Academy of Sciences, of the National Library, and of the National University. Other important modern structures are the Royal Palace, erected from 1834 to 1838, situated amid magsnificent gardens; the House of Parliament, Palace of Justice, the Polytechnic Institute, National Archæological Museum with its priceless collections, the Metropolitan, Roman, and Anglican churches, and extensive cavalry barracks. For illustrations of the architectural features of Athens, see article Architecture.
The government of the city is administered by a mayor, or demarrhos. chosen by popular vote every four years, together with a council of eighteen members, which has jurisdiction over the suburbs of the parish. There is a municipal fire department, but the police is under the control of the central Government. The city owns its gas and electric plants as well as the waterworks, which include the ancient aqueduct of Hadrian, but the water supply is so scanty that the inhabit.ants are obliged to supplement it by purchase from water-carriers. Street cars traverse the city in every direction, and railroads from all parts of Greece converge here. A suburban line runs to the bathing resort of Phaleron, close to the port of Pirieus. Athens is the seat of several foreign consulates, including one of the United States. It is the financial centre of Greece, although it does little manufacturing, and trades only in imports for its own consumption. It is the seat of a Greek Metropolitan. The population has been steadily increasing in the last quarter of a century. It numbered 66,834 in 1879, 107,251 in 1889, and 111.486 in 1896, exclusive of the suburbs.
Education. There are in the city primary, secondary, normal, technical, and industrial schools, and the National University, founded in 1837, which was named Otho University, in honor of King Otho, and after his abdication received its present title. The income of the University is over $60,000 : the number of students about 3000. The faculties comprise theology, law, medicine, and arts. The university has a number of museums, laboratories, and a library of more than 200,000 volumes and 2000 MSS. Besides this there are the rich library of Parliament, with 160,000 volumes, the National Museum, and that of the Acropolis.
But to foreigners the chief educational importance of Athens centres not in the university, but in the various schools established there by other nations, for study of Greek archæology. Of these the American School of Classical Studies is of especial importance. It was founded by the Archæological Institute of America and opened in 1882. It is supported by regular contributions from American universities and colleges and by gifts, and has a permanent director and secretary and a professor of Greek language and literature chosen annually from among the institutions which support it. It has three scholarships, two for men and one for women. Its students are in the main drawn from American colleges and universities. Besides instruction it devotes much time to investigation. Its organ is the American Journal of Archæology. Like this in many respects is the French School at Athens, founded in 1846, which is supported by the State and controlled by it, with the assistance of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, It is managed by a director and associates. The British School at Athens was founded in 1886, is supported partly by the Government and partly by contributions from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, and private subscription. It is under the control of a managing committee in London and a director, assistant-director, and secretary in Athens. Like the American School, it devotes itself to both teaching and excavation. Of equal importance is the Royal German Archaeological Institute, founded in 1874, supported by the Government and under the control of a directorate in Berlin, represented by secretaries both in Athens and in Rome. The work of this institute has been of an unusually high character. All these organizations issue monographs, and proceedings.
History. The early history of Athens is involved in obscurity. The Athenians themselves claimed to be autochlhones. and there can be no doubt that Attica was outside of the great waves of migration that swept over northern Greece and the Peloponnesus. It cannot, however, have been entirely unaffected by these movements, and it is probable that the Athenians, the most brilliant of the Greeks, were a mixed race, and by no means of the pure Ionian stock. In the earliest times Athens, or Cecropia, was only one of a number of petty States, but tradition said that it became the capital under Theseus, who united the whole of Attica under his rule. Theseus (q.v.) may be mythical, but it is certain that Athens early became so thoroughly the capital of the country that only Eleusis preserved the memory of independence. Like all the early States, Athens is said to have been ruled by kings, of whom the last was Codrus (q.v.). The rule of archons, chosen for life, seems to represent the limitation of the royal power by the nobles, Eupatridae; and when, in B.C. 753 (according to tradition), the term of office was made ten years, and in B.C. 683 reduced to one, it is clear that the Government had become an aristocracy. The name of King was indeed always retained as a title for that one of the archons (q.v.), to whom were intrusted the old priestly factions of royalty. Another archon was called Polemarchus, as the commander in war; while the first, who seems to have been charged with the civil government was called simply 'the archon,' and gave his name to the year. (See Archon.)
During this early time the citizens were divided into four tribes, and each tribe into three brotherhoods, though these associations seem to have been older than the tribes. At first only the members of the noble clans belonged to the brotherhoods: but some time in the Seventh Century B.C. the peasants and craftsmen, who were organized like the nobles, seem to have been admitted, and later enrollment in a brotherhood was required of all legitimate children. The aristocratic government of the three archons and the Council of Elders was forced by the changes common to the Greek world after B.C. 700, to give increasing recognition to wealth apart from birth. The exact course of this revolution cannot be traced, but one step was the institution of the six Thesmothetae, or junior archons, who took charge of the judicial system. The commercial development of Athens was rapid during this period, and led early to the creation of a fleet, though of the details of its organization we are
