Athens

   Celebrated ancient city on the plain of Attica in east-central Greece (q.v.). It declined in the Byzantine era, beginning in 267 with a raid of barbarian Heruls that did great damage to the city. More damage occurred when Alaric (q.v.) occupied the city briefly in 396. Nevertheless, Athens remained a center of learning, where great minds like Julian, Basil the Great, and Gregory Nazianzos (qq.v.) studied. In the fifth century Athenais-Eudokia (q.v.), the daughter of a pagan philosopher from Athens, was chosen as bride for Theodosios II (q.v.). The closing of the famed Academy of Athens (q.v.) in 529 by Justinian I (q.v.), as well as the Slavic migrations into Greece, accelerated Athen's decline. Nevertheless, it remained in Byzantine hands until the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (q.v.), when it was incorporated into the duchy ofAthens and Thebes under Othon de la Roche (qq.v.). In the early 14th century it was taken over by the Catalan Grand Company (q.v.), after which it was ruled successively by Florentines, Venetians, and Byzantines from 1446-1456, when it fell to the Ottomans (q.v.).