STUDIES ON THE TERRITORIAL DEFENSES OF FOURTH-CENTURY ATHENS (FORTIFICATIONS; GREECE)

Attica contains the remains of numerous walls, forts, and towers which are explained as works connected with the territorial defenses of fourth-century Athens. The most singular of these is the Dema wall, a barrier wall spanning the Aigaleos-Parnes pass. Object of more than one special study, the Dema wall has remained a work whose date and purpose is controversial. Fieldwork at the Dema wall, and excavation at the Dema tower, has led to a reappraisal of the relationship of this wall to watch-towers in Attica, and to a new suggestion, set forth in Chapter III, for the date of the wall and its associated towers and outposts. These works may be identified as remnants of the defensive system designed to safeguard Attica during the Boiotian War (378-371 B.C.), when, for the first time since the Peloponnesian War, the prospect of a general invasion threatened Attica. Chapter I deals with a topic which has implications beyond the analysis of Athenian defenses. This chapter examines the subject of isolated towers in the countryside which are generally regarded as small forts or watch-towers. Conclusions to be drawn on the basis of such towers must be considered in light of the accumulating evidence that many were in fact privately built, and had nothing to do with organized defensive strategies. Chapter I, then, formulates the criteria for recognizing those towers in Attica which were in fact military outposts. Strategies of territorial defense depend upon a detailed knowledge of the lay of the land. Chapter II offers a topographical survey of the frontiers of Attica, and a survey of the historical importance of each route into Attica. The concluding chapter of this dissertation offers suggestions towards understanding the importance of territorial defense and defensive works among the military and political concerns of the fourth-century Athenians. A number of incidental topics of archaeological or historical detail are examined in appendices to this work, among them the subject of signal systems, and barrier walls comparable to the Dema, namely, the Theban wall of 378/377, and the trans-Isthmian wall of 369 B.C