The Athenian wall of 280 CE: fortifying after the Gothic raids

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the source says

The Met's timeline for Greece in 1-500 A.D. records under "280 A.D.": "In response to raids by the Goths, Athens constructs a major fortification wall, the first since the time of Perikles." The entry before it, headed "257-263 A.D.", reads: "The Goths raid Greece and Asia Minor. In 267 A.D., they sack Athens, Corinth, Sparta, and Argos." Source 1.

A cause given by the source

"In response to raids" is the source's own causal link between the raids and the wall. It names a sack of Athens in 267 A.D. and a wall in 280 A.D., thirteen years apart, but it does not describe what happened in the city between them, and it gives the wall no course, length or remains. Source 1.

A date outside its heading

The entry headed 257-263 A.D. names a year outside its own heading: "In 267 A.D." The article keeps the dates as the page gives them: raids under 257-263, a sack in 267, a wall in 280. All three fall in the site's period of Roman rule in Greece, 146 B.C.-330 A.D. Source 1.

The first since Perikles

"The first since the time of Perikles" measures the wall against a much earlier Athens. On the Met's timeline for 1000 B.C.-1 A.D., the "Age of Perikles, Athens" is a bar of ca. 440-429 B.C., and Perikles' building programs are named in the entry on the Parthenon (449-432 B.C.); the same page records that "The Roman general Sulla sacks Athens" in 86 B.C. The source's claim concerns a major fortification wall, the first of its kind since Perikles; it does not say what Athens had in the meantime. Sources 2, 1.

What a new wall can tell

A wall built in response to raids is evidence of the threat as the source frames it. The entry does not say who built or paid for it, how long the work took or what area it enclosed. The article on the Olympieion shows the same city under Hadrian, 117-138 A.D., completing a temple; here, more than a century later, the source records a defensive work instead. Source 1.

Scope of reading: the Met timeline pages "Ancient Greece, 1-500 A.D." (the entries for 257-263 and 280 A.D.) and "Ancient Greece, 1000 B.C.-1 A.D." (the bar of the Age of Perikles and the entries for 449-432 and 86 B.C.) were read on 24 October 2026. No excavation report or study of the wall was read, so this page gives no course, dimensions or remains.