City walls of Athens
Series of walls built around the city of Athens, Greece
The city of Athens, capital of modern Greece, has had different sets of city walls from the Bronze Age to the early 19th century. The city walls of Athens include:
the Mycenaean Cyclopean fortifications of the Acropolis of Athens
the Pelasgic wall at the foot of the Acropolis
the so-called "Archaic Wall", whose existence and course are debated by scholars
the Themistoclean Wall, built in 479 BC, the main city wall during Antiquity, restored and rebuilt several times (under Conon, Demosthenes, Demetrios Poliorketes, etc.)
the Long Walls, built in the 460s and 440s BC, connecting Athens with its ports at Piraeus and Phaleron
the Protocheisma, a second wall built in front of the Themistoclean Wall in 338 BC as an extra defence against the Macedonians
the Diateichisma, built in the 280s BC as a second line of defence against Macedonian-held Piraeus
the Valerian Wall, built in c. 260 AD, partly along the lines of older walls, partly as a new fortification, to protect the city against barbarian attacks
the Herulian (or Post-Herulian) Wall, a much smaller circuit built in c. 280 AD, enclosing the centre of the ancient city following its sack by the Heruli in 267 AD
the Rizokastro, built in the 13th century around the Acropolis
the Wall of Haseki, constructed in 1778 by the Ottoman governor of Athens, Hadji Ali Haseki
Gates
Dipylon
Sacred Gate
References
Sources
Judeich, Walther (1931). Topographie von Athen (in German) (2nd ed.). Munich: Beck.
Maier, Franz Georg (1959-1961). Griechische Mauerbauinschriften [Greek building inscriptions of city walls]. 2 volumes. Vestigia, vol. 1/2. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer (on Athens especially volume 1, pp.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “City walls of Athens” as series of walls built around the city of Athens, Greece. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as series of walls built around the city of Athens, Greece. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q48808849. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1778, 1931, 1959 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “City walls of Athens” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.