Athens

Athens is the capital of modern Greece and one of the best-known cities of the ancient world. In the 5th century BCE, under leaders such as Pericles, Athenians built the temples of the Acropolis, including the Parthenon, which UNESCO listed as a World Heritage Site in 1987.

Athens matters to this site mainly through Plato, an Athenian philosopher. In his dialogues Timaeus and Critias (c. 360 BCE), Plato has Solon, the Athenian lawmaker of the early 6th century BCE, learn from Egyptian priests that an earlier Athens had defeated the island empire of Atlantis some 9,000 years before. Afterwards, the story says, earthquakes and floods destroyed the Athenian army and sank Atlantis.

No archaeology supports an Athens of that age; the city's oldest remains date to the Neolithic and its Mycenaean citadel to the late Bronze Age. Most scholars read Plato's 'primeval Athens' as an idealized city in a moral fable, not a historical claim.