Themistocles next set to work to fortify the harbour of the Peiraeus. Athens is a few miles inland from the sea, and the Peiraeus is her harbour. It is a peninsula with a deep bay on one side, in which ships can lie safely at anchor. A strong wall was built all round this peninsula, and the narrow entrance to the harbour was made secure by chains which could easily be drawn across in such a way as to prevent, whenever necessary, the entrance of any ships. The city and the harbour were then connected by Long Walls, which practically formed a fortified road down to the sea. This gave Athens all the advantages of a seaport, and an enemy would {174} find it as difficult to take Athens as it had been to take Miletus. The Persians had been defeated in Greece, but the Ionian Greeks in Asia Minor were still subject to the Great King. Now that the war was over, these Greeks appealed to the states on the mainland to help them. Athens took a special interest in these Ionian colonies as they had been settled by men of close kinship to the Athenians. So the Hellenes deliberated about removing the inhabitants of Ionia, and considered where they ought to settle them in those parts of Hellas of which they had command, leaving Ionia to the Barbarians: for it was evident to them that it was impossible on the one hand for them to be always stationed as guards to protect the Ionians, and, on the other hand, if they were not stationed to protect them, they had no hope that the Ionians would escape from the Persians. Therefore it seemed good to these of the Peloponnesians who were in authority that they should remove the inhabitants of the trading ports which belonged to those peoples of Hellas who had taken the side of the Medes, and give that land to the Ionians to dwell in; but the Athenians did not think it good that the inhabitants of Ionia should be removed at all, nor that the Peloponnesians should consult about Athenian colonies; and as these vehemently resisted the proposal, the Peloponnesians gave way.[3]