Athens' achievements in the Persian Wars, the brilliance of Periclean Athens and the activity of her own historians (the Atthidographers) have ensured that in our record even of the archaic period, before the Persian Wars, Athens occupies the centre of the stage. If this prominence was merely an accident of Athens' later history, it would seem less than just to the fortunes of Argos, Corinth or Sparta. But in the material record of archaic Greece Athens occupies a comparably dominant position, wholly supported by the multitude and often the quality of her monuments and artefacts, and only in part due to the accidents of later years. For any account, therefore, of the material culture of late archaic Greece it would be foolish not to look most closely at Athens, and in fact it proves pointless to linger, certainly in such a brief survey, over the lacunose record of other cities, apart from observing some difference in quality, sometimes some difference in behaviour. Regional studies have rightly taken a prominent place in these volumes, but no more apology than this paragraph need be offered for devoting this section almost wholly to Athens. For an account of other aspects of the material culture of archaic Greece, and especially the riches of its cemeteries and sanctuaries, the reader is referred to the Plates Volumes accompanying CAH III and IV. A review of the physical evidence for Athens in the period covered by this volume should attempt to resolve itself into the three main periods of its fortunes – the last years of tyranny, the new democracy, the Persian invasions.