DEMA PASS
Attica, Greece.
The Athenian
and Eleusinian (Thriasian) plains are separated by a chain
of hills, chiefly Mt. Aigaleos, that runs S from Mt. Parnes
to the sea W of Peiraeus and opposite Salamis. Communication between them is largely confined to a narrow
S gap, through which passes the main motor road from
Athens to Eleusis past Daphne, the ancient Sacred Way,
and to a wide N gap between Aigaleos and Parnes, which
until recently carried only the railway and a dirt track.
It was through the latter that Archidamos led the Spartans in the first year of the Peloponnesian War (
Thuc.
2.19.2); Agis presumably used the same route in 413
B.C. on his way to Dekeleia (
Thuc. 7.17.1).
Across this N gap, at its narrowest point, is the Dema
wall, a barrier built along the line of the watershed
between the two plains, and planned to oppose a force
coming from Eleusis. This basically rubble fieldwork is
4,360 m long, and for the S two-thirds of that length
it is made up of 53 short stretches of walling, separated
by openings, which, because all but two stretches overlap each other from S to N, have the form of sally ports.
The two exceptions are gateways. Throughout this section the wall is massive, with a broad rampart that at
times stands as much as 2 m above the ground to the
W. The N third is quite different and looks unfinished.
Here the line of the rubble wall is unbroken: on the lower
slopes only the foundation course is apparent; on the
higher slopes there are remains of a crude breastwork.
The date of the Dema's construction cannot as yet
be determined with any precision. What little evidence
there is might seem to favor a date in the second half
of the 4th c., but a date in the first half of the 3d must
also be considered a possibility. And in this period of a
hundred years several occasions, from the threat of
Philip after Chaironeia to the Chremonidean War might
have prompted so large an undertaking. Without new
evidence a choice between this or that event is probably
unjustified, especially since the wall could have been
built after Chaironeia and then later manned by the
Macedonians.
Thirteen m to the W of the Dema wall, at the foot
of Aigaleos and immediately N of the railway are the
important remains of an isolated country house of the
late 5th c. B.C., now buried beneath city refuse. Low
rubble walls that formed socles for mudbrick outline
a large rectangular structure (22 x 16 m) with the main
rooms facing S onto a court through a colonnade. Ceramic evidence shows that the house was inhabited for
only a short time. Historical considerations make it
likely that this habitation took place between the Peace
of Nikias, 421 B.C., and the Spartan occupation of Dekeleia in 413 B.C.
Three km farther W, on the highest point of a spur
that lies within the pass, are the remains of a fortified
enclosure known as the Thriasian Lager. The circuit
contains eight towers; within are foundations of a number of buildings; a narrow fieldwork runs from the fort
SE down the slope to the line of the railway. This military complex appears to be contemporary with the Dema
wall, and may have been built by a force planning to
invade the Athenian plain.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. E. Jones et al., “
ΤΟ ΔΕΜΑ: A Survey of the Aigaleos-Parnes Wall,”
BSA 52 (1957) 152-89
MPI; J. E. Jones et al., “The Dema House in Attica,”
BSA 57 (1962) 75-114
MPI; J. R. McCredie,
Fortified
Military Camps in Attica (
Hesperia Suppl. XI [1966]) 63-71, 107-15
MPI.
C.W.J. ELIOT