[*] These were the walls whereof a considerable section was thrown down by Lysander after the surrender of Athens [404 B.C.]. The demolition was done to the “music of flute girls,” and was fondly thought by the victors to mean the permanent crippling of Athens, and therefore “the first day of the liberty of Greece.” In 393 B.C., by one of the ironies of history, Conon, an Athenian admiral, but in the service of the king of Persia, who was then at war with Sparta, appeared in the Peiræus, and _with Persian men and money_ rebuilt the walls amid the rejoicings of the Athenians. The straight highroad is swarming with traffic: clumsy wagons are bringing down marble from the mountains; other wains are headed toward Athens with lumber and bales of foreign wares. Countless donkeys laden with panniers are being flogged along. A great deal of the carrying is done by half-naked sweating porters; for, after all, slave-flesh is almost as cheap as beast-flesh. So by degrees the two walls open away from us: before us now expands the humming port town; we catch the sniff of the salt brine, and see the tangle of spars of the multifarious shipping. Right ahead, however, dominating the whole scene, is a craggy height,—the hill of Munychia, crowned with strong fortifications, and with houses rising terrace above terrace upon its slopes. At the very summit glitters in its white marble and color work the temple of Artemis Munychia, the guardian goddess of the port town and its citadel.[*] [*] This fortress of Munychia, rather than the Acropolis in Athens was the real citadel of Attica. It dominated the all-important harbors on which the very life of the state depended. [Illustration: The Town of Peiræus and the Harbors of Athens]