state system. Conon recognized the significance of the polis’s walls
and turned his attention to bolstering them. All of these leaders rec-
ognized the strategic value of strong defensive fortifications, but the
circumstances under which these projects were undertaken and their
significance to the polis at given points in time are unique. As the po-
litical context shifted, the walls served different strategic purposes. By
examining their history during the classical period, we are able to ascer-
tain their shifting strategic value and suggest contemporary historical
parallels to these ancient relics of Athens’s imperial glory.
Themistocles’ strategy with regard to the Persian invasion of Attica
provided for the safety of Athenian women and children and enabled
the men of the polis to stage an aggressive military response. The walls
of Athens were inadequate for the passive defense of the polis in the
face of the strength of Xerxes’ forces. While the Acropolis itself was
girded by a wall that employed Cyclopean masonry—so called because
the ancient Greeks believed that the massive blocks of stone used to
construct fortifications of this type had been placed there by the leg-
endary race of giants—the mass of Athenian citizens would certainly
have perished during a direct, let alone prolonged, Persian assault.2 The
decree of Themistocles of 480 BC demonstrates the extraordinary mea-
sures that the Athenians took to save their lives, evacuating Attica and
abandoning their territory to the barbarians:3
The city shall be entrusted to Athena, Athen||s’ [Protectress,
and to the] other gods, all of them, for protectio|n and [defense
against the] Barbarian on behalf of the country. The Athenian|s
[in their entirety and the aliens] who live in Athens | shall place
[their children and their women] in Troezen | [-21-] the Founder
of the land. [T||he elderly and (movable)] property shall (for
safety) be deposited at Salamis. | [The Treasurers and] the Priest-
esses are [to remain] on the Akropoli|s [and guard the possessions
Why Fortifications Endure 59
of the] gods. The rest of the Athe|[nians in their entirety and
those] aliens who have reached young manhood shall em|bark
[on the readied] two hundred ships and they shall repu||lse the
[Barbarian for the sake of] liberty, both their | own [and that of
the other Hellenes,] in common with the Lacedaimmonians,
Co|rin[thians, Aeginetans] and the others who wis||h to have a
share [in the danger].
As the Persians approached Attica, they burned the poleis of Thes-
piae and Plataea, whose citizens had refused to medize (that is, pro-
vide assistance to the Persians).4 Under these desperate circumstances,
Herodotus also mentions that in addition to those Athenians who had
been entrusted with the defense of the Acropolis,
some indigent people who, in an effort to ward off the invaders,
had barricaded themselves on the Acropolis with a rampart of
doors and planks of wood. They had refused to withdraw from
their country to Salamis not only because of their poverty but
also because of their conviction that they had discovered the true
significance of the oracle delivered by the Pythia: the prophecy
that the wooden wall would be impregnable was interpreted by
them to mean that this very place and not the ships was to be
their refuge.5
Themistocles’ interpretation of Aristonike’s oracular response,6
namely, that the “wooden wall” referred to the Athenians’ construc-
tion of a fleet of triremes funded with the revenue from their silver
mines at Laureion, proved to be correct. The success of Themistocles’
naval strategy at Salamis was decisive for the victory of the Greeks over
the Persian fleet.7 In contrast, the Persian army killed those who had
remained behind in Athens, plundered the sanctuaries, and set fire to
the place.8
In the fol owing year, the Persian general Mardonius recaptured the
empty city of Athens, and before retreating to Boeotia he demolished
its wal s and burned the city to the ground: “But since he had had no
success in persuading them [the Athenians] to do so [i.e., make an agree-
ment with him], and he had now learned the whole truth, he demolished
60 Berkey
al wal s, buildings, and sanctuaries stil standing, leaving everything in
a heap of ruins.”9 When the Athenians returned to their city after the
defeat of Mardonius at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, they encountered
the carnage of their ruined homes and desecrated shrines and temples.10
Thucydides describes the scene to which the Athenians returned:
Meanwhile the Athenian people, after the departure of the bar-
barian from their country, at once proceeded to bring over their
children and wives, and such property as they had left, from the
places where they had deposited them, and prepared to rebuild
their city and their walls. For only isolated portions of the cir-
cumference had been left standing, and most of the houses were
in ruins; though a few remained, in which the Persian grandees
had taken up their quarters.11
In the wake of this violent destruction, the Athenians’ immediate
concern was to establish a secure environment in which they could be-
gin to reconstruct their lives. It was not possible for the Athenians to
ignore the losses they had suffered. Just as Americans today wrestle with
the chal enge of developing a fitting tribute to those who perished at
Ground Zero in New York City, the question of how to memorialize
the dead and commemorate the event was of critical importance to the
citizens of Athens.12 They elected not to reuse the material from their
destroyed temples in the construction of new buildings. Rather, they
left the stones to commemorate the Persian sack, perhaps in accordance
with the Oath of Plataea:13 “and having defeated the barbarians in war, I
wil not raze any of the cities that fought against them, and I wil rebuild
none of the temples that have been burned and cast down, but I will
leave them as a monument to men hereafter, a memorial to the impiety
of the barbarians.”14 Accordingly, when the Athenians constructed a new
wal to guard the northern side of the Acropolis and decided to incor-
porate architectural fragments from the archaic temple (most strikingly,
the temple’s old column drums), the effect was to serve as a war memo-
rial that provided a vivid reminder of the Persian destruction of the city.15
Thucydides initiates his discussion of the Pentekontaetia with the
construction of the Themistoclean walls, recognizing it as an early
stage in the growth of Athenian power:16
Why Fortifications Endure 61
Perceiving what they were going to do, the Spartans sent an em-
bassy to Athens. They would have themselves preferred to see
neither her nor any other city in possession of a wall; though
here they acted principally at the instigation of their allies, who
were alarmed at the strength of her newly acquired navy, and the
valor which she had displayed in the w
ar with the Persians. They
begged her not only to abstain from building walls for herself, but
also to join them in throwing down the remaining walls of the
cities outside of the Peloponnesus. They did not express openly
the suspicious intention with regard to the Athenians that lay be-
hind this proposal but urged that by these means the barbarians,
in the case of a third invasion, would not have any strong place,
such as in this invasion they had in Thebes, for their base of op-
eration; and that the Peloponnesus would suffice for all as a base
both for retreat and offense. After the Spartans had thus spoken,
they were, on the advice of Themistocles, immediately dismissed
by the Athenians, with the answer that ambassadors should be
sent to Sparta to discuss the question. Themistocles told the
Athenians to send him off with all speed to Lacedaemon, but not
to dispatch his colleagues as soon as they had selected them, but
to wait until they had raised their wall to the height from which
defense was possible. Meanwhile the whole population in the city
was to labor at the wall, the Athenians, their wives, and their chil-
dren, sparing no edifice, private or public, which might be of any
use to the work, but throwing all down.17
Thucydides makes a correlation between Athens’s possession
of walls and its power. He concludes by commenting that the alac-
rity with which this circuit was built compromised the quality of its
workmanship:
In this way the Athenians walled their city in a short space of
time. To this day the building shows signs of the haste of its ex-
ecution; the foundations are laid of stones of all kinds, and in
some places not wrought or fitted, but placed just in the order in
which they were brought by the different hands; and many col-
umns, too, from tombs and sculpted stones were put in with the
62 Berkey
rest. For the bounds of the city were extended at every point of
the circumference; and so they laid hands on everything without
exception in their haste.18
The Athenians, therefore, demonstrated firm resolve to defend
themselves. Perhaps Thucydides is also drawing a parallel between the
city’s walls and the rise of the Athenian Empire. Both were formed rap-
idly, and both marked a rupture with the past. The Athenians incorpo-
rated the graves of their ancestors into the wall, and with their imperial
power they experienced unprecedented prosperity, thereby transform-
ing both the city and its landscape. The archaeological remains of this
circuit of walls, 6.5 km in length, reveal that while it was hastily built,19
its construction was solid.20
Thucydides’ discussion of the birth of the Athenian Empire is fa-
mous and explains the strategic motivation for the enlargement of
the circuit of Athens’s walls. It also shows the tenuous nature of the
relationship between Athens and Sparta and their history of non-
cooperation, which stretched back to before the Persian Wars.21 The
rise of Athenian power also led to the formation of a bipolar structure
in the interstate system.22 Athens and Sparta also differed from each
other with respect to matters of defense. Given that walls are a ubiqui-
tous feature of archaic and classical poleis, it is notable that Sparta did
not possess them.23 Militaristic Spartan society saw no valor in its citi-
zens seeking cover behind defensive fortifications,24 and it was not until
Epaminondas’s invasions of the Peloponnese in the decade following
the Spartan defeat at the Battle of Leuctra (371 BC) that the Spartans
were forced to defend their native territory and witness firsthand the
construction of hostile walled cities.25
Themistocles also pursued his earlier plan of making Piraeus the
main harbor of Athens, both in military and in commercial terms, an
act that was a logical precondition for the subsequent construction of
the Long Walls. With his ostracism in 472 BC and death in 467, Them-
istocles would never fully realize his intentions. Nevertheless, with in-
creases in the numbers of ships in their fleet and the revenue generated
from their empire, the Athenians witnessed the growth of the size and
importance of Piraeus. They selected Hippodamus of Miletus to plan
Why Fortifications Endure 63
the town, presumably during the time of Pericles.26 Thucydides pro-
vides Themistocles’ rationale for the importance of fortifying Piraeus,
as well as his overall strategic vision:
Themistocles also persuaded them to finish the wal s of the Pi-
raeus, which had been begun before, in his year of office as archon;
being influenced alike by the fineness of a locality that has three
natural harbors, and by the great start that which the Athenians
would gain in the acquisition of power by becoming a naval peo-
ple. For he first ventured to tel them to stick to the sea and forth-
with began to lay the foundations for empire. It was his advice,
too, that they built the wal s of that thickness which can stil be
discerned round the Piraeus, the stones being brought up by two
wagons meeting each other. Between the wal s thus formed there
was neither rubble nor mortar, but great stones hewn square and
fitted together, cramped to each other on the outside with iron and
lead. About half the height that he intended was finished. His idea
was that by their size and thickness they would keep off the attacks
of an enemy; he thought that they might be adequately defended
by a smal group of invalids, and the rest be freed for service in the
fleet. For the fleet claimed most of his attention. He saw, as I think,
that the approach by sea was easier for the King’s army than that
by land: he also thought the Piraeus more valuable than the upper
city; indeed, he was always advising the Athenians, if a day should
come when they were hard pressed by land, to go down to the
Piraeus, and defy the world with their fleet. In this way, therefore,
the Athenians completed their wal , and commenced their other
buildings immediately after the retreat of the Persians.27
The Athenians’ decision to concentrate their military resources on
naval warfare and the construction, maintenance, and sailing of tri-
remes would have strategic repercussions throughout the remainder of
the classical period, not only in Athens but throughout the Greek world.
In particular, they capitalized on the strength of their citizens, the ma-
jority of whom were il -equipped for fighting in the hoplite phalanx.
The thetes, the lowest of the four Solonian property classes, now served
in the capacity of oarsmen in the Athenian fleet. With the decision to
64 Berkey
emphasize the fleet, the Athenians enlisted the greatest possible number
of citizens in pursuit of the security and prosperity of Athens. And in or-
der to forgo engaging directly with the enemy on land, the fortification
of the polis was essential. As the cornerstone in the process of advanc-
ing the political power of thousands of poorer Athenians, the wal s of
Athen
s—and now those of Piraeus as wel —appear to have assumed a
new, democratic significance in the minds of some Athenians.28
After the construction of the walls of the city and those of Piraeus,
the next phase in the history of the fortification of Athens was the build-
ing of the Long Walls.29 This project initially involved the construc-
tion of two walls, each 6 km in length, which ran from Athens to the
harbors of Phaleron and Piraeus. The first phase of construction was
completed early in Pericles’ political career,30 and later he would con-
vince them to build a third wall, which ran parallel to the Piraic walls.31
In the event of a siege, these walls, which connected the city with the
port, would permit the Athenians access to their naval fleet, merchant
ships, and the provisions that they supplied. During the Peloponnesian
War, the Long Walls also provided a safe haven for the rural citizens of
Attica, even though this was likely not their original purpose.32 Donald
Kagan describes Pericles’ strategy in the following terms:
Pericles, however, devised a novel strategy made possible by the
unique character and extent of Athens’ power. Their navy en-
abled them to rule over an empire that provided them income
with which they could both sustain their supremacy at sea and
obtain whatever goods they needed by trade or purchase. Al-
though Attica’s lands were vulnerable to attack, Pericles had all
but turned Athens itself into an island by constructing the Long
Walls that connected the city with its port and naval base at Pi-
raeus. In the current state of Greek siege warfare these walls
were invulnerable when defended, so that if the Athenians chose
to withdraw within them they could remain there safely, and the
Spartans could neither get at them nor defeat them.33
Athens’s fortifications successfully defended its populace during the
war, and it was not until the Spartans blockaded Piraeus that the Athe-
nians were forced to capitulate. Even with the Athenians’ success in
Why Fortifications Endure 65
withstanding the Spartans behind their walls, Pericles’ strategy chal-
lenged the traditional Greek warrior ethic and failed to deter the Spar-
tans, whose incursions into Attica had sought to compel the Athenians
into an infantry battle. For all their utility, the Long Walls contributed
Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome Page 10
