Short answers, pulled from the story.
Classical Athens was the major urban centre of the city-state of Athens during the classical period of ancient Greece, from 480 to 323 BC. It sat in Attica, about 30 stadia from the sea on the southwest slope of Mount Lycabettus.
Cleisthenes established the Athenian democracy in 508 BC, following the tyranny of Isagoras. With a few brief interruptions, it remained in place for 180 years.
Athens helped repel two Persian invasions, with Miltiades leading the victory at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC and Themistocles leading the naval victory at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. After the Persian defeat, Athens formed and led the Delian League against the Achaemenid Empire.
Pericles, elected general in 445 BC and serving until his death in 429 BC, fostered the arts and literature and launched many public works, including the Parthenon. Silver from the mines of Laurium funded this prosperity, and the era reached a splendor Athens would never recover.
Philip II of Macedon defeated Athens and Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, and Athens joined the League of Corinth that winter. After the Lamian War ended in 322 BC, Antipater dissolved the Athenian government and set up a plutocratic system, leaving Athens wealthy but no longer an independent power.
Athens was a centre for the arts, learning, and philosophy, home to Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum and the birthplace of figures such as Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Aristophanes, and Sophocles. Its cultural and political achievements in the 5th and 4th centuries BC earned it the names cradle of Western civilization and birthplace of democracy.