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Delphinion in Chios

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2013

Extract

In 412 B.C., when the Peloponnesian War had reached its most critical stage for Athens after her Sicilian losses, Chios and Erythrae revolted from the Athenian League and appealed to Sparta for armed assistance. This was sent, despite Athenian attempts at interception, and the revolt spread up and down the Asia Minor coast. The Athenians reacted quickly, sent ships to Samos, recaptured Lesbos, and opened operations against Chios by raiding the countryside near Chios town. A hostile Chios with her war fleet constituted the major threat to Athenian interests in the East, and stronger measures, which might also provide more permanent security, were needed. Thucydides tells (viii. 38, 2) how the Athenian ships ‘crossed from Lesbos to Chios with armed force, and, in command of land and sea, fortified Delphinion, a place strong on the landward side, served by harbours, and not far distant from Chios town’.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1956

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References

page 41 note 1 References in Stephanus of Byzantium, Harpokration, and Suidas echo Thucydides or each other, and add nothing new.

page 41 note 2 Antiquities found in the area were described by Zolotas in A. 1 308 f., 422, and cf. Madias, , Αἰγαῑον Α. 2 120 ff.Google Scholar, and Hunt, , BSA xli. 49.Google ScholarCoulanges, Fustel de in Archives des missions scientifiques et littéraires v (1856) 500Google Scholar saw that it must be somewhere guarding the three ports.

page 42 note 1 Cf. Hunt, op. cit.

page 42 note 2 On its harbour and extent in antiquity see BSA xlix. 123–8.

page 42 note 3 See below on its importance in the Middle Ages and later.

page 42 note 4 Cf. Hunt, op. cit. 50.

page 44 note 1 For an inscription which may illustrate Chian treatment of the slaves who did not revolt, see Robert, Études épigraphiques et philologiques 118 ff.; Salač, , Eunomia i. 1 ff.Google Scholar (his reading is incorrect); another fragment of this inscription has been identified.

page 44 note 2 For his career in Chios see RE s.v. His mother, so Plutarch tells us (Moralia 241d), wrote to him in Chios suggesting that he should do better or not bother to come home.

page 44 note 3 This is the only direct reference to the size of the garrison and the numbers may not be excessive, even remembering additional allies and the revolted Chian slaves given asylum there. We cannot be certain of the original strength of the garrison. Thucydides (viii. 30, 2) says that Strom-bichides, Onomakles, and Euktemon were in command of the striking force against Chios, which numbered 30 ships and some of the 1,000 men at Miletus, who were embarked on troopships. Three ships were lost in a chase which ended in a storm (viii. 34), and the main body went on to Lesbos, whence they returned to Chios and Delphinion (viii. 38, 2). Such a large force was intended for raidl around the island and perhaps to establish the fortress, but not to form a permanent garrison there.

page 45 note 1 Haussollier, , BCH iii. 242 ff., 244 A, lines 8, 9Google Scholar; Wilhelm, , Jh xxviii. 197 ff.Google Scholar The inscription was found near Kardayla, which is even today the administrative centre for the elphinion valley, not Langada, which is nearer.

page 45 note 2 At Pindakas (preliminary report in JHS lxxv, Suppl.), and a similar site near Pyrgi.

page 45 note 3 The remains there were described by Zolotas (op. cit.8) and Hunt (op. cit. 43 f.). The pottery on the surface is entiful and all of it is coarse, including Hellenistic painted e and a stamped amphora handle. The site seems to mprise a complex of substantial farm buildings in a ominent and commanding position above a fertile valley, ailar to that of the farmhouse at Delphinion. Inscriptions from Viki, in Ἀθηνᾶ xx. 263, no. 145Google Scholar; Hesp. xvi. 88.

page 45 note 4 Wilamowitz, Nordionische Suine 16. Also in Ionia at Miletus (von Gerkan in Kleinasien und Byzanz 35 ff.), and in the Ionian colonies at Olbia and Massilia.

page 45 note 5 Madias, op. cit.; Kanellakes, in Πιερί—Αἰγαῐον 1896, 237 ff.Google Scholar, mentions tombs. In Kardamyla in 1954 I was told of terracottas found ‘by the sea’ at Derphine, even of columns in the water. Aqualung divers found a large number of Late Roman amphorae in the sea just off the south-east side of Tauros, but no other antiquities in the waters of the harbour.

page 45 note 6 Op. cit. 308.

page 45 note 7 Rims of Late Roman C bowls, and fragments of cylindrical amphorae of the type found at Emporio.

page 45 note 8 Preliminary reports in JHS lxxiv. 163; lxxv, Suppl. 21–23.

page 45 note 9 Zolotas, op. cit. 422.

page 45 note 10 Delatte, Les Portulans grecs 116 f.

page 46 note 1 e.g. the travellers quoted in Argenti, and Kyriakides, , Ἡ Χίος παρὰ τοῑς Γεωγράφοις καὶ Περιηγήταις (hereafter abbreviated ΧΓΠ) i. 13, 30, 127, 418, 471, 550Google Scholar; ii. 862. On traditions of pirate raids there see Zolotas, op. cit. 442–4.

page 46 note 2 Sometimes Bellofano (cf. Porcacchi, in ΧΓΠ i. 72 f.Google Scholar), a corruption which misled Pococke for a time into identifying the site as that of ancient Phanai (ibid. ii. 679).

page 46 note 3 Cf. ΧΓΠ i. 559; ii. 846, and Hunt, op. cit. 49.

page 46 note 4 Cf. ΧΓΠ i. 60, 68, Dapper's account of a visit in 1688 (ibid. 418), and Biron's in 1605: ‘le Port Dauphin, très beau et bon pour toute sorte de vaisseaux, à lentré duquel est un Escueil ou Isolette appellé St. Estienne, où est une grosse our, comme se voit en plusieurs lieux du village marin lutour de la dicte Jsle pour descouvrir les Corsaires, qui ouvent sont par ces lieux’ (ibid. 132).

page 47 note 1 Reproduced in ΧΓΠ ii, pl. 52, opposite p. 863.

page 47 note 2 Cf. Zolotas, op. cit. 422. An inscription from Langada in xx. 257, no. 122.

page 47 note 3 In 1823 Depping found the harbour still in use, though ‘Delphinium a disparu’ (ΧΓΠ ii. 1070).

page 48 note 1 Defradas, Les Thèmes de la propagande delphique 74, sees in the Delphinia of the Greek world evidence of the radiation of the cult from Crete (Knossos) in the 9th and 8th centuries. Those in Chios and Erythrae (?) probably came with the Greek settlers from the west, and in view of the legendary and historical connexions with Euboea the Delphinion at Chalcis (and at Oropos, a ) may be more relevant: RE s.v. ‘Delphinion’; a new dedication from Chalcu, in BCH lxxvii. 217.Google Scholar

page 49 note 1 Cf. the tiles found in the Kofina excavations by Chios town, BSA xlix. 170 f.