The Story of the Greek People by Eva March Tappan

Author:Eva March Tappan [Eva March Tappan]
Language: eng
Format: epub

TOMBSTONE FOUND IN THE RUINS OF A WALL BUILT BY THEMISTOCLES.

The events of the war had made it clear that Athens ought to be strong, not only on land but also on the water. She must have a large fleet and she must also have a safe harbor that would protect her ships from storm or the attack of an enemy. Phalerum was the old harbor, but even before the war Themistocles had fixed his eyes upon the harbor of Piraeus, four or five miles from Athens, and had begun to fortify it. This harbor was a basin large enough to hold three hundred ships. Around it curved a peninsula ending in a mass of rock, so that only a narrow entrance was left. Along this peninsula the Athenians built seven miles of wall. And what a wall it was! Thirty feet high, wide enough for two chariots to drive abreast, and all made of solid stone clamped together with iron.

All this was done between 479 and 477 B.C. Other work was also going on during that time, for in one way the Persian war had not yet come to an end. The Ionian colonies had been freed at the time of the battle of Mycale, but the Persians held many other places along the coast of Asia Minor and Thrace. The most important was Byzantium, better known as Constantinople. There could be no safety so long as the Persians had strongholds near Greece, where they could assemble troops and ships, and from which they could sally forth to attack the Greeks. More over, Greece needed more grain than she could raise. It had been brought to her through the Propontis, which is now the Sea of Marmora; but while the Persians held Byzantium, no grain could find its way to Greece from that direction. A fleet was now sent out which besieged and captured Byzantium.

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