Athenian democracy began in 508 BC and funded a silver fleet
Athens, the Attic polis, installed democracy in 508 BC and kept forms of it for centuries. Victory at Marathon and later Salamis and Plataea lifted its prestige. Laurion silver then paid for a navy that turned allies into an empire.
People lived on the site from Neolithic times, and the Acropolis was a fortress in the Mycenaean age, with Theseus as the city's legendary founder. By the 8th century BC Athens was a leading polis, and the next two centuries brought the law codes of Draco and Solon and the tyranny of Peisistratus. His son Hippias grew harsher after his brother Hipparchus was murdered around 514, exiling some 700 noble families, among them the Alcmaeonids of Cleisthenes.
The democracy that replaced him ran on lottery and mass participation. Each tribe drew fifty citizens by lot to sit on the Boule, the council handling daily business, while the Assembly, open to every full citizen, both made laws and judged cases; the old Areopagus kept only murder and religious matters. Comic poets mocked politicians on stage and could sway voters.
War made Athens great. After it backed the Ionian revolt in 499, Persia invaded twice. Miltiades won at Marathon in 490, and when Xerxes came in 480, burning the city, Themistocles had already used silver from the Laurion mines to build a large fleet, which helped secure victory at Salamis. Under Cimon the Delian League turned into an Athenian sea empire. Pericles, elected general every year from 445 until his death in 429, spent lavishly on public works including the Parthenon.
Resentment of that empire triggered the Peloponnesian War in 431. A coup briefly toppled the democracy in 411, and total defeat followed in 404, bringing the Spartan-backed Thirty Tyrants until Thrasybulus restored popular rule in 403. Athens fought again in the Corinthian War and formed a Second League in 378, but Philip II crushed Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea in 338. After the Lamian War in 322 Antipater imposed rule by the wealthy, and later Sulla sacked the city for siding with Mithridates.
Source: Classical Athens
