The geographical location of Athens was highly convenient for it granted the city easy access to either the Eastern and Western Mediterranean. This location favored international trade, an economic activity that yields great profits and wealth, and the colonization of lands in today's Southern Italy and Sicily, which allowed Athenians to manage its overpopulation and also provided them with naval bases that could be used for merchant vessels as waypoints where they could resupply with water and food on their long journeys to Hispania (Spain) and Hibernia (England).
Te prosperity that international trade brought about in Athens enabled one of its famous rulers, Pericles, to rely on funds used to embellish the city by restoring or bulding anew famed buildings such as the Parthenon.