The Spectacular Ruins of Delos

Delos is one of the smallest Aegean islands. Barren and almost devoid of fresh water, it has no natural resources. It never had more than a few thousand residents, and no one lives here today. For half a millennium, however, this was one of the centers of the Greek world. Simultaneously, a great Panhellenic sanctuary and a mercantile hub that eclipsed Athens. According to myth, after Zeus impregnated the Titaness Leto, his jealous wife Hera forbade any land on Earth to give Leto shelter. The only place she could rest was a barren, floating island known as Ortigia, Quail Island. There, Leto gave birth to the twins Apollo and Artemis. The island, now fixed to the seabed, became a favorite abode of the gods. The historical importance of Delos dates to the Archaic period, when Ionian Greeks settled the island and established a festival of Apollo there. After the Persian Wars, the Athenians made the island the nominal center of the league that developed into their Aegean-spanning empire, and progressively seized control of the sanctuary of Apollo. On the advice of a Delphic oracle, they ritually purified the entire island, removing all burials to the nearby islet of Rhenaea. Thereafter, no births or deaths could take place on Delos. Women in labor and the dying were rowed offshore. The Golden Age of Delos came in the Hellenistic era, when the island achieved independence from Athens. Merchants and bankers came from every part of the eastern Mediterranean, and increasingly from Rome, to trade there. Delian prosperity reached its apogee after 166 BC, when the Romans declared the island's port tax-free. For the next 80 years, Delos was the busiest marketplace in the Mediterranean. It was the center of the slave trade, at a time when Rome's wars were producing captives at an unprecedented rate. Sometimes 10,000 slaves were sold in a single day. The life of the island in these years was dominated by commercial syndicates, whose members were among the wealthiest men in the known world. The Golden Age ended in 88 BC, when a general of King Mithridates sacked and burned the sanctuary and city. A generation later, a massive pirate raid stole what little wealth remained. Thereafter, Delos steadily declined. The island was almost deserted by the mid-imperial era, and its ruins were exploited as quarries from late antiquity, until excavations began in the 19th century. We'll begin with the harbors. Delos had two. This was the smaller of them, the so-called Sacred Harbor. On the other side of a narrow spit was the larger Commercial Harbor, divided into five bases. It was developed largely in the Hellenistic era. Like the Sacred Harbor, it is now mostly silted over. This is the Agora of the Compitalists. The Compitalists were one of the mercantile associations that dominated Hellenistic Delos. Each of these guilds organized itself under the protection of a god or gods. In this case, the lares compitales, the Roman guardian spirits. This Agora featured two shrines, both set up by the Hermiasts, another mercantile association. The sacred way to the Sanctuary of Apollo was lined with dedications and honorific statues. The stoa on our left was built by the Macedonian king Philip V, its counterpart on the right by the kings of Pergamon. Both were dedicated to Apollo and emblematic of the competitive, soft power gestures that Hellenistic kings liked to make at Panhellenic sanctuaries. Beyond the Pergamon stoa was the Agora of the Delians, originally lined by two-story porticos. The entrance to Apollo's sanctuary was marked by a monumental propylon, now vanished. The sacred precinct within is badly ruined. The first Temple of Apollo, built by the Naxians in the Archaic period, stood just inside the sanctuary entrance. After the classical temples were built, this structure became a sacred house used to store offerings. A colossal statue of Apollo, carved at the beginning of the 7th century BC, stood beside it. The base of the Naxian Colossus is still in situ, but the statue has been moved. It features some very venerable graffiti. Next to the Temple of Apollo was the supplementary, and seemingly supernumerary, Temple of the Athenians, a marble Doric temple whose cella contains no fewer than seven chrysolophantine statues of Apollo, along with the Archaic Colossus from the original temple. Beside the Temple of the Athenians was yet another sacred building, the Poros Temple. This structure served as the treasury of the Delian League before the Athenians absconded with it in 454 BC. Treasuries stood in an arc behind the Temples of Apollo. They faced a long stoa, built by the Macedonian king Antigonus Ganatus. It was decorated with no fewer than 20 statues of royal ancestors. In front of it, remarkably, was this monumentalized Mycenaean tomb, which came to be associated with the mythical maidens Opus and Arge. It was the only burial allowed to remain on the island after the purification ordered by the Delphic Oracle. This is the Monument of the Bulls, named after the bull's head sculptures that supported its rafters. Remarkably, the building appears to have housed a ship dedicated to Apollo by some Hellenistic king after a naval victory. This was the Agora of the Italians. Ringed by two-story porticos that contained dozens of shops, the complex was built by the Hermiests. As its name suggests, the merchants based here were Italian, Romans, and allies, many of whom became awesomely wealthy through banking and slave trading. Beside the Agora of the Italians is the Lion Terrace, named after the row of archaic marble lions set up here by the Naxians in the 7th century B.C., apparently inspired by the avenues of sphinxes that flanked the entrances to Egyptian temples. While the replicas of five lions are now visible, there were originally at least nine. This was the Sacred Lake. In antiquity, swans and geese glided over the surface, and palm trees shadowed the shores, planted to commemorate the tree that Leto clung to when she gave birth to Apollo and Artemis. The lake was drained a long time ago. Its outline is now indicated by a low wall, and bushes grow in the basin. We're now entering the Theater Quarter, famous for its lavish Hellenistic houses. Most of these were courtyard-centered, often embellished with peristyles and mosaics. We'll see a few examples higher up. Note how narrow and twisting the streets were, a far cry from the great planned cities like Alexandria. This is the House of Cleopatra, built in the 2nd century B.C. The marble peristyle has been partially re-erected. Ahead of us are statues of Cleopatra and Dioscorides, the house's Athenian owners. The House of Dionysus, across the street from the House of Cleopatra, had an impressive central courtyard. The theater, built in the 3rd century B.C., had seats for about 5,500 spectators. The stage building, uniquely, was colonnaded on all four sides. Rainwater running down from the was channeled via drains on their side of the orchestra into this huge communal cistern. Looking down on the theater, the hostel, next to the theater, was originally three stories high. It likely served visitors to Delian festivals. Its most remarkable feature is this cavernous cistern, about 60 feet deep. The House of the Masks belonged to a prosperous merchant, as in the aristocratic residences of Pompeii. The street-side frontage was rented to shopkeepers. The residential rooms, centered on a peristyle courtyard, where we currently are, include a reception suite with well-preserved mosaic floors and frescoed walls. The frescoes are Pompeian first style, imitating panels of colored marble. The most famous mosaic is an impressively detailed representation of Dionysus riding a panther, now approaching Mount Kynthos and the Terrace of the Foreign Gods. The temples on the Terrace of the Foreign Gods were dedicated by members of Delos's cosmopolitan merchant community. Here ahead of us was a sanctuary of the Egyptian gods, Serapis and Isis. The Temple of Isis has been partially restored and is off to our left. The sanctuary was repeatedly, and rather haphazardly, extended. Eventually it included an Egyptian-style avenue of sphinxes. The adjacent sanctuary of the Syrian gods was dedicated to Hadad and Atargatis, a goddess who came to be identified with Aphrodite. The courtyard around which the temple was arranged included a small theater with a capacity of about 500, looking down over the Terrace of the Foreign Gods and up toward the Antron, a shrine of Heracles. The Antron is an artificial grotto. Though built in the Hellenistic era, it was made to look prehistoric, with huge granite slabs that seem to have been hewn by the hero himself. And now, at last, the long climb up Mount Kynthos. Here we are at the summit of Mount Kynthos. There were temples of Zeus and Hera here, but the highlight was and is the view over the mansions and sanctuaries of Delos, heart of the Cichlides, birthplace of Apollo. One last panorama.