Primitive Athens as described by Thucydides

by Jane Ellen Harrison

The Acropolis, as in neolithic days the first settlers found it, was, it will be seen in [Fig. 1], a long, rocky ridge, broken at intervals[10]. It could only be climbed with ease on the west and south-west sides, the remaining sides being everywhere precipitous, though in places not absolutely inaccessible. For a primitive settlement it was an ideal situation. Two things remained for the settlers to do: first, they had to level the surface by hewing away jagged rocks and filling up cracks with earth and stones to make sites for their houses and their sanctuaries; and second, they had to supplement what nature had already done in the way of fortification; here and there to make the steep rocks steeper, build a wall round their settlement, and, above all, fortify that accessible west and south-west end and build an impregnable gateway. Kleidemos[11], writing in the fifth century B.C., says, ‘they levelled the Acropolis and made the Pelasgicon, which they built round it nine-gated.’ They levelled the surface, they built a wall round it, they furnished the fortification wall with gates. We begin for convenience sake with the wall. In tracing its course the process of levelling is most plainly seen. The question of the gates will be taken last.

Fig. 1.

In the plan in [Fig. 2] is shown what excavations have laid bare of the ancient Pelasgic fortress. We see instantly the inexactness of the main statement of Thucydides. It is not ‘what is now the Citadel’ that was the main part of the old burgh, but something substantially smaller, smaller by about one-fifth of the total area. We see also that this Thucydides could not know. The Pelasgic wall following the broken outline of the natural rock was in his days covered over by the artificial platform reaching everywhere to the wall of Kimon. At one place, and one only, in the days of Thucydides, did the Pelasgic wall come into sight, and there it still remains above ground, as it has always been, save when temporarily covered by Turkish out-works. This visible piece is the large fragment (A), 6 metres broad, to the south of the present Propylaea and close to the earlier gateway (G). In the days of Thucydides it stood several metres high. Of this we have definite monumental evidence. The south-east corner of the wall of the south-west wing of the present Propylaea is bevelled away[12] so as to fit against this Pelasgic wall, and the bevelling can be seen to-day. This portion of the Pelasgic wall is of exceptional strength and thickness, doubtless because it was part of the gateway fortifications, the natural point of attack.

Fig. 2.

Save for this one exception, the Pelasgic walls lie now, as they did in the day of Thucydides, below the level of the present hill, and their existence was, until the excavations began, only dimly suspected. Literary tradition said there was a circuit wall, but where this circuit wall ran was matter of conjecture; bygone scholars even placed it below the Acropolis. Now the outline, though far from complete, is clear enough. To the south and south-west of the Parthenon there are, as seen on the plan, substantial remains and what is gone can be easily supplied. On the north side the remains are scanty. The reason is obvious; the line of the Pelasgic fortification on the south lies well within the line of Kimon’s wall; the Pelasgic wall was covered in, but not intentionally broken down. To the north it coincided with Themistocles’ wall, and was therefore, for the most part, pulled down or used as foundation.

But none the less is it clear that the centre of gravity of the ancient settlement lay to the north of the plateau. Although the north wall was broken away, it is on this north side that the remains which may belong to a royal palace have come to light. The plan of these remains cannot in detail be made out, but the general analogy of the masonry to that of Tiryns and Mycenae leave no doubt that here we have remains of ‘Mycenaean’ date. North-east of the Erechtheion is a rock-cut stairway (B) leading down through a natural cleft in the rock to the plain below. As at Tiryns and Mycenae, the settlement on the Acropolis had not only its great entrance-gates, but a second smaller approach, accessible only to passengers on foot, and possibly reserved for the rulers only.