Thasos (Thassos)Island
Thasos,
Northernmost of all the Aegean islands, Thasos has a beauty which eclipses many of the better known ones. It does have some remarkable ancient remains, but it also possesses that rarest and most pleasant advantage in a hot climate, the sound of streams run¬ning through pine-forested hills and even through the streets of mountain villages.
Lying so far to the north it is not easy to come at by sea from ports further south, except in a cruise liner - which is unsatisfactory be¬cause you need at least a week to understand and relish its beauty - or in your own boat, which can involve long and stormy passages. The key lies in the busy but well ordered city of Kavala, just across the narrow strait from Limena, the island’s only large harbour. The quickest and most painless approach is by the daily morning flight from Athens to Kavala airport. From there it is best to take a taxi to the little port of Keramoti, about twelve miles east of Kavala, be¬cause from there an hourly (sometimes half-hourly) ferry service runs straight across to Limena. There is a longer and less frequent daily service from Kavala itself which lands you not at Limena but at Skala Prinou on the north-east coast. The ships used for these cross¬ings will be familiar to wartime servicemen, for they are converted from the tank landing craft used by Allied navies.
The landing place at Limena is a big modern quay. Immediately behind it is the departure point for the island’s buses, and across the wide promenade are the modern buildings - banks, restaurants and hotels - which have grown up since the war. You should have no difficulty in finding a hotel room here, though there are more obvi¬ously holiday hotels which overlook the beaches out to the west of the town. The charm of Limena is that the town is built on the site of the ancient city, and that the remains of the old capital exist side by side with the modern buildings - some of the most important not more than a hundred yards from the waterfront. Behind them, encir¬cling both modern and ancient structures, the old city walls rise from a natural bastion of rock.
You will quickly realize why landing craft are used here when you
lee that their principal cargo is not tourists but lorries carrying huge blocks of marble or piles of pine trunks. All day they line up on the quay waiting for the next ferry, and they come back with machinery and supplies for the island’s building and quarrying industry. Marble lias been quarried and exported for more than two thousand years - a trade which was highly organized under the Roman empire, but never so intensively as it is now. Modem methods of quarrying and transport take full advantage of the fact that a great part of the island’s rock formation is pure marble, while the demand for it in Athens, the provinces and the islands is insatiable for use in all kinds of building. The vast pine forests (mostly of pinus halepensis, the Aleppo pine) are another source of export wealth, but it is also satisfying to see that ships are still built here in the traditional way from Thasian pine.
Not that in classical times these were the only reasons for the wealth and reputation of Thasos. Although Herodotus writes of pre¬vious occupation by Phoenician traders, the earliest records, sup¬ported by archaeology, tell us that it was colonized from Paros between 710 and 680 BC, and that the colonists prospered by work¬ing the gold mines they found here. With them came the satirical poet Archilochus. During his stay in Thasos he fought alongside the is¬landers against Thracian invaders. He ran away from the battlefield ‘incurring the disgrace of losing his shield’ - no Spartan he - and far from being ashamed he recorded the event in one of his poems. He did live to fight another day, though his eventual fate is unknown.
Thasian marble has not always been mainly for export. You have only to walk fifty yards back from the old harbour to find yourself in the agora, the civic centre of the classical town, crowded with the remains of substantial monuments. The earliest is of the seventh century BC and the latest from the first century AD - not counting a few from the Byzantine age. Other buildings, chiefly sanctuaries of gods and heroes, can be identified as you walk about the town. Your first sight of them can be misleading, for what was built in great blocks of gleaming white marble now looks dark and a little forbid¬ding. The effect of weathering over the centuries has given them almost the appearance of basalt, yet where there is the slightest chip you can see the pure marble underneath, and suddenly you get the revelation of what the city must have looked like in its glory.
The agora today is a broad open space, pleasant to wander through, with grass and flowers growing almost unchecked among the ruins, trees to give shade here and there, and convenient blocks or
marble where you can sit unrebuked to study the plan of the site - or just to drink in the atmosphere. Most of the buildings have been identified after a careful study of inscriptions by the French School of Archaeology, which is still in charge of excavation on the island. The earliest seems to be a monument to Glaucus, an associate of Archilo-chus and one of the original colonists from Paros. Then there is the base of a monument to a more famous citizen, the boxer Theogenes who was said by Pausanias to have won 1400 medals in Greek athletic games. An all-rounder of the fifth century BC, it may have been partly his work as a local politician which won him this honour; perhaps more important was his claim to be a descendant of Herak-les, to whom a large sanctuary was dedicated in the western part of the town.
The most extensive remains in the agora are of the first century AD, when it was replanned on a huge scale with colonnades sur¬rounding it on four sides. Of this date is an altar erected in honour of Caius and Lucius Caesar, the young sons of Augustus’s daughter Julia by Marcus Agrippa. They both died before their grandfather, a tragedy which spoiled his plans for the succession and led to much unseemly and murderous intrigue. Their memorial here shows the
importance of Thasos in the Roman world, and suggests that Caius the elder son may have used it as a base for the campaign in Asia Milor in ADl. They both died within the next three years.
Although the main buildings are named on signs put there by the French School, the ground plan of the agora is hard to follow, and you would be wise at some point to look in at the Museum just outside its western (and only) entrance. Here they have a well organ¬ized collection which includes some remarkable finds from all over the island, and from the curator you can buy a copy of the compre¬hensive guide published by the French School in 1974. Even if he has only a copy with the Greek text it is worth buying for the clear and detailed plans of all the main sites.
One thing the 1974 edition does not show is a new area of excava¬tion beyond the agora to the south-east. It does show a marble-paved passageway, on the walls of which a frieze of lively sculpture and the names of important visitors were carved. This led to it being called the Diodos ton Theoron, or ‘Corridor of the Ambassadors’. The pan¬els of marble reliefs were removed to the Louvre - again without apparently any protest from the Greek government.
Until recently it was not clear where the passage led, except in the general direction of the Sanctuary of Dionysus, a hefty monument which can be seen on the far side of a modern roadway. Now a fresh complex of buildings has come to light in the intervening space. Probably the earliest lies to the right as you emerge from the passage, where a few steps lead up to the base of a small sanctuary. There is a niche in the wall to the left of the steps, of a shape associated with cults of Dionysus or Pan, possibly to contain a vessel of sanctified wine; the obvious parallel is the piscina! Further on you see a big circular water cistern, and beyond that the unmistakable foundations of a Roman bath system, complete with hypocaust. It is clear that the water supply for the agora came in here through a roofed conduit, and was distributed along stone couloirs to refresh the town.
Above this area, to the south, is a site identified as a Sanctuary of Artemis, now an olive grove; in ancient Thasos you could pay your respects to a comforting number of deities, just as in most Greek islands you find a multiplicity of saints. There is nothing much to see above ground, but in the Museum is the carved ivory head of a lioness, tiny and exquisite, which came from the Artemision; near it you can see an elegant bronze figurine of the goddess herself, which formed the handle of a polished bronze mirror.
Better perhaps than walking studiously around the agora with
nose in guidebook is to sit for half an hour in this shady, green, evocative spot and imagine life here during those centuries of peace¬ful and prosperous sanity. If you face seaward, there close ahead is one of the most attractive of small harbours, once the naval base for the triremes and galleys which protected the coast. Since then there has been some silting, but fishing boats and small yachts are still sheltered by its protective moles. Beneath the silt the bed of the harbour is natural marble (no anchoring here) and a fringe of ancient plane trees shades two waterside cafes.
If you turn and look inland to the south you see a ring of pine-clad hills, with (on a clear day) the peak of Mt Ipsarion soaring behind them. Through gaps in the encircling trees you can make out what must be masonry as well as rocks. There in fact was built the ring of walls which defended the city from the landward side — walls with gates in them which still stand to almost full height. The circuit is not difficult to walk, and steep in only a few places. Moreover it is an experience which no reasonably active visitor ought to miss.
It is best to begin at the north-eastern end, where a substantial section climbs southwards from the headland known as Ebraiokastro. First, though, you can follow the line of the seaward-facing wall from the point where it joins the extension of the harbour’s eastern mole. A path runs inside it, and almost at once you come to the sea gate which led to the enclosed harbour, where one of the massive vertical pillars has a vivid carving in relief of the goddess Artemis, riding in a chariot behind a horse led by a male figure, probably Hermes.
Next, behind an orchard on your right, is the Sanctuary of Posei¬don. Here was found an altar to Hera in her capacity as ‘Protectress of Harbours’; on one stone of it was inscribed a law forbidding people to sacrifice she-goats to her. You will probably find one of them munching gratefully nearby. On your left further on is another gate which led to the old ‘commercial’ harbour, where trading vessels were anchored or beached. It is now thoroughly silted up, though from above you can see the line of its eastern mole.
As you approach the headland you may be lucky enough to see a big ship being built under its cliffs - at a traditional place by tradi¬tional methods. It is a beautiful sight, the lovely curves of the timbers outlining a shape which has not changed in a thousand years. The men who work on it - never more than three - will come from a family which has been building ships here for generations. The tim¬ber for the ribs and planking comes from the woods above, and it is
of pine used when still green. An island shipbuilder will never use weathered timber - it is too stiff and hard to work - and the curves are allowed for by eye when they fell the trees and saw the planks. No blueprint drawings are used on the site, but modern electrically-powered tools have at last superseded the rhythmical swing of the adze. Whether champagne has replaced the blood of a freshly killed cockerel to give life to the ship could not be determined - local answers were evasive, and the writer has not seen a recent launching.
The mediaeval Ebraiokastro (its Jewish origin is not explained) crowned the final headland. Above it is a site which neatly illustrates a religious sequence often found in Greece. First there was a classical temple, dated by its scattered tiles to the end of the sixth century BC. Then came an early Christian basilica church of the fifth or sixth century AD, which can be traced on the ground, and finally the little modern church of Agii Apostoli.
From here the path climbs easily up outside the walls through pine woods till you reach the Theatre. It lies below you at a point where the pines give way to a clump of ilex, which surrounds and invades the cavea. First built in the fifth century BC on the usual plan of the time, it was given a more elaborate scena in the Hellenistic period, and finally adapted in the first century AD for the cruder taste of Romans who enjoyed wild beast shows. This explains why the three lowest rows of seats were removed and a five-foot stone barrier erected to protect the VIPs. Now it is a peaceful and shady resting place, though for a few days in the summer classical Greek is heard again, usually in the plays of Aristophanes.
Another easy climb over soft pine needles and between low clumps of cistus brings you to the first buildings which mark the ancient Acropolis. Most prominent now are the two guard towers of the mediaeval castle, built, or at least completed, by the Gattilusi family from Genoa who held both Thasos and Samothrace as fiefs during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The second of the towers has been excavated to a lower level than the first, and on the far side you can see a charming relief carving of a family at dinner in the classical style. The master of the house re¬clines by the table, his wife sits at the head of it and a slave boy waits at his master’s elbow. Benignly watching the scene is the owner’s horse. This was probably a funeral stele of the fifth or fourth century, re-used and built into the later walls - in the same way as the outstanding exhibit in the Thasos museum. This is an unfinished statue of Apollo Kriophoros, so called because the god is holding a
over both these places is the mighty peak of Ipsarion, while they in turn look down over the fine beach of Chrysi Ammoudia, one of many which can be reached from this side of the ‘ring’ road. The most popular, Makryammos, is only half an hour’s walk or a very short drive out of Limena, and is almost the private property of the hotel of the same name.
The road to the west follows a flatter coastline, and the beaches beside it are pebbly. This is the nearest way to the second main town, Limenaria. (Both names are only variations of the Greek word for harbour.) Limenaria is smaller and quieter, with the air of an English seaside town in the west country. The hotels look pleasant, and the generally friendly atmosphere suggests a good place for a holiday.
From whichever direction, you should try to reach Alyki on the south-east coast, where a low headland separates two little sandy
bays. There is no modern building there except a few fishermen’s cottages above the eastern bay. Yet within a hundred yards’ radius you can see two seventh-century BC temples, two very early Chris¬tian basilicas, a series of marble quarries at the water’s edge which were operative from the seventh century BC to the seventh century AD, and two caves where many archaic votive offerings were found. The temples are practically twins, with clearly outlined founda¬tions lying alongside each other. Prayers for the safe passage of ships in the marble trade were found carved on the stylobates and on fallen stones; a later thanksgiving to the Dioskouroi (Castor and Pollux) suggests a dedication for the temples, and perhaps a connection with the Kabeiroi cult of Samothrace and Lemnos. The two basilicas further up the headland are also a pair, a kind of Christian retort to the twin temples below. They must have been lovely buildings, with a cluster of small columns at their east ends, some of which are still standing. The date of both is certainly as early as the second half of the fifth century AD, and they were known as important shrines in the time of the emperor Justinian.
The quarries were in continuous production from the arrival of the Parian colonists, and reached a peak of activity in Roman times. They were abandoned only when the sea began to eat them away, and you can still see blocks of marble with marks of tooling on them standing ready for shipment.
In the heart of Limena there was another marble Christian basilica from the early Byzantine epoch. You find it at the south end of the only real plateia, a peaceful square behind the modern landing quay, with its original columns neatly stacked beside the east end. In the far corner the twisted trunk of a plane tree looks almost coeval, and I suspect that there would have been a tavern on the west side where now tables from the best restaurant stand on the pavement. ‘Best’, that is, for the people of Thasos, for it is open all the year to feed with the best Greek food the workmen, the bank officials, the ships’ crews and the local families, whose children play in and out of the ruins and round the trunk of the ancient plane tree.
There is nowhere like Thasos, with its antiquity, its eloquent re¬mains and its physical beauty today. As you look back from the deck of your ship, and Mount Ipsarion disappears in the haze, you will remember green trees against blue depths, and the sound of the wind in the pines. The Greek physician Hippocrates was happy here, and judged it healthy for body and mind If Thasos is the most beautiful