Athens is an historical anomaly. Excavations date its
first settlement to over seven thousand years ago, yet it
only became the capital of Greece in 1834. During the
intervening centuries it was occupied by almost every
mobile culture in Europe: from its earliest likely
settlers, tribes from what is now Albania, to Nazi forces
during the second World War, and in between by successive
waves of Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Slavs, Goths,
Venetians, French, Catalans, Turks, Italians, Bulgarians
and the clans of various kings and tyrants of the
region's early city-states. There has been a structure on
its 'high city', the acropolis, since at least the bronze
age, although it was subsequently altered by successive
occupiers, becoming a fort, castle, temple, mosque,
church and even a harem. its 'Golden Age' peaked in the
fifth century BCE, with the great building projects of
Pericles and Themistocles, and its later history is one
of a city already nostalgic for its past, although at a
time when other European cities had yet to begin
constructing a past.