Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/275

  Athens till the abolition of its schools of philosophy by Justinian in the sixth century. It was probably at this time that many of its temples were converted into churches. Thus the Parthenon, or temple of the Virgin-goddess, became a church consecrated to the Virgin-Mother; and the temple of Theseus was dedicated to the warrior St. George of Cappadocia. The walls of Athens were repaired by Justinian. (Procop. de Aedif. iv., 2.)

During the middle ages Athens sunk into a provincial town, and is rarely mentioned by the Byzantine writers. After the capture of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat obtained the greater part of northern Greece, which he governed under the title of king of Thessalonica. He bestowed Athens as a duchy upon one of his followers; and the city remained in the hands of the Franks, with many alternations of fortune, till its incorporation into the Turkish empire in 1466. The Parthenon was now converted from a Christian church into a Turkish mosque. In 1687 the buildings of the Acropolis suffered severe injury in the siege of Athens by the Venetians under Morosini. Hitherto the Parthenon had remained almost uninjured for 5,000 years; but it was now reduced to a ruin by the explosion of a quantity of powder which had been placed in it by the Turks. "A few years before the siege, when Wheler, Span, and De Nointel visited Athens, the Propylaea still preserved its pediment; the temple of Victory Apterus was complete; the Parthenon, or great temple of Minerva, was perfect, with the exception of the roof, and of the central figures in the eastern, and of two or three in the western pediment; the Erechtheium was so little injured that it was used as the harem of a Turkish house; and there were still remains of buildings and statues on the southern side of the Parthenon. If the result of the siege did not leave the edifice of the Acropolis in the deplorable state in now see them, the injury which they received on that occasion was the cause of all the dilapidation which they have since suffered, and rendered the transportation of the fallen fragments of sculpture out of Turkey their best preservative from total destruction." (Leake, Topography of Athens, p. 86.) Spon and Wheler visited Athens in 1675; and have left an account of the buildings of the Acropolis, as they existed before the siege of Morosini. In 1834 Athens was declared the capital of the new kingdom of Greece; and since that time much light been thrown upon the topography of the ancient city by the labours of modern scholars, of which an account is given in the course of the present article.

Athens consisted of three distinct parts, united within one line of fortifications. 1. or , From the city having been originally confined to the Acropolis, the latter was constantly called Polis in the historical period. (Thuc. ii. 15.) It is important to bear this fact in mind, since the Greek writers frequently use the word Polis, without any distinguishing epithet to indicate the Acropolis. (Aesch. Eum.687, Dind.; Aristoph. Lysistr.. 759, 911 ; Arrian, Anab. iii. 16.) Hence the Zeus of the Acropolis was surnamed and the Athena. At the same time it must be observed that Polis like the word City in London, was used in a more extended significa-tion. (Leake, p. 221, note.) 2. , the upper town, in opposition to the lower town of Peiraeens (Xen. Hell. ii. 4. § 10), and therefore, in its widest sense, including the Polis. Sometimes, however, the Asty is called the Lower City, in opposition to the Acropolis or Upper City. To prevent confusion we shall confine the term of Polis to the Acropolis, and Asty to the Upper City as distinguished from the Peiraeens. 3., Peiraeeus, including Munychia and Phalerum. Peiraeeus and Munychia were surrounded by the same fortifications, and were united to the Asty by the Long Walls. Phalerum, the ancient port-town of Athens, was also united for a time to the Asty by the Phaleric wall, but was not included within the fortifications of Peiraeeus. The topography of these three divisions of Athens will be given in succession, after describing the walls and gates, and making some remarks upon the extent and population of the city.

The true position of the Walls of the Asty was first pointed out by Forchhammer, in his able essay on the Topography of Athens (published in the Kieler philologische Studien, Kiel, 1841). He successfully defended his views in the Zeitschrift fur die Alterthumswissenschaft (1843, Nos. 69, 70), in reply to the criticisms of Curtius; and most modern scholars have acquiesced in the main in his opinions. The accompanying map of Athens, taken from Kiepert, gives the direction of the walls according to Forchhammer's views; but as Leake, even in the second edition of his Topography, has assigned a more limited extent to the walls of the Asty, the matter must be examined at some length, as it is one of great importance for the whole topography of the city.

It is in the direction of the western and southern portion of the walls that Forchhammer chiefly differs from his predecessors. Leake supposes that the walls built by Themistocles ran from the gate Dipylum across the crest of the hills of the Nymphs, of the Pnyx, and of the Museium, and then north of the Ilissus, which would thus have flowed outside the walls. This view seems to be supported by the fact that across the crest of the hills of Pnyx and Museium, the foundations of the walls and of some of the towers are dearly traceable; and that vestiges of the walls between Musieum and Enneacrunus may also be distinguished in many places. Forchhammer, on the other hand, maintains that these remains do not belong to the walls of Themistocles, but to the fortifications of a later period, probably those erected by Valerian, when the population of the city had diminished. (Zoeim. i. 29.) That the walls of Themistocles must have included a much greater circuit than these remains will allow, may be proved by the following considerations.

Thucydides gives an exact account of the extent of the fortifications of the Asty and the Harbours, including the Long Walls, as they existed at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. He says (ii. 13) "the length of the Phaleric Wall to the walls of the Asty was 35 stadia. The part of the walls of the Asty which was guarded was 43 stadia. The part that was left unguarded lay between the long wall and the Phaleric. Now the Long Walls, running down to the Peiraeeus, were 40 stadia in length, of which

