The Northern Sector

The discussion of the dating and interpretation of the Dema wall so far bears only upon the main sector of the wall, where the unity of design and comparative uniformity of structural style (variations in masonry style being randomly scattered and attributable to the work of different gangs of masons) indicate that the work was carried out at one time according to one plan. The simple rubble work of the northern sector, with its continuous line running across ever-steepening slopes, bespeaks a change, either of plan alone or in both time and plan.

All previous investigators have regarded the southern and northern sectors as parts of a single, contemporary work, implying, and sometimes stating, that the change must be explained as a change in plan. Jones, Sackett, and Eliot have advocated this view and have adduced evidence that seems to indicate a degeneration, rather than an abrupt change, from more substantial to more hasty work in the transition between the southern and northern sectors. This, they argue, is evidence of "some change of plan during construction, possibly connected with some emergency, a need for economy, so urgent as to force a premature cessation of work on the wall."^[53] This is an important conclusion, for it

affects our interpretation of the historical circumstances of the Dema wall. The relationship of the northern sector to the rest of the wall must be examined closely to see if the conclusion that the Dema wall was abandoned before it was completed is justified.

The transition between sectors as defined by Jones, Sackett, and Eliot takes place over about 70 meters of the wall at the end of the southern sector, which lies in the northern saddle just as the slope of Parnes begins. It is marked by a reduction in the height of the wall, a shift to less-substantial construction, and the absence of the regular rubble ramps behind the wall despite the presence, on either side of the last sally port, of curbs normally provided to retain rubble ramps. After this transition, the wall almost disappears and is preserved as no more than foundation traces running in a straight line, without evidence for sally ports. This drastic reduction in the remains of the wall is identified by Jones, Sackett, and Eliot as the beginning of the northern sector. It continues in this reduced manner for more than 100 meters, until remains of the new form of slight and crude rubble wall begin to stand out, usually no more than 0.50 meters high, on the rising slopes of Parnes (see figure 19).^[54]

A sudden emergency forcing the abandonment of work on the wall might account for the transition from massive to flimsy construction, but such an explanation is at odds with the fact that this more hastily built wall was continued for almost a kilometer and a half up the slopes of Parnes. Such a continuation of the Dema wall is unnecessary according to the tactical considerations evident in the design of the rest of the wall. The ground over which it runs soon becomes so rough and steep that no hoplite formation could move across it, while peltasts would require no fieldwork to give them a decisive advantage over an enemy ascending the slopes. At its southern end, the wall built in the more substantial manner terminates on Aigaleos before reaching slopes as steep as those across which most of the northern sector is built.^[55] The time and effort spent in constructing the northern continuation of the wall could well have been spent on completing a much shorter stretch of the wall with ramps and sally ports. Such a reallocation of labor could easily have extended the wall in the conventional manner for another two hundred meters or so, to a point on the slopes of Parries equivalent to the position of the southern end on Aigaleos. There is no evident explanation why, if haste were needed, the wall should have been extended for such a distance. The fact that it was so extended indicates that haste alone does not account for the northern sector.

The continuation of the wall in such a manner, without sally ports over steep ground, is not only unnecessary according to the tactical principles evident in the rest of the Dema wall, it is even counterproductive. Without sally ports, this line made no allowance for the sort of active defense that was at the heart of the plan in the main sector. Control of the high ground beyond the ends of the wall in the pass would certainly have been a concern to the defenders, but on ground as steep as that covered in the northern sector, control would be best assured by having a force of peltasts in readiness on the heights.^[56] These could move quickly enough across the slopes to concentrate wherever the enemy might be attempting to storm the heights. A wall of any sort, and especially one without sally ports, would be a definite liability to such skirmishing troops, hampering their movement along the slopes. Equally problematic is the apparent lack of sally ports at the beginning of the northern sector where it traverses more gently sloping ground in the northern saddle. Up to this point, the wall has been built in the style that provides more frequent sally ports to allow concentrated sorties over this near-level and more vulnerable ground, a feature that, as already noted, is a regular principle of the Dema's construction. The complete absence of gates or sally ports after the transition would pose a real problem to the defenders at this point if they expected to operate in front of the wall and to be able to withdraw again at will, as is the plan elsewhere. Arguably, it would have been better to have no wall at all here, just as on the higher slopes, than to have a wall without openings.

In explaining the northern sector as the product of "the belated adoption of an inexpensive, makeshift plan," occasioned by some "sudden emergency," Jones, Sackett, and Eliot have offered no explanation of why the "makeshift plan" should take the form that it does. Nor can an explanation be found that satisfactorily reconciles this very different wall with the defensive scheme evident in the southern sector of the Dema. The possibility that the northern sector is a later addition must be seriously considered. If this sector had been built much later, a matter of generations or even centuries after the construction of the main sector of the wall, then it would be easier to understand how it could so radically depart from the tactical plan of the original wall. The builders of the continuation might well have been insensitive to the tactical subtleties of the original plan or might have faced special circumstances that made the extension of the wall in this form desirable.

Circumstances that suit the form of the northern sector are readily found if we look to an entirely different era and manner of warfare. In considering the dates of rubble fortifications in Attica, McCredie raises the possibility that some of them might date to the Greek War of Independence.^[57] He describes a wall in the ravine called the Cleft Way leading to Delphi, which is known to have been built in 1823 against the Turks by a force under Odysseus Androutsas. The wall is simple rubble, 0.90 to 1.00 meters thick, now mostly ruinous and less than 0.50 meters high where it is freestanding, but in places where it is built as a terrace on steep slopes, it has a face almost 2 meters high. The wall follows a generally horseshoe-shaped course, starting high up the slopes on one side of the valley, curving as it descends to cross the streambed at the bottom of the valley, and continuing to curve in the same direction as it ascends the opposite side. The total length of the wall now preserved is something under five hundred meters, but originally it was probably closer to seven hundred meters. It was built to guard against an enemy coming up the valley from the direction of the open end of the horseshoe. McCredie describes the tactical purpose of the wall as follows:

The flanks, or ends of the horseshoe, which allowed the defenders to surround the attacking enemy, would be of use only to men with rifles. The distance from these ends to the floor of the valley is too great for spears or arrows. The thinness of the wall is notable; the purpose of the wall was to offer a protected place from which men armed with rifles might fire on an advancing enemy, and there is in this situation no point in building a thick wall.^[58]

McCredie found the comparison between this wall and other thin rubble walls in Attica to be inconclusive, but a comparison with the northern sector of the Dema, which McCredie did not consider, is instructive. The form of the wall in the Cleft Way, both in the slightness of its construction and in its course, climbing high up and across steepening slopes, is closely comparable to the northern sector of the Dema wall. The ground covered by this sector of the Dema, as is noted above, is suitable only for skirmishing troops, and indeed, only skirmishing troops armed with firearms would have found such a wall to be of any use. Firing from ambush or from behind simple rubble walls known as tambouria was the customary manner of fighting among the Greeks and Albanians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.^[59] No sally ports would have been needed, for charges under fire were not characteris-

tic.^[60] Fire from such a protected position would have been effective in preventing any encircling movement on these slopes around the defenses in the pass. The tactical conception of the northern sector of the Dema thus fits very well with the manner of warfare practiced in Greece during the Turkish era. When contrasted with the evident unsuitability of this wall to ancient warfare, it seems quite reasonable to conclude that this sector of the Dema was a work of the age of firearms. When we note that fighting in the vicinity of the Aigaleos-Parnes pass did in fact take place during the War of Independence, the likelihood that this part of the wall was constructed at that time becomes strong indeed.^[61] There may, then, be more of a basis than fanciful pride for the local tradition that the Dema wall is a work of the War of Independence.

If, as argued here, we recognize that the northern continuation of the Dema wall substantially postdates the original construction of the wall, then we can also explain the condition of the wall at its transition between the two sectors, where Jones, Sackett, and Eliot saw evidence that led them to conclude that the Dema as a whole had been left incomplete. The builders of the northern sector obviously did not think that their wall was worth building as carefully or as massively as the southern sector of the Dema. Therefore, they may well have dismantled the adjacent portion of the existing wall for some distance in order to use its stones as building material.^[62] The remains of a slight and reduced wall in the northern saddle are more likely the evidence of stone-robbing for this new wall than of a hasty and incomplete original construction.

This scenario provides a more plausible explanation for both the scantiness of the remains in the northern saddle and the remarkably different nature of the northern sector of the Dema than does the conclusion reached by Jones, Sackett, and Eliot. There is no need to conclude with them that the last portion of the Dema wall was built in haste and even ultimately abandoned before construction was completed. Rather, we should conclude that the northern end of the Dema was

originally built in the same careful manner that characterizes the rest of the work for almost three kilometers across the Dema pass to the south. In its original form, the Dema might have continued a short way beyond the last recognizable independent wall-section. How much further, whether one section or more, must remain uncertain given the considerable disturbance caused by the scavenging of stones for the continuation of the wall. The original wall need not have continued very far, since the slopes of Parnes soon rise steeply enough to form a natural obstacle and defensive vantage point. The irregularities in the plan of the last independent wall-section, with its unique southward-facing sally port and its combination of the features of short and long wall-sections, were almost certainly designed in view of the fact that the Dema was soon to reach its northernmost end.^[63]