The so-called Wall of Haseki was a city wall built around Athens by its Ottoman governor, Hadji Ali Haseki, in 1778. Initially intended to protect the city from attacks by Ottoman Muslim Albanian warbands, it became an instrument of Haseki's tyrannical rule over the city.
History
The 1770s were a period of lawlessness and disorder in southern Greece, particularly due to the presence of roving Ottoman-Albanian warbands, that had been brought in by the Porte to suppress the Orlov Revolt in the Morea in 1770. In In 1778, such a warband arrived in Attica, and sent emissaries to Athens, threatening to burn the city unless they received provisions and an official document hiring them as guards of the city. The Ottoman governor, Hadji Ali Haseki, and the Athenian populace, both Christians and Muslims, resolved to meet the Albanians in the field, as the city was unfortified except forthe Acropolis. In a battle that took place near Halandri, the Athenians defeated the Albanians. To secure the city against another attack, Haseki immediately began construction of a new city wall. Work had not progressed far when a second and far larger force of 6,000 Albanians approached, under a certain Maksut, on their way to the Morea. The Turks then abandoned the city and found refuge in the Acropolis, while Haseki allowed the Greeks to move to Salamis Island for safety. There they remained for 13 days, until the Albanians departed, after receiving a substantial sum as a bribe. Construction on the wall resumed with increased vigour: Haseki not only enlisted the entire population of the city without distinction, but himself participated in the work, so that the 10 km long wall was completed in 108 days, or, according to other reports, in only 70 days. Many ancient and medieval monuments were demolished and reused as building material in the process. Haseki then promptly presented the Athenians with a bill for 42,500 piastres, ostensibly for the supervisors he had brought from outside. Not only that, but he placed guards at the gates, so that the wall served to virtually imprison the population in their own city. During and after the Ottoman siege of Athens in 1826, the wall was reduced to ruins, like most of the city; its remains were demolished in 1834.
the "Castle Gate" or "Karababa" in front of the Acropolis, which led to the Muslim cemetery outside the wall, and was rarely used
the "Mandravili Gate", after a local family, also known as "Drakos Gate" and in Turkish "Lion Gate", between the Theseion and the hill of the Pnyx, leading to the Piraeus
the "Morea Gate" or "Gypsy Gate" in the area of the Kerameikos, named after the Gypsy ironsmiths in the area
the "Mesogeia Gate", or "Boubounistra", from the rushing sound of a local fountain, in Othonos Street
the walled-up "Gate of the Princess" or "Arch Gate", as the Arch of Hadrian was known
the "Albanian Gate", in the mostly Arvanite-inhabited quarter of Plaka; it was also known as the "Three Towers Gate", and led to Phaleron and Cape Sounion
