Chios
Chios is a Greek island located in the Aegean Sea, known for its rich history and cultural significance. Stretching approximately thirty miles in length and varying from eight to fifteen miles in width, it lies just five miles off the coast of Ionia, in western Asia Minor. The island has a storied past, having been settled by Ionians around the end of the second millennium BC, and is often associated with the legendary poet Homer, although this claim has been debated over centuries. Chios was part of the Ionic League and experienced various forms of governance, including democracy and oligarchy, throughout its history.
The island emerged as a center of metalworking and artistry in the sixth century, producing notable craftsmen. Chios' political alliances shifted over time; it was incorporated into the Persian Empire, later allied with Athens in the Delian League, and had periods of both autonomy and subjugation. Renowned for its high-quality products, Chios was particularly famous for its sweet wine, figs, and mastic gum. Archaeological remnants on the island, including ancient houses and sanctuaries, testify to its vibrant past. Overall, Chios represents a blend of cultural heritage and economic prosperity, reflecting its influential role in ancient Greek civilization.
Subject Terms
Chios
A Greek island, thirty miles long (from north to south) and from eight to fifteen miles broad, five miles from the coast of Ionia (western Asia Minor)
Its early inhabitants were reputed to have included Lydians and Carians. However, Chios was settled by Ionians at about the end of the second millennium BC (perhaps followed by Abantes from Euboea c 875) and claimed to have been the birthplace of Homer, an assertion which, although already disputed in antiquity, gained the support of Semonides of Amorgos. Chios was admitted into the Ionic League in the eighth century, and its principal town of the same name, in a rich and beautiful plain on the east side of the island, had a democratic regime by the sixth century (though in later years democratic and oligarchic governments alternated). In the sixth century Glaucus was believed to have developed ironworking on the island, which was the center of flourishing schools of metalworkers and stone-cutters, and produced a famous family of artists described by Pliny the Elder.
Incorporated into the Persian empire by Cyrus II the Great (559–529), Chios joined the Ionian revolt led by its ally Miletus (Balat), contributing a hundred ships to fight in the disastrous battle of Lade (Batmas; 495). Brought to order and devastated, the Chians fought on the Persian side against their fellow Greeks at Salamis (480), under the leadership of an autocratic ruler (`tyrant’) Strattis. However, they subsequently joined the Delian League sponsored by Athens, until induced to secede during the Peloponnesian War (412). At this time they were the largest slave-owners in the Greek world, with the single exception of the Spartans. In 384 they joined the Second Athenian Confederacy, but again seceded in 357. About 346 the island came under the control of the Carian state, founded by Mausolus of Halicarnassus (Bodrum), but was betrayed to the Persian admiral Memnon, from whose control it passed, amid various vicissitudes, into a League established by Alexander the Great.
A recently discovered inscription provides for the establishment of a festival of Rome and the honoring of Romulus and Remus. If, as has been suggested on epigraphic grounds, this inscription belongs to the 220s, it precedes Rome's generally recognized influence in the region; but the dating has been disputed. At all events, in the years that followed, Chios supported the Romans in their Macedonian and eastern wars, enjoying free and allied status. The city was sacked in 86 by Zenobius, a general of Mithridates VI of Pontus, and its inhabitants were deported, but Sulla returned them to their homes. The island's coinage of the Roman imperial epoch (which exceptionally bears a series of denomination marks) preserves a strongly autonomous appearance, depicting Homer but not the emperors—although a holiday was instituted to honor the birthday of Tiberius' nephew and adoptive son Germanicus (AD 18).
Surviving remains include archaic Greek houses excavated at the capital of the island, Hellenistic dwellings at its well protected port of Delphinion, a sanctuary of Athena over another harbor town (Emporion, dating from the late eighth and seventh centuries BC), and a large polygonal wall at New Emporion (Pindakas) on a nearby hill. From early times the island was famous for its sweetish wine, for which Ariusia, in its southern region, became especially well-known; the jars of Chios (notably painted pots of the seventh and sixth centuries BC, formerly, but mistakenly, regarded as Rhodian) bear witness to a large share in the Egyptian and Euxine (Black) Sea wine trade. The island also produced figs, white mastic gum and fine cloth. In the Roman empire the high standard of living among the people of the island was proverbial: `from boyhood I lived like a Chian,’ says a character in the Satyricon of Petronius.