AHC/WI: Keep Athens a City-State

How do you keep Athens as a free City-State ?

You dont.

A free city state in an era when massive empires are fighting all.around you just isnt a viable possibility.

I think the best you could reasonably hope for would be an Athenian led confederation taking in most of Greece. In which case you might have 'free', but not sovereign city states. Something the Delian League might have become if Athens hadnt tried turning it into an Athenian Empire.
 
I think it's possible. You simply don't have the Roman conquest. For the most part, Athens was an autonomous and de facto independent city state during the hellenistic era and even during the early parts of Roman domination. I don't see why this trend wouldn't continue since Macedon and the other Hellenistic powers tended to err on the side of remote control rather than direct control (hence why there was still a Boeotian League, Achaean League, Aetolian League, independent Sparta, and independent Athens).
 
Athens retained a lot of autonomy within the Roman Empire well into the AD period, so it's not infeasible that during the conquest it's made a protectorate of Rome under a pliant oligarchy, a republican system or indeed even a democracy of some sort.

If it plays it safe during the Roman period, then if/when the Empire falls, its centuries-long history of self-governance and folk memory of ancient glory may lead it to reassert its independence.
 
Athens retained a lot of autonomy within the Roman Empire well into the AD period, so it's not infeasible that during the conquest it's made a protectorate of Rome under a pliant oligarchy, a republican system or indeed even a democracy of some sort.

If it plays it safe during the Roman period, then if/when the Empire falls, its centuries-long history of self-governance and folk memory of ancient glory may lead it to reassert its independence.
Seems likely to me.
 
Athens retained a lot of autonomy within the Roman Empire well into the AD period, so it's not infeasible that during the conquest it's made a protectorate of Rome under a pliant oligarchy, a republican system or indeed even a democracy of some sort.
dependence.

Ummm... I'm not sure a protectorate counts as 'free', but maybe I'm reading that word differently from some of you.
 
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