NOTE XIV a.

THE THREE HARBOURS OF THE PIRÆUS.

A considerable amount of confusion has been caused by ancient references to the three harbours of the Piræus, because modern scholars have, not unnaturally, supposed that the same three harbours are always referred to, especially where, as in the passages quoted at the beginning of Chapter XIV., the later author is evidently referring to the earlier. As a fact, however, the various references to three harbours, those of Thucydides, of Pausanias, and of the Attic official documents, each of them refers to a different set of three, as is obvious enough when one examines the matter.

Thucydides speaks of three natural harbours in the Piraic promontory, before Themistocles took it in hand. These can only be the great (Piraic) harbour on the north-west side and the two smaller inlets (Munychian and Phaleric) on the south-west.

Pausanias points out the superiority of the Piraic harbour in the narrower sense, that is to say the great north-west harbour, because it contained, as organised in later times, three harbours, Cantharus, Zea, and the commercial harbour of Emporion.

The official documents speak of the dry docks for galleys in three naval arsenals, those of Munychia, Zea, and Cantharus.

It appears, then, that the occurrence of the number three in all these accounts is misleading. In reality there are five harbours referred to: those of Phalerum, of Munychia, and of Zea, Cantharus, and Emporion, these last three together constituting the great harbour of Piræus; and the various authorities just quoted happen to select three of these, but a different three in each case, for their special purpose. Pausanias, indeed, guards against error by saying, a little later, that, besides the Piræus, Athens has the harbours of Munychia and Phalerum. Those who are familiar with recent maps or books on the Piræus will notice that I differ from most recent topographers, and have returned, in the main, to the topography of Leake, both as regards the walls and as regards the harbours. In the case of the harbours I am induced to do this mainly by the facts pointed out by M. Angelopoulos in his pamphlet,

Περὶ Πειραιῶς καὶ τῶν λιμένων αὐτοῦ (Athens, 1898). He quotes the numbers of slip-ways for galleys recorded for the different naval harbours, viz. :

and compares them with the breadth of the slips of which the remains may still be seen, viz. 6.25 m. in Fanari and 6.50 in Pashalimani. It follows from these data that the number of slip-ways recorded for Munychia would require a minimum shore line at the lower end of the docks of 512 m. for the smaller breadth, and of 533 m. for the greater; and similarly the minimum shore line of Zea, for the greater breadth, would be 1274 m. And this, too, allows none of the necessary intervals for quays, etc. Now the available space in Fanari, at the lower end of the slip-ways, is only 440 m.; therefore its now customary identification as the harbour of Munychia must be erroneous; and the available space in Pashalimani, measured in the same manner, is only 900 m.; therefore its identification as Zea must also be wrong. I have verified M. Angelopoulos's measurements on the best available maps, and they appear to me to be correct; nor have they, to my knowledge, been challenged. There is, therefore, no alternative but to return to Leake's identification of Fanari as the harbour of Phalerum, and of Pashalimani, as the harbour of Munychia; and Zea must be placed, like Cantharus, in the great harbour of the Piræus.

The shifting of the harbour of Munychia from Fanari to Pashalimani does not necessarily involve the shifting of Munychia itself; for the position now generally assigned to it lies between the two, and so either might be named after it. The arguments given by Leake for his identification of Munychia as the extreme part of the peninsula are strong; but the discovery of a boundary stone of Munychia to the north-east of the great harbour seems to settle the question.

Alcamenes, statues by, 31, 248, 397-398, Antæ, of Propylæa, 225, 228, 230, 231.

Artemis Brauronia, precinct of, 55, 84, Attalus I., 483-485, 520.