That, my friend, is a true tragedy. On the upside, we did take care of slavery. It only took us 2,000 years. Best wishes, John Green. When we think about the high point of Greek culture, exemplified by the Parthenon and the plays of Aeschylus, what we're really thinking about is Athens in the 4th century BCE, right after the Persian Wars. But Greece was way more than Athens. Greeks lived in city-states, which consisted of a city and its surrounding area.