Immediately after the battle of Plataea and the retreat of the Persians from Greece, Themistocles urged the Athenians to fortify the city with great walls.
The Spartans did not agree, believing that in the event of a Persian invasion, the Persians would occupy the fortified city and use it as a base. Despite their reactions, Themistocles ordered the Athenians to rebuild the new wall on top of the old one. In a short time, a 6.5 km long wall was built, named Themistocleia, surrounding the city of Athens.
For the reconstruction, they used materials from older buildings, votive offerings and even gravestones. The wall was 2.5 meters wide and reached a height of 8 meters. Its base was made of stone and the rest of large bricks. However, in the treaty that the Spartans made with the Athenians after the end of the Peloponnesian War, there was a condition to demolish the walls of Athens. The condition was implemented on the initiative of the Spartan Lysander in 404 BC.
The walls of Athens and the gates. They were built in 479 B.C.
The Athenians rebuilt the walls because they feared being attacked by the army of the Macedonian king Philip II. The new walls were made entirely of stone and were slightly higher than the previous ones. They had a moat 4 meters deep and 9-12.5 meters wide. They had a total of 13 large gates, the most famous of which was the "Dipylon", located in Kerameikos, which was the main entrance to the city. Inside the walls were the houses and the sanctuaries and outside the walls were the high schools of the city and the cemeteries.
The Themistoclean Wall began on the hill of Philopappos and sloped down to the southwest, where the long walls began that connected Piraeus with Athens
The Romans entered Athens by night
The walls were destroyed when the Roman soldier Sulla besieged Athens in 86 BC. The Roman general's spies found a spot on the wall from which they could enter the city and attacked Athens. As Sulla mentions in his memoirs, he captured the city by night and razed the wall to the ground.
Topographical plan of part of the southwestern side of the city of Athens, showing the part of the wall that included the wall and the Dipylon in favor of the gates (late 4th century B.C.)
Hadrian rebuilt it and extended it to the Panathinaiko Stadium, but subsequent raids leveled it. In the last century, parts of the ancient wall were found scattered in the center of Athens. Ancient walls have been found at Pesmazoglou Street, along Piraeus Street and in the basement of the museum of Islamic Art in Kerameikos. The best preserved section was found in Kerameikos, where the "Dipylos" and the "Holy Gate" are preserved, from where the Holy Road and the procession to the Eleusinian Mysteries began.
Parts of the preserved wall at Kerameikos
