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Updated: May 27, 2025
Peireus accordingly was inclosed at vast expense and labor by a wall fourteen feet in thickness, which served not merely for a harbor, but a dock-yard and arsenal. Thither resorted metics or resident foreigners, and much of the trade of Athens was in their hands, since they were less frequently employed in foreign service.
Themistocles persuaded his countrymen that the open roadstead of Phalerum was insecure, and induced them to inclose the more spacious harbors of Peireus and Munychia, by a wall as long as that which encircled Athens itself,—so thick and high that all assault should be hopeless, while within its fortifications the combined fleets of Greece could safely he anchored, and to which the citizens of Athens could also retire in extreme danger.
Moreover, the aristocrats of Athens disliked a closer amalgamation with the maritime people of the Peireus, as well as the burdens and taxes which this undertaking involved. These fortifications doubtless increased the power of Athens, but weakened the unity of Hellenic patriotism; and increased those jealousies which ultimately proved the political ruin of Greece.
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