Thasos
Thasos is the northernmost island in the Aegean, located off the southern coast of Macedonia and Bulgaria (ancient Thrace). Of all the Greek islands it is the 12th largest in size.
Thasos’ capital city, also named Thasos, is often referred to as Limenas, or Limenas Thassou, “the harbor of Thasos,” for its proximity to said harbor. The northern sector of Limenas is the location of the ancient Thasian city, which thrived from roughly the 8th century BC to the 2nd century AD. Amongst the ruins dotting the more modernized landscape is the Sanctuary of Heracles.
Table of Contents
Waves of Settlement
There are many differing accounts of who the earliest inhabitants of Thasos were; when they arrived on the island; and why.
Archaeological excavations on the island shows that it had been inhabited since the Neolithic period (Chrysanthaki & Papadopoulos, 2016). 8th century pottery seems to point to shared Macedonian/Thracian cultures and exchanges, before the arrival of the Hellenes/Greeks (Damyanov, 2018: 247).
However, Thasos’ occupation remains a topic of debate for those considering the waves of migration and settlements which have occurred throughout Thasos’ history.
The issue is further complicated when one tries to reconcile stories of Heracles connected with the island, and the rise of his cult center at the Sanctuary of Heracles.
Cadmus, Thassos, and the Phoenicians
The origins of island of Thasos’ founding, and its very name, are attributed to the famous myth about Europa and the Bull.
According to mythic tradition, Thasos derives its name from Thasus, a son of either the Phoenician king Agenor of Tyre, or the god of the sea, Poseidon.
In the legend, Thasus set out with his kinsmen Cadmus to help search for their lost sister, Europa, who had been spirited away by Zeus, king of the gods. Europa would bear, by Zeus, the first king of the Minoan civilization on Crete, the eponymous King Minos (of Thesus and the Minotaur fame).
Europa was never recovered by her kinsmen, but in their travels Cadmus founded and settled the city of Thebes/Cadmeia, and Thasos founded and settled the island of Thasos.
“When Europa went missing, her father sent his sons out to look for her…. Her mother Telephassa joined the search, as did Thasos… Thasos founded the polis of Thasos in Thrake [sic] and settled there.”
The Phoenician prince Thassos would have founded and settled the island of Thasos some time around 1500 BC (Shapiro, 1983: 14).
The year 1500 BC correlates with Herodotus’ account of Phoenicians arriving in Thasos, and bringing with them the cult of “Tyrian Heracles.”
Parian Colony
Thasos was colonized by Ionian Greeks from Paros in the late 8th to early 7th century BC.
Accounts of the settlement date to c.720 BC (Kivilo, 2010: 113), when the Parian settlers “found Thracians on the island and not ‘Phoenicians’; Thracians, however, who had apparently kept the ‘Phoenician’ cult of Herakles in its original forms” (Jesi and Elgi, 1964: 263).
In c.650 BC, the inhabitants of Thasos petitioned for aid and protection against the encroaching Thracians descending upon the island from the mainland (Damyanov, 2018: 248). Telesicles, an oecist (a settler or colonizer) from the island of Paros, consulted the Oracle at Delphi with his son, the famous poet Archilochus, and received the following message:
“Tell unto the Parians, O son of Telesicles, that I bid thee found a far-seen city in a lofty isle.”
Leading a band of Parians up the Aegean, Telesicles arrived at Thasos and settled it, pushing the Thracians back for a time. They introduced the cult of Dionysus, Demeter, Heracles, and other Panhellenic figures to the inhabitants (Kivilo, 2010: 102). Some time later, Telesicles’ son, Archilochus, wrote his accounts of living in Thasos, and seeing it besieged with constant warfare against Thracians from the the mainland.
Reconciling the Accounts
Thasos the fusion of a deity imported to the island by Anatolian im migrants (the “Phoenicians” of Herodotus) with an analogical figure not of a divine character but of a heroic one (“Heracles Kallinikos”) as conceived by those settlers of Paros who landed on Thasos about 720 B.C. and took roots there. (Jesi and Elgi, 1964: 262).
On the island, the Parians might have found a deity analogous to a minor heroic figure of their own religious system and would have furthered his cult in order to encourage the fusion of the new territory with the mother country. (Jesi and Elgi, 1964: 262).
Wars and Occupation
In 477 BC Thasos joined the Delian League of Athens versus the Spartans, during the Peloponnesian War. Thasos unsuccessfully revolted in 464 BC and 411 BC. When the Athenians lost, the Spartan hegemony over the Greece city-states lasted until the Athens rebuilt its League during the Corinthian War, and Thasos joined the Second Athenian Confederacy in 377 BC.
Decline
In antiquity the Thasian colony changed hands numerous times, going from the Athenians to the Spartans, Macedonians, and Romans. The pagan religious centers fell to ruin during the Byzantine Christianization. Ultimately, the ancient city, and the temples and other buildings within it, were utterly destroyed by Slavic raids in 620 AD.
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
.jpg){kind=link}