Athens · 432 BC
What you're walking through
In 432 BC, Athens was the richest and most powerful city in Greece. Under Pericles, it had spent its wealth on the Acropolis: the Parthenon, the great temple of Athena, had just been finished after fifteen years of work, and the marble gateway in front of it, the Propylaea, was nearly done. Their columns and sculptures were painted in bright colours.
Below the Acropolis lay the agora, the city's market and meeting place, lined with long columned halls called stoas, where people shopped, did business, and talked philosophy and politics. Around it, houses of mud brick with tiled roofs crowded along narrow streets. The next year, war with Sparta began.
Who lives here
Athenian man
A tunic called a chiton, and sandals · only free men with two Athenian parents were citizens
Every citizen could speak and vote in the assembly, which met on the Pnyx hill a few minutes' walk from the agora. Many men spent their mornings in the agora itself, shopping, doing business and arguing about politics.
Athenian woman
A dress of wool or linen · women ran their households but could not vote or hold office
Women of well-off families spent much of their time at home, spinning and weaving, and went out for festivals, funerals and to fetch water from the fountain houses. Poorer women worked, some selling bread, vegetables and garlands in the agora.
Donkey
About 1.2 m at the shoulder · the pack animal of farms, roads and markets
Donkeys and mules carried firewood, grain and the farms' produce into town, and goods to and from the markets and harbours.
Sheep
Kept for wool, milk and cheese · the dry hills of Attica suited sheep and goats better than cattle
Their wool was spun and woven at home, into the cloth for most of the tunics and cloaks in the city.
The city is simplified: real Athens was far more crowded, with its houses packed along narrow, winding streets, and its buildings had far more detail. The people and their period clothing are stylized approximations.
How to walk
Press Start walking above. WA SD or the arrow keys move you, the mouse looks around, hold Shift with a movement key to run at 3× walking speed, and Space jumps. Look at someone to see who they are. Esc pauses, and M turns the sound on or off. You're invisible: nobody here can see you.
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