On the hill above are the well-preserved remains of the small Acropolis, of which the stones are so carefully cut that it looks at first sight modern, then too good for modern work, but in no case polygonal, as are the walls of the hill city which it protected. There is a remarkable tower built on the highest point of the hill, with a very perfect staircase up to it. The whole of the work is very like the work of Eleutheræ, and seems to be of the best period of Greek wall-building. Nothing surprises the traveller in Greece more than the number of these splendid hill-forts, or town-fortresses, which are never noticed by the historians as anything remarkable—in fact, the art and the habit of fortifying must have been so universal that it excited no comment. This strikes us all the more when so reticent a writer as Thucydides, who seldom gives us anything but war or politics, goes out of his way to describe the wall-building of the Peiræus. He evidently contrasts it with the hurried and irregular construction of the city walls, into which even tombstones were built; but if we did not study the remains still common in Greece, we might imagine that the use of square hewn stones, the absence of mortar and rubble, and the clamping with lead and iron were exceptional, whereas that sort of building is the most usual sort in Greece. The walls of the Peiræus cannot even have been the earliest specimen, for the great portal at Mycenæ, though somewhat rougher and more huge in execution, is on the same principle. The only peculiarity of these walls may have been their height and width, and upon that point it is not easy to get any monumental evidence now. The walls of the Peiræus have disappeared completely, though the foundations are still traceable; others have stood, but perhaps on account of their lesser height.