Welcome to Piraeus, Greece
Piraeus, or Peiraeus is a city in the periphery of Attica, Greece, located south of Athens and the capital of the Piraeus Prefecture. It was the port of the ancient city of Athens, and was chosen to serve as the modern port when Athens was re-founded in 1834. Piraeus remains a major shipping and industrial center, and is the terminus for Line 1 (the green line), the electric train service now incorporated into the Athens Metro. It consists of a rocky promontory, containing three natural harbors, a large one on the northwest, which is an important commercial harbor for the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and two smaller ones used for naval purposes. The port serves ferry routes to almost every island in the eastern portion of Greece, the island of Crete, the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, and much of the northern and the eastern Aegean. The name Piraeus roughly means the place over the passage. In very early antiquity Piraeus was a rocky island (the settlement of Mounichia - the present Kastella) connected to the mainland by a low-lying stretch of land that was flooded with seawater most of the year and was used as a salt field whenever it dried up. Consequently it was called the Halipedon (salt field) and its muddy soil made it a tricky passage. The area was increasingly silted and flooding ceased, and by early classical times the land passage was made safe. It was then that Piraeus assumed its importance as a deep-water harbor. Themistocles was the first to urge the Athenians to take advantage of these harbors. Foreseeing a new attack by the Persians, he built large fortification works and turned Piraeus into a military harbor in 493 BC. In 460 BC the fortifications were completed when the Long Walls connected Piraeus with Athens. During the Peloponnesian Wars, Piraeus was the major Athenian port. In 404 BC, Thrasybulus and the exiles from Phyle, who then defeated the Thirty Tyrants in Athens, seized Munychia. The three chief arsenals of Piraeus were Munychia, Zea and Cantharus, which could contain 82, 196 and 94 ships respectively in the 4th century BC. After the end of the Peloponnesian Wars, the walls would be torn down, the triremes found in the harbor surrendered to the Spartans or burned, while the renowned neosoikoi (ships' houses) would be pulled down and indeed in an almost festive manner-with music, dancing and songs. After the reinstatement of democracy, Konon rebuilt the walls in 393 BC, funded the temples of Aphrodite, the sanctuary of Zeus and Athena, and built the famous Skevothiki of Philon, the ruins of which have been discovered at Zea. The Roman Sulla who captured Piraeus in 86 BC quashed this revival of the town. The Goths under Alaric completed the destruction in 395 AD. With the creation of the modern Greek state and the proclamation of Athens as the capital in 1832, the port again acquired a reason for existence and growth and developed into a great commercial and industrial center. The town flourished and lovely buildings were constructed.
posted by Hills @ 8:34 AM
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