Alaric I | Alaric enters Athens in 395.

* The Goths, led by Alaric I, invade and devastate Thrace and Macedonia, impose a tribute on Athens, and then turn their sights on the West.

During the Byzantine period, Athens was invaded by the Goths under the commands of Alaric in 396 AD.

Arcadius ' Chamberlain Eutropius allowed Alaric to enter Greece, and he looted Athens, Corinth and the Peloponnese.

In 401 Alaric invaded Italy, but he was defeated by the Roman half-Vandal general Flavius Stilicho at Pollentia ( modern Pollenza ) on April 6, 402.

During the invasion by the Pagan Goth Radagaisus, Alaric remained idle in Illyria.

This, combined with their post-battle rewards, prompted them to raise Alaric " on a shield " and proclaim him king ; according to Jordanes ( a Gothic historian of varying importance, depending upon who is asked ), both the new king and his people decided " rather to seek new kingdoms by their own work, than to slumber in peaceful subjection to the rule of others.

From there Alaric escaped with difficulty, and not without some suspicion of connivance by Stilicho, who supposedly had again received orders to depart.

After spreading desolation through North Italy and striking terror into the citizens of Rome, Alaric was met by Stilicho at Pollentia, today in Piedmont.

Alaric, again outwitted by an enemy's machinations, marched southward and in deadly earnest, began his third siege of Rome.

However, this may be — for our information at this point of the story is meagre — on August 24 410, Alaric and his Visigoths burst in by the Porta Salaria on the northeast of the city.

Nonetheless, the written sources do not mention damages wrought by fire, save the Gardens of Sallust, which were situated close to the gate by which the Goths had made their entrance ; nor is there any reason to attribute any extensive destruction of the buildings of the city to Alaric and his followers.

The Basilica Aemilia in the Roman Forum did burn down, which perhaps can be attributed to Alaric: the archaeological evidence was provided by coins dating from 410 found melted in the floor.

Alaric was succeeded in the command of the Gothic army by his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who married Honorius ' sister Galla Placidia three years later.

According to Gregory of Tours ' account, Alaric was intimidated by Clovis into surrendering Syagrius to Clovis ; Gregory then adds that " the Goths are a timorous race.

In 490, Alaric assisted his fellow Gothic king, Theodoric the Great, in his conquest of Italy by dispatching an army to raise Odoacer's siege of Pavia, where Theodoric had been trapped.

Alaric was forced by his magnates to meet Clovis in the Battle of Vouillé ( Summer 507 ) near Poitiers ; there the Goths were defeated and Alaric slain, according to Gregory of Tours, by Clovis himself.

Alaric displayed similar wisdom in political affairs by appointing a commission to prepare an abstract of the Roman laws and imperial decrees, which would form the authoritative code for his Roman subjects.

The Ark of the Covenant was said to be have been kept in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, surviving the pillages of Rome by Genseric and Alaric I but lost when the basilica burned.

At first Honorius based his capital in Mediolanum, but when the Visigoths under King Alaric I entered Italy in 401 he moved his capital to the coastal city of Ravenna, which was protected by a ring of marshes and strong fortifications.

Honorius, slumbering at Milan was caught unaware and quickly fled to Asti, only to be pursued by Alaric, who marched into Liguria.

In early 408, Stilicho attempted to strengthen his position at court by marrying his second daughter, Thermantia, to Honorius after the death of the empress Maria in 407 Another invasion by Alaric was prevented in 408 by Stilicho when he forced the Roman Senate to pay 4, 000 pounds of gold to persuade the Goths to leave Italy.

This is a public bathing beach, easily accessible by tramway from the center of Athens.

He writes that the Cretan-seer Epimenides, purified Athens after the pollution brought by the Alcmeonidae, and that the seer's expertise in sacrifices and reform of funeral practices were of great help to Solon in his reform of the Athenian state.

* 1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1, 500 years after the original games are banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I.

* 338 BC – A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean.

Athena has been used numerous times as a symbol of a republic by different countries and appears on currency as she did on the ancient drachma of Athens.

J. J. Bachofen advocated that Athena was originally a maternal figure stable in her security and poise but was caught up and perverted by a patriarchal society ; this was especially the case in Athens.

In 2008, Athens was ranked the world's 32nd richest city by purchasing power < ref >

The most famous example is the Acropolis of Athens, which, by reason of its historical associations and the several famous buildings erected upon it ( most notably the Parthenon ), is known without qualification as the Acropolis.

Agathon is portrayed by Plato as a handsome young man, well dressed, of polished manners, courted by the fashion, wealth and wisdom of Athens, and dispensing hospitality with ease and refinement.

The Thebans sent a large army into Thessaly to rescue Pelopidas, but they could not keep the field against the superior cavalry of Alexander, who, aided by auxiliaries from Athens, pursued them with great slaughter.

That Olynthus was backed by Athens and Thebes, rivals to Sparta for the control of Greece, provided them with an additional incentive to break up this growing power in the north.

Although he saved his life by turning informer, he was condemned to partial loss of civil rights and forced to leave Athens.

) Given the exclusionary and ancestral conception of citizenship held by Greek city-states, a relatively large portion of the population took part in the government of Athens and of other radical democracies like it.

The juries were selected by lot from a panel of 600 jurors, there being 600 jurors from each of the ten tribes of Athens, making a jury pool of 6000 in total.

* Meier C. 1998, Athens: a portrait of the city in its Golden Age ( translated by R. and R. Kimber ).

The Greek states of Athens and Eretria allowed themselves to be drawn into this conflict by Aristagoras, and during their only campaigning season ( 498 BC ) they contributed to the capture and burning of the Persian regional capital of Sardis.

In result, the fortification walls of Thasos were torn down, their land and naval ships were confiscated by Athens.

The Second Athenian Empire, a maritime self-defense league, was founded in 377 BC and was led by Athens ; but Athens would never recover the full extent of her power, and her enemies were now far stronger and more varied.

* Excerpt on the geology of Athens from: A Geological Companion to Greece and the Aegean by Michael and Reynold Higgins, Cornell University Press, 1996

* Acropolis of Athens, Full Reconstruction, animation by the Technological Research Institute, University of Santiago de Compostela, on YouTube

In Critias, Plato claims that his accounts of ancient Athens and Atlantis stem from a visit to Egypt by the legendary Athenian lawgiver Solon in the 6th century BC.

An early terrace wall supports a precinct in which are a stoa and some remains of temples ; these were excavated by the British School at Athens in 1894, but little was found.