6 5 At first sight this passage certainly appears to imply that there were two Long Walls to the Piræus, in addition to the one to Phalerum. On the other hand, Thucydides himself, in another passage,1 refers to two walls only, the Piraic and Phaleric; Xenophon, Æschines,3 Andocides, and Livy refer to two only; and two only, the northern and southern, are mentioned in the inscription concerning the rebuilding of the Long Walls under Habron. Moreover, the expressions σkéλŋ and brachia, applied to them in Greek and Latin respectively, are suitable for two walls, but not for three. It follows that in Thucydides, II. 13, we must accept one of two explanations. Either there was, for a short time, an intervening wall close to the northern wall, possibly built after the others as an extra precaution, and never restored after the destruction of the Long Walls at the close of the Peloponnesian War; such a wall would easily be forgotten if its materials were used up when Conon rebuilt the other two; or else, as is more probable, the Piraic Wall, which was the more important and the more liable to attack, was a double wall, with a face on either side. This last supposition would fit the language of Thucydides completely; for he sometimes. speaks of the Piraic Long Wall (in the singular), sometimes the Piraic Long Walls (in the plural), and in both cases opposes the Piraic to the Phaleric. And, if Eschines and Andocides are right in asserting that the 1 I. 107. 3 II. 173, 174. 2 Hell. II. 2. 15. 4 III. 4, 5, 7. 5 XXXI. 26. 8. northern wall was built several years before the southern, it would, if double, have been tenable alone as a means of communication in the interim. (b) On the Length of the Walls, as given in Thucydi des, II. 13.-If the figures given in this passage are right, it is impossible to reconcile them with extant remains and geographical conditions as recognised by modern topographers. The circuit of the city wall is far too long; on the other hand, the length of both the Piraic and Phaleric Long Walls is too short. The length given for the circuit of Piræus and Munychia is about right; but, if only half of it required guarding, the Long Walls must have joined it much farther from each other than they are usually drawn; they must, when they ceased to be parallel, have diverged broadly, to join either edge of the Piraic peninsula; and this demands a considerable increase in their length. The measures in stades given by Thucydides are: Phaleric Wall, 35; circuit of city (exclusive of space between Long Walls), 43;' Piraic Wall, 40; circuit of Piræus and Munychia, total, 60; guarded, 30. The change required to reconcile these measurements with the facts is a simple one. Something has to be taken off the measure of the city circuit and added to that of the Long Walls. This is easily done if we imagine that 1 The measurement of 60 stades, given by Aristodemus and others, is obviously a rough estimate, like the 30,000 spectators in the theatre. The scholiast's attempt to reconcile it with Thucydides' estimate of 43 by reckoning the unguarded part between the Long Walls at 17 is absurd. Even as measured on Curtius' map, this distance only amounts to 5 stades. the limit of the city walls was taken, not, as is usually done, along the ridge of the Pnyx Hill, but farther toward the Piræus, where the lines of the Long Walls begin to be parallel, and where a cross wall is marked in Curtius' map. Roughly measured, the circuit along the line of the old city wall amounts to only 28 stades; but the additional piece thus added is about 15 stades, and so makes up the 43 given by Thucydides. And this extra 15, divided between the two Long Walls, allows them to diverge much more widely at the Piræus end, and so to free the guard of about half the walls of the Piræus. An explanation of the arrangement is also obvious. The circuit usually taken is doubtless the original line of the city wall. But we know that for military purposes Athens was divided, during the Peloponnesian War, into three wards, the City, the Long Walls, and the Piræus. It would be advisable to have the length of wall to be guarded in each approximately the same; and this object would be gained by making the division as here suggested. The city, as the most convenient, would be slightly the longest, for the two Long Walls, being so close to one another, would practically require only one garrison for the two; and the Piræus, though the part of its circuit requiring defence was shorter, was of an awkward shape, and so more exposed, as well as farther from the bulk of the citizens. 1 Polyænus, I. 40; cf. Andoc. de Myst. p. 23, Reiske. CHAPTER III THE ACROPOLIS BEFORE THE PERSIAN WARS THE position of Athens, with its rocky hills at a convenient distance from the sea, was such as to attract settlers even before the traditional concentra tion of the scattered townships of Attica which was commemorated in the festival of the Synoecia, and associated with the name of Theseus. Some traces of these early settlements still remain. Amongst the earliest walls on the Acropolis and under its southern slope there have been found fragments of rough pottery of a type that was prevalent throughout the coasts of the Mediterranean in prehistoric times, and that precedes in Greece what is known as the Mycenæan era. On the seaward slopes of the Pnyx Hill there exist a great number of cuttings in the rock, KOILE, WITH FOUNDATIONS OF HOUSES AND STEPS. many of which probably go back to a very primitive time. They consist of the foundations of numerous houses, mostly of one room only, with terraces, steps, and often storehouses or cisterns; these last, as well as some of the chambers, are cut in the solid rock, and suggest subterranean dwellings. Curtius, who first studied these remains, regarded them as the |