Classical Athens

The Battle of Haliartus was fought in 395 BC between Sparta and Athens. After the Athenian defeat at the Peloponnesian War, Athens tried to recover, but also gained the support of Boeotia. Dissatisfied with this situation, Sparta sent an army against Athens and was defeated by the Athenians and Boeotians. Lysander, one of Sparta's most successful generals, was killed in this battle. Haliartus marked the start of the Corinthian War, which continued until 387 BC.

Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica region and is the southernmost capital on the European mainland. With its urban area's population numbering over 3.6 million, it is the eighth-largest urban area in the European Union (EU). The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 in 2021, within its official limits, and a land area of 38.96 km (15.04 sq mi).

Athens is one of the world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BCE. According to Greek mythology the city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, but modern scholars generally agree that the goddess took her name after the city. Classical Athens was one of the most powerful city-states in ancient Greece. It was a centre for democracy, the arts, education and philosophy, and was highly influential throughout the European continent, particularly in Ancient Rome. For this reason it is often regarded as the cradle of Western civilisation and the birthplace of democracy in its own right independently from the rest of Greece.

Macedonia (/ˌmæsɪˈdoʊniə/ MASS-ih-DOH-nee-ə; Greek: Μακεδονία, Makedonía), also called Macedon (/ˈmæsɪdɒn/ MASS-ih-don), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, which later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centred on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, and bordered by Epirus to the southwest, Illyria to the northwest, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south.

Before the 4th century BC, Macedonia was a small kingdom with its capital at Aigai, outside of the area dominated by the great city-states of Athens, Sparta and Thebes, and briefly subordinate to the Achaemenid Empire. During the reign of the Argead king Philip II (359–336 BC), Macedonia (with its capital at Pella) subdued mainland Greece and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom through conquest and diplomacy. With a reformed army containing phalanxes wielding the sarissa pike, Philip II defeated the old powers of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. Philip II's son Alexander the Great, leading a federation of Greek states, accomplished his father's objective of commanding the whole of Greece when he destroyed Thebes after the city revolted. During Alexander's subsequent campaign of conquest, he overthrew the Achaemenid Empire and conquered territory that stretched as far as the Indus River. For a brief period, his Macedonian Empire was the most powerful in the world – the definitive Hellenistic state, inaugurating the transition to a new period of Ancient Greek civilization. Greek arts and literature flourished in the new conquered lands and advances in philosophy, engineering, and science spread across the empire and beyond. Of particular importance were the contributions of Aristotle, tutor to Alexander, whose writings became a keystone of Western philosophy.

In ancient Greece the chief magistrate in various Greek city states was called eponymous archon (ἐπώνυμος ἄρχων, epōnymos archōn). "Archon" (ἄρχων, pl. ἄρχοντες, archontes) means "ruler" or "lord", frequently used as the title of a specific public office, while "eponymous" means that he gave his name to the year in which he held office, much like the Roman dating by consular years.

In Classical Athens, a system of nine concurrent archons evolved, led by three respective remits over the civic, military, and religious affairs of the state: the three office holders were known as the eponymous archon (ruler of Athens, the highest political office in the city-state), the polemarch (πολέμαρχος, "war ruler", the commander-in-chief of the Athenian military), and the archon basileus (ἄρχων βασιλεύς, "king ruler", the high priest of the city). The six others were the thesmothetai, judicial officers. Originally these offices were filled from the wealthier classes by elections every ten years. During this period the eponymous archon was the chief magistrate, the polemarch was the head of the armed forces, and the archon basileus was responsible for some civic religious arrangements, and for the supervision of some major trials in the law courts. After 683 BC the offices were held for only a single year, and the year was named after the eponymous archon.

Thermos (/ˈθɜːrmɒs/; also known as Thermon /ˈθɜːrmən/, Thermum; Ancient Greek: Θέρμος or Thermika) was an ancient Greek sanctuary, which served as the regular meeting place of the Aetolian League. Its focal point was the temple of Apollo Thermios of about 630 to 610 BC, "one of the earliest developed Doric temples known and a monument of primary importance for our knowledge of the history of Greek architecture". The most famous survivals are the Archaic terracotta metopes decorated with painted scenes from mythology, which are among the earliest examples of this art form in Greece. What is left of these, and other finds from the site, are now in the museum at Thermos, with a selection of the best pieces in National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Thermos was not a city in the sense of a built-up urban centre like Athens, Argos or Corinth and until a late date the Aetolian League was a loose association with a tribal basis rather than a group of city-states.

Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the state was known as Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων, Lakedaímōn), while "Sparta" referred to its capital, a group of villages in the valley of the Evrotas River in Laconia, in southeastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become one of the major military powers in Greece, a status it retained until 371 BC.

Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami. Thebes' victory over Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended Spartan hegemony and freed Messenia from Spartan rule; the loss of the slave labor this region provided sent the city into terminal decline as a military power, though it retained its independence until its forcible integration into the Achaean League in 192 BC. The city recovered some autonomy after the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC and became a tourist destination during the Roman era, restoring some measure of prosperity. However, Sparta was sacked in 396 AD by the Visigothic king Alaric, and underwent a long period of decline into the medieval period, when much of its population relocated to Mystras. Modern Sparta is a provincial town and the seat of the Laconia regional administration.

In ancient Greece, the drachma (Greek: δραχμή, romanized: drachmḗ, [drakʰmέː]; pl. drachmae or drachmas) was an ancient currency unit issued by many city-states during a period of ten centuries, from the Archaic period throughout the Classical period, the Hellenistic period up to the Roman period. The ancient drachma originated in Greece around the 6th century BC. The coin, usually made of silver or sometimes gold had its origins in a bartering system that referred to a drachma as a handful of wooden spits or arrows. The drachma was unique to each city state that minted them, and were sometimes circulated all over the Mediterranean. The coinage of Athens was considered to be the strongest and became the most popular.

Chaerephon (/ˈkɛrəfən, -ˌfɒn/; Ancient Greek: Χαιρεφῶν, Chairephōn; c. 470/460 – 403/399 BCE), of the Athenian deme Sphettus, was an ancient Greek best remembered as a loyal friend and follower of Socrates. He is known only through brief descriptions by classical writers and was "an unusual man by all accounts", though a man of loyal democratic values.

The festival calendar of Classical Athens involved the staging of many festivals each year. This includes festivals held in honor of Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Persephone, Hermes, and Heracles. Other Athenian festivals were based around family, citizenship, sacrifice, and women. There were at least 120 festival days each year.