The
port of Pireo it is today the port from that leave the direct ferries to the numerous islands of
Aegean.
The
Pireo became the
port of Athens already on the end of the century VI to. C., when the
Falero it resulted insufficient to the increased maritime traffic. Important intense activities of instrumentation and of fortification had been make perform from
Themistocles in 493-492, but it was above all with
Pericle that the
Pireo (port and town) gained large importance: inhabited it, to the center of three harbor fields of
Kántharos,
Zea is.
Munichia, it was organizing second a urbanistic diagram attributed to
Hippodrome of Mileto, with plant to perpendicular aces and a net distinction between the commercial zone, the area destined to the agorá (market), to the sanctuaries and to the public buildings, and the zone of the military port of Munichia. In the successive years the Pireo was united to
Athens from the " long wall", extending for 9 km, destroyed in 403 to. C. from
Lisandro, rebuilded with everything the
port of Conone (Athenian general) in 393 to. C. and again destroyed from
Silla (87-86 to. C.) during the I mitridatic war. Meager are at present the restive of the numerous harbor and sacred buildings of the Pireo remembered from the sources; better preserved is the Hellenistic theatre of Zea. In the waters of the port of the Pireo were recovered a lot of works of art among which an important group of relief neo attic; from the urban zone come a large bronze Apollo of the sec. VI to. C. and slower statues of
Athena and Artemis, preserved in the local one
Archaeological museum.
The three inlets that accommodate its ports are:
Kantharos, the most large assigned to commercial port;
Zea, the intermediate one assigned to navy for
Yoght;
Microlimano, the most small and feature of the
Pireo, used in predominance from Fischer's and covered from coffee and refreshing of fish.
Town densely inhabited, the Pireo counts about 175,000 residents and has, like most of the
districts of Athens, an actual autonomous very vital shopping center, a large nocturnal life around the area of
Zea and Microlimano, an important archaeological museum and also some important sporty installations used also during the Olympic games of 2004.
