Piræus

, or Pyræeus , a celebrated harbour at Athens, at the mouth of the Cephisus, about three miles distant from the city. It was joined to the town by two walls, in circumference seven miles and a half, and 60 feet high, which Them is toc les wished to raise in a double proportion. One of these was built by Pericles, and the other by Them is toc les. The towers which were raised on the walls to serve as a defence, were turned into dwelling-houses, as the population of Athens gradually increased. It was the most capacious of all the harbours of the A then i ans, and was naturally divided into three large basins called Cant haros, Aphrodisium, and Zea, improved by the labours of Them is toc les, and made sufficiently commodious for the reception of a fleet of 400 ships, in the greatest security. The walls which joined it to Athens, with all the fortifications, were totally demolished when Lysander put an end to the Peloponnesian war by the reduction of Attica. Pausanias , bk. 1 , ch. 1 .— Strabo , bk. 9 .— Cornel i us Nepos , Them is toc les .— Florus , bk. 3 , ch. 5 .— Justin , bk. 5 , ch. 8 .— Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 6 , li. 446 .