Attica was a state of ancient Greece, the capital of which, Athens, was once the first city in the world. The territory was triangular in shape, with Cape Sunium (Colonna) as its apex and the ranges of Mounts Cithasron and Parnes as its base. On the north these ranges separated it from Boeotia;
on the west it was bounded by Megaris and the Saronic Gulf; on the east by the AEgean. Its most marked physical divisions consisted of the highlands, midland district, and coast district, with the two famous plains of Eleusis and of Athens. The Cephissus and Ilissus, though small, were its chief streams; its principal hills, Cithseron, Parnes, Hymettus, Pentelicus, and Laurium. Its soil has probably undergone considerable deterioration, but was fertile in fruits, and especially of the olive and fig. These are still cultivated as well as the vine and cereals, but Attica is better suited for pasture than tillage. According to tradition the earliest inhabitants of Attica lived in a savage manner until the time of Cecrops, who came, in 1550 BC, with a colony from Egypt, taught them all the essentials of civilization, and founded Athens. One of Cecrops' descendants founded eleven other cities in the regions round, and there followed a period of mutual hostility. To Theseus is assigned the honour of uniting these cities in a confederacy, with Athens as the capital, thus forming the Attic state. After the death of Codrus, in 1068 BC, the monarchy was abolished, and the government vested in archons elected by the nobility, at first for life, in 752 BC for ten years, and in 683 BC for one year only. The severe constitution of Draco was succeeded in 594 by the milder code of Solon, the democratic elements of which, after the brief tyranny of the Pisistratids, were emphasized and developed by Clisthenes. He divided the people into ten classes, and made the senate consist of 500 persons, establishing as the government an oligarchy modified by popular control. Then came the splendid era of the Persian War, which elevated Athens to the summit of fame.
Miltiades at Marathon and Themistocles at Salamis conquered the Persians by land and by sea. The chief external danger being removed the rights of the people were enlarged; the archons and other magistrates were chosen from all classes without distinction. The period from the Persian War to the time of Alexander (500 BC to 336 BC) was most remarkable for the development of the Athenian constitution. Attica appears to have contained a territory of nearly 850 square miles, with some 500,000 inhabitants, 360,000 of whom were slaves, while the inhabitants of the city numbered 180,000. Cimon and Pericles (444 BC) raised Athens to its point of greatest splendour, though under the latter began the Peloponnesian War, which ended with the conquest of Athens by the Lacedaemonians. The succeeding tyranny of the Thirty, under the protection of a Spartan garrison, was overthrown by Thrasybulus, with a temporary partial restoration of the power of Athens; but the battle of Cheronaea (338 BC) made Attica, in common with the rest of Greece, a dependency of Macedon. The attempts at revolt after the death of Alexander were crushed, and in 260 BC Attica was still under the sway of Antigonus Gonatas, the Macedonian king. A period of freedom under the shelter of the Achaean League then ensued, but their support of Mithridates led in 146 BC to the subjugation of the Grecian states by Rome. After the division of the Roman Empire Attica belonged to the empire of the East until in 396 AD it was conquered by Alaric the Goth and the country devastated. Attica is now a region of Greece comprising Athens and the district around it.
Abbreviations
Gazetteer
Research Attica