Eresos
Eresos
Ερεσός | |
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UTC+3 (EEST ) |
Eresos (
Geography
The municipal unit of Eresos–Antissa contains five other villages: Messotopos, Vatoussa, Chidira, Sigri and Pterounda located in the west and most barren part of the island. Bare rocky hills, derived from ancient volcanic activity, dominate the area. Skala Eresou is a centre for international tourism and is a favorite spot of Greek families, young people as well as gay women. With its long beautiful beach with dark volcanic sand and its crystal-clear unpolluted water, Skala Eressou was awarded Blue Flag status by the Foundation for Environmental Education.
History
Archaic period
Classical period
Eresos, along with
Spartan control of Eresos ended in 389 when the Athenian commander Thrasybulus retook the city.[16] In 377 Eresos is recorded as a member of the Second Athenian League.[17] About 371, Theophrastus, remembered as the "father of botany", was born at Eresos; he spent his entire career at Athens, where he succeeded Aristotle as head of the Peripatetic school. From 377 down to 332, the chronology of Eresian politics is difficult to establish with any certainty.[18] Phaenias of Eresus was also a native of the town.[19] Athens is thought to have lost control of Eresos following the Social War (357–355 BC), after which its power in the Aegean waned.[20] It was perhaps at this point that the tyranny of Apollodorus and his brothers took power. This family and their descendants remained in power until 336, when Attalus and Parmenion campaigned in the region against the Persians at the behest of Philip II of Macedon.[21] It is assumed that a democracy was set up at Eresos and the city enrolled in the League of Corinth.[22] In 335, Memnon of Rhodes retook this region for the Persian Empire and re-installed the tyranny of Apollodorus and his brothers.[23] In spring 334, Alexander the Great invaded Asia Minor, and it is assumed that the cities of Lesbos (including Eresos) went over to the Macedonian forces soon after his victory at the Battle of the Granicus in May 334; again, the tyrants will have been expelled and the Eresian democrats re-installed.[24] In 333, the admiral Memnon of Rhodes again attacked the island of Lesbos: he seized all the cities except for Mytilene and installed a new pair of tyrants at Eresos, Eurysilaus and Agonippus.[25] A long inscription later set up at Eresos c. 306-301 by the Eresian democrats claims (not without partisan intent) that the tyrants committed many crimes, including expelling the men from the city, holding their women hostage on the acropolis, and exacting large sums of money from the populace, as well as helping the Persians commit piracy against Greek shipping.[26]
In 332, Alexander's admiral Hegelochus of Macedon retook Lesbos from the Persians once and for all and brought Eurysilaus and Agonippus to be tried before Alexander in Egypt, where he left their fate in the hands of the newly restored Eresian democracy.[27] The same long inscription which records the alleged crimes of the tyrants also details their trial which ended in their execution.[26] Biographical traditions of the philosophers Theophrastus and Phaenias of Eresos claims that they were involved in the overthrow of tyranny at Eresos.[28] Efforts were made by the exiled relatives of Apollodorus and his brothers to return to Eresos in 324 and 319 and by the exiled relatives of Agonippus and Eurysilaus to return c. 306-301, but on all three occasions the Eresian democracy was successfully able to argue that they should not be obliged to take back their exiles.[26]
Hellenistic period
The history of Eresos after the Classical period is only known from its inscriptions, as almost no mention is made of it in the literary sources which survive. In the last two decades of the 4th century BCE Eresos had been subject to
Political infighting at the Ptolemaic court following the accession of Ptolemy V Epiphanes in 205 and the campaigns of Antiochus III in the years following led to the disintegration of Ptolemaic influence in the north Aegean. The power vacuum was filled by Rhodes, which soon after agreed a treaty of alliance with Eresos and the other cities of Lesbos.[32] In the first half of the 2nd century BCE, Eresos also drew closer to the other cities of Lesbos under the aegis of the Lesbian koinon, a quasi-federal organisation which had existed on the island in various forms since the early 6th century BCE, but became more active in times when a common danger was perceived.[33] This period of Eresian history also saw closer ties with Rome, at this time an emerging power in the Eastern Mediterranean. Two Romans are honoured in a list of proxenoi from Eresos dating to the last third of the 3rd century BCE, one of the earliest appearances of negotiatores in the Greek East.[34] An inscription recording a letter sent to Eresos by a Roman magistrate and another document honouring the Romans as benefactors of the Greeks, both of which date to the 2nd century BCE, indicate that Eresos, much like the other cities on Lesbos, sought to forge closer ties with Rome.[35] The complete destruction of neighbouring Antissa in 167 will have been a further encouragement to do so.
Imperial period
It is unclear what role Eresos played in the
Modern period
The resettlement of the inhabitants, from the current coastal location of Skala Eressos or Eressos Beach (Paralia Eressos) to the current location of the Eressos Village, which is located about four kilometres from the beach, is estimated at the end of the 17th century and is due to the avoidance of pirate raids. At the beginning of the 20th century, the doctor Antonios Ar. Koukos, assessing the location of the village as unsuitable from a health point of view and detrimental from an economic point of view, recommended the relocation to the present-day Eressos Beach. To support it, he was the first to relocate. Then others gradually began to settle in Eressos Beach permanently. At the expense of the holy monasteries of Ypsilo and Pythari, the enclosure and repair of the chapel on the Beach was carried out. The priest of the church was maintained by the numerous residents of Eressos Beach with their contribution.[40]
Demographics
Year | Population |
---|---|
1981 | 1,494 |
1991 | 1,247 |
2001 | 1,130 |
2011 | 1,086 |
Sport
The only sport club based in Eresos is a football team whose name is AO Papanikolís (Greek: Αθλητικός Όμιλος Παπανικολής), founded in 1979 and currently playing in one of local football championships of Greece, lowest leagues of Greek football. Its name was taken in honor of admiral Dimitrios Papanikolis and its main colors are red and blue.
In literature
Eresos is the setting of Lawrence Durrell's Sappho: a Play in Verse (1950), set in the Archaic period; Durrell invents an episode in which an earthquake causes a large part of the city to be submerged beneath the sea.[41]
Eresos makes a brief appearance in the novel Sure of You, the sixth volume in the series Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. In the chapter entitled "The Third Whale", Skala Eressou is described as a seaside town with concrete buildings and a beach of coarse grey sand. Some places in the town are described. These include the shop on the square where Mona found the key rings inscribed with the name "Sappho", the hotel called "Sappho the Eressian" where Mona stays in a spare, clean room with a single bed and a lone lamp, the big grey bluff at the end of the beach where more nude bathers were gathered, and the famous tents put up by the women who were part of Sappho's tribe.
See also
References
- ^ "Αποτελέσματα Απογραφής Πληθυσμού - Κατοικιών 2021, Μόνιμος Πληθυσμός κατά οικισμό" [Results of the 2021 Population - Housing Census, Permanent population by settlement] (in Greek). Hellenic Statistical Authority. 29 March 2024.
- ^ "Περιγραφή Δήμου". Δήμος Δυτικής Λέσβου (in Greek). Retrieved 2021-02-04.
- ^ "Τροποποίηση του άρθρου 1 του ν. 3852/2010" [Amendment of Article 1 of l. 3852/2010] (in Greek). Government Gazette. p. 1164.
- ^ Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Ἔρεσος.
- ^ N. Spencer, A Gazetteer of Archaeological Sites on Lesbos (1995).
- ^ D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric I. Sappho and Alcaeus (1990) x-xiii.
- ^ Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 48.1053.
- ^ G. P. Schaus and N. Spencer, 'Notes on the topography of Eresos' American Journal of Archaeology 98 (1994) 411-430.
- ^ Thucydides 3.18.1.
- ^ Thucydides 3.35.1.
- ^ Thucydides 8.23.2-4.
- ^ Thucydides 8.100.3-5.
- ^ Thucydides 8.103.2.
- ^ Xenophon, Hellenica 1.6.23-38.
- ^ Xenophon, Hellenica 2.2.5, 4.8.29, Diodorus Siculus 14.74.3.
- ^ Diodorus Siculus 14.94.3-4.
- ^ Inscriptiones Graecae II2 43 B.21.
- ^ P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404-323 BC (2003) 414-17.
- ^ Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Eresus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
- ^ P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404-323 BC (2003) 238-43.
- ^ Diodorus Siculus 16.91.2.
- ^ P. J. Rhodes and R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404-323 BC (2003) 372-9.
- ^ Diodorus Siculus 17.7.
- ^ Arrian, Anabasis 1.17-23, Diodorus Siculus 17.22-7.
- ^ Arrian, Anabasis 2.1-2, Diodorus Siculus 17.29.2.
- ^ a b c Inscriptiones Graecae XII (2) 526 ( OGIS 8 ).
- ^ Arrian, Anabasis 3.2.6-7, Curtius 4.8.11.
- ^ Theophrastus, testimonium 33A-B in W. W. Fortenbaugh et al. (eds.), Theophrastus of Eresos: Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought, and Influence, vol. 1 (1992).
- ^ Antigonus is the authority to whom they appeal in c. 306-301 regarding their exiles: Inscriptiones Graecae XII (2) 526 ( OGIS 8.C ).
- ^ The exact chronology is disputed by scholars: see R. Bagnall, The Administration of the Ptolemaic Possessions Outside Egypt (1976), P. Brun, 'Les Lagides à Lesbos: essai de chronologie' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 85 (1991) 99-113, Ph. Gauthier, Bulletin épigraphique (1992) no. 343.
- ^ Inscriptiones Graecae XII (2) 527 (c. 221-205 BCE), 528 (c. 175-150 BCE), Supplementum 122 (c. 209-205 BCE), 125 (late 3rd century BCE).
- ^ Inscriptiones Graecae XII Supplementum 120 (190s BCE).
- ^ L. Robert, 'Inscriptions de Lesbos' Opera Minora Selecta 2.801-31, G. Labarre, 'Κοινὸν Λεσβίων' Revue des études anciennes 96.3-4 (1994) 415–46, G. Labarre, Les cités de Lesbos aux époques hellénistique et impériale (1996) 70-4, 137-45 H. J. Mason, Phoenix 52 (1998) 175.
- ^ Inscriptiones Graecae XII Supplementum 127. W. Mack, 'The Eresian catalogue of proxenoi (IG XII Suppl. 127)' Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 180 (2012) 219, 223.
- ^ Inscriptiones Graecae XII Supplementum 123, 692.
- ^ Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien Bd. 59, no. 136 (23-22 BCE); Inscriptiones Graecae XII Supplementum 124 (c. 1-4 CE).
- ^ Damarchos son of Leon: Inscriptions Graecae XII (2) 539-42 (reigns of Augustus and Tiberius). His grandson, Tiberius Claudius Damarchos son of Leon, was a Roman citizen: Inscriptions Graecae XII (2) 549 (c. 41-54 CE).
- ^ Letter: Inscriptiones Graecae XII (2) 531. Varus: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum 52.770. Quinctilii of Eresos: Inscriptiones Graecae XII Supplementum 47 (1st or 2nd century CE).
- ^ Inscriptiones Graecae XII (2) 531, 536-45, 548-9, 562, 565-6, 573, Inscriptiones Graecae XII Supplementum 47, 123-4, 127-8, 130, 693.
- ^ Orfanou, Alexia (2000). "Yellowing leaves". Eressos, Folklore Magazine of the Association of the Everlasting Eresians "Theophrastus", no. issues 157, pp. 39. "See. Cuckos, A. (1913, 5 March). From Eressos (Εξ Ερεσού). Laikos Agon (Λαϊκός Αγών), year 2, no. 205.
- ^ Eric Salmon, Is the Theatre Still Dying?, Greenwood Press (1985) 115.