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Modern Description: Stavrokoraki (Fig. 4) The remains of a circular tower lie at the west end of the summit ridge of Mt. Stavrokoraki (height 310 m.) on the north side of the plain of Marathon. The tower is six meters in diameter and built of long thin slabs of limestone that are roughly shaped and only loosely fitted together without clamps. Two courses are preserved, to a height of 0.48 m. The entrance was on the west as indicated by the threshold block which lies mostly outside the tower. Its dimensions are 1.55 x 1.00 x 0.49 m. and its upper surface is 0.55 m. above the present ground level. The block has not been dislodged from the tower but is in situ with other blocks beneath it. There are no cuttings on the threshold’s upper surface, so the door must have been simple, perhaps a hide suspended from the lintel. Originally the interior may have been hollow, but it is now filled with small rubble which also spills over and obscures several blocks of the circumference. There are some displaced slabs lying around the tower, but they do not permit an estimation of its original height. I saw only one datable sherd, a fragment of a black-glazed kantharos, 4th or 3rd century’ b.c. The tower is marked on Blatt XIX of the Karten von Attika, but it is discussed neither by Milchhoefer in the Erlauternder Text nor, to my knowledge, by any other commentator on Marathon except H. W. Lolling.'5 Its function was obviously military, though it is difficult to go much beyond that statement. The view of the plain of Marathon is unimpeded, but the normal land and sea approaches are not seen to advantage as other peaks rise to block them from view. Thus it does not seem likely that the tower was built as a watchpost. It is tempting instead to see here a signal tower and to look northeastwards, to Rhamnous. Rhamnous itself is not visible from our tower, but from any height just west of there a communication link is made between the coastal fort, the lower on Stavrokoraki, and the plain of Marathon. (Merle Langdon, Some Attic Walls (Hesperia Supplement 19, 1982)
Trismegistos Geo: 37768

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