Thera
Thera, also known as Santorini, is a volcanic island located in the southern Cyclades of Greece, known for its unique geological features and rich history. Originally named Calliste, meaning "most beautiful," Thera has been shaped by significant volcanic and seismic activity, including major eruptions around 1460 BC that devastated nearby Minoan settlements, such as Akrotiri. The island is steeped in myth, with historical ties to legendary figures such as Cadmus and associations with Plato's lost Atlantis.
Throughout its history, Thera has been influenced by various cultures, including Phoenicians and Dorians, who are believed to have settled there around the 10th century BC. The island became known for its wine and maintained a neutral stance during the Peloponnesian War, although it was later compelled to pay tribute to Athens. By the Hellenistic period, Thera emerged as an important naval base and religious center, featuring temples dedicated to various deities, including Apollo and Demeter.
Archaeological remnants from the Ptolemaic era, such as royal basilicas and shrines, highlight the island's significance during Roman times. As an early Christian site, Thera also hosted bishops and was part of a Roman province dedicated to the islands. Today, the ruins of ancient Thera attract visitors interested in exploring its historical and cultural legacy.
Subject Terms
Thera
(Santorini)
An Aegean island in the southern Cyclades, one of the nearest to Crete. Forming part of the cone of an ancient volcano, Thera was diminished to its present shape by a series of violent seismic disturbances; among these were earthquakes of c 1550 and 1520/10 and an eruption of c 1460 BC, which convulsed the brilliant Bronze (Minoan) Age prosperity of cities near Akrotiri, in the south of the island, and in the region of Therasia (which was detached from its northern flank by another eruption in 236).
Thera, according to Callimachus, was originally known as Calliste, `most beautiful.’ Fanciful stories identified it with Scheria, the home of the mythical Phaeacians in the Odyssey, or with lost Atlantis, described by Plato. The island was also said to have been settled by the Phoenician Cadmus—during his search for Europa—and then by Achaeans, Minyans and Dorians, the branch of the Greek race to which the later inhabitants belonged. According to a tradition preserved by Herodotus, these Dorians came from Sparta, apparently in the later tenth century. They settled on a sheltered rocky peninsula joined by a narrow ridge (Messa Vouno) to the southeast part of the island, seven-and-a-half miles from Akrotiri and about the same distance from the modern town of Thira or Fira.
About 640, however, oppressed by drought and consequent famine, the inhabitants obeyed the counsel of the Delphic oracle (after their King Grinnus had earlier ignored a similar injunction) and dispatched two hundred men in two ships to colonize Cyrene in north Africa, under the leadership of a Theran nobleman Aristoteles, who took the royal Libyan name of Battus. The island was famous for its wine. Although linked to the Spartans by their Dorian blood, the population attempted to remain neutral during the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens (431–404), but were compelled by the Athenians to pay tribute. During the third and second centuries their city became an important naval base. In early Christian times there were bishops at Thera, which formed part of a Roman province of the Islands.
The Dorian colonists introduced the cult of Apollo Carneius, the surviving foundations of whose temple perhaps date from the seventh century BC. Beside the shrine lay the terrace on which the god's festivals were celebrated, including dances by naked gymnasts; early erotic graffiti are scratched on the rock nearby. The most important local remains, however, date from Ptolemaic times. They include a number of temples and a twin-naved, colonnaded royal basilica (stoa basilike), later containing busts of the family of Marcus Aurelius (AD 161–80), under whom the city briefly resumed coinage. There was also a temple of Apollo (later converted into a church), an area sacred to the Ptolemaic deities Isis, Serapis and Anubis, and a shrine of the Ptolemies (Ptolemaion), which Octavian (the future Augustus), after his victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium (31 BC), converted to the cult of the deified Julius Caesar (Kaisareion).
The northern end of the city displays an archaic grotto-shrine of Hermes and Heracles (later enlarged), together with a gymnasium for young men, while the southern extremity shows the remains of a sanctuary of Demeter and Kore (Persephone), and a precinct of the third century BC dedicated to a number of divinities by Artemidorus of Perga, a Ptolemaic admiral. In the theater four distinct building periods can be discerned, ranging between the late Hellenistic epoch and the reign of Tiberius (AD 14–37); nearby is a colonnaded house, conjecturally identified with the residence of one of Ptolemy III Euergetes' sons, who was brought up at Thera (c 260 BC). The cemetery on the northeast slope of the hill has yielded rich material down to Hellenistic times.