Old Map of Athens and Piraeus

Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage prepared this map in September 1785 to reconstruct classical Athens and the surrounding landscape. Entitled Plan of the Environs of Athens, for the Travels of Anacharsis, it follows the ancient roads from the fortified city towards Piraeus and the harbours of the Saronic Gulf.

Map Details

• Original English title: Plan of the Environs of Athens, for the Travels of Anacharsis
• Mapmaker: Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage
• Date on map: September 1785
• Engraver: T. Cook
• English edition: London, 1793
• Publisher: G.G. & J. Robinson
• Original dimensions: Approximately 17 × 22 cm
• Approximate scale: 1:56,000
• Area shown: Athens, Piraeus and the surrounding country
• Notable features: The Long Walls, Academy of Plato, Colonos, Mount Lycabettus, Mount Hymettus, Munychia, Phalerum and the harbours of Piraeus
• Distance scales: English miles, Olympian stadia and French toises
• Technique: Engraved map with relief represented by hills and hachures

A Reconstruction of Classical Athens

Although the map was drawn in the late eighteenth century, Barbié du Bocage was not attempting to record Athens as it appeared in 1785. Its subject is the much earlier landscape of classical Greece.

Ancient texts, surviving remains and contemporary scholarship were used to reconstruct the relationship between Athens, its surrounding countryside and the sea. The result is as much a work of historical interpretation as conventional cartography.

Athens and the Long Walls

Athens occupies the upper part of the map, enclosed within its ancient fortifications. From the city, two remarkable parallel walls stretch south-west towards the coast.

These are the Long Walls, built during the fifth century BC to secure Athens’ connection with its ports. Even when the surrounding countryside was threatened, the walls gave Athens protected access to Piraeus, its fleet and maritime supplies.

Their strong parallel lines form the map’s most striking visual feature, binding the inland city directly to the sea.

Piraeus and Its Harbours

Piraeus appears on its distinctive peninsula in the lower-left portion of the map. Its fortifications, roads and separate harbour areas are carefully delineated.

Munychia and Phalerum are identified nearby, together with the ancient routes leading back towards Athens. This arrangement demonstrates why access to the coast was so important: the strength of Athens depended not only upon the city itself, but also upon the harbours through which trade, people and naval power could move.

The Academy of Plato

North-west of Athens, the Academy of Plato is shown within a wooded landscape. Plato established his philosophical school here during the fourth century BC, outside the city walls.

Nearby are Colonos and the roads approaching Athens, while Mount Lycabettus and Mount Hymettus rise to the east. These recognisable landmarks provide useful points of reference within a landscape reconstructed more than two centuries ago.

The Travels of Anacharsis the Younger

The map was created for Jean-Jacques Barthélemy’s Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece. The book used the fictional journey of a young Scythian traveller to introduce readers to the politics, philosophy, religion and everyday life of ancient Greece.

Barbié du Bocage supplied the maps and geographical scholarship needed to make that imagined journey understandable. The work became enormously popular across late eighteenth-century Europe and helped readers visualise places they otherwise knew chiefly through classical literature.

Three different distance scales appear along the lower edge: English miles, Olympian stadia and French toises. Roads, walls, settlements, temples and harbour features are carefully differentiated, while the restrained colouring preserves T. Cook’s finely engraved linework.