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SECTION IX.

Of Maritime Athens, and its divisions, Peiraeus, Munychia, and Phalerum.-Their harbours, monuments, and fortifications.

THE singularity and local advantages of the site of Athens consist not more in its natural fortress, the Acropolis, than in the peculiar formation of its seacoast. While the Cecropian hill gave protection to the early cultivators of the plain against invaders both by sea and land, and was the primary cause of the importance of Athens among the states of Greece, the indented coast and the peninsular form of Attica were the gifts of nature, to which may be traced that extensive commerce, and that dominion over the Grecian seas which Athens so long retained. The security of the Athenian harbours, and their different capacities, well proportioned to the several stages of the naval power of Athens, conspired with the position of Attica relatively to the surrounding coasts of Greece and Asia, with the richness of the Attic silver-mines, and even with the general poverty of the Attic soil, to produce a combination of circumstances peculiarly adapted to encourage the development of

commercial industry, and of nautical skill and enterprise.

Strabo has left us the following description of the maritime quarters of Athens':

"Above the shore (of the strait of Salamis) is the mountain Corydalus and the demus Corydalenses; then the port Phoron; Psyttalia, a small uninhabited rocky island, by some called the eye-sore of Peiræeus2; near it Atalante, an island of the same name as that between Euboea and the Locri, and another small island of the same nature as Psyttalia. Then occurs Peiræeus, which is reckoned among the demi, and Munychia 3.

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Munychia is a peninsula connected by a narrow isthmus with the mainland. It is full of natural hollows and excavations in the rock, and is naturally well adapted to the reception of dwelling-houses. Below it are three harbours'. Anciently Munychia resembled the city of the Rhodii, being well inhabited in every part, and surrounded by a wall, which

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Page 395.

τὴν λήμην τοῦ Πειραιῶς. This expression was more commonly applied to Egina. Aristot. Rhet. 3, 10. Demades ap. Athen. 3, 21 (55). Plutarch. Pericl. 8. Demosth. 1.

* εἶθ' ὁ Πειραιεὺς, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν τοῖς δήμοις ταττόμενος, καὶ ἡ Μουvuxía. According to Hellanicus, the name was derived from Munychus, son of Panteucles, king of Athens; and the place was first inhabited by Minyæ of Orchomenus, who obtained a refuge here on being driven out of Boeotia by the Thracians. Hellan. ap. Schol. Demosth. p. 148, Reiske. Diodor. fragm. 7. Harpocrat., Suid. in Movvvxía.

4 Λόφος δ ̓ ἐστὶν ἡ Μουνυχία χεῤῥονησιάζων καὶ κοῖλος καὶ ὑπόνόμος πολὺ μέρος, φύσει τε καὶ ἐπίτηδες ὥστ ̓ οἰκήσεις δέχεσθαι, στομίῳ δὲ μικρῷ τὴν εἴσοδον ἔχων· ὑποπίπτουσι δ' αὐτῷ λιμένες τρεῖς. p. 157.

comprehended, within the same inclosure, Peiraeus, and the ports full of places for the construction of ships, among which was the armoury of Philo'. The harbours were sufficiently capacious to afford anchorage to four hundred ships; for the Athenian navy consisted of no fewer. These fortifications were joined to the Long Walls, which were forty stades in length, and united the Peiraeus to the city 2. But the many wars in which Athens has been engaged have caused the destruction of the walls of Peiræeus, and of the fortress of Munychia3, and have reduced Peiraeus to a small village, situated around the ports and the temple of Jupiter Soter, in the open court (vapov) of which are still seen some statues, and in its portico some admirable pictures, the works of celebrated artists. The Long Walls were ruined by the Lacedæmonians, and again by the Romans, when Sylla besieged and took both Peiraeus and Athens. The city consists of habitations surrounding a rock in the plain. On the summit of the rock is the temple of Minerva, &c. *: on the shore adjacent to Peiraeus is the demus of the Phalerenses: then the Halimusii, Exonenses, &c.

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'According to Pliny (H. N. 7, 37 (38)), this armoury was adapted to the supply of a thousand ships. Philo wrote a treatise upon this his celebrated work in Peiraeus, and another upon the symmetry of temples (Vitruv. 7, in Præf.). He was an

orator (Cic. de Orat. 1, 14), as well as an architect.

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Τῷ δὲ τείχει τούτῳ συνῆπτε τὰ καθειλκυσμένα τοῦ ̓́Αστεος σκέλη· ταῦτα δ' ἦν μάκρα τείχη, τετταράκοντα σταδίων τὸ μῆκος, συνάπτοντα τὸ ἄστυ τῷ Πειραιεῖ.

3 τὸ τεῖχος κατήρειψαν καὶ τὸ τῆς Μουνυχίας ἔρυμα.

4 Τὸ δ' ̓́Αστυ αὐτὸ πέτρα ἐστὶν ἐν πεδίῳ περιοικουμένη κύκλῳ ἐπὶ δὲ τῇ πέτρα τὸ τῆς ̓Αθηνᾶς ἱερὸν, &c. p. 396.

These are the names of the demi which border the coast as far as the promontory Sunium."

Pausanias describes the maritime demi and ports of Athens in the following terms1:

"The Peiraeus was a demus from early times; but it was not a port for ships until Themistocles administered the affairs of the Athenians. Before that time the harbour of Athens was at Phalerum, where the sea-shore is nearest to the city. It was from Phalerum that Menestheus set sail for Troy; and still more anciently Theseus, when he went to satisfy the vengeance of Minos for the death of Androgeus 2. But Themistocles, when he held the government, perceiving that the harbour of Peiraeus was more commodiously situated for navigation, and that it possessed three ports, whereas Phalerum had only one, formed it into a receptacle for ships: and to the present time the buildings for containing ships remain, and the sepulchre of Themistocles on the shore of the largest of the three ports; for it is said

1 Attic. 1, 2. 3.

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2 Minos accused the Athenians of having treacherously slain his son Androgeus. For the different legends of the expedition of Theseus, and his contest with the Cretan Taurus, or the poetical Minotaur, see Plutarch (Thes. 15 et seq.), who cites Philochorus, Aristotle, Demon, Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Cleidemus, and others. See also Pausanias (Attic. 27, 9), and Apollodorus, 3, 15, § 8.

3 Pausanias seems here to have had in view the words of Thucydides (1, 93). Θεμιστοκλῆς. . . . νομίζων τό τε χωρίον καλὸν εἶναι, λιμένας ἔχον τρεῖς αὐτοφυείς. Thucyd. 1, 93. V. Corn. Nep. Themist. 6.

4 καὶ νεὼς καὶ ἐς ἐμὲ ἦσαν οἶκοι, καὶ πρὸς τῷ μεγίστῳ λιμένι τάφος Θεμιστοκλέους.

that the Athenians repented of their conduct to Themistocles, and that his bones were brought hither by his descendants from Magnesia.

"The most remarkable object in Peiraeus is the sacred inclosure of Minerva and Jupiter', containing brazen statues of the two deities; the Jupiter having in his hands a sceptre and a victory, and the Minerva a spear2. Here also is a picture by Arcesilaus of Leosthenes and his children 3. The Macra Stoa

1 Αθηνᾶς ἐστι καὶ Διὸς τέμενος.

There can be no doubt that this temenus of Jupiter and Minerva was the same as the ἱερὸν τοῦ Διὸς τοῦ Σωτῆρος, or sanctuary of Jupiter Soter, noticed by Livy (31, 30), Strabo (p. 396), Pliny (H. N. 34, 8 (19, § 14) ), and Plutarch (Demosth. 27). It was probably a foundation coeval with the birth of Athenian navigation, and which received additions at various times in buildings, altars, and statues. Pliny describes the statue of Minerva and the altar of Jupiter in the following terms: "Cephisodorus, Minervam mirabilem in portu Atheniensium et aram ad templum Jovis Servatoris in eodem portu, quibus pauca comparantur." The artist's name, however, was not Cephisodorus, but Cephisodotus, whose sister was married to Phocion (Plutarch. Phocion. 19), who made the statue of Peace bearing Plutus, in the Cerameicus (Pausan. Boot. 16, 1), and who was the joint artist of three statues in the temple of Jupiter Soter at Megalopolis (Pausan. Arcad. 30, 5). The Athenians relieved Demosthenes from his fine by granting him the amount of it for the purpose of raising and adorning an altar in this temple, for the festival of the god. Plutarch. Demosth. 27. Vit. X. Rhet. in Demosth. An altar of Jupiter Ctesius, alluded to by Antiphon (in Nover. p. 612. 614, Reiske), was probably within the sanctuary of J. Soter.

3 When the Athenians were meditating a war with Macedonia, Leosthenes sailed to Asia with the Athenian fleet, and conveyed to Greece the Greek mercenaries of the Persian satraps whom Alexander wished to detain in Asia. In the Lamiac war, which broke out on the death of Alexander, Leosthenes commanded the Athenians, and gained two victories; one at Platea over the

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