Long Walls of Athens (c. 461 BC): Linking the City to Piraeus

The Long Walls of Athens were a pair of fortification walls, later three, that joined the city of Athens to its harbours at Piraeus and Phalerum, about 6 kilometres away. Built around 461–456 BC, they turned Athens and its port into a single fortress that could be supplied by sea, and they were the backbone of Pericles’ strategy in the Peloponnesian War. Their demolition in 404 BC symbolised the end of Athenian power.

Background

After the Persian sack of 480 BC, Athens rebuilt its city wall in 479/478 BC on the urging of Themistocles, despite Spartan objections. Themistocles also fortified the rocky peninsula of Piraeus, which became the base of the Athenian navy. But the city itself lay inland, and an enemy army could cut it off from its ships.

By the 460s Athens led the Delian League and depended on imported grain, much of it from the Black Sea. Relations with Sparta were breaking down. Linking city and harbour by walls offered security against siege by land, where Sparta was strongest.

Building the walls

Thucydides says the Athenians built the walls down to the sea, one to Phalerum and one to Piraeus, during a period of open conflict with Sparta and its allies, placing their start around the Battle of Tanagra and their completion soon after the Battle of Oenophyta. Modern historians date the start to about 461–458 BC and completion to about 457–456 BC. Thucydides later gives their lengths as about 35 stadia for the Phaleric wall and 40 stadia for the wall to Piraeus, roughly 6 to 7 kilometres.

In the 440s BC a third wall, the Middle or South Wall, was built close to and parallel with the northern wall, on Pericles’ advice. This created a narrow corridor, roughly 180 metres wide, running straight from the city to Piraeus and easier to defend. The Phaleric wall seems to have become less important afterwards.

The walls rested on solid stone foundations, parts of which have been found in excavations along their route, and were strengthened by towers. Their great length meant that defending every stretch would have required thousands of men, which is why the narrow corridor between the two northern walls was such an advantage.

Pericles’ strategy

When the Peloponnesian War began in 431 BC, Pericles persuaded the Athenians not to meet the Spartan army in open battle. Instead the rural population moved inside the walls, abandoning their farms to be ravaged, while the fleet raided enemy coasts and kept the sea lanes open.

The strategy worked militarily but carried a high price. The crowded city and the corridor between the walls, where many refugees camped, were struck in 430 BC by the Plague of Athens, which killed perhaps a quarter to a third of the population, including Pericles himself in 429 BC.

Demolition and rebuilding

Athens held out for decades, even after the Spartans set up a permanent base at Decelea in Attica in 413 BC. The end came when the Athenian fleet was destroyed at Aegospotami in 405 BC. Blockaded by land and sea and starving, Athens surrendered in spring 404 BC.

The peace terms required Athens to give up its fleet and to demolish the Long Walls and the walls of Piraeus. Xenophon describes the Spartan admiral Lysander’s forces and their allies pulling down the walls to the music of flute-girls, believing that day was the beginning of freedom for Greece.

The walls did not stay down for long. After the Athenian admiral Conon, serving with a Persian fleet, won the Battle of Cnidus in 394 BC, he returned to Athens with Persian money and rebuilt the walls between about 394 and 391 BC. They were maintained into the fourth century BC but lost their importance in the Hellenistic period and were largely ruined by the time of the Roman siege of Athens by Sulla in 87–86 BC.

Key people

• Themistocles: Fortified Athens and Piraeus after the Persian Wars, laying the foundations for the walls.
• Pericles: Proposed the Middle Wall and based Athenian war strategy on the walled corridor.
• Lysander: Spartan commander who forced Athens’ surrender and oversaw the demolition.
• Conon: Athenian admiral who rebuilt the walls in the 390s BC.

Timeline

• 479/478 BC: Athens rebuilds its city wall; Themistocles fortifies Piraeus.
• c. 461–460 BC: Construction of the walls to Phalerum and Piraeus begins.
• c. 457–456 BC: The first Long Walls are completed.
• 440s BC: The Middle Wall is added on Pericles’ advice.
• 431 BC: The population of Attica retreats inside the walls at the start of the Peloponnesian War.
• 430 BC: Plague breaks out in the crowded city.
• 404 BC, spring: Athens surrenders and the walls are pulled down.
• c. 394–391 BC: Conon rebuilds the walls with Persian funds.

Why it matters

The Long Walls made Athens, in effect, an island on the mainland, able to live from the sea while its enemies held the land. They show how naval power, money from the empire and democratic politics shaped Athenian strategy, and their fall in 404 BC marked the end of Athens as the leading power in Greece.