The man besieging Athens had earned a fearsome nickname: Poliorcetes, "the Besieger," a title Demetrius I of Macedon won by battering down the walls of cities across the Greek world. So when Athens revolted against his rule in 287 BC, the odds looked grim. Yet the first blood was drawn not by Demetrius but by the Athenians themselves, who turned on the Macedonian garrison occupying a hill at the heart of their own city - and took it back with the loss of just thirteen men.
Athens had spent years chafing under Macedonian control. In 287 BC the city threw off Demetrius and elected a general named Olympiodorus as strategos to lead the rising. He had no professional army to call on, so he raised one from the citizens - and not only the soldiers of fighting age. The sources say his force included old men and even children, a whole population taking up arms for the chance to govern itself again. They marched on the Macedonian troops who had pulled back to the fortified position on the Mouseion Hill, the rocky height just southwest of the Acropolis.
The assault on the Mouseion fort succeeded, and the number that survives is striking for its smallness: Olympiodorus took the position at the cost of only thirteen of his men. For an improvised army of citizens storming a garrisoned hilltop, it was a remarkable result, and it became a point of civic pride - proof that ordinary Athenians, fighting for their own freedom, could drive out professional Macedonian soldiers. The garrison that had loomed over the city was gone. But the man who had placed it there was not finished.
Word of the revolt reached Demetrius, and he did what he did best. Gathering forces from the cities still loyal to him, he marched on Athens and laid it under siege. The Athenians, knowing his reputation, tried diplomacy: they sent the philosopher Crates to negotiate. A treaty followed in which Demetrius gave up his garrison inside the city in exchange for holding several fortresses out in the Attic countryside. Athens had won breathing room - but with the Besieger's army still in the field, the city's freedom hung by a thread.
So the Athenians looked for a champion, and found one in Pyrrhus, the restless king of Epirus whose costly victories would one day give the world the phrase "Pyrrhic victory." Pyrrhus answered the call and brought his army up behind Demetrius, catching the Besieger between the city and a fresh enemy. Outmaneuvered, Demetrius withdrew. Pyrrhus marched into Athens to a hero's welcome, celebrated as the king who had saved the cradle of democracy. For a brief moment the city of philosophers had outlasted the greatest siege-master of the age - rescued, fittingly, by a king famous for winning at too high a price.
The action centered on the Mouseion Hill (modern Philopappos Hill) at roughly 37.9794 degrees N, 23.7161 degrees E, just southwest of the Acropolis in central Athens, crowned today by the Philopappos Monument. From the air the hill reads as a green, pine-covered rise facing the Acropolis across a shallow saddle - the two heights together command the old city center. Recommended viewing altitude 2,000-3,000 feet AGL to frame the Mouseion Hill and Acropolis in a single view. Nearest airport is Athens International (LGAV), about 20 nautical miles east. Visibility over Athens is usually good; expect summer haze in the Attic basin and turbulence off the heated hills during midday.