Note 1 at Ac 17:15: Athens was an ancient city named after the patron goddess, Athena. The town surrounded the hill called the Acropolis, which is approximately 500 feet high. It was located about five miles from the Aegean Sea and was connected to its port city of Piraeus by long walls.

The Athenians, allied with Sparta, reached the zenith of their military power with successive victories over the Persian king Darius in 490 B.C. and his son Xerxes in 480 B.C. However, Sparta conquered Athens in 404 B.C., ending the rule of the Athenian state. Athens was conquered again by Philip II, and Philip's son Alexander the Great extended the Greek empire, of which Athens was a part, all the way to India and south into Egypt. In 86 B.C., the Roman general Sulla captured Athens.

Far greater than Athens' political influence was its cultural influence. Despite its political fortunes, Athens continued to be the cultural center of the pre-Christian world. The conquering Romans sent their promising students to study in Athens, thus merging the Greek and Roman cultures. The Greek language gave many words to every major language of the earth. Greece produced authors and philosophers like Homer, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Hippocrates, who is called the father of medicine, was from the golden age of Pericles, ruler of Athens.

This is the Athens that Paul visited. The grandeur of Athens was visible in the temples built on the Acropolis, such as the temple to Athena, the Parthenon. Yet Paul was grieved as he saw the city wholly given to idolatry (Ac 17:16). No doubt he was including the Athenians in his statements to the Corinthians (Corinth being close to Athens) recorded in 1Co 1:18-25.

Second-century A.D. writers, such as Pausanias and Philostratus, have verified the existence of this altar to the unknown God (Ac 17:23), stating that it existed along the road from the port city Piraeus to the city of Athens, as well as other locations within the city. Pausanias goes on to say that the Athenians surpassed all others in the attention that they paid to gods.

Athens still exists today as the capital of modern Greece, and its metro area has a population of over 3 million.