ABSTRACT
The transformation of Athens into a maritime power brought its harbour town in Piraeus into increasing military, political, and cultural significance. Plutarch notes how the fortification of Athens by means of the connecting Long Walls with the harbour inverted the city’s power dynamics: But Themistocles did not, as Aristophanes the comic poet says, ‘knead the Piraeus on to the city’, nay; he fastened the city to the Piraeus, and the land to the sea. While protecting Athens’ security from enemy attack, Piraeus was radically undermining the identity of Athens from within. Sailors and salesmen, foreigners and hucksters, prostitutes and philosophers equally found the harbour town an inviting place to call home. Thwarted in his attempt to return to his home in Athens, Socrates is cajoled into staying the night in Piraeus by a group of young men eager to satisfy their appetites at the evening’s festival.
