PIREUS, pi-re us, Greece, the port of the city of Athens, lying five miles southeast of the city and now terminus of railroads to Athens and to the Morea. Three excellent harbors in dent the shore deeply, Piraeus, Zea and Mu nychia. Munychia is also the name of the moun tainous peninsula separating the harbor from the Saronic Gulf, and on this peninsula is the town, which was built 493 B.C. by Themistocles, whose able policy of Athenian defense soon effected the construction of the famous Tong walls?) These made Athens independent of the rest of Attica, as was plainly seen in the Pelo ponnesian War, when, with the additional walls built by Cimon and Pericles, Athens was undis turbed, although all Attica outside of the walls was in the hands of the Peloponnesians. But the destruction of the remains of the Athenian navy at .X.gospotami in 404 tic. left the port defenseless; it was taken and the walls were destroyed to the music of the flute. Conon re built them 10 years later, and Athens tem porarily regained some of its importance. But the splendid city, one of the master works of the Periclean age, was finally destroyed by Sulla in 86 B.C., and there was only a wretched village
on its site even some years after 1836, when Athens again became the capital of Greece. But in 1835 the old name had been revived, to take the place of Porto Leone, the name given by the Italians. The present city is modern in its con struction; has street railways, a gymnasium, ex changes and theatres; is the second port in Greece, being outranked only by Syra; manufac tures macaroni, cheese, cognac, liquors and various textiles; has a large import and a moderate export trade; and is the main station of the Austrian Lloyds Company and of vari ous steamship lines, so that it is in direct con nection with Trieste, Corfu, Constantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria and Marseilles. In 1915, 3,827 steamships of 2,430,680 tons entered at this port, two-thirds of this tonnage flying the Greek flag. There are several consulates. The population of the city is estimated as about 75,000. Consult Weller, C. H., 'Athens and Its (New York 1913).