The Study of Greek Fortifications a Review Article

BaBesch 69 (1994) The Study of Greek Fortifications A review article Simon C. Bakhuizen The world of the ancient Greeks, whether before or PIERRE LERICHE & HENRY TRÉZINY (eds.), after the lifetime of Alexander the Great, was, on La fortification dans l’histoire du monde grec, Actes du the whole, without a pax Graeca, and most towns colloque international <La fortification et sa place dans and cities were at one time or another protected by l’histoire politique, culturelle et sociale du monde grec>, Valbonne décembre 1982. Paris: Éditions du a circuit wall, and sometimes by a few signal tow- CNRS, 1986 (28 cm., 651 pp., 331 figs. plus a compara- ers in the chora or – perhaps – by a chain of fron- tive atlas of fortifications consisting of 16 plates, all of tier forts. Within the heritage of Greek civilization them on a scale of 1 : 20,000). – ISBN 2-222-03886-3. no class of monuments or architectural achieve- – Price: FF 490. ments stands out more conspicuously than that of city walls, of field fortifications and of walls The richly illustrated book reviewed here contains enclosing an entire oasis. If for modern tourists the lectures of a symposion where – with the with their esthetic predilection these defence works exception of Professor A.W. Lawrence – the do not rank high, it was different for travellers of majority of students of Greek city walls were pre- the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who sent. A number of specialists who did not have the showed a deep interest in military remains. opportunity of taking part contributed a paper in In the twentieth century scholars began to con- absentia. The committee which prepared the meet- centrate on individual fortified sites; Krischen for ing requested the participants not to lose sight of instance published a monograph on the fortifica- the general issues. The conference considered tions of Herakleia-on-Mt Latmos (1922) and Von questions such as: was the erection of a city wall Gerkan wrote studies on the city walls of Miletus cost-effective? which was the manpower involved (1935) and of Dura-Europos (1939). Most cir- in building an enceinte? what was the relationship cuits remain virtually unpublished or are known between the number of defenders and the length of only sketchily. This also applies to those in a city wall? in what ways did building materials Greece itself and to fortifications on the islands and their use affect construction? how did the new of the Aegean Sea1 . In recent years a group of technology of offensive, stone-throwing catapult scholars with intimate knowledge of ancient artillery3 affect cities and their fortification sys- artillery, of Greek city wall architecture and also tems? what about defensive artillery and its effect of the pertinent archaeological terrains published on fortification architecture? comprehensive works in which personal observa- The symposion was also organized with a second tion, comparison, interpretation and theory purpose in mind: attention was not drawn particu- reached new and high levels: F.G. Maier (1959, larly to Greece itself but rather to the distant 1961), E.W. Marsden (1969), F.E. Winter (1971), regions where the Greeks founded colonies4 and to Y. Garlan (1974), A.W. Lawrence (1979) and the lands conquered by Alexander the Great. Apart J.-P. Adam (1982). For the North-Eastern sector of the lands conquered by Alexander the Great H.P. Francfort’s report Les fortifications en Asie 1 For a newly published circuit, that of Hyettos in Boeotia, see Centrale de l’âge du bronze à l’époque Étienne and Knoepfler 1976 , 45-65, L’acropole et son enceinte, with fig. 9. kouchane, Paris 1979, is a systematic survey rich 2 The untimely death of the author is a great loss to archaeol- in detail, while A.W. McNicoll’s doctoral disser- ogy. For an obituary see Hennessy 1988. For a summary of his tation Hellenistic Fortifications from the Aegean ideas on city defences see McNicoll 1972; McNicoll 1978; and to the Euphrates (1971; unpublished; there is a pages 305-313 of the book under review ‘Developments in copy in the Bodleian Library at Oxford) covered Techniques of Siegecraft and Fortification in the Greek World 2 ca. 400-100 B.C.’ See also McNicoll and Winikoff 1983. Asiatic regions further West . The set of works Finally, see McNicoll 1983. mentioned here has pushed the study of Greek 3 Knowledge of arrow-shooting catapults has recently been fortifications to a higher grade of sophistication, extended by two groups of finds of the Hellenistic period, see Baatz 1982 and Baatz 1985. representing a framework for looking at city cir- 4 For a comprehensive report on a local colonial area see cuits with particular questions in mind. The time Kirigin (Split) 1990 with sketch plans of the fortification cir- was ripe for convening a conference. cuits of the colonial towns. 199 from that, Greek fortification technology is now West coast of Asia Minor. The sites of this period known to have spread beyond the fringes of the do not represent an early stage of later poleis and Greek world to lands inhabitated by non-Greeks, to their defence systems. They do not follow the Caucasian Georgia for instance. As a result of its Mycenaean fortification tradition either, constitut- wide horizon the contributions in this volume range ing a class in themselves. They offered protection from Afghanistan to Morocco and Spain, from against attacks of pirates and of non-Greeks. It is Tunisia to Rumania, from Libya to Sovjet Russia. only in Later Archaic times that defences of poleis The book contains contributions in French (34), in are first recorded. These circuits, which often pos- Italian (5), in English (5) and in German (2). sessed towers, were sometimes inspired by Oriental Three opening papers comment on the present situ- examples. On the whole, the study of Greek ation of the study of Greek fortifications. In his Archaic fortifications is still underdeveloped8. In introduction to the symposion P. Leriche (Paris) my own contribution I briefly discuss (315-321) argues (11-14) that fortifications should not be the archaeological survey of the fortifications of the studied as entities in themselves but as elements of Goritsa city in Thessaly, Greece, which was carried society and as components of ancient warfare. Y. out in the years 1970-1981. Perched on an outspur Garlan (Rennes) remarks (15-21) that the chronol- of Mt Pelion, the city occupied a position which ogy of many circuits is unknown or uncertain, and was strong by nature. After a description of the that, on the whole, a complete city enceinte is only towers and of the curtains attention is drawn to the rarely investigated by means of a series of trial Great Battery, which faces the fairly flat connec- tests5. He observes that in future scholars should tion with Mt Pelion and which was capacious try to reconstruct the ancient measurements as they enough to give room to two or four catapults are found for instance in Philo of Byzantium. throwing one-talent stone balls. Being a one period Converting archaeological measurings taken at city city Goritsa seems to have been built in the last walls into cubits (pecheis; a cubit being one-and-a- quarter of the fourth century B.C. Soon after that it half foot) may usually be possible. In ‘A Summary was abandoned9. D. Lazaridis (Athens) reports (31- of Recent Work on Greek Fortifications in Greece 38) on large scale excavations along the city wall and Asia Minor’ (23-29) F.E. Winter (Toronto) is of Amphipolis, a makron teichos in the words of somewhat sceptical about the value of pottery or Thuc. IV, 102, 3, approximately 7,450 m. long and coin evidence from excavations along city circuits, apparently encircling a Landschaftsstadt much of and he illustrates his point by reconsidering and which was rural. The extant wall, which is partly of redating successive phases of the Acrocorinth Hellenistic date, is very well preserved in places. fortress. Winter further speaks of the desirability of Towers are of circular, semi-circular and of quad- studying harbour fortifications6, outlying defences, rangular shape. The excavations revealed large, and the shutters and chases of wall and tower win- oblong openings for draining water through the city dows7. wall. I shall now summarize a series of contributions Contributions dealing with the Easternmost parts of found in the book, beginning with Cyprus and with the ancient world are discussed in my review for the Greek homelands, an area of which only a few BiOr. The following two papers deal with Syria. sites are discussed in archaeological terms. In his The fortifications of the ancient Greek cities paper ‘Deux nouveaux établissements fortifiés du of Syria cannot be seen above the present level of Bronze Récent à Chypre’ (381-384) V. Kara- the ground. What is visible is the reconstruction georghis (Nicosia) describes excavations at two phase of Byzantine and later date. It has been thirteenth century B.C. fortified coastal sites lying pointed out, however, that the lay-out of the great in locations protected by nature (1230-1200). The Syrian settlements and the trace of their enceintes pottery is Greek. Refugees from the Aegean- go back to the end of the fourth or the first half Anatolian world may have temporarily occupied these localities, which constituted strong defensive 5 For three examples mentioned in this book see the circuits of positions. In Greece, the number of circuits built Amphipolis (31-38), of Maracanda (Sogdiana) (71-78) and of prior to the fourth century B.C. appears to be rela- Motya (West Sicily) (221-227).

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