Βάλετε ήχο.

Athens, the City of Cities, of

wisdom, of intellect and wit
"Our city (Athens) is recognized -
acknowledged as the most ancient, the
greatest and the most famous –
influential one in the entire world
(Isocrates "Panegyric", 23 -25)
Acropolis of Athens, Parthenon
“Oh you glimmering and violet-crowned world-
renowned Athens, multi-chanted pillar of Hellas
(Greece), inspiring city!” ( Pindar, 518- 438 b.C.)
ATHENS, THE CITY OF CITIES,
OF WISDOM

ΒΥ A. KRASSANAKIS
Director, Ministry of Culture
& President, Personnel Department
TRANSLATION IN ENGISH
Art Perdikis
“Fortunate is he who knows and understands
history”, Euripides (485-406, b.C.)
General view of Athens,
Acropolis, odium etc
Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens
 THE CONSTRUCTION (BUILTING)
OF ATHENS

The city of the Athenians, according to Apollothoros

(ancient writer), was built by the king of Attica
Kekrops, who reigned according to the Pario
Chronicle the year 1318 prior to the Diognito =
1582 b.C., and for the city’s name invited the Gods
to compete…..
 First came to compete the god of the sea, Poseidon,
who proposed to king Kekrops that the city be named
after him, that is to say be named "Poseidonia" and as a
reward he would declare the city ruler of the seas. Of
course, in order to prove the validity of his commitment
he struck with his trident the enormous rock of the hill
(the rock of Acropolis) and from this action
immediately sprung seawater…..
Afterwards came Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who
proposed to Kekrops that the city be named after her,
that is to say be named "Athena" and that she would
reward the city with prosperity. Of course, in order to
prove the validity of her commitment she struck the
rock of the hill with her spear and from this action
immediately grew an olive tree…….
 Shortly thereafter, the 12 Olympian gods (i.e. Zeus,
Hera, Poseidon, Demetra, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus,
Aphrodite, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hestia) as critics
of the competition, declared Athena the victor,
whose wisdom helped create the magnificent city-
state of Athens with its unsurpassed Athenian
culture…..
GODDES ATHENA
The Academy of Athens
GOD APOLLO
 ORIGIN OF THE ATHENIANS

• The Athenians were of Hellenic (Greek) and

particularly Pelasgian origin, according to
Herodotus (H, 44). Pelasgians were called the
natives, the first residents (indigenous) of
Greece, whose main sects (races) were, the:
Ionians, Achaeans', Dorians and the Aeolians.
 According to Pario Chronicle, Herodotus, D.
Sikeliotis, Stravon etc, in 1500 b.C. the Danaeans,
the Kadmeans and the Jews were expelled from
Egypt and from them the Danaeans went to Greece
and mixed with the Achaeans of Argos (=
Peloponnese, and thus Achaeans = Danaeans =
Argoes) and the Kadmeans via Egypt and Phoenicia
went to Viotia where they built the city of Thebes, in
memory of (Egyptian) Thebes.
 The Athenian ancient writers: Xenofon (Epitaph 4), Plato
(Menexenos, 245 c-d), Isocrates etc called the Athenians
‘natives’ and also ‘noble’ Greeks, that is to say superior and
genuinely pure, (autochthonous, endemic) Greeks, because:

A) in Attica there had never lived any barbarians, as there had

been in Peloponnesus where the Pelopes and Danaeans had
gone and in Viotia where the Kadmeans or Thebans had gone.

B) The Athenians had never conquered any other Greeks, as had

done for example the Dorian Spartans who had left from Sterea
Hellas (Dorida) and had gone and occupied (conquests) their
Achaeans (Messenians, Argoians, and others) in Peloponnesus.
The Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens,
The Caryatides, Acropolis, Athens,
The Odeon of Herodes Atticus,
under the Acropolis
 ATHENS’S CONTRIBUTION
(OFFERING) TO THE WORLD
Herodotus (History), Plato (Menexenos, Laws D,
106), Stravon, Diodorus and others report that
due to the heroes and the dead of Athens and
Sparta in the ground-fields and naval sea-
battles: Thermopiles, Plataies, Salamis and
others that not only Greece, but the entire
continent of Europe avoided becoming the land
of barbarians.
 “For Athens alone among her contemporaries is
found when tested to be greater than her
reputation”, Pericles’s Funeral Oration, Thucydides
(431 b.C.)
 Ippias the Illios (Plato’s Protagoras, 337 D)
calls ancient Athens "rector of wisdom"
and Diodoros Sikeliotis (1st century b.C..)
"common training school of all humanity".
ΠΑΛΙΑ ΒΟΥΛΗ,
ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΣ ΚΟΛΟΚΟΤΡΩΝΗΣ,
 ATHENS, THE CITY
OF WISDOM, of INTELLECT and WIT
Following the Persian wars, Athens becomes the city of Wisdom,
intellect, letters and arts. Expressly, Plutarch (Lycurgus and
Solon), Diogenes Laertius (Epimenides), Plato (Laws and
Minos) as well as others report that the Spartans with
Lycurgus and the Athenians with Solon copied the Cretan
State’s laws, constitution, etc. (Minoan culture) and thus, they
polished and refined their civilization and prospered. In the
times that followed, the Athenians developed even more the
nurturing of the mind, in the arts, letters and sciences while
the Spartans concentrated on the development of the body
and in military arts.
Athens had a library from the 7th century b.C. and it
is also the homeland of Socrates, Plato, Aeschylus,
Sophocles, Euripides ... and.... and.....
• Consequently Athens is the place where
humanism, philosophy, arts & science and
democracy were conceived, developed and
implemented.
• Consequently the offer of Athens in the world
culture is enormous
 "Our city (Athens) has exceeded by so much the
rest of the other people in regard to ‘thought and
reason’, so much so that her students have
become schoolteachers of others whereby the
name of the Greeks is being used henceforth not
as defining our origin, but to define the cultivated
mind and to call even much more Greeks those
who possess our own education and training,
instead of those who belong to the same race with
us.". (Isocrates, "Panegyrikos, 50").
Demosthenes the orator with his reasoning
speeches prompted the Greeks to bestow upon
Athens the hegemony of all Greece, because it is
the city of wisdom (intelligent) and from wisdom
(through discoveries and inventions) all people
profit, instead of Sparta or Pella of Macedonia,
because these were the cities of physical
exercise and force, and that from force no one
benefits except the only one who possesses it.
Εθνική βιβλιοθήκη,
UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS
ΕΘΝΙΚΟ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΚΟ ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟ
The Greek parliament building
The Parliament, Athens,
 THE BIRTH of DEMOCRACY
IN ATHENS

The year 987 prior to Diognito = 1251 b.C.., according

to the Pario Chronicle, Thyseas unites the 12
districts of Attica: Elefsina, Piraeus, Kydathenaeon,
Kekropia etc and imposes that this union be
managed by a body that is constituted by a
representative from each district instead of a king
or one only leader. The people, the population of
Attica that resulted from this unification was
named "municipality" and the new system of
governing "democracy".
In Greek Parliament,
Greek soldier with ethnic
MONUMENT OF UNKNW SOLDIER, EVZONOI = TSOLIADES
Omonoia square
Syntagma square
Ancient agora, Thisio
Metropolitan church
PANATHENIAN STADIUM, 1896
Φάληρο, Στάδιο Ειρήνης και Φιλίας
ΠΕΙΡΑΙΑΣ = PIRAEUS

THE PORT OF ATHENS

ΠΕΙΡΑΙΑΣ =
PIRAEUS
Theater
ΠΕΙΡΑΙΑΣ - PIRAEUS
Center of Piraeus
The historical town of Piraeus
PIRAEUS, CENTRAL PORT
TOURIST PORT OF PIRAEUS = ΠEΙΡΑΙΑΣ, ZEAS
Piraeus, central port
COMMERCIAL PORT OF PIRAEUS
COMMERCIAL PORT OF PIRAEUS = ΕΜΠΟΡΙΚΟ ΛΙΜΑΝΙ ΠEΙΡΑΙΑ
 = GREAT THE SEA-FARING STATE,
THE GREEK STATE OF SEA THEY IS ENORMOUS

SEA-FARING (THALASSOKRATORIA OF)

CRETANS AND ATHENIANS
 Thucydides (A, 3 - 9), Stravon (Geographical 10),
Isocrates (Panathinaikos) and others report that Minoas
(15 century before Christ) was the first Greek to construct
and assemble military naval ships (naval force) and with
it pursued and drove out from the Aegean Sea the
criminal Kares and Phoenicians who had come and
occupied the islands and thus the Cretans became the
first to control the sea (sea-governing, thalassokrators)
and also opening the marine corridors and thus enable
the Greeks to deal and work with naval activities, to gain
wealth, to commute and to prevail.
 Thereafter the Athenians further improved
upon their sea-faring activities and
capabilities. And, Themistokles foreseeing
that the Persians will invade and conquer the
Greeks shielded with walls Piraeus and
simultaneously built many war-ships (trieres,
triremes) and thus Athens from then on
became the first naval force in the world and
the first to militarily defeat the Persians.
 ATHENS COIN
In memory of Themistocles
 Merchant and Military Naval Ships,
Athens Cylix 6 century b.C. ( Louver Museum.)
Greek bireme
Argonauts on board
their ship Argo, 420
- 390 BC. 
Athenian trireme OLYMPIAS, Greek nave
Athenians sailors, trireme curving on a rock, in
Acropolis of Athens.
 TODAY ONCE AGAIN THE GREEKS
ARE SEAFARING (THALASSOCRATORS)

Today the Greek owned merchant marine (ships under

Greek and foreign flag), according to data from the
Ministry of Merchant Marine, once again comprises
the first commercial shipping fleet in the world with
an estimated
The 15.5% of the world’s shipping capacity is Greek.
• AIR PORT “EL. VENIZELOS”
THE AIR PORT OF ATHENS
“EL. VENIZELOS”
ATHENS 2004,
OLYMPICS
Olympic athletic centre of Athens (OAKA)
Olympic Games in 2004
 NEWS PAPER
«PANCRETAN NEWS ΝΕΑ»

FOR MORE SEE:

www.krassanakis.gr