2.4 Restoration

After the Persian invasion, Athens herself was in ruins. The houses and public buildings had been burned and much of the city wall torn down; the temple to Athena had been razed while the Persians were still occupying the city. A lesser people than the Athenians might have given up. But this was the beginning of the Athenian triumph. Although the Greeks took pride in their public buildings, temples, and statues, they identified themselves most closely with the organized population itself, not with the physical facilities: the Athenians enacted their laws and made their decrees in the name of the demos, the people. They Athenians had moved en masse to the island of Salamis (still in their own territory), giving up their city rather than surrender to the Persians. Their city consisted of the people, not the land they occupied. “Is the city of Athens then not yet despoiled?” asks the Persian queen in Aeschylus’ play that depicts the battle. “Nay, while her sons still live her ramparts are impregnable,” answers the messenger — reporting the safety not of the city walls, but of the people. <a href="https://medium.com/the-first-philosophers/2-4-restoration-875f137b3433">Visit Now</a>