Архитектура Строительство_Ин Яз

During this period the city's water supply sdll came from springs on the slopes of the Acropolis or from wells. The discovery near Syntagma Square of a rock-cut aqueduct and a well point to the square having been an open-air sanctuary of some kind. Later the Lyceum and the Garden of Theophrastos may have occupied the site. The Dissos and Eridanos rivers also supplied water.

More detail is known about the Athenian constitution and political history from the beginning of the yth century BC. The first list giving the names of the annually elected archons dates from 682 BC.

The nine archons were the basileus (matters of religion), the polemarch (military leader), the eponymos (after whom the year was named) and six thesmothetai (legislators). The Areopagus (Council of Nobles) was primarily a law court but they also supervised the archons' exercise of executive power and monitored the application of the laws.

The development of Athens as a commercial and industrial force during the yth century BC brought with it political conflicts and the old social system was thrown out of balance. The artisans and peasantry attempted to secure political rights from the nobles, who had earlier taken over the royal powers and divided the hereditary offices amongst themselves. The situation was worsened by a severe plague.

A nobleman called Kylon tried to take advantage of this popular dissatisfaction. With his adherents he occupied the Acropolis in 636 BC but failed to gain sufficient support from the people to succeed in a coup d'etat. However, the class struggle continued. One basic popular demand was for codification of the law, and this was done by Dracon in 624 BC on the commission of the nobles. However, the severity of the Draconian Code left everyone still unsatisfied. In 594 BC Sokm was elected archon and given special powers to amend the form of government. A major grievance had been that a creditor might sell his debtor into slavery if he defaulted. Solon's first measure was to cancel all debts where this had been made and to forbid enslavement for debt. He promulgated a new constitution which consolidated the newly arisen class system called the Timocracy, based upon property distinctions and income. There were four classes: the Pentakosiomedimnoi (those with an income equivalent to 500 medimnoi of grain), the Hippeis (knights with an income of 300 medimnoi), the Zeugitai (yeomen, owners of a pair of oxen) and the Thetes. He limited the Council of the Areopagus to judicial matters and instituted a Council of Four Hundred (Boule) to take over its deliberative functions and ensure continuity of government. However, election to archonship was still restricted to the highest class - the Pentakosiomedimnoi - although an archon no longer needed to be of noble birth. Solon gave teeth to the Assembly (ekklesia) which became the supreme controller of public affairs and to which the Thetes were also admitted. To ensure impartial administration of justice, tribunals (heliaia) were set up with 5,000 full and 1,000 supplementary members. The Thetes were also admitted to these, while junior public office could be held by the Zeugitai. The Thetes were exempted from taxes and public works were financed entirely from levies on the richest two classes.

Solon's epoch saw the first attempt at systematic town-planning in the area north-west of the Acropolis.. The main square was transferred to the north of the

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Areopagus and the outlines of the Solonian Agora began to take shape. The oldest Council House (Bouleuterion) was built in Solon's time.

Several private houses were pulled down in the area allocated for the Agora and burials were forbidden there.

During the early decades of the 6th century, after the implementation of Solon's reforms, three political groups developed in Athens: the old landowners of the plains (pediakoi); the coastal inhabitants (paralioi) including the merchants and mariners; and the inhabitants of the surrounding hills (diakrioi), the poor people of the Attic mountains, mostly wood-cutters, charcoal burners and cattle-breeders. The latter group was headed by Peisistratos, who in 561 BC seized the Acropolis and established autocratic rule (tyrannis) over Athens. He made it his concern to remedy the wrongs of the poor; he had roads built to provide easy access to the administrative centre of the city and granted credits to the farmers. He also introduced income tax, set pu mobile courts to administer justice in the villages, gave active support to trade and the crafts, and promoted the development of shipping, so that Athens turned into a major economic and cultural centre during his time.

Under Peisistratos the Athenians had their first coins minted when the Corinthian monetary system was founded in 575 BC.

It is believed that a shrine to Athena Nike was built just outside the Acropolis gates in 566 BC. Between 560-550 BC a large Doric temple dedicated to Athena was built on the Acropolis, perhaps on the site later occupied by the Parthenon. At around 566 BC the Greater Panathenaia, celebrated every four years, became the main festival of Athens for a thousand years.

A building resembling a house, erected in the south-west corner of the Agora near the Council House in the mid-6th century BC, on the site later used for the Tholos, may have been the residence of Peisistratos himselfThe temple of Apollo Patroos on the west side of the Agora was also built around the middle of the 6th century BC. Another important building was the office of the basileus. the archon whose task was to direct the state religious ceremonies and preside over certain trials. The Stoa Basileios, erected at the end of the archaic period, was also the office where the ancient laws of Athens were preserved and where the Nine Archons took the oath to observe them. The sons of Peisistratos began the building of a huge temple to Olympian Zeus which was not completed until the 2nd century AD. The Old Temple of Athena was built on the Acropolis, south of the Erechtheion, between 525 and 520 BC. Only the foundations are still in place but enough of the architecture and sculpture has been found to permit an accurate reconstruction.

Around 520 BC the South-east Fountain House in the Agora and the Altar of The Twelve Gods were completed.

At this time Athens had three gymnasia: the gymnasium at the Academy; the Lykeion (Lyceum) named after Apollo Lykios; the Kynosarges gymnasium with a sanctuary of Herakles near the present-day church of St Panteleimon.

We know little about how Athens was laid out as a city at that time. Traces of private houses have been found south-west of the Agora by the modern road

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Leophoros Apostolou Pavlou. These finds clearly show that the streets were irregular and unauthorized building often took place as the strict building regulations issued later by Hippias confirm. The Peisistratid aqueduct served the Athenians for several hundred years. The residential area soon spread beyond the city walls, where the richer. citizens built their homes.

The tyranny took a turn for the worse under the sons of Peisistratos. One of them, Hipparchos, was murdered at the Panathenaic festival of 514 BC, which spurred the other son, Hippias, to still greater despotism. The fight for power ended with victory for the people of Athens who in 510 BC drove Hippias into exile; he went to the court of the king of Persia.

With Kleisthenes' rise to power in 508 BC Athens entered upon a period of democracy: his constitution put an end to the rule of the aristocracy. Most of the civic buildings needed for the legislative and administrative functions of the democracy were put up in the Agora. The Assembly met on nearby Pnyx Hill.

The city flourished, trade and the crafts developed and there were plenty of opportunities open both to Athenians and immigrants. However, the new democracy soon had to fight for survival against the despotic eastern empire of Persia.

During the Persian Wars Athens leading statesman was Themistocles, who put comprehensive military plans into action, gave Athens a strong fleet and developed the harbour of the Piraeus. When the Persians advanced in 480 BC he ordered the evacuation of the dty. The Persians entered Athens and devastated the Acropolis. After their defeat at Salamis in 479 BC a new dty wall was built. Piraeus and its harbour were also fortified. The debris of private houses and public buildings and even tombstones were used as building material. Besides providing for the defence of Athens, the idea was to ensure uninterrupted communication between Athens and Piraeus in case of war, and so the Long Walls - the North Long Wall and the Phaleron Wall - were started to provide safe access to the port of Athens. However, the implementation of the project extended well into the second and even into the third quarter of the 5th century BC. It is estimated that the walls around Athens and Piraeus endosed an area of 15 million square metres.

While Themistocles gave top priority to fortifying the dty, Kimon, the leading statesman of the second quarter of the century, concentrated on reconstruction. He built the Tholos and Stoa Poikile in the Agora and also the Theseion, the shrine containing the bones of Theseus.

After Kimon's expulsion from Athens in 462 BC, the administration of the dty passed into the hands of Pericles. Under his government democracy in Athens reached the peak of its development. In 448 BC Pericles set about his main building project on the Acropolis.

The main gateway of the dtadel, the Old Propylon, may have been built around 500 BC; it was replaced by the Periclean Propylaia built in 432427 BC.

The Older Parthenon had begun after 490 BC and was destroyed by the Persians while it was under construction. In 448-432 BC it was replaced by the new Parthenon, a votive temple dedicated to Athena Polias, the architectural culmination of the Doric style. The Erechtheion, an Ionic temple with the old cult

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statue of Athena Polias, was built after the death of Pericles. The graceful Ionic temple of Athena Nike was the last building erected on the Acropolis in the 5th century BC. At the same time important building operations were in progress within and outside Athens.

In the age of Pericles Athens was the scene of bustling artistic activity. Outstanding personalities like Pheidias, Agorakritos, Kallimachos, Iktinos, Thukydides, Anaxa-goras, Kallikrates, Mnesicles and Hippodamos lived and worked in the city.

The Acropolis was decorated with votive statues and steles. New public buildings were erected in the Agora. The surroundings of the Acropolis and the Agora were so densely populated that dwelling houses occupied almost all the area enclosed by the city wall. Outside the dty wall every road radiating out of Athens was flanked by grave monuments; the State Burial Ground was in the Kerameikos. A meeting-place for the Assembly was laid out on Pnyx Hill at the beginning of the 5th century BC. Towards the end of the 5th century BC Athens had a population of about 36,000 living in some 6,000 private houses; the area within the city wall amounted to 2.15 sq.km. and there must have been but little open space within this area.

In 431 BC the Peloponnesian War broke out. It consumed the power reserves of the opposing sides and in the Battle of Aigospotamoi, 404 BC, the Athenian fleet suffered a crushing defeat. The victorious Spartans and their allies destroyed the walls of Athens and Piraeus, seized all but ten ships of the fleet and put the harbour out of use by filling it up with earth.

In 394 BC, with Persian aid, the general Konon destroyed the Spartan fleet and rebuilt the fortification walls of Athens and Piraeus. Building operations were restarted in the Agora. The Panathenaic Stadium was built on the left bank of the Hisses around 330 BC. The stone Theatre ofDionysos was erected on the south slope of the Acropolis about the same time. Plato's Academy was founded in the sacred grove of the Hero Akademos.

During the second half of the 4th century BC the city walls were restored and fortified on several occasions. An outer defence wall known as the proteichisma and a dry moat strengthened the defences of the city wall. At the end of the 4th century BC the city wall and the Long Walls were rebuilt; the Dipylon Gate, the largest gate in Greece, was completely reconstructed. The line of the city wall was shortened by means of a cross-wall, the diateichisma, running from the Hill of the Nymphs, along the ridge of the Pnyx, to the top of Philopappos Hill.

In the 4th century BC internal strife sapped the strength of the city-state. In the second half of the century King Philip II of Macedonia pushed himself into the league of the Greek city-states and came into conflict with Athens. In the Battle of Chaironeia in 338 BC Philip defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes. After the Lamian War of 322 BC the Macedonians placed a garrison in Athens.

Between 317 and 307 BC the philosopher Demetrios ofPhaleron ruled the city with the support of the Macedonians and the economic situation of Athens improved temporarily. Drama, philosophy, painting and sculpture flourished again.

Athens then entered into an alliance with Sparta and Egypt against Macedonian

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rule. As a result of the Chremonidean War (267-261 BC) the city was again garrisoned by the Macedonians. The archons were replaced by a Macedonian governor known as the epistate. It was not until 229 BC that the Athenians succeeded in regaining their independence with the aid of an alliance with Achaia.

The expansion of the Roman empire began in the 2nd century BC. At this time Athens was going through a period of economic recession, although it was still the centre of scholarship and its schools were attended by many foreigners including Romans. New public buildings and temples were erected.

On the Acropolis the votive offerings of the kings of Pergamon decorated the south wall. The most famous of them represented the victory over the Celtic Galatians.

Attalos II, king of Pergamon, donated a large stoa built on the east side of the Agora. The Middle Stoa, East Stoa and South Stoa II closing off the south side of the Agora also date from this period, as does the Metroon, the sanctuary of the Mother of the Gods, and the Stoa of Eumenes of Pergamon on the southern, slope of the Acropolis.

The ruins that survive are scarcely sufficient to give even an approximate idea of the ancient city nor does Pausanias' Periegesis (itinerary) provide a full picture. The pre-Roman endeavours of the Athenians to fortify their city proved futile: they were unable to protect it from invaders.

Under Roman rule Athens at first enjoyed many privileges. However, in the ist century BC the situation changed -when in 87 BC the sophist Athenion took power with the aid of Archelaos, the commander under King Mithradates IV of Pontos, and rose up against the Roman general Sulla who besieged and occupied Athens in 86 BC. He gave his soldiers leave to plunder the city and had a section of the city walls pulled down. Athens remained unfortified for the next three hundred years.

At around 15 BC a concert hall, the Odeion of Agrippa, was built in the middle of the Agora. The earlier Odeion of Pericles, which had been destroyed by Sulla, was also reconstructed. The temple of Rome and Augustus was erected east of the Erechtheion and the Roman Agora east of the Agora of classical times. Next to it stood the Horologion of Andronikos, commonly known as the Tower of the Winds after the reliefs on each of its eight sides.

It was probably in the ist century AD that the temple of Ares, originally built on an unknown site in the 5th century BC, was moved to the classical Agora. The first monumental stairway leading up to the Acropolis dates from about the same time. South-east of the Tower of the Winds stood the colonnaded building dedicated to Athena Archegetis and Augustus.

The philhellene emperor Hadrian visited Athens in the 2nd century AD. This was to become a period of rebirth for Athens. New buildings sprang up, the city acquired an aqueduct named after Hadrian, and a whole new and prosperous'suburb stretching eastwards, dotted with fine new villas. It became known as Hadrianopolis, the city of Hadrian. Hadrian's arch separated the old city from the new. Hadrian also built the Pantheon, the library that bears his name and a basilica situated east of the Roman Agora .which was, perhaps, the temple of Hera and Zeus Panhellenios.

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Another benefactor of the city in the 2nd century BC was Herodes Atdcus whose generosity is still visible in buildings like the Odeion on the south slope of the Acropolis.

On the ridge of Ardettos, Herodes Atdcus built a temple to Tyche above the Panathenaic Stadium for which he provided marble seating arrangements, and in front of the Stadium he had an arched bridge built over the Ilissos.

In the mid-3rd century AD the emperor Valerian attempted to prepare Athens for attacks from the Goths by rebuilding the old Themistoclean city wall with an eastward extension around Hadrianopolis. A supply of fresh water for the Acropolis was assured by making the Klepsydra spring accessible solely via a tunnel from the Agrippa Monument terrace which was now fortified by walls and a gate known as the Beuld Gate.

The walls did not stop the Heruli from sacking Athens in 267 AD. The city was burnt down and numerous buildings completely destroyed. The Acropolis, however, was not taken by the barbarians. Soon after the departure of the barbarians, the Athenians retracted their line of defence and withdrew behind a new city wall, the Post-Herulian Wall, which enclosed only the Acropolis slopes, perhaps only the north slope. In order to build this wall fast, the Athenians tore down and re-used the material of their public buildings, temples, sculpture and inscriptions.

Few significant edifices were built in the later part of antiquity. One was a large gymnasium completed around 425 AD occupying the site of the classical Agora and re-using the Tritons and Giants from the Odeion of Agrippa, the Gymnasium of the Giants. South of the y- Stoa of Attalos a water mill was built c. 450 AD. A large gymnasium was built in the Academy area. The north room of the Metroon was, possibly, a synagogue at that time. From the 3rd century onward renowned Christian philosophers also came to teach in Athens, but their schools were outside Athens at places like Hymettos, where hermitages and monasteries were built later on.

The last outstanding pagan philosopher of the 5th century AD was Proklos who taught in a school on the south slope of the Acropolis.

In 529 AD Justinian closed the schools of pagan philosophy including Plato's Academy. Fearing barbarian invasions, he strengthened the defences of his empire, including the walls of Athens.

Numerous temples and monuments of ancient times were converted into Christian churches, perhaps starting in the 6th century, for example, the Parthenon, the

Erechthdon, the Hephaistcion; the Tower of the Winds was used as a baptistry and several buildings in the Asklepieion were used for a basilica.

From the 7th to the 9th century, referred to as the Dark Ages, Athens declined, but recovered again in the loth to 12th centuries, known in Byzantine art as the Athenian period. A new wave of building activity occurred and a complete Byzantine suburb has been unearthed. Surviving monuments of this period include churches such as Kapnikarea, the Panagia Gorgoepekoos (the Little Metropolis), Haghioi Theodoroi, Soteira Lykode-mou (Russian Church), Haghioi Apostoloi and

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several monasteries outside of Athens. Two schools functioned on Hymettos; they were later turned into monasteries.

In 1040 Attica was devastated by the Normans and in 1154-82 by the Saracens. The city is described by various medieval travellers, such as the Arab geographer Idrisi, Benjamin of Tudela, and the metropolitans Michael Akominatos and Michael Psellos. After the capture of Constantinople in 1204, the whole Byzantine empire disintegrated into small states, most of which came under the control of the crusaders.

The medieval wall around the Acropolis slopes was named the Rizokastron, but nowadays the name serves to designate only the quarter lying north of the Acropolis. The old Acropolis circuit wall and the Post-Herulian Wall were still in use.

The Frankish occupation which began in 1205 was the cause of general decline. The new rulers treated the Greek population with ruthlessness or indifference. French was introduced as the official language and the Athenians were excluded from all public office.

Building on the Acropolis caused great damage to ancient monuments especially to the Propylaia which the reigning dukes turned into their residence; two churches were built, one in the southern wing of the Propylaia, the other in the centre of the building. The Parthenon became a Catholic church. The so-called Frankish Tower was built in the south-western wing of the Propylaia and the Belvedere at the east wall. It is thought that the inhabited area of the city amounted to about 400,000 square metres and did not extend beyond the Post-Herulian Wall; a traveller who visited Athens in 1395 asserts that there were only about 100 dwellings.

Decline and depopulation continued throughout the Frankish occupation, but a radical change came in 1456 with the advent of the Turks. The privileges granted by the Sultan allowed the city to flourish again. Despite the frequent famines, epidemics and other vicissitudes, the population preserved its vitality and began to grow, partly through immigration of Turks and Albanians. The Albanians settled mainly in the Plaka district until the middle of the 16th century.

In the course of time four distinct social classes came into being: the wealthy lords (archons), the well-to-do fanners, the merchants and the simple peasants. In 1464, during the Turkish-Venetian War (1463-1475) the Venetian Vittorio Capello led a raid against Athens. Although he did not succeed in capturing the Acropolis, he methodically devastated and plundered the city.

The Acropolis became the residence of high-ranking Turkish officials and the quarters of the garrison. The area between the buildings gradually filled up with small houses belonging to Turkish families and members of the garrison. No Greek was allowed to enter the area surrounded by the Rizokastron. The northern section of the wall formed the boundary between the fortified hill and the lower city north of the Acropolis. The southern section was at that time known as the Serpentze. In 1506 new water pipes were installed.

The Greek temples inside the prohibited area fell into ruins. The Propylaia and the Parthenon were severely damaged by explosions in 1645 and 1687. As the Venetian Morosini prepared for the siege of the Acropolis, the Turks demolished

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the temple of Athena Nike in order to construct the so-called Turkish rampart. The architecture and sculpture from the temple of Nike was recovered and the temple was reconstructed in 1835-6.

The Turks lived on the Acropolis and both inside and outside the Post-Herulian Wall. The Parthenon was transformed into a mosque with the Byzantine bell-tower at the south-western corner serving as a minaret. Four mosques were built in the lower city. As the population increased, more and more houses went up near the Post-Herulian wall.

In the city itself 40 Christian churches, a Cistercian abbey and a Capuchin monastery were erected. In 1671 there were 2,053 houses in Athens which was divided into eight districts; the population was a mixture of Greeks, Turks, GreekAlbanians and some foreigners, amounting to 12,500 in all. In the 17th century the area of the town amounted to 460,000 sq.m.

Athens' last city wall was constructed during the rule of Ali Haseki (1775-1798) as a protection against Albanian raids. It was built partly along the line of the Themistoc-lean Wall but it was much lower and not as thick. Many fragments of ancient monuments went into it. The Haseki Wall, completed in 1778, was 4,300 metres long and enclosed an area of 1,104,000 sq.m. During the last phase of Turkish rule, the situation of the Greek population improved considerably. At the end of the i8th century Athens had a special atmosphere of its own. Numerous fountains decorated the squares and streets, and ancient monuments stood side by side with public buildings and mosques.

At the beginning of the 19th century the Turkish Sublime Porte granted Lord Elgin permission to remove antiquities from the Acropolis. The Parthenon sculpture

and other rich material he acquired later became part of the famous collection of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

The Acropolis also suffered a great deal during the Greek War of Independence when it was besieged on two occasions (1821-2 and 1826-7). The second time, when the Greeks were the defenders, the besiegers bombarded the Acropolis without any consideration for the heavy damage caused to the ancient monuments.

Greece was proclaimed a free and independent state and Athens a definitively Greek city by the Protocol of London on February 3, 1830. The Turkish garrison, nevertheless, did not leave the Acropolis until March 31, 1833. By virtue of a resolution passed on September 18; 1834. Athens became the capital of Greece. In 1835 the population of the city amounted to about 4,000. The War of Independence had left the majority of the houses in ruins and most roads were still; unfit for traffic.. From the architectural remains of the Turkish rule only one house and two mosques survive today. At the beginning of the Greek War of Independence there were 129 Christian churches in Athens. Of these only 24 survive in their original form. The mosque built inside the Parthenon in 1690, following the explosion of 1687, was pulled down in 1852. The Haseki Wall was demolished in 1875 and the Mendreses, the Theological Academy north of the Tower of the Winds, in 1914.

After Greece had regained her independence, a member of the Bavarian royal house took the throne. In 1834 he commissioned Ludwig Ross to restore the

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monuments on the Acropolis. Important excavations were carried out between 1885 and 1891.

When Athens was chosen as capital, it was proposed that the ancient monuments on the Acropolis should be pulled down and that the royal palace should be built there, incorporating the Parthenon as a reception hall in a palace courtyard. King Ludwig of Bavaria rejected this plan. His son Otho, the king of Greece, endeavoured to introduce the fashionable Neoclassical style into the new capital. While town plans were being prepared, the roads of present-day Athens were laid out. The Palace was built by von Gartner in 1836; von Weiler was responsible for the Military Hospital (today the Barracks of the Gendarmerie at Makryiannis) in 1837; Christian Hansen built the University in 1839. Greek architects who participated in building up Athens were Stamatios Kleanthes, Lysandros Kaphtandzoglou and Panayotis Kalkos. Some of the outstanding buildings from this period are: the Neoclassical Triad, the marble buildings of the University, the Academy and the National Library on Panepistimiou St., the National Archaeological Museum, the Polytechnic, the Palace on Irodu Attikou St., the Old Palace, today the Parliament, the Old Parliament (Historical Museum), the Schliemann House (Iliou Mclathron), the Roman-Catholic church, the Eye Hospital.'the'Anglican church of St Paul.

In 1830 Stamatios Kleanthes and Eduard Schaubert prepared the first map of Athens' important monuments of antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times. In 1832 the same architects were commissioned by the Greek government to draw up a development plan for the capital. The Kleanthes-Schaubert plan, which envisaged the development of wider streets, squares and other public areas to allow for excavations, was later modified by Klenze in the spirit of the first Monument Preservation Act, passed in 1834. The new capital centred around the Acropolis and developed north and east into the Anaphio-tika, Plaka and Aerides (Tower of the Winds) quarters.

Many an important event in the modern history of Greece took place in the new capital. On September 3, 1843, General Kallergis led the "constitutionalists" in a revolt which resulted in Greece's first constitution.

In 1852 the city was devastated by an earthquake.

Greece joined the Crimean War on the side of the Russians in 1854, in order to liberate the territories still occupied by the Turks. Upon Turkey's request, French troops landed in Piraeus, where they remained until March 1857; the occupation ended with the outbreak of an epidemic of cholera which wiped out half of the population of Athens and Piraeus. On October 10, 1862, a national revolt caused the expulsion of King Otho.

Between 1831 and 1853 the population of Athens and Piraeus rose from 4,000 to 816,000.

The town development plan of the Stavridis Committee was tabled in 1860. It formed the basis for the development of the present centre and the broad thoroughfares crossing the city which were built at that time.

Athens was hard hit by the war of 1897 and by the revolt of 1909 which brought Eleutherios Venizelos to power. Venizelos regained possession of Crete and

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prepared the country for the 1912-3 Balkan War. In 1908 the government commissioned the town planner and architect Ludwig Hoffmann to prepare a general development plan for Athens. The German architect suggested the building of boulevards instead of the earlier radial roads. In 1911 the British architect Thomas Mawson put forward modifications to the plan, mainly concerning the development of the city centre. In 1920 a committee headed by Petros Kalligas recommended further modifications which, however, failed to take into account the complex problems of town planning and urbanization, among them the problem presented by the rapid growth of the population.

Greece took part in the First World War. The Asia Minor campaign (1921-2) ended with a crushing defeat for the Greek troops and the flight of the Greeks from the peninsula. After a series of coups the kingdom was re-established in Greece by a plebiscite in 1923.

In 1922, after the failure of the Asia Minor campaign, the population of the capital increased to 460,000. The random growth of new districts in the capital soon caused serious difficulties. The authorities endeavoured to control building operations with National Building Regulations and the restriction on building heights introduced in 1934.

In 1936, during the rule of King George II, general loannis Metaxas became dictator. On October 28, 1940, the Italians declared war on Greece. The City Council declared the capital an "open city" to save the ancient and Byzantine monuments from destruction. The Greek people successfully resisted the Italian advance until April 6, 1941, when Hitler's Germany joined the Italian side and Athens was occupied by German troops.

When the Italians pulled out of the war in September 1943 and the anti-fascist resistance movement, begun in 1941, grew stronger, the Germans responded with even more brutal reprisals. On October 12, 1944, the Nazi troops withdrew from Athens and soon after a new Greek government was set up in the capital. The country became independent. Athens grew more important both in the life of the country and in international relations. These circumstances were reflected by the rapid development of the city both in area and architecture, and this again made the excavation of its monuments a desideratum of high priority.

After several attempts, the Ministry of Construction completed the general architectural plan of the whole plain of Athens in 1947. In 1954 the Housing Board set up by the Ministry drew up its general plan; in 1962, with the co-operation of the American expert W. Smith, the same Board examined the city's traffic problems and in 1965 it produced a new general plan.

Three departments within the Monument Preservation Board (which functions under the Ministry of Culture and Sciences) are in legal control of preserving finds excavated during construction work in the city: the First Ephorate of Ancient Monuments, the Ephorate of the Acropolis and the Third Ephorate of Ancient Monuments. The Archaeological Act of 1932 is still in force. It amplified an earlier act of 1834 and extended its powers to protect historic monuments to Byzantine material. Since the 1932 Act it has been compulsory to notify the authorities of all finds unearthed during construction work. An Act of 1966 extended these

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