Athens from 1456 to 1920: The Town under Ottoman Rule and the 19th-Century Capital City

Few people are aware that shortly after 1456, when Athens yielded without fighting to the bitter end, she had become one of the bigger Balkan towns within the Ottoman Empire.The limited area confined within the boundaries of the late Roman fortification walls soon developed into a town of thirty-six mahalles.A thorough analysis of the town/country relationship within the Ottoman feudal system of production in general, and as related to Athens in particular, reveals the dynamic conditions of urban development.Athens shared many of the characteristics of prosperity based on specific modes of appropriation of surpluses and patterns of division of labour between town and countryside.Strange though it might seem, it was only after the middle of the 17th century, when land-tenure conditions changed and Athens was heading towards decline, that an ‘Ottoman’ character as such could be detected in its built environment, although Christians still strongly outnumbered Muslim citizens.That being so