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The city: In the 1st and 2nd century Athens was a wealthy city and one of the empire’s major intellectual centres, which frequently attracted the attention and patronage of emperors and wealthy civilians. Hadrian increased the perimeter of the walls and almost doubled the city’s area. Herod Atticus adorned it with groups of monuments that have survived in part to this day. That being said, serious damage was done when the one-time glorious city was taken by the Heruli in 267, and raided by the Goths under Alaric in 396. The Acropolis, the Roman agora and Hadrian’s Library were surrounded by a wall, which became Athens’ main fortification. Plato’s Academy was revitalized from the early 4th to the early 6th century by the neo-platonic philosophers, who taught rhetoric and philosophy to promising Christian and pagan youths from all over the empire; three of its students were Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and Emperor Julian. Empress Pulcheria was so impressed by the education received by Athinaïs, daughter of the sophist Leontius, that in 421 she had her forcibly christened Eudocia and wed her to her brother, Emperor Theodosius II. The so-called Palace of Giants, founded in the ancient agora in this period, may have belonged to Eudocia and her family. Christianity began to make its presence felt in the city in the early 5th century. A tetraconch which may from the outset have been a Christian church was erected inside Hadrian’s Library, in addition to a three-nave basilica on the island in the middle of the Ilissos River, which may have been dedicated to the memory of Leonides, bishop of the city.Shortly before the middle of the same century, the Parthenon was converted into the city’s cathedral church and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The inhabitants who remained faithful to the idols seem to have lived in fear. Although the Panathenaic procession continued to be celebrated up until the 5th century, offering a sense of respite, it was stripped of pagan rituals. In 529 the Academy and the remaining schools were closed by decree of Justinian, though whether this was ever enforced remains a subject of debate. This sealed the economic decline of a city that had once and for all lost its role as a centre of learning. The opulent residences unearthed in the vicinity of the Areios Pagos were abandoned by their occupants, either because they were unable to maintain them in times of recession or because the Slavs appeared in the late 6th century. In the following centuries written sources mentioning Athens are sporadic. Emperor Constans II, his army and court wintered in Athens in 662-663 while preparing a campaign against Sicily. Relations between the local nobility and the palace of Constantinople probably began at this time. Two Athenian women became empresses: Irene, who was on the throne from 780 to 802; and her niece Theophano, who ruled for a few months in 811. In the early 9th century the city was promoted from a diocese to an archdiocese, in accordance with the palace’s wishes rather than on account of any increase in the population. Private houses were located in neighbourhoods to the north, west and south-west of the Acropolis, within and beyond the Late Roman wall. They were generally of makeshift construction, with rooms arranged around a courtyard, next to workshops and small factories. Excavations have mainly brought to light house basements full of storage jars. From the late 10th century, small churches were built in the area north of the Acropolis. These had clearly defined outlines and were strongly built of cloisonné masonry, with domes surrounded by small marble columns. Such churches include Agioi Theodoroi in Klafthmonos Square (1049); the oldest surviving church is most probably the catholicon in Asomatoi Monastery (dedicated to the Incorporeal Saints), better known as Petraki Monastery, from the late 10th century. Agios Eleftherios (the Small Metropolis or cathedral) can be placed in the late 12th century. It is not known whether these churches were privately owned or served as the catholica of small monasteries. Basil II the Bulgar Slayer arrived in 1018 to pray in the Church of the Virgin Mary at Athens, as the Parthenon was then called. His visit ushered in a period of growth for the city cathedral as a pilgrim shrine. However, letters written by the scholar Metropolitan Nicetas Choniates in the late 12th century express sadness at the poverty and illiteracy of the people, the destruction of houses, the poor state of the walls, the greed of government officials and pirate raids. In 1204 Choniates held out against Leo Sgouros by gathering the population in the Acropolis. Shortly afterwards he was forced to surrender the city to Boniface of Montferrat, who appointed Guy de la Roche as its first Great Lord; in 1259 the city formed part of the Duchy of Athens, which stretched from Lokris to the Corinthian Gulf and from Evia to Doris. The de la Roche Burgundians erected the Rizokastro, a new wall around the Acropolis incorporating a large part of the Late Roman one. This period­­­­ of adjustment under the rule of the de la Roches, including the appointment of a Latin bishop in the cathedral in 1204, favoured the founding or renovation of new churches in outlying areas only; in the late 13th century additions were made to the wall paintings in the so-called Omorphe Ecclesia (“Beautiful Church) in Galatsi. Daphni Monastery was ceded to Cistercian monks and its catholicon became the burial place of the Dukes of Athens. From 1311 to 1388 the city passed into the hands of the Catalan Company, which was notorious for the cruelty of its administration, while in 1385 the Catalans gave it to Nerio Acciaioli, scion of the renowned Florentine family that held the sovereignty of Athens until 1456, apart from a brief period from 1394 to 1403 when it was under the control of the Venetians. Under the Acciaioli the capital of the duchy was transferred from Thebes to Athens, the palace at the Propylaea and the Parthenon were renovated, roads were built and a tall tower was erected at the entrance to the Acropolis fortifications. In 1456 the last Florentine duke handed Athens over to the Turks. Two years later this led Mehmed the Conqueror to grant the Athenians privileges, including the right to retain all churches except for the Parthenon, which was converted into a mosque.
Heraclius: Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641, son of the exarch of Carthage. He was proclaimed emperor in 610, when he invaded Constantinople with a big army from Carthage and ascended the throne with the support of the Greens and Patriarch Sergius I. When Heraclius came to power the empire was in a very precarious situation, being threatened by the Slavs and the Avars in the northern Balkans, and the Persians in the east. The Persians even seized Jerusalem in 614 and Egypt in 619. At the same time, he also faced domestic enemies who coveted the throne. In general, Heraclius constantly conducted defensive and offensive wars, in which he managed to trounce the Persians and Avars. However, Islam soon replaced the Persian danger. Muslims occupied territories in Palestine which the emperor was unable to recover. Heraclius was a great warrior and military man, who reorganized the army and recaptured many of the lost territories of the empire. However, he does not seem to have been an efficient governor and was unable to resolve the religious controversies that arose during his reign.
The city: Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, was built on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium, on the triangular peninsula formed by the Golden Horn, the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara. This was an excellent location that controlled trade routes linking the Aegean to the Black Sea. Emperor Constantine founded Constantinople in 330 AD as a city to rival Rome in splendour, wealth and power. The city grew fast, leading to problems of space and facilities, so Theodosius I extended it to the west by building new strong walls that protected Constantinople until the end of the Byzantine Empire. The city was laid out after Rome. A main road, the Mese Odos, linked the palace to the Golden Gate. On this road was the Forum, a circular plaza with a statue of Constantine mounted on a column, surrounded by public buildings. Theodosius I and Arcadius later built more forums decorated with their own statues. Following the Nika riots in the 6th century, Justinian adorned Constantinople with magnificent edifices, palaces, baths and public buildings. This time also saw the construction of Agia Sophia (the Holy Wisdom), the church which served as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate throughout the Byzantine period. During the 7th and 8th centuries Constantinople faced major problems that threw it into disarray: attacks by the Avars (a siege in 674) and Arabs (attacks in 674 and 717-718); natural disasters (a powerful, destructive earthquake in 740); and epidemics (plague in 747). Limited building activity resumed in the 8th and 9th century, mainly concentrated on strengthening the city's fortifications. With the recovery of the Byzantine Empire from the 9th to the 11th century, Constantinople became the most populated city in Christendom; the majority of inhabitants were Greek-speaking, but many other ethnic groups lived alongside them, such as Jews, Armenians, Russians, Italians merchants, Arabs and mercenaries from Western Europe and Scandinavia. Many public, private and church-owned buildings were erected at the time, with an emphasis on establishing charitable institutions such as hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages and schools. Higher education flourished, thanks to the care of the state and the emergence of important scholars. This renaissance lasted until the mid-11th century, when economic problems due to poor management set in, compounded by the adverse outcome of imperial operations beyond the borders. The Crusaders left Constantinople entirely unscathed when first passing through, but in the Fourth Crusade of 1204 the Franks conquered and ransacked the city, slaughtering those inhabitants they did not take prisoner or drive out. In 1261 the city was retaken by Michael VIII Palaeologus, who rebuilt most of the monuments and the walls but proved unable to restore the city to its former splendour and glory. Enfeebled as it was, the empire was incapable of checking the advance of the Ottomans, and in 1453 Constantinople finally fell into their hands. The fall signalled the end of the empire. Nevertheless, the Byzantine intellectual tradition remained significant, as many scholars settled in the Venetian dominions of Crete and the Peloponnese, as well as in European countries, conveying Greek learning to the West.

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