“The Athenian Long Walls” by Michael Martone

Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Athenian Long Wall
Athens
Greece

Nothing is left of them now, of course. Finally, Sulla, in the Mithridatic Wars, leveled
them for good. Four hundred years before, Lysander tore down the original walls, that
ran four miles from the city to the port. Xenophon reports there was much jubilation
when the walls were dismantled to the song of the flute girls. Imagine you are standing
on the Acropolis, the Lacedemonians laying waste, again, to all of Attica all around you,
and this narrow strip, safe passage down to the sea, is your only lifeline. But it goes two
ways. The Plague arrived by ship and had an easy time of it, funneled as it was along
the corridor of ruin between the Long Walls, spreading from one citizen to the next, a
safe passage through that long (what was thought to be) safe space.

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Contributor’s note: Michael Martone was born on August 22, 1955 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Since 1977, he has written nearly 30 books and chapbooks. Until his retirement in 2020, he was a professor at the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Plain Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana; Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler’s List, and nearly 30 other books and chapbooks, many of them centered in the Midwest. Many of his works challenge accepted conventions of writing such as those found in biographical notes—like this one where Martone writes about himself.