In front of a large audience at the Hellenic Centre, Dr Iain Gordon Brown, FSA, FRSE gave a richly illustrated lecture about the concept and reality of Edinburgh as the ‘Athens of the North’. 

In the years between about 1810 and 1850, Edinburgh – long and affectionately known as ‘Auld Reekie’ – came to think of itself and to be widely regarded as something else. The city became ‘Modern Athens’, or subsequently ‘the Athens of the North’. This phrase is well-known but tends to disguise the often confused and contradictory messages hidden within the convenience of a trite term.