LONG WALLS OF ATHENS. 



525 



fortified, and that the very existence of Athens as a great state de- 

 pended upon its being connected in this manner with its ships and 

 is arsenal. 



It may be said that this is merely presumptive evidence against 

 a third wall : I shall now therefore bring forward what may be re- 

 garded as a direct proof of its non-existence. 



Thucydides observes that the circumference of the walls of Sy- 

 racuse was not less (aVsi/ sXxa-a-ova) than that of the walls of Athens. 

 Now we learn from Strabo*, that the old walls of Syracuse measured 

 180 stadia : we must therefore conclude that there were two lonw 

 walls only, not three ; for under the first supposition the number of 

 stadia would be 183, and according to the other 218. j- And it 

 follows from what has been said before on the passage of Thucydides, 

 that both these walls connected Athens in a straight line with the 

 Piraeus. ..:'.... 



It has been already remarked that the notion of two walls in this 

 direction is that which was generally adopted by the ancients. The 

 very general appellation of a-KBXyj and brachia which they bestowed 

 on these walls, very clearly denote this ; nor is there, I believe, a 

 single passage except those which I have cited, in which they are 

 not understood to be joined to the Pirseus. " Tux^t tovtu" says Strabo, 

 when speaking of the wall of this town, " crwriTrTi ra. iicx.BiiXKU(r[x.evci 



SK TOD afgif (TXiATj TOCUTO. YIV flOlKpOi Tf*%1J, TeTTCCO0i}C0]/TOC, ^OiOlUlV TO ^IJ^^OJ, 



" (TxivccTrrovTot, to a.g-v ru nef^aue/." And the same precise information 

 is given by Livy, " Inter angustias semiruti muri, qui duobus 

 " brachiis Piraeum Athenis jungit." .... 



* ITsvTaTroXij ijv to iraXaiov, exaTov xat dySoijxovTa faS/cov e^oucra to Tlfvof. L. ii. 

 f The measures, according to Thucydides, are as follows : — 



The walls of Athens 43 Stadia. 



The northern lonff wall 40 



o 



The southern 40 



The Piraeus including Munychia 60 



183 



