[For 15 years I have
had a summer house in Karlovasi on the Greek island of Samos. I used it
infrequently to begin with, but now my wife and I spend about 4 months there
every year and we delight in the many positive aspects of this Aegean
beauty-spot. My first article describes Historic Samos and the second Modern
Samos].
The history of Samos is curiously out-of-step with the rest
of Greece. The island reached its apogee in the Archaic Period (6th
century BC), when her fleets dominated the Aegean and the cult of Hera
attracted pilgrims from all over the Eastern Mediterranean. She fell into
obscurity in the Classical Period, revived somewhat in Hellenistic and Roman
times, becoming almost depopulated then slowly recovering under the Byzantine
and Ottoman Empires. She had a uniquely prosperous status as a Despotate
(Principality) from 1830 under Ottoman suzerainty when Greece itself became
independent, fatally was united with Greece in 1912, suffered economic collapse
and since WW2 has reinvented herself as an agricultural producer and tourist
destination.
Hera, mythological
Queen of the Heavens, was supposedly born in Samos and from the earliest times
pilgrims came to venerate her at the Sanctuary of Hera (the Heraion) which expanded in size as the
City-state of Samos expanded. Samian colonists had by the 7th
century BC established themselves in the Black Sea littoral and elsewhere in Asia
Minor. A Samian ship passed the Straits of Gibraltar in the same era, an epic
journey then. Pilgrims came from Egypt, Greece and Asia Minor pinning their
devotional gifts to the god with the characteristic griffin-heads to ward off
evil spirits.
 |
| A bronze votive Griffin-head from Samos, 7th C BC |
With the 6th century BC, Samos entered its Golden
Age. Under the tyrant Polycrates, who
ruled 535-522 BC, three immense projects were started to the admiration of
Herodotus writing 100 years later. A new Temple of Hera, at least the third
on the site, was built but was unfinished. As a measure of the ambition of the
Samians, the Temple of Hera was 55 x 108 meters dwarfing the Athens Acropolis
(31 x 69 meters).and was only surpassed by the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (55
x 115 meters).The site itself is difficult to decipher as there have been
several layers of building, and what remains is mainly the stumps of columns
and foundations.
 |
| The Heraion at Samos |
To appreciate what must have been a spectacular and busy
Temple, filled with statuary, with its Treasury and processional Sacred Way, we
need to visit the Archaeological Museum at Vathy with its Archaic Kouros, unearthed in 1980 from the
Heraion. It is the finest Archaic statue outside Athens, a colossal (4.7 meters
tall) marble figure with its grain merging vibrantly with the muscles
especially on the back and buttocks.
 |
The Kouros of Samos, back and
front, from the Archaeological Museum at Vathy
The second wonder of Archaic Samos is the Aqueduct
Tunnel of Eupalinos. It is one of the most remarkable engineering feats
of Antiquity, a 1,036m double tunnel cut by hand through the mountain
overlooking the town of Ancient Samos (modern Pythagoreio). Beset by enemies,
Ancient Samos needed a secure source of water to resist a siege and in some
urgency in about 540BC the tunnel was begun from opposite ends to bring spring
water from an entry in the North, through the mountain and safely piped to the
inhabitants of the city in the South. Astonishingly the deviation from true was
a mere 3 cms, achieved by a complex system of poles, landmarks and
measurements. The technique had been developed in Persia but the Archaic Greeks
were irrepressibly ambitious and the Tunnel is one of their most notable
triumphs. It can still be visited by the sure-footed.
The final Archaic wonder, admired by Herodotus, was the Artificial
Harbour and its Mole at Ancient Samos (modern Pythagoreio). The harbour
was almost twice the size of the existing one and was a shelter for the large
Samian fleet. Its blocks were built up in 60 ft of water and its foundations
still exist though covered by the sea. This was another expression of the
daring spirit of Samos.
The reign of Polycrates was inspirational but he was an
assertive tyrant. He quarrelled with the most distinguished native of Samos,
the polymath Pythagoras (570-495 BC), dreaded but familiar name to every
schoolboy through his famous Theorem. (The square on the hypotenuse of a
right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two
sides). Pythagoras, the details of whose life are often speculative, enunciated
a philosophy of “Harmony” charmingly explained by Dr Jacob Bronowski in his
seminal 1973 BBC series The Ascent of Man, in the episode The Music of the
Spheres, where he demonstrated the Pythagorean mathematical basis of octaves
and their precise ratios by varying the length of lyre-strings. Pythagoras fled
Samos in 530 BC for Croton in South Italy. His followers were aristocratic,
secretive and exclusive and were regarded suspiciously by the locals who
suppressed the Pythagorean School bloodily although the great man himself
survived to die in Metapontum.
 |
| Pythagoras' famed Theorem |
In time Samos lost influence, changing its allegiances
between Persia and Athens but it was fighting for the Greek cause in the
decisive naval Battle of Mycale off Samos in 479 BC which saw off the Persians
for ever. Samos revolted against Athenian dominance in 439 BC and Pericles
required the walls to be razed and the fleet disbanded. A late intellectual
flowering in the 3rd century BC saw the astronomer Aristarchus
propose that the Sun and not the Earth was centre of the universe, anticipating
Copernicus by more than 1,700 years!
Alexander the Great restored some of Samos’ privileges and
it was favoured by visits in Roman times by Antony and Cleopatra, Augustus,
Caligula, Claudius and Nero. The cult of Hera was still venerated until worship
of all the ancient gods was forbidden by the Theodosian decrees of 390 AD.
Samos had many centuries of upheavals in Byzantine and
Ottoman times: she declined into a backwater. The Aegean was infested by
pirates who kidnapped and looted islanders. Samos became seriously depopulated
and Ottoman Suleiman the Magnificent agreed to her resettlement in 1572 by
Christians, notably from Albania. She slowly recovered but the insecurity is
evident from the founding of settlements in places invisible from the sea to
the neglect of more obvious coastal sites.
By the end of the 18th century, Ottoman
restrictions on trading by Christians were relaxed and Samian connections with
Asia Minor developed. When Greece rose up against the Ottomans in 1821, Samos
was in the forefront and assisted in the trouncing of a combined Ottoman and
Egyptian fleet in the Strait of Mycale in the 1824 Battle of Gerontas. To the
consternation of the more nationalistic Samians, the Great Powers in their
wisdom declined to allow Samos to join independent Greece in 1830 and
established a Despotate (Principality), guaranteed by the Powers, where a Greek
Prince ruled under the suzerainty of the Porte.
This odd arrangement, also known as the Hegemony, worked well as Samos retained her free
access to the Asia Minor hinterland and trade between them expanded. Samos, in
particular Karlovasi, became a centre for the leather trade as fresh water and
acorns were both readily available. Large tanneries were established with
Turkish raw hides being processed and re-exported to the mainland. The growing
of tobacco on Samos expanded with both raw tobacco but also hand-rolled and
manufactured cigarettes being sold to receptive markets in Turkey and Egypt. By
the 1890s Karlovasi was one of the most prosperous towns in Greece: three
surprisingly large churches and a number of handsome Italianate merchant’s
villas are legacies of this time.
Yet Greece was entering a turbulent period. She won wars in
the Balkans against the crumbling Ottomans - Macedonia and Thrace were ceded to
her in 1913. Samos finally abandoned the Despotate and joined the Kingdom of
the Hellenes in 1912, a treacherous if inevitable step amid the nationalistic
fervour of the time. Greece and Turkey were on opposite sides during WW1 and
from 1919 to 1922 Greece attempted to annexe parts of Anatolia hosting Greek
minority populations since Antiquity. The Greek armies were routed in 1922 by
resurgent Turkey under Kemal Ataturk in what Greece calls “The Catastrophe”. At
least 1.3m Greeks had to leave Asia Minor in a controlled exchange of
populations, with 800,000 Muslims leaving Greece. Greeks in Pontus on the Black
Sea and 1.5m Armenians had already suffered genocide at the hands of the Turks.
 |
| Greeks flee burning Smyrna (Izmir) in 1922 |
For Samos, all this was a disaster. She lost contact with
the mainland and the tannery industry soon declined. Trade with Turkey was
minimal as Turkey adopted a policy of “autarky” (self-sufficiency). The
establishment of government tobacco monopolies undermined that traditional
trade. Asia Minor refugees came to Samos but in time with no work there in the
Slump, they joined Samians in a dismal flight to the slums of Athens. In WW2 the
Italian and later German occupiers seized the tannery plant in the name of
“reparations” and all that remains of the industry are acres of empty and
desolate warehouses.
Samos was caught up in the 1946-9 Civil War but by the 1950s
peace had broken out. There still remained fertile land to till, wine to
produce and tourists to welcome. For all its long history and tribulations,
Samos remains beautiful, a little jewel tucked away in the eastern
Mediterranean.
 |
| Potami, near Karlovasi, Samos |
SMD
12.09.13
Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2013
Sources: By far the best guide-book is by the art historian
Nigel McGilchrist. His Samos with Ikaria
and Fourni is volume 3 in his masterly (but brief!) 20-volume McGilchrist’s Greek Islands published by
Genus Loci Publications, London. He
combines accuracy with scholarship most impressively and knows all his islands
comprehensively.
No comments:
Post a Comment