Athenian Empire: Did you mean...?

An empire is a political construct in which one state dominates over another state, or a series of states. At its heart, an empire is ruled by an emperor, even though many states in history without an emperor at their head are called "empires"...

The Portuguese Empire was established from the 15th century and eventually stretched from the Americas to Japan. Very often a string of coastal trading centres with defensive fortifications, there were larger territorial colonies like Brazil...

Spanning across three continents and holding dominance over the Black and Mediterranean Seas, the Ottoman Sultanate (1299-1922) was a global military superpower between the 15th and 17th centuries. From the point of its inception in 1299...

The cataclysmic end of the Roman Empire in the West has tended to mask the underlying features of continuity. The map of Europe in the year 500 would have been unrecognizable to anyone living a hundred years earlier. Gone was the solid boundary...

The Mauryan Empire (322 BCE - 185 BCE) supplanted the earlier Magadha Kingdom to assume power over large tracts of eastern and northern India. At its height, the empire stretched over parts of modern Iran and almost the entire Indian subcontinent...

An illustration of the Propylaea or monumental gateway of the Athenian acropolis, 5th century BCE.

Athenian silver tetradrachm, depicting Athena on the obverse and an owl with an olive branch on the reverse, 479-454 BCE. Alpha Bank Numismatics Collection, Kerkyra, Corfu.

A model of the Athenian acropolis in the 5th century BCE. The monumental Propylaea gives access to the Parthenon (centre) and the Erechtheion (left side). (Agora Museum, Athens)

Athenian coin, silver, 550-546 BCE. Minted in the ancient Greek city-state of Athens, this silver coin depicts a Gorgon's head, a symbolic ward against evil also known as a "gorgoneion." On the reverse, not pictured here, is stamped a square...

Remains of the Athenian Assembly on the Pynx