Some time about 440BC, the Athenians decided to make all these people get rid of their own currency, with their own national emblems, and use Athenian "owls" instead - in fact some of the public notices laying this down, still survive, inscribed on stone around what was the Athenian empire.

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Were the states of the empire actually keen to come into the Athenian-zone?

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Another reason is they feel they have contributed to the project historically - not just through Athenian democracy but in the liberation struggle against the Ottoman Empire, and through the heroic resistance to Nazism which still haunts the memories of elderly people here.

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