of Central Greece and covers a greater area than the historical region of Attica.

Classical Athens, known contemporaneously simply as Athens (Ancient Greek: Ἀθῆναι, Athênai [atʰɛ̂ːnai̯]; Modern Greek: Αθήναι, Athine [aˈθine]), was the major urban centre of the notable polis (city-state) of the same name during the classical period (480–323 BC) of ancient Greece, located in Attica, Greece, leading the Delian League in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta and the Peloponnesian League. Athenian democracy was established in 508 BC under Cleisthenes following the tyranny of Isagoras. This system remained remarkably stable, and with a few brief interruptions, it remained in place for 180 years, until 322 BC (amid the aftermath of the Lamian War). The peak of Athenian hegemony was achieved during the Age of Pericles in the 440s and 430s BC.

In the classical period, Athens was a centre for the arts, learning, and philosophy, and it was the home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum. Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and many other prominent philosophers, writers, and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western civilization and as the birthplace of democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then-known European continent.

Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, and focusing on supporting liberty, equality, and security. Although Athens is the most familiar of the democratic city-states in ancient Greece, it was not the only one, nor was it the first; multiple other city-states adopted similar democratic constitutions before Athens. By the late 4th century BC, as many as half of the over one thousand existing Greek cities might have been democracies. Athens practiced a political system of legislation and executive bills. Participation was open to adult, free male citizens (i.e., not a metic, woman or slave). Adult male citizens probably constituted no more than 30 percent of the total adult population.

Solon (in 594 BC), Cleisthenes (in 508–07 BC), and Ephialtes (in 462 BC) contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Cleisthenes broke up the unlimited power of the nobility by organizing citizens into ten groups based on where they lived, rather than on their wealth. The longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles. After his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolutions in 411 and 404 BC, towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts of the system are of this fourth-century modification, rather than the Periclean system. Democracy was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but how close they were to the original forms of democracy is debated.

The Attic calendar or Athenian calendar is the lunisolar calendar beginning in midsummer with the lunar month of Hekatombaion, in use in ancient Attica, the ancestral territory of the Athenian polis. It is sometimes called the Greek calendar because of Athens's cultural importance, but it is only one of many ancient Greek calendars.

Although relatively abundant, the evidence for the Attic calendar is still patchy and often contested. As it was well known in Athens and of little use outside Attica, no contemporary source set out to describe the system as a whole. Further, even during the well-sourced 5th and 4th centuries BC, the calendar underwent changes, not all perfectly understood. As such, any account given of it must be a tentative reconstruction.

The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called the Peloponnesian War, was fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the ancient Greek world. The war remained undecided until the later intervention of the Persian Empire in support of Sparta. Led by Lysander, the Spartan fleet (built with Persian subsidies) finally defeated Athens, which began a period of Spartan hegemony over Greece.

Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. The first phase (431–421 BC) was named the Ten Years War, or the Archidamian War, after the Spartan king Archidamus II, who invaded Attica several times with the full Hoplite army of the Peloponnesian League, the alliance network dominated by Sparta (then known as Lacedaemon). The Long Walls of Athens rendered this strategy ineffective, while the superior navy of the Delian League (Athens' alliance) raided the Peloponnesian coast to trigger rebellions within Sparta. The precarious Peace of Nicias was signed in 421 BC and lasted until 413 BC. Several proxy battles took place during this period, notably the battle of Mantinea in 418 BC, won by Sparta against an ad-hoc alliance of Elis, Mantinea (both former Spartan allies), Argos, and Athens. The main event was the Sicilian Expedition, between 415 and 413 BC, during which Athens lost almost all its navy in the attempt to capture Syracuse, an ally of Sparta.

Slavery was a widely accepted practice in ancient Greece, as it was in contemporaneous societies. The principal use of slaves was in agriculture, but they were also used in stone quarries or mines, as domestic servants, or even as a public utility, as with the demosioi of Athens.

Modern historiographical practice distinguishes between chattel slavery slavery (where the slave was regarded as a piece of property, as opposed to a member of human society) and land-bonded groups such as the penestae of Thessaly or the Spartan helots, who were more like medieval serfs (an enhancement to real estate). The chattel slave is an individual deprived of liberty and forced to submit to an owner, who may buy, sell, or lease them like any other chattel.

The Myrtoan Sea (also Mirtoan Sea and Myrtoum Mare; Greek: Μυρτώο Πέλαγος, romanized: Mirtóo Pélagos Greek pronunciation: [mirˈto.o ˈpelaɣos]) is a subdivision of the Mediterranean Sea that lies between the Cyclades and Peloponnese. It is described as the part of the Aegean Sea south of Euboea, Attica, and Argolis. Some of the water mass of the Black Sea reaches the Myrtoan Sea, via transport through the Aegean Sea (Saundry, Hogan & Baum 2011).

The Saronic Gulf, the gulf of Athens, lies between the Corinth Canal and the Myrtoan Sea.

Attic Greek is the Greek dialect of the ancient region of Attica, including the polis of Athens. Often called Classical Greek, it was the prestige dialect of the Greek world for centuries and remains the standard form of the language that is taught to students of Ancient Greek. As the basis of the Hellenistic Koine, it is the most similar of the ancient dialects to later Greek. Attic is traditionally classified as a member or sister dialect of the Ionic branch.

Kifisia or Kifissia (also Kephisia or Cephissia; Greek: Κηφισιά, pronounced [cifiˈsça]) is a municipality and one of the most affluent northern suburbs in the Athens agglomeration, Attica, Greece, mainly accessed via Kifissias Avenue, running all the way from central Athens up to Theseos Avenue in the suburb of Nea Erythraia. It has traditionally been home to rich Greek families and major Greek political families.