Aigosthena - 12th c monastery

Attica’s rural landscape is dotted with the fascinating remains of ancient military installations, ranging from massive fortresses and lesser walled camps to single watchtowers, signalling posts and temporary fieldworks. Most of these strategic facilities belonged to Athens, but others were established by the city’s allies or enemies. The diversity of their impressive natural settings, the ingeniousness of their selected positions and the practicality of their military architecture are striking features that will appeal to anyone who enjoys seeking out and exploring unspoilt corners of Greece’s historically rich landscape. 

 

Particularly striking among rural Attica’s diverse archaeological sites are the Classical garrison-forts with their ashlar-built walls and round or rectangular bastions, strategically located during the turbulent 4th century BC on     mountaintops and distinctive hills with panoramic views. 

 

These solidly constructed outposts for observation and defence stretched across northern Attica in a protective zone that included Rhamnous on the east coast; Phyle, Oinoe and Eleutheres in the interior; and Aegosthena on the west coast, overlooking the Corinthian Gulf. 

 

Similarly situated beside crucial land and sea routes or guarding major crossroads were the more southerly fortress-sanctuaries of Sounion and Eleusis (modern Elefsina). Smaller, more lightly fortified posts include, just north of Eleusis, the single, walled lookout tower of Plakoto that once secured an ancient road into Boeotia.

 

 

In the 4th century BC young Athenian men (ephebes) were stationed in the border fortresses during the second year of their mandated two-year military service. This system for manning Athens’ defences probably existed already, however, in the late 5th century BC during the Peloponnesian War. If the rural posts were left ungarrisoned, disaster could strike, as the infamous oligarchs of The Thirty learned in 404/403 BC when Phyle (see also Part 1), left unguarded due to the underfunding of their short-lived (13-month) regime, was occupied by the rebellious democratic leader Thrasybulus. 

 

The massive, towered fortress visible today at Phyle was built after Thrasybulus’ occupation and subsequent defeat of The Thirty’s forces - perhaps at the behest of Thrasybulus himself, who had initiated the rebuilding of Athens’ Long Walls around 395BC before being eclipsed by Conon as the leader of the restored democracy of Athens. 

 

Similarly fortified with thick stone walls, stout towers and sealable gates was the Sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis. Standing at a strategic coastal point between Attica and the neighbouring region of Megara, Eleusis overlooked a valued natural harbour (now a centre for the Greek petroleum industry) and an intersection of major roads between Athens, Corinth and Thebes. Home to the Eleusinian mysteries and coveted by all its powerful neighbours, Eleusis already was heavily walled in the late 6th century BC by the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus. Additional fortifications and monumental gateways were erected during the Classical era by Cimon and Pericles, as well as during subsequent Hellenistic and Roman times. 

 

 

Less grand than Phyle’s mountaintop citadel or the multi-walled sanctuary at Eleusis is the small fort of Plakoto. Crowning a low but prominent hill at the northern edge of the Thriasian Plain just north of modern Elefsina and Magoula, Plakoto consisted of a walled, circular tower of highly sophisticated, 4th century BC craftsmanship - still preserved today to a height of 2-3 m - that was later surrounded by a secondary defensive wall of poorer masonry. The inner, original wall had three gates. 

 

Archaeologist James McCredie, in his 1966 study, Fortified Military Camps in Attica, concludes that Plakoto was both a lookout and a permanent point of defence for a road that led north from Eleusis into Boeotia through the Valley of Sarandapotamos (Forty Rivers). McCredie also suggests that Plakoto may have been built during an Athenian effort to stop Antigonus Gonatas at Eleusis when he invaded Attica during the Chremonidean War in around 265BC. According to Pausanias, the Macedonians were indeed stopped in this area by the Athenian general Olympiodorus with a force of Eleusinians. 

 

The physical setting and remaining walls of Plakoto illustrate the ancient Greeks’ cunning ability to pick naturally defensible sites that could also serve as excellent observation points (see box). Given the terrain of the hill at Plakoto, only a three-sided enclosure had to be built, since the fourth side was already protected by a sheer, inaccessible face of rock. 

 

 

Watchtowers like that at Plakoto and the larger, 8m-square tower at Oinoe, which stands further to the northwest, were usually administered by nearby garrison-fortresses. Plakoto probably belonged, then, to its southern neighbour Eleusis, while the Oinoe tower was associated with the Oinoe fortress a short distance away to the east. 

 

The town’s tower controlled the road between Athens and Thebes. Its two remaining ashlar walls reveal two building phases, the latest of which dates to the mid-4th century BC. This once-imposing structure stood at least four storeys high, contained arrow slits for archers and - judging from its height and strategic position - may have been used as a signalling post. Little remains of the roughly square Oinoe fortress, although its broken stretches of weather-worn, ashlar masonry and panoramic view continue to impress.

Eleutherae 

 

The garrison-fortress of Eleutherae, on a hilltop overlooking an apparently ancient junction between the Athens-Thebes road and the westward spur road to Aegosthena on the Corinthian Gulf, is one of the most inspiring and uninhabited archaeological sites in Attica. Also known as Gyftokastro (Gypsy Castle), this remarkably well-preserved Classical stronghold has much the same ambiance as a medieval castle. Its approximately 300m-long north wall contains seven square, largely intact towers connected by battlements, along which one can walk while taking in the magnificent views: either downward across the broad, fertile plain or upward at the adjacent mountain pass controlled by the fortress. Entrances to the fortress, on the south and west, were protected by double gates, a small inner courtyard and a second set of gates. A narrow postern gate provided access through the north wall. Beside the west gateway is said to be a Greek inscription, now largely invisible, that states the distance to Plataea. Inside the walls, the foundations of a single structure exist, perhaps the garrison commander’s residence. 

 

 

At the western end of Attica, on the easternmost shores of the Corinthian Gulf, the extensive 4th century BC fortress of Aegosthena stands on a low rise beside the picturesque bay of Porto Germeno. Now in the midst of an olive grove, Aegosthena features several of the tallest surviving towers of Classical Greece. 

 

The main, upper citadel was protected by eight square towers, of which the southeastern tower still reaches about 14m high. Two long, east-west walls, equipped with gates and also fortified with regularly spaced towers, extended to the sea, like Athens’ own Long Walls. A postern gate through the fort’s back, eastern wall allowed landward access.

 

Aegosthena was an independent town, which nevertheless served both Athens and Megara as a northwestern border fortress and strategic harbour. Inside the ancient castle, the charming ruins of a 12th century BC monastery, including a chapel and rows of cells, attest to the site’s long history. Just above Aegosthena, on the road from Vilia, visitors will discover a scenic pullout with one of the most breathtaking panoramas in Greece: majestic Mt Kitheron on the right, the curving shores of Porto Germeno below, the blue Gulf of Corinth receding into the distance. Attica’s remote border forts, now seemingly so peaceful and forgotten, belie their vital pasts as centres of struggle and deliberately impressive reminders of Athenian strength. 

 

 

Polybius, the 2nd century BC Greek historian, offers insight into the fundamental differences between Greeks and Romans, when he describes their individual approaches to establishing military bases:

 

“Because the first object of the Romans in the matter of encampment is facility …, they seem to me to differ diametrically from Greek military men … Greeks, in choosing a place for a camp, think primarily of security from the natural strength of the position: first, because they are averse to the toil of digging a ditch, and, secondly, because they think that no artificial defences are comparable to those afforded by the nature of the ground. Accordingly, they not only have to vary the whole configuration of the camp to suit the nature of the ground, but to change the arrangement of details in all kinds of irregular ways. [Thus,] … neither soldier nor company has a fixed place in it. The Romans, on the other hand, prefer to undergo the fatigue of digging, and … the other labours of rampart construction, for the sake of the facility in arrangement, and to secure a [uniform] plan of encampment which shall be … familiar to all.” (Histories VI.42)