Paros (ancient world)

An island in the Aegean sea, the second largest of the Cyclades, four miles west of the largest island, Naxos, which was its traditional enemy

Famous for its white marble (from Mount Marpessa), Paros was an important centre of Cycladic sculpture in the third and second millennia BC. According to mythology, the island was colonized by the Cretan king Minos and his sons, who were said to have been expelled by Heracles. Other stories recorded settlement first by Arcadians and then by Ionians, although the harbor of Paros only admits small ships and has a dangerous entrance.

Its most famous native was the iambic and elegiac poet Archilochus, who recounted the myths and history of the island and took part in the later stages of his father's colonization of another island, Thasos (c 650), which—together with its gold mines on the Thracian mainland—became a source of the wealth and power of the Parians. They apparently had a share in the settlement of Parium in Mysia (northwestern Asia Minor), and, allied with Eretria in Euboea, took an active part in the Lelantine War between that city and Chalcis, which was associated with Naxos (c 700). In 655 experts from Paros were called upon to arbitrate between Chalcis and Andros, and late in the sixth century they were summoned by Miletus in Ionia (western Asia Minor) to sort out its political troubles. Shortly afterward, however, Paros seems to have been, for a time, a dependency of Naxos.

In 490 Paros took the side of the Persian king Darius I against the Greeks, and contributed a ship to his fleet at Marathon, thus provoking an Athenian punitive expedition under Miltiades, whose siege, however, proved unsuccessful. When the Persian Wars were resumed in 480, the Parians attempted to play a double game, but after the invasion was over, joined the Delian League under Athenian leadership; owing to the wealth they derived from the continued widespread employment of their marble for construction and a distinctive school of sculpture, they were able to pay the League a higher tribute than any other island. During the Peloponnesian War they tried to revolt against Athens, but in vain. In 385, in association with Dionysius I of Syracuse, they colonized the island of Pharos (Hvar) off the Dalmatian coast. In 378 Paros was a member of the Second Athenian Confederation. During the Hellenistic epoch it possessed a flourishing culture, but became successively subject to the Ptolemies, the Macedonians (202/1), and then the Romans. A bishopric is attested in the fourth century AD.

The ancient city of Paros (now Parikia), situated at the northwest of the island, was dominated by an acropolis which stood on a low peak overlooking the modern jetty, and contained a large Ionic temple of Athena, of which the eastern end is preserved. A sixth-century Heroon (hero's shrine) of Archilochus, restored three centuries later, has yielded a marble stele (the Marmor Parium) inscribed with the Parian Chronicle, a historical survey extending from mythical times to 264/3; biographical inscriptions about Archilochus have also come to light. There are also remains of temples of Asclepius, Apollo and other Delian gods, notably Artemis, Zeus Kynthios and Athene Kynthia—whose head appears on local coins under Marcus Aurelius (AD 161–80). The principal temple of Paros, however, dedicated to Demeter Thesmophoros, has left no trace. One sanctuary bore the inscription `Entry forbidden to Dorian aliens.’ There were shrines of Zeus Hypatos, Aphrodite and Eileithyia (goddess of childbirth) on Kounados hill to the east of the city. Recent surveys of the harbors in the bays of Parikia and Naoussa (on the north side of the island) have revealed substantial buildings.