The hill beside Munychia harbour in Piraeus is an extremely significant location in the first Demon of Athens book, Tyranny. When I visited Greece in 2018, I made it a point to visit Munychia in what can almost be described as a personal pilgimage. I wanted to see the place where my personal hero Thrasybulus stood and fought so many years ago. I also wanted to find out how well reality matched what I had imagined when reading Xenophon and Diodorus.
In the picture at the top of the page, the Munychia hill is the slight rise that you see centre-left of the harbour. Like many hills, it looks small from a distance but grows ever larger as you approach. It is the only significant hill in Piraeus and is visible from quite a distance. If you visit Piraeus, I recommend that you visit the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, which is located near Phaleron Bay. Not only is it a beautiful building, but from the lookout on top you can get a good view of Munychia Harbour and the Munychia hill in the distance. In the second picture (excuse author in the foreground), the view gives you some idea of how high the hill is once you are on top.
When you read Xenophon’s account of the Battle of Munychia, it is difficult to imagine exactly how the battle played out because the description of the actual hill is quite vague. If you visit, however, it is much easier to see how the battle likely played out. The hill is a little like a flattened door-stopper with a relatively steep back and steep sides , but with a flatter, gentler slope on the southern side. One can guess that Thrasybulus lined up his forces at the top or even two-thirds of the way up the hill and waited for the Tyrants’ army to come to him. The long slog up the hill for the Tyrants’ army certainly played a huge role in the outcome of the battle.
In a place like Athens, where every square foot could tell a tale from history, many important sites have simply disappeared under modern development. If you visit the Munychia hill today, there is nothing there to indicate that this is where a great battle took place (at least I didn’t see any plaques or anything to that effect.) There is a church and a bowling alley (!) and a small park with lots of graffiti and scattered dog turds, a great disappointment for Thrasybulus fans! Still, it was a special experience for me to imagine that Thrasybulus and maybe someone like Daimon fought the Tyrants of Athens there. When I was atop the Munychia hill, I read aloud the speech that Xenophon has Thrasybulus make to his troops before the battle. I like to think that maybe somewhere, somehow, 2500 years after the event, the spirit of Thrasybulus heard this small tribute to him and smiled to know that he was still remembered…
