ABSTRACT
In the fifth century BC Athens and the rest of Attica had a total population of probably around 250,000-300,000. Attica measured about fifty miles from the border with Boeotia in the north-west to Cape Sounion in the south-east, and about thirty miles from Eleusis in the south-west to the northern tip of the Bay of Marathon on the north-east coast (see Map 1). This is roughly the same population and geographical size as, in England, Carlisle and the northern half of Cumbria, or Norwich and the eastern half of Norfolk, or, in the United States, about half the size of the state of Delaware. What is remarkable about the small state of Athens and Attica is that 2,500 years ago its inhabitants created, for a period of about two hundred years, a society of such vision and achievements that they have ever since been the subjects of detailed study and, almost universally, of admiration. What did the Athenians do to deserve such attention?
