Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/14

Rh of Athens, the works and embellishments carried cut by Pericles being only a fulfilment of the far-sighted aims of Themistocles. Thucydides (ii. 13) makes the circuit of the city wall to be 43 stades (about 5 miles), exclusive of the unguarded space between walls ; this is found to correspond accurately enough with the existing remains. In tracing the circuit of the ancient walls, we may take our start from the N.W. side of the city, at the one gate whose site is absolutely certain, the Thriasian gate (called also the Sacred gate, as opening upon the sacred way to Eleusis, and also TO AtTnAoj/, as consisting of two gates, perhaps one within the other), which is marked by the modern church of the Holy Trinity, a little N. of the bottom of Hermes Street a spot attractive to the modern tourist through the beautiful &quot; street of tombs &quot; here laid bare by recent excavations. From the Thriasian gate the wall of Themistocles ran due E. for some distance ; thence, skirting the modern theatre, it ran N.E., parallel to the modern Pirseeus Street as far as the Bank, when it returned in a S.E. direction across the site of the present Mint, as far as the Chamber of Deputies. Thence towards the S.E. it included nearly all the modern Royal Gardens, and then ran S.W., following the zig-zag of the hills above the north bank of the Ilissus, until westwards by a straight course parallel with the Acropolis it reached the Museium Hill. Thence it may be traced in a direction N.W. and N., following more or less the contour of the hills, until we return to our starting-point at the Dipylum gate. Eight other gates (exclusive of wickets, TTuAiSc?, which must have existed) are mentioned by an cient authors the Pircean, Hippades, Melitides, Itonian, Diomeian, Diocharis, Panopis, and Acharnian. Their exact sites cannot be certainly fixed, but some of them may be determined within narrow limits, such as the Pirsean gate, which led out of the Agora, and opened upon the long walls. Having completed the defences of the city proper, among which must be included the building of the north wall of the Acropolis (Dyer, p. 121), Themistocles pro ceeded to fortify the Pirseeus. Athens, like most of the old Greek towns, was built, for greater security, at a distance from the coast, and only buildings w ^ en morfc set ^ e( l times brought her greater prosperity was a harbour formed at the nearest bay of Phaleruin, near the modern church of St George. It is said that Themistocles would gladly have transported the Athenian population bodily from the upper city to the coast, there to form a great maritime state. Though this was impos sible, yet he could strengthen Athens on the seaward side. The isthmus of Pirseeus, though somewhat more distant thau Phalerum, presented obvious advantages as a sea port. It formed on its north side the spacious and secure basin of Piraeus (now Port Drako), the north and south shores of which towards the entrance fall back into two smaller bays harbours within the harbour known respectively as the KCO^OS Ai/x^v and KavOapos. The neck of the isthmus on the south is formed by Port Zea (now Phanari), the entrance of which was secured by Phreattys, the headland of Munychia. Ptound to the east of the district of Munychia, again, and facing Phalerum, was the harbour known anciently as Munychia, and now as Port Stratiotiki. Themistocles thus, in giving up Port Phalerum, gave Athens three harbours instead of one. The fortifications of Pineeus were conceived on a grand scale, and carried out with no sign of hurry. The whole circuit of Piraeeus and of the town of Munychia was enclosed alike on the sea and land sides by walls of immense thickness and strength, which were carried up to a height of more than 60 feet this being only half the height intended by Themistocles! (see Grote, Hist. Greece, c. xliv.) The laying out of the new seaport belonged rather to the regime of Pericles (Grote, c. xlvii.) It was then that Hippodamus, the eccentric architect, planned the Agora which bore his name ; and the various public buildings which adorned Pirseeus doubtless arose with growth of Athenian commerce. The harbour-basin was lined with porticoes, which served as warehouses and bazaars. Two theatres existed in the town, and numerous temples. The local deity was Artemis Munychia; but the large number of foreigners (/AC TOIKOI) who became naturalised at this port led to the introduction of many foreign forms of worship. Artemis herself came to be identified with the Thracian Bendis, and her festival (TO. Bev& Seta) is referred to in the immortal opening of Plato s Republic. If not a part of the original designs of Themistocles, it was at least a natural development of them, to carry &quot; Long Walls &quot; from the newly-fortified Pirseeus to the upper city, and thus combine them both into one grand system of fortification. The experiment of connecting a town by long walls with its port had been already tried between Megara and Nissea (Grote, Hist. Greece, c. xlv.), and it was now repeated on a grander scale under Cimon. From the portion of the city wall between the Museium and the Nymphs Hill a sort of bastion was thrown out to S.W. so as to form an irregular triangle, from the apex of which a &quot; long wall,&quot; about 4 miles long, was carried down to the N. portion of the Piraeean fortifications ; this was termed TO /Sopetov Tet^os- Another &quot;long wall&quot; of somewhat shorter length ran down to the wall of Phaleruro, which had hitherto served as the port of Athens ; this was TO QaXypiKov Ti^o?. A third wall, between the two, parallel to the first, and but a few yards from it (TO VOTIOV ret^o?, TO 8ia fj.ea-ov TCI^OS), was afterwards added by Pericles, and the maritime fortifications of Athens became complete. But the city owed still more to the munificence of Cimon. Out of the spoils of his Persian campaign he fortified the S. side of the Acropolis with a remarkably solid wall, which terminated in a sort of bastion at the W. end. Here he reared a little temple of Athena Nike (otherwise called the Wingless Victory), although the existing sculptures of the frieze are pronounced on account of their style to belong to a somewhat later date (Pausan., i. 28, 3 ; Corn. Nep., Cimon, ii; Plutarch, Cimon, xiii.) It was Cimon who first set the example of providing the citizens with agreeable places for promenade (Plutarch, ibid.), by plant ing the Agora with plane trees, and laying out the Aca demy with trees and walks. It is probable that some of the porticoes in the Agora were built by Cimon ; at all events, the most beautiful one amongst them was reared by Pisianax, his brother-in-law, and the paintings with which Polygnotus, his sister s lover, adorned it (representing scenes from the military history of Athens, legendary and historical) made it ever famous as the 2roa TroiKiA??. One more building, the most perfect existing relic of ancient Athens, was also built by Cimon. The Theseium (as we still may venture to call it, in spite of the doubts lately cast upon its identification) 1 is a hexastyle Doric temple standing on an eminence due N. of the Areopagus, and is the first object which meets the eye of the tourist who approaches the city from the Piraeeus. Having served in Byzantine times for a Christian church, it is now a museum of antiquities, and contains some of the choicest treasures discovered by recent excavations. We have now brought this sketch of Athenian topography down to the most distinguished period of Athenian history and Athenian architecture the era of Pericles. As the champion of Hellenic freedom against the Persians, as the head of the Ionic confederation, Athens had suddenly grown to be the foremost city in Greece. But when one by one the confederate states sank into the position of subject- 1 See Dyer, Athens, p. 230, foil., who thinks it is really the temple of the Amazons. Long v Wingles Victory. Stoa Pcecile. Thesciui Periclea era.

