Studies in Greek Scenery, Legend and History / Selected from His Commentary on Pausanias' 'Description of Greece,'

by James George Frazer

Piraeus includes three distinct harbours, each opening to the sea by a separate mouth. These are the great harbour, technically known as Cantharus, on the north-west side of the peninsula, and the two smaller and nearly circular harbours of Zea and Munychia on the south-eastern side. The whole of the peninsula, with its three harbours, was strongly fortified in antiquity. The line of the fortification wall may still be traced almost all round it, and in most places the foundations are so well preserved that it is possible to reconstruct the plan of the fortress as a whole. The wall runs along the shore at such a distance as to be out of reach of the waves, and yet near enough the sea to prevent an enemy from bringing siege engines into play on the beach. It is from ten to twelve feet thick, and is very carefully built of squared blocks of the native limestone without mortar. The quarries in which the stones were hewn may be observed at many points both behind and in front of the wall. In places where the stones have been taken away from the wall to furnish building material for the modern town, we can see the grooves or channels cut in the rock in which the stones were originally bedded. These grooves are each about two and a half feet wide and run parallel to each other, showing that only the outer and inner faces of the wall were of solid masonry, and that the core must have been, as in many ancient Greek walls, filled up with rubble and earth. In the best preserved portions the wall is still standing to a height of five courses or more. It is flanked by towers which project from the curtain at intervals of sixty or seventy yards.

In addition to this sea-wall which skirted the coast, the mouths of the three harbours were contracted by moles of solid masonry that ran out to meet each other on either side, leaving only a narrow entrance between their extremities. The long moles which thus barred the mouth of the great harbour still exist, though the southern of the two has been washed away by the waves to a depth of some thirteen feet under the surface of the water. They now support the red and green lights which at night mark the entrance to the harbour. The haven of Zea is naturally stronger than the great harbour, and therefore needed less elaborate fortifications. It consists of a circular basin lying about two hundred yards inland from the sea, and is approached by a channel a hundred yards wide. Walls ran along this channel on either side, so that an enemy’s ships endeavouring to enter the harbour would have had to run the gauntlet of a cross fire. At its inner end the channel was flanked on either side by a tower of solid masonry built out into the water, but connected with the fortification walls. The third harbour, Munychia, the smallest of the three, is farthest removed from the business and bustle of the modern port town, and hence has, in some respects, best preserved the relics of antiquity. Originally it was a mere open bay, and therefore needed vast constructions of masonry to convert it into a war harbour. The moles built for this purpose are described by Lieutenant von Alten, who examined them with attention, as the most magnificent specimens of ancient Greek fortification which have survived. In some places on the outer edges of the moles the colossal blocks of which they are composed have been piled up in wild confusion by the heavy surf, and project like islets above the surface of the water. Each mole ended in a tower; and the narrow entrance to the harbour was between the towers. The tiny basin is commanded by the hill of Munychia which rises steeply from the shore. In time of danger each of the harbour mouths could be closed with a chain stretched between the two towers that flanked the entrance. The chain seems to have been coated with tar to prevent it from rusting in the water.

On the landward side the peninsula was defended by a wall, which started from the harbour of Munychia, ascended the hill, and after following the edge of the plateau for some distance gradually descended westward to the shallow northern bight of the great harbour, across which it appears to have been carried on a mole or dam. This landward wall, to judge from its existing remains, seems to have been a masterpiece of military engineering, every opportunity offered by the nature of the ground for strengthening the fortifications having been unerringly seized upon and turned to account. The naturally weakest spot in the whole circuit was where the wall crossed the flat between the hill of Munychia and the great harbour. Here accordingly we find the wall especially strong; it is twenty-six feet thick, and is constructed of solid masonry in large squared blocks without any core of rubble. Naturally the gates were placed in this landward wall and opened northward. Remains of four of them can be distinguished. The principal gate, flanked by two square towers on oval bases, stood in the flat ground between the north-east end of the great harbour and the heights of Munychia. Through it doubtless ran the highway to Athens; and here at a little side portal for foot-passengers probably stood the image of Hermes, which the nine archons dedicated when they set about fortifying Piraeus. A little to the east of this principal gate and on slightly higher ground is another gate, through which the road to Athens went between the two Long Walls. The gate is double, that is, it is composed of a court nearly square with a gate at each end. The reason of this construction, which is common in Greek fortifications, was that, if an enemy should force the outer gate, he would still have a second gate in front of him, and would in the meantime find himself pent in a narrow court, as in a trap, from the walls of which he would be assailed on all sides by the missiles of the defenders.

The docks at Piraeus were one of the glories of Athens. Demosthenes mentions them along with the Parthenon and the Propylaea. When the Athenian navy numbered about four hundred warships, we learn from inscriptions that the number of docks was three hundred and seventy-two. But this excess of ships over docks could scarcely have caused inconvenience, as some vessels must always have been in commission. Very considerable remains of the ancient docks are still to be seen in the harbours of Zea and Munychia. The flat beach all round the basin of Zea was enclosed by a wall of ashlar masonry, which ran round the harbour at a distance of fifty or sixty feet from the water’s edge. This formed the back wall of all the docks, which extended at right angles to it and parallel to each other down into the water. The average breadth of each dock or berth was about twenty feet. The docks were separated from each other by rows of columns, the foundations of which, bedded on the shelving rocky beach, descend in steps to the water, and are continued under it for some distance. These columns supported the roofs, which were probably wooden, for no remains of a stone roof have been found. Between these partition rows of columns the rock has been hollowed out and smoothed, so that it forms an inclined plane, descending gradually, like the rows of columns, to the sea, and continued under water for some way. Each of these inclined planes formed the floor of a dock. In the middle of each floor is built a stone pier about ten feet wide and a yard high; in some places the native rock, hewn out at the sides, has been left standing in the centre so as to form a pier of similar dimensions. On these piers, whether built or hewn out of the rock, the ancient ships were hauled up and down. Remains of them may still be seen all round the harbour of Zea running out under the clear water.

The only relics of ancient ships which have been found at Zea are some plates of Parian marble representing great eyes. Clearly these were the ship’s eyes which used to be fastened to the bows of ancient Greek vessels. Pollux tells us that the ship’s name was painted beside its eye. Philostratus describes the picture of an Etruscan pirate ship painted blue, with fierce eyes at the prow to frighten the enemy. In a list of missing or unserviceable ships’ furniture, preserved in an inscription, mention is twice made of a broken ship’s eye. Some of the eyes found at Zea show traces of red paint at the back; the paint probably adhered to them from the ships’ sides; for ships’ bows were often painted red. Modern Italian sailors sometimes still paint an eye on the bow of their vessel. In the East, too, every craft owned by a Chinaman, from a sampan up to an English-built screw-steamer, has a pair of eyes painted on the bows, that it may see its way and spy out sunken rocks and other dangers of the deep. Indeed, in all parts of eastern Asia where many Chinese travel, the local steamers, whether owned by Chinese or not, all have eyes; otherwise no Chinaman would travel in them, or send his goods by them.

Another famous structure in Piraeus was the arsenal, which formed a necessary adjunct to the docks of the navy. We know from ancient authors that it was built from designs furnished by the architect Zeno, who explained them to the people in a speech which won him a high reputation for eloquence. The building was admired for its elegance, and the Athenians were proud of it. However, it was finally burnt by the Romans under Sulla, and no certain vestiges of it have been as yet discovered. But by an extraordinary piece of good fortune the directions given to the contractor for its construction have been preserved to us. They were discovered in 1882 engraved on a slab of Hymettian marble at the foot of the hill of Munychia, not far from the harbour of Zea. The directions are so full, clear, and precise that we now know Philo’s arsenal from roof to foundation better than any other building of ancient Greece, though not a stone of it has been found. A brief description of the edifice, derived from the inscription, may not be uninteresting.

The arsenal was to be built at Zea, the principal war-harbour, and was to begin at the gateway which led from the market-place and to extend to the back of the docks. It was to be constructed of the hard reddish-grey Piraeic limestone, an excellent building material often mentioned in inscriptions and still much in use. In shape it was to be a sort of arcade, lit principally by rows of windows in the long sides, and divided into three aisles by two rows of columns running down its whole length. The central aisle, paved with flags, and entered by two bronze-plated doors at each end, was to be kept clear as a passage for the public; while the two side aisles were to serve for storing the ships’ tackle. For this purpose each of the side aisles was divided into two stories by a wooden flooring. On the ground floor the sails and other canvas gear were stowed away in presses; and in the upper galleries the ropes were coiled on open wooden shelves. Between the columns which flanked the central aisle there ran a stone balustrade with latticed gates opening into the side aisles between each pair of columns. The roof of the building was to be constructed of strong wooden rafters overlaid with boards, which were to be fastened on with iron nails; and the whole was to be covered with close-fitting Corinthian tiles. To secure that the building should be well aired, which was especially necessary in a magazine of this sort, lest the tackle should suffer from damp, slit-like openings were to be left in the walls between the joints of the stones, the number and situation of these air-holes being left to the discretion of the architect. Such was, in outline, the great arsenal of the Piraeus. Thither on hot summer days, we may suppose, crowds were glad to escape from the dust and glare of the streets and to promenade in the cool, lofty, and dimly-lighted arcade, often stopping to gaze with idle curiosity or patriotic pride at the long array of well-ordered tackle which spoke of the naval supremacy of Athens.

Before we quit the war-harbours we should note the Choma, as it was called, a quay near the mouth of the harbour on which, when an armament was fitting out for sea, the Council of the Five Hundred held their sittings daily till the squadron sailed. When all was ready, every captain was bound by law to lay his vessel alongside the quay to be inspected by the Council. The inspection over, the fleet weighed anchor and proceeded on its voyage. It must have been a heart-stirring sight to witness the departure of a fleet for the seat of war, as gallant ship after ship passed in long procession through the mouth of the harbour and stood out to sea, followed by the gazing eyes and by the hopes and fears and prayers of thousands assembled on the shore. When the last ship had glided from the smooth water of the harbour, and begun to breast the waves and shake out its sails to the freshening breeze, multitudes would rush from the shore to the heights, there to watch the galleys slowly lessening in the distance, till they could discern no longer the flash and sparkle of the oars as they rose and fell at the ships’ sides, and till even the white sails melted away like snow in the blaze of the sun on the far southern horizon.

A long line of colonnades extending along the eastern shore of the great harbour appears to have formed the public mart or emporium. One of the most important buildings in this commercial part of the harbour was a bazaar or exchange, where foreign merchants exhibited samples of their wares, and where bankers sat at the receipt of custom. It must have been close to the quays and the shipping, as we learn from the account of a successful raid which Alexander of Pherae once made on the bankers’ counters. One day a squadron was seen standing into the harbour. The loungers on the quays watched it with indolent curiosity till the ships drew up alongside the wharfs, when a crowd of armed men leaped from the ships’ sides, drew their swords, and with a flourish of trumpets made a rush for the bazaar, where they swept the counters clean and then returned with the booty to their vessels, without stopping to notice the panic-stricken crowds who were fleeing in all directions. In another ‘cutting-out’ expedition which the Lacedaemonians made with twelve ships into the harbour of Piraeus, a handful of daring men jumped ashore, laid hold of some merchants and skippers in the bazaar, and hurried them on board. It was in the bazaar that the Boastful Man in Theophrastus used to stand talking with foreigners about the great sums he had at sea, while he sent his page to the bank where he kept the sum of ten-pence.

Chief among the holy places of Piraeus was a sanctuary of Saviour Zeus. Fine paintings by distinguished artists adorned the cloisters attached to it, and statues stood in the open air. The festival of the god included a regatta and a procession through the streets. The expenses of the sanctuary were partly defrayed by a small tax levied on every vessel which put into the port. Moreover, persons who had escaped from danger—for example, seafaring men who had come safe to land—commonly brought thank-offerings to the shrine. From a fragment of an ancient comedy we learn that, among the long-shore sharks who lay in wait on the quays for sailors fresh from a voyage, there were cooks with an eye to business. For in the passage in question one of the fraternity tells us how, whenever he spied a jolly tar just stepping ashore, ready for a spree, with a bulging purse in his fist and an expansive smile on his sunburnt face, he used to rush up to him, shake him warmly by the hand, drop a delicate allusion to Saviour Zeus, and proffer his services at the sacrifice. The bait took, and soon he was to be seen heading for the sanctuary with the sailor man in tow.