Piraeus (ancient world)
Piraeus, located approximately four miles from Athens, was a significant port city in the ancient world, characterized by its strategic position along an irregular coastline featuring three natural harbors: Cantharus, Zea, and Munychia. Initially fortified by the tyrant Hippias, it was Themistocles who enhanced its defenses around 493/92 BCE to support the expanding Athenian naval power. The construction of the Long Walls between Athens and Piraeus from 461 to 456 BCE further solidified this connection, allowing the city to sustain itself during sieges. By the mid-5th century BCE, the town of Piraeus had transformed from a small village into a large, planned urban center designed by Hippodamus of Miletus, becoming the largest port in Greece.
Throughout its history, Piraeus faced several challenges, including the destruction of its defenses after Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War and subsequent sieges, notably by Sulla in 87–86 BCE, which left the city in decline. Despite this, Piraeus was a hub of activity, with numerous ship sheds and temples dedicated to various deities, reflecting its diverse population, including foreign sailors. The remnants of public buildings, theaters, and temples today provide insights into its rich cultural and historical significance in ancient Greece, illustrating the complexities of maritime life and urban planning in that era.
Piraeus (ancient world)
Peiraieus
The port of Athens, four miles from the city. The irregular coastline of a promontory or peninsula (Acte) provided three natural harbors, Cantharus, or the `great harbor,’ to the west, and the small round harbor of Zea and inlet of Munychia to the east. The adjacent town occupied the promontory itself, together with the rocky hill of Munychia, the ground dividing it from the promontory and a small spit of land known as Eetioneia.
Athens' autocratic ruler `tyrant’ Hippias (527–510) fortified Munychia, but it was Themistocles who created a strongly fortified port (apparently from c 493/92) in order to provide the growing Athenian fleet with an effective base to supersede the open anchorage of Phaleron. In 461–456 (with additions in 445) the Long Walls were built to connect Athens with both Piraeus and Phaleron; the two parallel walls to the Piraeus were about two hundred yards apart. These fortifications made Athens and its ports into a single isolated fortress in which their populations could live on seaborne provisions during a war. About 450 the architect Hippodamus of Miletus designed the town of the Piraeus, farther inland, according to a systematic plan corresponding closely to the center of its modern counterpart; the place had exploded from a medium-sized village to a large planned town, the biggest port in Greece.
After the final Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian War (431–404), which the Long Walls and the fortifications at the Piraeus had been unable to prevent, these defences were destroyed by the Spartan general Lysander to the accompaniment of flute music. But with Persian help the walls were rebuilt by Conon in 393, following a slightly different course, on which recent excavations have thrown light. Fourth-century inscriptions record the existence of one hundred and ninety-six ship sheds at Zea (the principal naval harbour), ninety-four at Cantharus (devoted mainly to commerce), and eighty-two at Munychia. A number of the Zea sheds and water installations at Cantharus have now been found.
When Athens sided with Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus against the Romans, Sulla's siege (87–86 BC) inflicted severe damage on the Piraeus, and this time the walls were not rebuilt. Strabo found the town reduced to a small habitation area round the harbors and a temple of Zeus Soter. This temple, of which the site has not been discovered, was bracketed by Pausanias with a shrine of Athena Soteira among the local sights worth seeing. Numerous other temples, however, are also attested; the names of their deities often bear witness to the presence of foreign sailors, notably the Thracian Bendis and a healing hero named Serangos, to whom a bathing establishment may have been dedicated. Remnants of a shrine attributed to Aphrodite Euploia (at the north end of Eetioneia) and of a colonnaded enclosure of the votaries of Dionysus are tentatively identified. According to Pausanias, Piraeus had two agoras, one in the inland town (the Hippodameia) and the other beside the sea, and it seems that certain of the public buildings were correspondingly duplicated. Remains of a large theater built into the western slopes of Munychia, and of a smaller but better-preserved counterpart west of the Zea Harbor, are still to be seen.