This weekend our apartment visited the Cycladic island of Delos, where we had the opportunity to walk through many ruins, see beautiful mosaics, and hike to the top of the island, where once stood the Sanctuary of Zeus and Athena.
Delos, the most sacred of islands in ancient Greek culture, was – according to myth – the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. In the second century BCE, it was declared a free port and became a bustling hub of commercial activity, inhabited by many rich merchants, bankers and ship-owners who hired builders and craftsmen to build them luxurious houses decorated with frescoes and mosaic floors. We had the opportunity to see some of these mosaics in the House with the Dolphins and in the House of Dionysus, where there was a mosaic depicting the god riding a tiger. The House with the Dolphins mosaic features the repeating spiral wave-like symbol that we have discussed in class being prominent in Cycladic art from hundreds of years earlier.
At the beginning of our allotted 3 hours on the island, we walked along the Sacred Way past the Agora of the Delians, where there would have been a market with many shops, the South Stoa and the Stoa of Phillip V. To the North, we passed the Sacred Lake, believed to have held the sacred swans of Apollo, but today is dry and overgrown with trees, shrubs and grasses. Before turning South again, we walked past the Naxian Lions, dedicated to Apollo by the people of Naxos just before 600 BCE. Lined up facing toward the Sacred Lake and the Agora of the Italians, the lions’ mouths are open as if roaring or snarling, meant to guard the sanctuaries and to inspire a feeling of divine fear among the worshippers.
We also hiked past the Temple of Hera on the way to the Sanctuary of Zeus and Athena, and caught a glimpse of the Grotto of Heracles on the way down, a natural cleft in the rock roofed with two slabs of granite. This spot is believed to be the earliest location where Apollo was worshiped on Delos.
Toward the end of the loop, in the area of the town above the port, we saw the Theater, as well as the public cistern (many of the wealthy houses had private cisterns), meant to provide water to the humbler people of Delos by collecting water through a complex system of drains and depositing it here. Across the whole island, we saw many bases that would have held bronze statues (marked by small holes carved in the top of the stone) as well as those made of stone (marked with one circular or rectangular indent).
Delos was gradually abandoned and fell into decline after a series of attacks and lootings in 88 BCE by King of Ponuts (Mithridates), who was an enemy of the Romans – Delos had friendly relations with Romans – and in 69 BCE an ally of Mithridates, the pirates of Athenodorus.
