Modern Greek: Athínai. Ancient Greek: Athēnai.
Modern Greek: Athínai. Ancient Greek: Athēnai.
Athens sits atop a hill that lets it see for miles in every direction — a strategic vantage that has kept the city inhabited since before 3000 BCE. Some say antediluvians once walked these streets, and the city's founding myth, a contest between Poseidon and Athena for its patronage, is read by some Cainites as a coded memory of a political conflict between the Tzimisce antediluvian and the Brujah founder.
At the opening of the chronicle in 1242 CE, Athens is the capital of a crusader Duchy carved from the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade, ruled by the Burgundian De La Roche family and their Frankish chivalric court. The city's Cainites hold their own court above it, at the Acropolis, which they still call Cecropia.