User:Dondville/Sites/History of Thasos

Prehistory

Lying close to the coast of Eastern Macedonia, Thasos was inhabited from the Palaeolithic period onwards, but the earliest settlement to have been explored in detail is that at Limenaria, where remains from the Middle and Late Neolithic relate closely to those found at the mainland's Drama plain. In contrast, Early Bronze Age remains on the island align it with the Aegean culture of the Cyclades and Sporades, to the south; at Skala Sotiros for example, a small settlement was encircled by a strongly built defensive wall. Even earlier activity is demonstrated by the presence of large pieces of 'megalithic' anthropomorphic stelai built into these walls, which, so far, have no parallels in the Aegean area.

There is then a gap in the archaeological record until the end of the Bronze Age c 1100 BC, when the first burials took place at the large cemetery of Kastri in the interior of the island. Here built tombs covered with small mound of earth were typical until the end of the Iron Age. In the earliest tombs were a small number of locally imitated Mycenaean pottery vessels, but the majority of the hand-made pottery with incised decoration reflects connections eastwards with Thrace and beyond.

Antiquity

Ancient Agora of Thasos

The island was colonised at an early date by Phoenicians, attracted probably by its gold mines; they founded a temple to the god Melqart, whom the Greeks identified as "Tyrian Heracles", and whose cult was merged with Heracles in the course of the island's Hellenization. The temple still existed in the time of Herodotus. An eponymous Thasos or Thasus, son of Phoenix (or of Agenor, as Pausanias reported) was said to have been the leader of the Phoenicians, and to have given his name to the island.

Around 650 BC, or a little earlier, Greeks from Paros founded a colony on Thasos. A generation or so later, the poet Archilochus, a descendant of these colonists, wrote of casting away his shield during a minor war against an indigenous Thracian tribe, the Saians. Thasian power, and sources of its wealth, extended to the mainland, where the Thasians owned gold mines even more valuable than those of the island; their combined annual revenues amounted to between 200 and 300 talents. Herodotus says that the best mines on the island were those opened by the Phoenicians on the east side of the island, facing Samothrace. Archilochus described Thasos as "an ass's backbone crowned with wild wood." The island's capital, Thasos, had two harbours. Besides its gold mines, the wine, nuts and marble of Thasos were well known in antiquity. Thasian wine was quite famous. Thasian coins had the head of the wine god Dionysos on one side and bunches of grape of the other.

Thasos was important during the Ionian Revolt against Persia. After the capture of Miletus (494 BC) Histiaeus, the Ionian leader, laid siege. The attack failed, but, warned by the danger, the Thasians employed their revenues to build war ships and strengthen their fortifications. This excited the suspicions of the Persians, and Darius compelled them to surrender their ships and pull down their walls. After the defeat of Xerxes the Thasians joined the Delian League; but afterwards, on account of a difference about the mines and marts on the mainland, they revolted.

silver tritartemorion struck in Thasos circa 411-404 BC. Satyr on the obverse and dolphins on the reverse

The Athenians defeated them by sea, and, after a siege that lasted more than two years, took the capital, Thasos, probably in 463 BC, and compelled the Thasians to destroy their walls, surrender their ships, pay an indemnity and an annual contribution (in 449 BC this was 21 talents, from 445 BC about 30 talents), and resign their possessions on the mainland. In 411 BC, at the time of the oligarchical revolution at Athens, Thasos again revolted from Athens and received a Lacedaemonian governor; but in 407 BC the partisans of Lacedaemon were expelled, and the Athenians under Thrasybulus were admitted.

After the Battle of Aegospotami (405 BC), Thasos again fell into the hands of the Lacedaemonians under Lysander who formed a decarchy there; but the Athenians must have recovered it, for it formed one of the subjects of dispute between them and Philip II of Macedonia. In the embroilment between Philip V of Macedonia and the Romans, Thasos submitted to Philip, but received its freedom at the hands of the Romans after the Battle of Cynoscephalae (197 BC), and it was still a "free" state in the time of Pliny.

Byzantine era

Further information: Byzantine Greece

Byzantine church in Thasos

Thasos was part of the Eastern Roman Empire, now known as the Byzantine Empire, from 395 on. According to the 6th century Synecdemus, it belonged to the province of Macedonia Prima, although the 10th century De thematibus claims that it was part of Thracia. The island was a major source of marble until the disruption of the Slavic invasions in the late 6th/7th centuries, and several churches from Late Antiquity have been found on it. The island remained in Byzantine hands for most of the Middle Ages. It functioned as a naval base in the 13th century, under its own doux, and came briefly under the rule of the Genoese Tedisio Zaccaria in 1307–13. Returning to Byzantine control, its bishopric was raised to an archdiocese by Manuel II Palaiologos. Thasos was captured by the Genoese Gattilusi family ca. 1434, who surrendered it to the Ottoman Empire in 1455. Following the Ottoman conquest of the Despotate of the Morea in 1460, the former Despot Demetrios Palaiologos received lands on the island.

It is related that the Byzantine Greek Saint Joannicius the Great (752–846) in one of his miracles freed the island of Thasos from a multitude of snakes.

Ottoman era

Further information: Ottoman Greece

Thasos was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1456. Under the Ottoman rule, the island was known as Ottoman Turkish: طاشوز Taşöz. Between 1770 and 1774, the island was briefly occupied by a Russian fleet. By this time the population of Thassos had gravitated to the inland villages as a protective measure. Nearly 50 years later, a revolt against Ottoman rule arose in 1821, at the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, led by Hatzigiorgis Metaxas, but it failed. The island was given by the Sultan Mahmud II to Muhammad Ali of Egypt as a personal fiefdom in the late 1820s, as a reward for Egyptian intervention in the War of Greek Independence (which failed to prevent the creation of the modern Greek state). Egyptian rule was relatively benign (by some accounts Muhammad Ali had either been born or spent his infancy on Thasos) and the island became prosperous, until 1908, when the New Turk regime asserted Turkish control. The island was a kaza (sub-province), lastly of the Sanjak of Drama in the Salonica Vilayet, until the Balkan Wars. On 20 October 1912 during the First Balkan War, a Greek naval detachment freed Thasos from the Ottomans and it became part of Greece. From the day it was reunited with Greece, it has remained so ever since.

Archaeological discovery

On the 23 November 1902 issue of the New York Times (p. 5), it was reported that on the island of Thassos, archaeologist Theodore Bent discovered the tomb of Cassius, the one who slew himself after the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Philippi in 42 B.C. Cassius was buried by Brutus at Thassos, where the army of the patriots of the Republic had established its base of supplies.

Modern era

Further information: Axis occupation of Greece during World War II

Limenaria in 1950s

The writer Vassilis Vassilikos, famous for his novel "Z", which was later adapted into an Academy Award-winning film was born in Thasos in 1934. He later became Director General of Greek Public Television, and Greece's ambassador to UNESCO.

During the Axis occupation (April 1941 – October 1944) Thasos, along with the region of East Macedonia and Thrace, was assigned by the Nazis to their Bulgarian allies. The Bulgarian government renamed the island "Tasos" and closed its schools. Thasos' mountainous terrain facilitated resistance activity against the occupation forces, mainly led by the left-wing National Liberation Front (EAM). After the end of the war and the withdrawal of Axis troops in 1944, the island was caught up in the Greek Civil War. The leader of the communist naval forces in the civil war, Sarantis Spintzos, was a native of Thasos. Skirmishes and communist guerilla attacks continued on Thasos until 1950, almost a year after the main hostilities were over on the mainland.

In the post-war decades, another native of Thasos, Costas Tsimas, was to attain national recognition; a friend of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, he was appointed Director of the National Intelligence Service, the first civilian to hold that post.

Thasos, the capital, is now informally known as Limenas, or "the port". It is served by a ferry route to and from Keramoti a port close to Kavala International Airport, and has the shortest possible crossing to the island. Scala Prinos 20 km south of Thassos town is served by a ferry route to and from Kavala.