Atene () was a coastal (''paralia'')
deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or (, plural: ''demoi'', δήμοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Classical Athens, Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, bu ...
of
Attica
Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...
, belonging to the
Antiochis tribe (''
phyle
''Phyle'' (, ; pl. ''phylai'', ; derived from Greek , ''phyesthai'' ) is an ancient Greek term for tribe or clan. Members of the same ''phyle'' were known as ''symphyletai'' () meaning 'fellow tribesmen'. During the late 6th century BC, Cleist ...
''), with three representatives in the
Boule.
It bordered
Anaphlystus Anaphlystus or Anaphlystos () was a coastal (paralia) deme of ancient Athens, belonging to the Antiochis phyle, on the west coast of Attica, opposite the island of Eleussa, and a little north of the promontory of Sunium, between that promontory an ...
to the north and
Amphitrope in the east,
in what is now the southern part of
Saronikos municipality.
It had an area of about 20 km
2, including the valleys of Charaka, Hagia Photini and Thimari as well as
Gaidouronisi.
The area had been mostly uninhabited prior to the 5th century BC. The first epigraphic mention of Atene dates to 432 BC.
It prospered during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, with a
dispersed settlement
A dispersed settlement, also known as a scattered settlement, is one of the main types of settlement patterns used by landscape historians to classify rural settlements found in England and other parts of the world. Typically, there are a num ...
pattern,
["with a purely dispersed settlement pattern, consisting only of widely scattered farmsteads" Lohmann (1992:35).]
but was depopulated in the 3rd century BC, probably in the wake of the
Chremonidean War
The Chremonidean War (267–261 BC) was fought by a coalition of Polis, Greek city-states and Ptolemaic Egypt against Antigonid Macedonia. It ended in a Macedonian victory that confirmed Antigonid dynasty, Antigonid control over Greece. The conf ...
.
References
Sources
*
*Hans Lohmann, ''Agriculture and country life in classical Attica'' (1992).
*
Demoi
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