like emperor Hardrianus (138 (b.c.)) he admired the Greek architecture and builds for example the temple of Zeus. The Romans closed in 529 (b.c.) by order of emperor Justinianus the last temple of philo-sophy and so an era of polytheism was closed.

The owl, symbol of wisdom,
and an olive tree branch on the ancient coin of Athens.

Between 1200 and 1450, Athens suffered by the occupation of the Catalans, Florentines and Venetian. The darkest period of Athens though started in 1394 when the city fell under the Turkish occupation. It remained in the hand of the Turks for a period of about four centuries during wich time Athens slowly decayed. During this time the Venetians tried two times to take the

city. The first time they succeeded but gave it again to Turks after a treaty after wich the Parthenon became a mosque and the Erechthion the house of the harem of the Turkish Com-mander of the city. The second time they were unsuccessful but their attempt had disastrous effect on the Acropoli. The Turks first destroyed the temple of Niki to turn it into a defen-sive rampant against the siege of the Venetians. Then a Venetian canon-ball blew up Parthenon witch the Turks were using to storage gunpowder. It took the Greeks eleven years, (with some help in the last few years from Russia, England and France and with the constant economic support from Greeks leaving in other European countries) to win the independence war against the Turks. The first capital of the liberated country was Nafplion but in the year 1833 this role was given to Athens. Bavarian powers with the support of the English and French governments installed then King Otto on the Greek throne who started repairing the damaged city. In neoclassical style new buildings were created. In 1922 president Venizelos succeeded to recover formal Greek areas like Epirus, Kriti, Macedonia and most Aegean islands in Greece. He then captured with success areas in