Chapter 3
Introduction
The Battle of Mounichia is far less famous than most of the other battles covered in this book, but it deserves much wider recognition. Following the Peloponnesian War, Athens fell under the power of a ruthless oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants, a government loyal to Sparta instead of to Athens’ democratic and egalitarian traditions. Despite their efforts to kill and exile all who opposed them, the Thirty were not destined to hold power for long. A democratic resistance, led by a man named Thrasybulus, gathered strength in exile at Thebes, before seizing the Athenian border fort of Phyle and eventually the Piraeus, Athens’ famous port. On the hill of Mounichia, which dominates the topography of the Piraeus, Thrasybulus and his army of democrats, including many foreigners in addition to Athenians, fought a heated battle against the Thirty and their Spartan allies. Thrasybulus ingeniously arrayed his foreign light-armed troops in the rear of his phalanx. From a position high on the hill, the light-armed fighters were able to hurl javelins and other missiles against the enemy below them, which was instrumental in winning the battle. The Battle of Mounichia is thus important because of the tactical sophistication of the democratic resistance, but also because it brought about the restoration of democracy to Athens.
Directions to the Site
The hill of Mounichia is just to the north of the pleasant Zea Harbour, which is easy to reach from the centre of Athens and a good place to begin a tour of the battlefield. Either take the Athens Metro to the Piraeus stop, and then walk southeast for about 1.5km, or drive straight to the Piraeus along Leof. Pireos, exiting to follow Grigoriou Lampraki all the way to Zea. Close to Zea is one of the ancient theatres of the Piraeus, along with the excellent Piraeus Archaeological Museum, located to the west on Char. Trikoupi.
Historical Outline of the Battle
Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way for Athens. The city that had invented democracy, had stood resolutely against the Persians and fostered the talents of Sophocles and Phidias, entered a war against the Spartans in 431 BCE with high hopes, spurred on by the visionary Pericles. The greatest naval power in the world, so Pericles argued, could wait out the Spartans and break their resolve, securing Athens’ place at the head of an Aegean-wide empire. But after twenty-seven years and many disasters and misadventures, including the untimely death of Pericles and the near-complete destruction of its military in Sicily, Athens lost the war to Sparta in 404. Under the supervision of Lysander, Sparta’s bold and controversial general in the latter years of the war, the great walls of Athens were torn down to the music of flutes and the dancing of girls. The imperial power that had oppressed so many Greeks was broken. Broken too was Athens’ unique system of democracy. At least that’s how it must have looked to the Greeks in 404.
Lysander established a puppet government in Athens, a very narrow oligarchy led by thirty men who were reviled as the Thirty Tyrants. One of these men was Critias, an associate of Socrates, which might be one reason the Athenians were so hostile to Socrates that they executed him a few years later, in 399. To support this oligarchy, Lysander left a Spartan garrison in Athens. Aside from 3,000 Athenians who were given limited rights as supporters of the Thirty, all other citizens were stripped of their franchise, and after a clever trick, their weapons too. The Thirty held a public review of the Athenians, during which the Spartan troops from the garrison and other agents of the Thirty collected all the weapons and stored them under lock and key on the Acropolis. Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens in the sixth century BCE, had seized power through similar means. Once the Athenians had been disarmed, the Thirty began a true reign of terror. They had their enemies killed, either out of rivalry or in order to seize their property since money was needed to pay the Spartan garrison. One of the Thirty, Theramenes, refused to take part in these purges, and was executed for his trouble. Athens had entered dark days.
After the Peloponnesian War, relations quickly cooled between Sparta and its ally Thebes, which had defeated Athens in hoplite battle at Delium in 424, and had at first advocated the destruction of Athens at the war’s end. But now Thebes welcomed one Athenian exile with open arms, Thrasybulus, who had been a prominent general during the last years of the Peloponnesian War. Thrasybulus managed to escape Athens and ran to Thebes, a city that quickly became a rallying point for the democratic resistance to the Thirty. Democrats began to trickle into Thebes, and wealthy supporters of Thrasybulus, including Lysias, a famous orator resident in Athens who had been arrested by the Thirty before he escaped, began to provide the democrats with supplies and mercenaries.
In the early months of 403, Thrasybulus and seventy supporters left Thebes and took the fort of Phyle, a rugged outpost on the mountainous north-western border of Attica, on the direct route to Thebes. In the fourth century, the Athenians fortified Phyle with impressive walls as part of a great network of border forts. Phyle is worth a visit today, since its fortifications are well preserved. When Thrasybulus and his small force occupied the place, however, the walls had yet to be built, so the democrats needed to rely on the site’s natural advantages, including nearly sheer cliffs and deep gorges on the side facing Athens. When they learned of the occupation of the fort, the Thirty immediately set out with their 3,000 supporters and the cavalry. Some of the younger members of this force were so confident that they immediately assaulted Thrasybulus’ position, only to achieve nothing aside from a few wounds. During the night, there was a heavy snowfall, which hampered the efforts of the Thirty to blockade Phyle. Most of the force returned home, after suffering some losses in a raid launched by Thrasybulus’ men.
Instead of blockading Phyle, the Thirty sent the Spartan garrison and some cavalry to the low-lying areas near the fort, probably in the vicinity of Acharnae, in order to prevent the democrats from using the fields as a source of food and supplies. But in the early spring, when his numbers had grown to about 700, Thrasybulus attacked this force by surprise in the early hours of the morning, and managed to kill about 120, including several still caught in their beds. This attack was a great victory for Thrasybulus, and supplied his men with many weapons and other tools of war, which were sorely lacking at Phyle. The surprise attack suggests that Thrasybulus might have had some Thracian mercenaries with him, since his soldiers had to descend the mountain passes from Phyle in the dead of night. Night manoeuvres were a specialty of the Thracians, as was fighting with ranged weapons like javelins. Xenophon’s description of the battle suggests that many of the Spartan garrison troops and cavalry who were killed were brought down by just such weapons. In the last years of the Peloponnesian War, Thrasybulus had been an Athenian general in Thrace, where he could have made connections to the Thracians, including groups of mercenaries. Thrasybulus clearly made good use of the money provided by supporters like Lysias.
After the victory in the fields of Acharnae, Thrasybulus and his men, a force now 1,000 strong, moved from Phyle by night and occupied the Piraeus, Athens’ great port. The Piraeus had always been a hotbed of democracy, being the base of Athens’ navy, the lower-class crews of which were so important in advancing democratic reforms in the fifth century BCE. The many foreign residents of the Piraeus also tended to support democracy too, since a democratic government afforded them better treatment than was likely under the Thirty or other oligarchies. Whether or not Thrasybulus had Thracian support already at Phyle, he certainly gained a great deal of it once in the Piraeus. Near the hill of Mounichia, which rises prominently above the Piraeus, was a shrine to the Thracian goddess Bendis and a temple of Artemis, a goddess with whom Bendis was linked. The Thracians, alone of all foreign ethnic groups, were granted the right to construct a shrine to their goddess on Athenian soil, and the cult gained popularity amongst native Athenians too. Setting up in the neighbourhood of this shrine, Thrasybulus gained many light-armed soldiers, many of whom were probably Thracian resident aliens, skilled in the light-armed tactics of their native land. After the Battle of Mounichia, Xenophon tells us that these troops set about making shields out of wood and wickerwork, the materials used to construct the crescent-shaped peltē shield of Thracian peltasts.
Piraeus/Mounichia Map 1. Satellite image courtesy of the USGS.
The Thirty responded immediately to Thrasybulus’ bold occupation of the Piraeus. Coming up with all of their forces, including the Spartan garrison, the Thirty marched straight for the port. Thrasybulus initially tried to prevent them from entering the Piraeus itself, but he realized that he did not have enough men to defend the circuit walls adequately. Instead, he and his soldiers occupied the high ground of the Mounichia hill, rising above Athens’ naval ports and the shrine of Artemis Mounichia. Thrasybulus had around 1,000 hoplites, with many light-armed troops supplementing this number. He arrayed his phalanx ten men deep, meaning he probably had a front of 100 men. The Thirty had around 5,000 soldiers, and arranged themselves fifty ranks deep, a staggering depth. With a front of 100 men, they filled the road going from the Piraeus agora to the shrine of Artemis Mounichia, a large boulevard at the base of the Mounichia hill.
Xenophon says that Thrasybulus gave a stirring speech to the effect that the Thirty were right where they wanted them: lined up for battle against the democrats, who now had the weapons to oppose them openly. These soldiers, Thrasybulus reminded his men, were the very soldiers they had just cut down so well in Acharnae. Furthermore, the hill gave the democrats a distinct advantage. Thrasybulus arranged his light-armed troops in the rear of his phalanx. These troops could hurl javelins and sling-stones easily over the heads of their own phalanx against the enemy lined up below them. As Thrasybulus said, since the army of the Thirty were arrayed so deeply, and filled the entire road, the missile troops could launch their weapons with reckless abandon and still be sure to find their mark. This is the first such tactical arrangement – with light-armed troops arranged behind a phalanx of hoplites – that we encounter in the ancient sources, and only the height advantage offered by the Mounichia hill made it feasible. Thrasybulus’ innovative tactics proved very effective against the army of the Thirty, despite the Thirty having Spartans as allies and being arrayed in depth, which in other battles was a decisive advantage.
The battle got off to a strange, if stirring start. The seer in the army of the democrats had predicted that the democrats would be victorious, but only if they attacked after someone on their own side had been killed or wounded. As the two armies faced each other, the seer himself, inspired by some kind of fate, as Xenophon puts it, rushed against the enemy as if he was mad. He was immediately killed, upon which the democrats charged down the hill against the forces of the Thirty. Rarely has a prophet played such a direct role in fulfilling his own prophecy. With a relentless shove, backed up by missiles flying from the rear ranks, the democrats pushed the forces of the Thirty back down to level ground, and routed them. Despite a phalanx fifty ranks deep, which included Spartan soldiers, the Thirty were unable to resist the spirited charge of the democrats, arrayed only ten deep. Topography certainly played a key role, as a walk up the steep slopes of Mounichia makes clear. The ability of the democrats’ light-armed soldiers to hurl missiles indiscriminately against their enemy must have been dispiriting to the Thirty too, rendering them as helpless as the Spartans had been at Pylos. Xenophon says that about seventy soldiers of the Thirty were killed, including Charmides, one of the governors of the Piraeus, and two members of the Thirty themselves, Hippomachus and the infamous Critias. Since this was a civil war, pitting Athenians against other Athenians, the war-dead were treated with a greater level of respect than is sometimes the case. The victorious democrats stripped their fallen enemy of weapons – which were surely needed by the ad hoc army of the resistance – but they did not strip the tunic off any fallen citizen.
The Thirty did not fall immediately after the Battle of Mounichia, but their position was much weakened, just as the democrats were given a huge morale boost and began attracting more and more supporters. Lysander came to the aid of the Thirty with a force from Sparta, and he was soon joined by another Spartan army under the command of one of the Spartan kings, Pausanias. After some more engagements with the democrats, and kidnappings and killings on both sides, Pausanias came to terms with Thrasybulus and his party. The sources indicate that Pausanias wanted to curtail Lysander’s unprecedented power and influence, and thus undercut Lysander’s grip on Athens. At Pausanias’ insistence, the Spartans left Athens to its own devices, the reign of the Thirty was brought to an end and democracy restored.
The remaining members of the Thirty and their most ardent supporters were put to death. But for the first time in Greek history, an amnesty was declared to prevent unending reprisals from either side. The Athenians were allowed to move on without a bloodbath, and democracy continued to be the system of government in Athens for many more decades. Bitterness and rivalries certainly persisted, but they now simmered below the surface. Socrates, who had associated with Critias, was executed by the Athenians in 399. Officially, the charges against him were of corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods of the city, but the real reason for his prosecution might have been his association with unsavoury anti-democrats. As for Thrasybulus, he faced a legal charge from one of his rivals for influence in Athens, jealous that Thrasybulus had become so popular, especially among the foreigners he had enlisted in his army. Beating the charge, Thrasybulus continued to be a prominent figure. The hero of democracy went on to lead Athenian troops in many places across the Aegean in the coming years, including in Thrace, where he first gained experience with the type of light-armed soldiers that were so important at Mounichia.
Piraeus/Mounichia Map 2: The battle. Satellite image courtesy of the USGS.
The Battle Site Today
Zea Harbour (N37° 56.323"; E023° 38.848") and the smaller Mounichia Harbour (now called Mikrolimano) to the east were the principal military harbours of Classical Athens, where the Aegean’s most formidable fleet of triremes was based. The larger Kantharos Harbour, which is now the bustling home of Athens’ ferry and cruise ship ports, was where commercial vessels loaded and unloaded their cargoes in antiquity. Today, Zea and Mounichia are primarily for yachts, some impressive examples of which make a stroll around these harbours well worthwhile. At the eastern edge of Zea (N37° 56.226"; E023° 39.053"), under the water, you can see remains of the narrow tracks of the ancient shipsheds used to dry-dock the Athenian triremes.
The main fighting took place on the slopes of Mounichia hill, rising prominently to the north of Zea, and still clearly visible despite now being covered by a neighbourhood. From the northern tip of Zea, walk up Gr. Lambraki, which passes through the spot of the ancient Hippodamean agora, one of the first grid-plan cities in the world. Ascend the hill of Mounichia by turning right onto Leof. Vas. Georgiou. The steepness of the hill provides a good sense of the battle terrain.
Fig. 3.1: Zea Harbour with Mounichia hill in the background. Authors’ photo.
The top of the hill (N37° 56.358"; E023° 39.334"), past some remains of an ancient theatre (where after the battle the light troops of Thrasybulus busied themselves by making shields out of wood and wickerwork), is covered by a park and the grounds of the church of Profitis Ilias. From the summit there are excellent views of the Piraeus and Athens, even to the Acropolis. Looking down to the east, at the southern end of the small Mounichia Harbour, the modern yacht club can be seen on a promontory, situated on the very spot, and along the orientation, of the ancient temple of Artemis Mounichia. This temple is what attracted so many foreigners, especially Thracians, to this part of the Piraeus. Xenophon says that the army of the Thirty filled up the road between the agora and the temple of Artemis Mounichia, which must have run along the southern edge of Mounichia hill. The road seems to have been quite large, since the forces of the Thirty filled the road with a phalanx of likely 100 men across. The forces of Thrasybulus, from their considerable height, held a distinct advantage over the soldiers of the Thirty below, which was deftly exploited by Thrasybulus and his light-armed troops.
Fig. 3.2: The fort at Phyle. Authors’ photo.
A visit to the fort of Phyle affords a good sense of the campaign of the democratic resistance, and is a nice complement to an exploration of Mounichia. From the Attiki Odos north of Athens, exit at the suburb of Ano Liosia, and drive along Filis until you reach the village of Fili. Continuing north of Fili, drive about 10km along the road over the mountains. The fort itself will be to the left of the road, and is marked by a brown Ministry of Culture sign. The remains date to the fourth century, later than the campaign of Thrasybulus, but the imposing situation of the fort itself explains why the democrats were able to hold this place against the forces of the Thirty.
Further Reading
Ancient Sources
–Xenophon, Hellenica 2.4
Xenophon, an experienced soldier and possible participant in the battle on the side of the Thirty, offers a detailed and gripping account of the action.
–Lysias, Against Eratosthenes 6-17 (supplemented by Plutarch, Moralia (Lives of the Orators) 835F)
This famous orator tells of his arrest by the Thirty, and his subsequent escape. He would supply Thrasybulus and the democratic resistance with both mercenaries and equipment, which were used in the Battle of Mounichia. In general, this speech is our best source for the reign of the Thirty.
–Diodorus 14.32-33
This first-century BCE universal historian offers a very brief and vague description of the campaign and battle that adds a few details to Xenophon’s account.
Modern Sources
Books
–Buck, R.J., Thrasybulus and the Athenian Democracy (Stuttgart, 1998).
A comprehensive treatment of Thrasybulus, hero of Mounichia and restorer of Athenian democracy.
–Krentz, P., Xenophon Hellenika II.3.11-IV.2.8 (Warminster, 1995).
A valuable commentary on Xenophon’s text, including detailed discussion of the occupation of Phyle, the battle near Acharnae and Mounichia.
–Sears, M.A., Athens, Thrace, and the Shaping of Athenian Leadership (Cambridge, 2013).
Discusses the military innovations of Thrasybulus at Mounichia, especially the use of light-armed troops, including Thracian mercenaries and residents of the Piraeus.
Articles
–Middleton, D.F., ‘Thrasyboulos’ Thracian Support’, Classical Quarterly 32 (1982), pp.298-303.
Middleton argues that Thracians played a significant role at Mounichia based on three key pieces of evidence: the location of the battle near the shrine to the Thracian goddess Bendis; the names of some of the fighters in the battle, which have been preserved on an inscription; and the light-armed tactics of Thrasybulus’ army.