Thasos (ancient world)

An island in the northern Aegean Sea, sixteen miles in diameter, situated five miles from the mouth of the river Nestos, which (at one time) formed the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace

Although mountainous, Thasos contained fertile valleys and was well provided with water. Before the arrival of the Greeks it had borne the name of Odonis and had been occupied by the Sintes, a Thracian people, whose settlements have been identified on Mount Kastri (near Theologos, in the south of the island)—occupied since late Neolithic times—as well as on the site of the later Greek city, which lay on the northern coast.

Thasos was colonized c 650 BC from Paros, one of the Cyclades archipelago, under the leadership of Telesicles, whose enterprise was sanctioned by a surviving Delphic oracle. The Parian iambic and elegiac poet Archilochus was one of the original or early settlers on Thasos. They rapidly gained control of the whole island; and within two or three decades, as pottery finds indicate, they had also planted townships on the mainland opposite, at Neapolis (Kavalla), Oesyme and Galepsus, in order to dominate the gold mines of Mount Pangaeum (the tradition that there were gold mines on Thasos itself, earlier worked by Phoenicians, has been doubted). In a more easterly sector of the mainland coast, opposite Samothrace, they disputed the control of Stryme with Maronea. One of the most important colonies of the northern Aegean, Thasos was a rampart of Hellenism against the mainland Thracians, whose island township at Kastri was brought to an end; although a tomb set up in the Thasian agora by `the sons of Bendis’ testifies to the continuance of a mixed population.

The sixth and fifth centuries were the times of the island's greatest prosperity, when it sold ships' timber abroad and began to export a famous wine; and its mines on the mainland were very productive. There was a flourishing local school of sculpture, and from c 500 local coins were issued with the design of a sexually excited satyr carrying off a nymph. In 491 the Thasians yielded to Persian demands, and gave up their fleet. After the Persian Wars they joined the Delian League under the leadership of Athens (477), but a dispute over the mainland mines provoked an attempted secession from the Athenians who crushed them after a siege lasting for more than two years (465/63). The great fifth-century painter Polygnotus was a Thasian, though he became an Athenian citizen. In 411, during the Peloponnesian War, the island tried to break away from Athens once again, issuing a gold coinage and calling for the help of the Spartans, whose general Lysander, after prolonged civil strife on Thasos, massacred the Athenian partisans (404). During the next century, however, the state joined the Second Athenian Confederacy, until it was overrun by Philip II of Macedonia (340). During the subsequent epoch, its income from the mainland mines was much diminished, but this loss was counterbalanced by very large exports of wine, confirmed by widely distributed discoveries of Thasian winejars in the Balkan area, where the island's coinage also enjoyed a huge circulation, and was frequently imitated by the tribal peoples of Thrace. In 196 Thasos was liberated from Macedonia with the support of the Romans, who subsequently, after their annexation of the Balkan peninsula (146), granted Thasos the status of a free and friendly city, as a reward for its loyalty in the war against Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus (80). During the Roman Principate, Thasian marble and oil gained a widespread reputation. Local coinage was resumed in the second and early third centuries AD, but during the later third century there are signs of destruction at the hands of invaders. In Christian times, there were bishops of the island.

One of the two harbors of its principal city was protected by a breakwater and the other was enclosed within the city's fortifications. These were reconstructed after demolitions in 491 and 464/3 and again in 411 (the well-preserved Gate of Silenus can still be seen). The agora displays, near its center, a sacred enclosure and an altar of Zeus Agoraios, and was flanked by colonnades on three sides and by public buildings on the fourth. The principal temple of Thasos, expanded into a building with five chambers, was dedicated to Heracles, whose cult may have been derived from the Phoenician Melkart. That sanctuary stood in the lower town; and this area also contained shrines of Poseidon, Dionysus and foreign deities, whose presence testifies to the various ethnic origins of the inhabitants. There is also a precinct of Artemis, which has been thoroughly examined in recent years. It seems to have been destroyed and rebuilt in the third century AD, and remodelled in the fifth. North of the great altar of this shrine, however, votive objects dating from c 500 BC have been found. A so-called `Monument of Thersilochus,’ which has likewise been reinvestigated, was completely destroyed in late antiquity and subsequently buried by the alluvium of continual flooding. Residential quarters have also come to light. At the western extremity of the city stood a well-preserved theater, and at its eastern end was a stoa (portico) of the fourth century BC, converted into a Christian basilica some nine hundred years later.

The steep acropolis, four hundred and fifty feet above sea level—which was one of twin summits overlooking the town—housed temples of Pythian Apollo and Pan, and a shrine of Athena Poliouchos that was conspicuously visible from the waterfront; nearby, too, an ancient iron and copper mine, operating between the sixth and fourth centuries BC, has been discovered. Fifty-eight inscriptions of the late fifth century, expressing pederasts' admiration of their boys, have been found at the bottom of Kalami Bay. Greco-Roman remains have come to light at Cape Pyrgos, Coinyra, and Aliki. There are numerous towers intended for defence against pirates; the densest concentration is in the region of Astris.