A History of the Greek City 9781407306261, 9781407335803

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
CONTENTS
PREFACE
PART I: SPACE AND CITY: PROCESSES, STRUCTURES AND TRANSFORMATIONS
CHAPTER 1: The City, the Village and the Social Sciences
CHAPTER 2: The Prehistoric Settlement Quantities and Qualities
CHAPTER 3: Historico-Geographical Views on the City and Urbanism from Prehistoric to Modern Times
PART II: THE PREHISTORIC AND THE PROTOHISTORIC SETTLEMENT
II.a. The Neolithic Settlement and Early Urbanization
CHAPTER 4: The Neolithic Settlement Space of Production and Ideology
CHAPTER 5: Built Space and Neolithic Builders
CHAPTER 6: Early Urbanization in Mainland Greece
CHAPTER 7: Early Urbanization in the Aegean Islands
II.b. Settlements in the Creto-Mycenaean World and the Dark Ages
CHAPTER 8: The Cities of Crete during the Minoan Age
CHAPTER 9: Representations of Cities in Aegean Art of the Second Millennium BC Mute narratives of prehistory
CHAPTER 10: Habitation in the Mycenaean Period
CHAPTER 11: The Settlements of the Dark Ages
PART III: THE CITY-STATE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS
III.a. The City-State and the Hellenistic City
CHAPTER 12: City-Polis in the Late Geometric and the Archaic Period
CHAPTER 13: The City in the Greek Colonial World
CHAPTER 14: Urban Planning in the Classical Period
CHAPTER 15: The Hellenistic City
CHAPTER 16: The Religious and Political Symbolism of the City in Ancient Greece
III.b. The Transformation of the Greek City
CHAPTER 17: The Transformation of the Classical City in Greece during the Roman Age
CHAPTER 18: The Transformation of the Hellenistic City in the Roman East
CHAPTER 19: Major Early Christian Ecclesiastical Centres of Macedonia
PART IV: THE CITY IN BYZANTIUM AND UNDER OTTOMAN RULE
IV. a. The Byzantine City
CHAPTER 20: The Early and the Middle Byzantine City
CHAPTER 21: The Late Byzantine City
CHAPTER 22: The Religious Symbolism of the Byzantine City
IV.b. The Greek City under Ottoman Rule
CHAPTER 23: The Effects of the Turkish Conquest on the Cities of Asia Minor and the Balkans
CHAPTER 24: Cities and Villages in the Early Ottoman Period
CHAPTER 25: Greek Highland Refuges of Northern Greece in the Early Ottoman Period
CHAPTER 26: The Rebirth of Settlements in Greece during the Late Ottoman Period
PART V: THE MODERN GREEK CITY
CHAPTER 27: The Greek City and Neoclassicism Greek urban planning in the nineteenth century
CHAPTER 28: The Greek City and Modernism: 1900–1940
CHAPTER 29: Social and Urban Transformations before and after the Asia Minor Catastrophe
CHAPTER 30: The Contemporary Greek City: Transformation trends in the spatial diffusion of urbanization
The Authors
Index of Place Names

Citation preview

BAR S2050 2009

A History of the Greek City A History of the Greek City Edited by

LAGOPOULOS (Ed)

AlexandrosEdited Ph.byLagopoulos Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos

A HISTORY OF THE GREEK CITY

B A R

BAR International Series 2050 2009 BAR International Series 2050 2009

A History of the Greek City Edited by

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos

BAR International Series 2050 2009

ISBN 9781407306261 paperback ISBN 9781407335803 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407306261 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR

PUBLISHING

Lemnos, that well-built citadel, which is in his eyes the dearest of all lands. Now when we had come to the city and the steep wall, round about the town in the thick brushwood … Homer, Odyssey, viii 283, xiv 472–473 (transl. A.T. Murray)

I verily built for the Trojans round about their city a wall, wide and exceeding fair … but then war and the din of war blazed about the well-builded wall … the gates and the wall of the Achaeans … to rush upon the wall, and break down the battlements ... now he may take the broad-wayed city of the Trojans. Homer, Iliad, XXI 446–447, XII 35–36, 223, 308, II 12–13 (transl. A.T. Murray)

CONTENTS Preface...................................................................................................................................................................................................................iii PART I. SPACE AND CITY: PROCESSES, STRUCTURES AND TRANSFORMATIONS Chapter 1. The City, the Village and the Social Sciences............................................................................................................................1 Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos Chapter 2. The Prehistoric Settlement: Quantities and qualities............................................................................................................11 Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis Chapter 3. Historico-Geographical Views on the City and Urbanism from Prehistoric to Modern Times ...............................17 Mark Billinge PART II. THE PREHISTORIC AND THE PROTOHISTORIC SETTLEMENT II.a. The Neolithic Settlement and Early Urbanization Chapter 4. The Neolithic Settlement: Space of production and ideology ...........................................................................................29 Kostas Kotsakis Chapter 5. Built Space and Neolithic Builders............................................................................................................................................41 Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis Chapter 6. Early Urbanization in Mainland Greece .................................................................................................................................47 Dora N. Konsola Chapter 7. Early Urbanization in the Aegean Islands . .............................................................................................................................53 Christos G. Doumas II.b. Settlements in the Creto-Mycenaean World and the Dark Ages Chapter 8. The Cities of Crete During the Minoan Age .........................................................................................................................71 Clairy Palyvou Chapter 9. Representations of Cities in Aegean Art of the Second Millennium BC: Mute narratives of prehistory ................87 Christos Boulotis Chapter 10. Habitation in the Mycenaean Period . ...................................................................................................................................99 Spyros E. Iakovidis Chapter 11. The Settlements of the Dark Ages........................................................................................................................................ 109 Nota Kourou PART III. THE CITY-STATE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS III.a. The City-State and the Hellenistic City Chapter 12. City-Polis in the Late Geometric and the Archaic Period . ............................................................................................ 127 Alexandros Gounaris Chapter 13. The City in the Greek Colonial World .............................................................................................................................. 143 Gocha R. Tsetskhladze Chapter 14. Urban Planning in the Classical Period ............................................................................................................................. 169 Wolfram Hoepfner Chapter 15. The Hellenistic City ............................................................................................................................................................... 183 Edwin J. Owens

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Chapter 16. The Religious and Political Symbolism of the City in Ancient Greece ...................................................................... 191 Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos III.b. The Transformation of the Greek City Chapter 17. The Transformation of the Classical City in Greece during the Roman Age ............................................................ 203 Constantine Mantas Chapter 18. The Transformation of the Hellenistic City in the Roman East . ................................................................................. 213 Edwin J. Owens Chapter 19. Major Early Christian Ecclesiastical Centres in Macedonia . ........................................................................................ 221 Blaga Aleksova PART IV. THE CITY IN BYZANTIUM AND UNDER OTTOMAN RULE IV.a. The Byzantine City Chapter 20. The Early and Middle Byzantine City................................................................................................................................. 231 Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Chapter 21. The Late Byzantine City . ...................................................................................................................................................... 251 Tonia Kiousopoulou Chapter 22. The Religious Symbolism of the Byzantine City . ............................................................................................................ 257 Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos IV.b. The Greek City under Ottoman Rule Chapter 23. The Effects of the Turkish Conquest on the Cities of Asia Minor and the Balkans ................................................ 271 Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Chapter 24. Cities and Villages in the Early Ottoman Period . ........................................................................................................... 285 Dimitrios N. Karydis Chapter 25. Greek Highland Refuges of Northern Greece in the Early Ottoman Period ............................................................ 297 Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Chapter 26. The Rebirth of Settlements in Greece During the Late Ottoman Period .................................................................. 301 Evangelos P. Dimitriadis PART V. THE MODERN GREEK CITY Chapter 27. The Greek City and Neoclassicism: Greek urban planning in the nineteenth century............................................ 315 Panayotis Tsakopoulos Chapter 28. The Greek City and Modernism: 1900–1940 ................................................................................................................. 327 Emmanuel V. Marmaras Chapter 29. Social and Urban Transformations Before and After the Asia Minor Catastrophe ................................................. 339 Vika D. Gizeli Chapter 30. The Contemporary Greek City: Transformation trends in the spatial diffusion of urbanization ........................ 349 Pavlos K. Loukakis The Authors .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 361 Index of Place Names..................................................................................................................................................................................... 367

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PREFACE The present volume is an extension, further elaboration, complement and completion of a special edition of the periodical Archaiologia kai Technes (Archaeology and Arts), which ran through all four issues in the year 1997. The idea of a series of texts dealing with the Greek city was conceived by the board of the periodical and I enthusiastically accepted its invitation to edit the issues, for reasons that will become apparent in due course. The complete volume was first published in Greek in 2004 by the journal in association with Hermes publishing house, and it is with great pleasure that the editor and authors of the volume now see it appear in this distinguished series. The subject of the special edition and of the present volume as follow-up is the city,* as well as – more broadly – any type of settlement, regardless of size. The time-span covered commences with the first appearance of permanent settlements in Greece, during the Neolithic Age, that is from the early seventh millennium BC, and concludes with the metropolises and metropolitan areas of the country today. The geographical area covered encompasses Greece and the wider region of the Mediterranean and the Balkans to which Hellenic civilization spread at various times in its history. Within this framework, and starting with a close examination of the Neolithic settlement, the phenomenon of early urbanization in the third millennium BC, which has only recently been posited as an issue for Greek archaeology, is explored. A composite picture of Minoan and Mycenaean settlements is given, and the latest evidence for the hitherto virtually unknown settlements of the Geometric period, the so-called Dark Ages, is presented. The emergence of the city-state and the subject of the colonies are examined, with emphasis on the interaction between Hellenic civilization and indigenous cultures. The Classical and the Hellenistic city are analysed systematically, together with the transformation effected under Roman and subsequently Byzantine influence. The characteristics of the Byzantine settlement are investigated in detail. The effects of Ottoman domination on these are described methodically and the emergence of the Modern Greek city in the nineteenth century is considered, as well as its development towards contemporary, fin-de-siècle metropolitan formations. Thus, the historical course of the city is traced over nine thousand years. In each case an attempt is made to present a particular body of material and even when generalizations are made – which constitute a constant objective – these derive from the said material. Nevertheless, it was deemed pertinent to provide in addition a general theoretical framework, which expounds theoretical views concerning the city and the settlement in general, that is views which provide the epistemological and more specific theoretical foundations for the analysis and interpretation of built space. To this end, the volume opens with a gamut of epistemological options and contentions, which presents the current dynamic of approaches to space. I hope that Part I, which I consider useful on its own merit, will act at the same time as a clarificatory substrate, facilitating the reader’s deeper understanding of the chapters that follow. Without doubt, the city is one of the outstanding creations of civilization, and the studies published here revolve around it. But it is not the only means of spatial organization for a society: the village, the town, the wider region, as well as the house, are all manifestations of the way a society functions and of its ideology. These factors have been taken into account by the contributors. Precisely because the organization and the morphology of space are products of society and represent its articulation with geographical space, space is at once formed by society (though without reflecting it in a linear manner) and contributes, to a degree, to forming the social process. So, although emphasis is placed on the character and the characteristics of built space, neither the socio-historical context nor the reality of the city and the settlement as dynamic domains of economic, social, political and military processes have been ignored. Various other dimensions of the city, of a semiotic nature, which belong to the spheres of culture and ideology, are also touched upon. Thus, the city is also approached as a field of ideological-symbolic projections, as a pulsating vehicle of a worldview and as an object of iconic representations. The transitional periods of the Hellenic city remain largely unknown, either because of a (temporary) lack of evidence or because of the orientations of research and the preferences of scholars. Particular attention was paid to this issue and the authors who negotiated it have made substantial contributions to consolidating knowledge pertaining to the settlements as well as to the history more generally of these periods. Specifically, these studies refer to the settlements of the so-called Dark Ages, the transformation of the Classical and the Hellenistic city, the emergence of the Christian city, the conquest and transformation of the Byzantine city, the nature of Greek rural space during the Early Ottoman period, the emergence of the city of Neoclassicism and of Modernism, and the city in the interwar years. It goes without saying that a work of such historical scope could not be written by one scholar alone. Each phase constitutes an autonomous subject of study and demands in-depth knowledge of the relevant period. For these reasons, a pleiad of Greek and foreign scholars, distinguished specialists in the various sub-fields of the general subject, was mobilized: archaeologists and historians, historians of urban planning and architecture, geographers and social anthropologists, scholars with an established international reputation and younger researchers distinguished for their work, responded to the call. The task of each of these authors was to give a review of the phenomena of “city” and, more generally, “settlement”, based on the iii

most reliable and recent data and within the framework outlined above, although, due to the time needed for the preparation of the publication, it has not always been possible to take into account the very latest research. The volume undoubtedly benefited from favourable historical circumstances, since it was compiled at a time of intensified archaeological research and an influx of new evidence that sheds more penetrating light, or even a different light, on established precepts; in a period in which new avenues of thinking are opening up new thematic orientations that tend towards a more holistic approach to built space; and furthermore in a phase of development in Greek scholarship which has produced a new generation of historians of the Post-Byzantine and the Modern Greek city. Certainly a volume such as this demands far more than a random compilation of papers; it demands, on the contrary, an essential continuity and an overall unity. This desired unity is by its very nature sui generis, corresponding rather to the Kantian aesthetic axiom of “unity in diversity”, since although each contribution is based on the logic of the author’s particular discipline it simultaneously exhibits his or her own peculiar characteristics. This is the inevitable but ultimately indispensable element of diversity, which is closely interwoven with an assuredly welcome interdisciplinary approach. The endeavour to secure unity moved in four different directions. Firstly, the chronological continuity itself ensures what I would call a formal unity. Secondly, the contributors accepted essential elements of the general historical, social and urban-regional framework proposed to them. Thirdly, each contributor was conversant with the overall organization of the work and more specifically with details of the text before and after his/her own; indeed several bilateral collaborations developed. Fourthly, basic guidance was given on the form of the bibliographical references and minor linguistic interventions were made for the sake of consistency, though without altering the style of individual authors. So much for the compilation of the work. As far as its reception is concerned, its quality will be judged by both specialists and the wider scholarly and general public. Nevertheless, it seems that one claim can be made: although studies have been written about the city in specific historical periods – fewer for some, more numerous for others – this is perhaps the first time that the course of the Greek city through a very long chain of centuries is presented. It is a record which may provide the incentive for a fuller study of this condenser of society. It is a history that begins with the appearance of the first settlements, the early sedentarization of the seventh millennium BC, proceeds to the early urbanization of the third millennium BC and, with the concept of urbanization as an explicit or an implicit thread, advances from this primal urbanization to the universal urbanization of the third millennium AD. The translation of a work of this magnitude is not an easy task, given the great number of fields and disciplines represented. Draft translations were prepared by Nikolaos Baltatzis and Bill Phelps. The final English text is the work of Alexandra Doumas. Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos *Translator’s note: The word city has been used throughout the volume, except in those cases where the word town has passed into the literature.

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PART I SPACE AND CITY: PROCESSES, STRUCTURES AND TRANSFORMATIONS

CHAPTER 1

The City, the Village and the Social Sciences Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos Professor of Urban Planning Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

This chapter has four theoretical objectives. The first is to provide a theoretical definition of the nature of the city and of other spatial concentrations, such as the village. The second is to correlate these with their structural framework, which is the network of settlements. The third is to present the causes of urbanization, as these have been recorded by the relevant theories. The fourth is to analyse briefly the theoretical perspectives on the city and space in general, that is the theoretical means employed in attempts to study them.

The social and geographical character of the settlement The city is a particular form of spatial concentration that appears from one level and onward of a broad spectrum of such concentrations. Irrespective of their level, all these concentrations are called “settlements”. Before proceeding to the definition of the city, it is useful to define the settlement in its marginal form, which constitutes the very beginning of the spectrum of settlements. In material terms the settlement is a built, manmade space; and it is this particular character of the settlement that has misled scholarship into purely morphological definitions. Thus, we encounter in archaeology definitions of the following type: a settlement is a specific unit of space which can be distinguished archaeologically, that is it can be determined culturally in the context of a historical period, and which is typified by the existence of one or more dwellings or other constructions.1 We come across a similar definition in the history of urban planning: a settlement is whatever morphologically exceeds the unit, beginning with two dwellings.2 This second definition is more satisfactory than the first, for two reasons. First because, on the assumption that each dwelling houses one family, one dwelling with one family denotes an isolated family and not a settlement. Second, the existence of one or more constructions that are not dwellings does not constitute a settlement; if these constructions are storehouses, for example, then obviously they lack the relative self-sufficiency that is of necessity a criterion of the settlement. Even if they serve more central social functions than storehouses, if they constitute, for example, a simple temple complex, they still do not constitute a settlement, because this is simply a locus of worship which is not accompanied by any permanent

1. Settlement-building (chapuno) of the Yanoama of Northern Brazil (from E. Guidoni, Primitive Architecture (Electa-Rizzoli), New York 1975, 31, figs 32–34).

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Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos

2. Interior of an Iban “long house” in northwest Borneo: communal gallery and private quarters (from R. Waterson, The Living House, 1991, 145, fig. 127).

habitation of families. So, one or more constructions that are not dwellings are buildings or building complexes but not a settlement.

of a settlement. Similarly, a block of flats today, although it contains an assemblage of social units, or a neighbourhood of a city, although it has its own name and boundaries, does not constitute a (an independent) settlement.

It is not fortuitous that these definitions include the concept of the dwelling. This fact corresponds to the common impression that the settlement is a space of human habitation. But this impression is satisfied by other types of definitions than the morphological, namely sociological definitions, which are more substantial than the previous ones. The sociological perspective allows us to consider that, independently of its spatial expression, any spatial concentration which includes more than one elemental social unit – where the social unit is, except in very special cases, the nuclear family (individual household) –, that is at least one more or less developed social group, constitutes a settlement (provided that the two conditions mentioned below are met). Just as the dwelling has a social content as well as a utilitarian, as a space for enacting certain spatial practices, so the settlement, in addition to its social function of housing a social group, also concentrates certain uses. A part of these corresponds to the individual practices of the social units, but the other part springs from their communal practices, and constitutes the specific difference between a settlement and a dwelling or a building complex.

So, the settlement is a permanent or transient geographical concentration, that is, a direct geographical proximity, of a population comprising at least one social group and enacting communal utilitarian practices that are translated into corresponding uses of space. However, for a settlement to exist, this at once social and geographical unit must necessarily satisfy two conditions: it must enjoy relative self-sufficiency in its functioning and relative geographical independence, in other words, it must lie at some distance from other settlements. There is in general a relationship between the social and the morphological criterion, although these two criteria do not coincide systematically. There are cases, such as that of the Yanoama Indians of northern Brazil, where an entire village lives in one enormous hut. Their semi-permanent camp, the chapuno, consists of a single house constructed as an almost continuous ring, with a hearth for each family ranged around a central square (fig. 1). Similar examples can be found in other societies. In the Southeast Asian archipelago there are villages with individual dwellings for single families, as for example on the island of Borneo, but there are also multiple-family dwellings, housing a group of closely-related nuclear families. These dwellings may be in the form of building complexes but may also make up a single building of quite substantial dimensions. In the end it is possible for the dwelling of such a social group to acquire gigantic proportions.

On the basis of this definition of the settlement, a building complex that is, for example, palatial constitutes a settlement, as a habitation space of a social group, provided, however, that it is geographically independent. This means, for instance, that the hilltop “palace” of Knossos, which in the mid-second millennium BC was surrounded by a residential area, closer to it and of higher standard for the upper class and further away and humbler for the lower one, cannot be considered a settlement. Since the palace is incorporated organically in a wider geographical concentration, it is a constituent part of this and indeed its centre: in other words, it is part

In Southeast Asia the “house” does not refer only to built space but also to kin groups that inhabit this space or consider that they belong to it. The Minangkabau of Sumatra are a matrilineal 2

The City, the Village and the Social Sciences

3. Gigantic long house in central Borneo, 1900 (from R. Waterson, The Living House, 1991, 60, fig. 62).

society, in whose multiple-family dwelling, the “big house”, married sisters with their daughters cohabit. In earlier times a house of this type was a single building accommodating over 100 people and often over 60 metres long. Buildings of this scale existed on Flores Island (east of Java) before the Second World War. They were of circular or rectangular, verging on elliptical, plan, with corresponding conical or similar roof, and housed even hundreds of persons. Frequently an entire village consisted of one multiple-family dwelling.

reproduction and socialization, so that the dwelling as a spatial unit does not necessarily correspond to a defined social unit, such as the individual household whose members collaborate as a body in a set of activities. The result of this noncorrespondence is twofold: on the one hand a collaborative socio-economic unit may occupy separate dwellings, and on the other some of the cohabiting members may not participate, or only partially participate, in household activities. In the second case, the cohabiting members also include persons outside the household, such as tenants or servants.4

In “long-house” societies the huge dwelling is both a social and a ceremonial unit. If in Southeast Asia public practices can take place in special buildings, it is also possible that these do not demand special constructions. So, in the long houses of the Iban in northwest Borneo, for example, public practices are combined with private spaces under the same roof. The building contains private quarters, outside which is a communal gallery, a venue for socializing, work, discussions of community affairs, dances and ceremonies. In Borneo the private apartment is owned and occupied by a nuclear family. In addition to the gallery (fig. 2), the long house may occasionally have a public veranda too. The villages of certain tribes are made up of more than one long house, but very often the whole village lives in one such dwelling (fig. 3). Residence in this is not continuous, because during the busiest times of the year its members live in huts in the fields. In the long houses of Southeast Asia each family is responsible for its apartment and for the adjacent areas of the communal space, that is, of the gallery and the veranda where one exists. If there are other communal spaces in the long house, these are of communal responsibility.3

City and settlement networks It has already been stated that the spectrum of settlements is very broad. At its base is the elementary form of settlement, the hamlet. Next in line is the village (fig. 4) and at some level within this spectrum the city emerges. What, however, is its specific difference from the preceding orders of settlement? Many and varied answers have been proposed, originating from particular but diverse perspectives on the city. A current criterion is the population size of a settlement, which is, however, purely mechanistic. Thus, the National Statistical Service of Greece considers a settlement as urban if it has 10,000 or more inhabitants (whereas the corresponding number for Denmark was 200 only a few decades ago). More refined demographic criteria have also been employed, such as that the birth rate is lower in cities, but on the one hand these are derivative phenomena of other more profound socioeconomic phenomena, and on the other they are not crossculturally valid.

Thus, it is apparent that the relationship between the morphology of the built space and the social dynamic that it houses is far from being reflective, one-dimensional or simple. This observation does not only concern the gigantic dwelling but is also often true of dwellings of all magnitudes. The make-up of the members cohabiting under one roof does not necessarily coincide with the social unit that undertakes the functions of the household, that is production, consumption,

The sociological school of Human Ecology offers a more composite approach to the city. Lewis Wirth sees the city as a permanent settlement with a population of appreciable size, high population density and social heterogeneity; the last is identified with social differentiation and economic specialization. Finally, according to this view, the sociological characteristic of heterogeneity depends on two demographic 3

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos complementary models (K-4 and K-7), which put emphasis on transport and administrative relations respectively, for the organization of the settlement network. Alfred Losch offers a more complex and flexible variation of Christaller’s theory, which aims at a better approach to empirical reality.6 Christaller’s models combine the concept of hierarchy of settlements with that of dependence, to the extent that lowerorder settlements are serviced in terms of goods and services by higher-order settlements. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that lower- order settlements supply and support the rest with their products. This two-way phenomenon is one of the characteristics of the relative self-sufficiency of settlements. This relative self-sufficiency has other aspects as well. For example, on the island of Bali in Indonesia the principal political and geographical unit is the banjar or hamlet. Each adult peasant in the hamlet has to fulfill certain obligations within the context of a number of district associations to which he belongs. These obligations may be of an economic nature, like those within the context of the subak, the association involved with irrigation. There are associations of a religious nature too, which are responsible for the upkeep of temples. The peasants may also participate voluntarily in other associations, e.g. artistic ones. Because of these associations, the settlement acquires the form of a multiple node which belongs to a series of mutually intersecting socio-geographical systems.7 In this case the relative lifting of self-sufficiency is not due to networks of “vertical” dependence on higher-order centres, but to networks of “horizontal” integration that lead to these systems.

4. Main street in a Mailu village in New Guinea (from D. Fraser, Village Planning in the Primitive World (Studio Vista), London n.d., fig. 29).

parameters, population size and population density. Size contributes to heterogeneity and to the loss of personal contacts and anonymity. Personal relations tend to vanish in the city and to be replaced by formal relations, not between individuals but between social roles. Density leads to scientific, technological, philosophical and artistic developments, which intensify heterogeneity. However, such a definition of the city is not only Eurocentric, that is projecting phenomena associated with the contemporary Western city (such as anonymity) onto cities of all civilizations in history, but also reduces in a mechanistic manner social phenomena to technical demographic data, instead of correlating both the first and the second with basic elements of the socio-economic process.

Hierarchy, dependence, contribution, integration and relative self-sufficiency of settlements are phenomena that are interdependent and acquire particular forms and interrelations, depending on the social conditions at a given time. In a set of settlements of the same order, which are economically and politically dependent on a hierarchically higher pole, an extremely heterogeneous relationship with this centre may arise between sections of the order, if for example some section includes an ethnic minority and therefore obeys particular mechanisms of political and social relations. Such phenomena are not unknown in Greece, just as the phenomenon of exogamous villages (e.g. in Mount Pelion), in which marriages tend to be contracted between members of different villages rather than of the same village, is not unknown. Thus, intersettlement networks of kinship are created, connecting villages in various combinations through multiple bilateral social systems that crosscut geographically. In this case it is not ethnicity but kinship ties that removes the social selfsufficiency of villages.

Other perspectives view the city through the economic prism. H. Pirenne sees the European Medieval city as the result of the growth in commerce, as no more than a community of merchants. The Medieval city undoubtedly represents a historical form of the European city, but it was followed by cities of completely different form: the industrial city during the period of early, liberal, capitalism, which was in its turn replaced by today’s city of advanced capitalism, the city of information, financial institutions, services and management.5 In order to understand the phenomenon of the city, we need to compare it with the non-city and not to isolate it socially and geographically. Both these operations are achieved when the city is related to its wider space, thanks to which it survives. This space includes a number of settlements of lower orders and so the correlation leads to an assessment of the city as a strategic node in a network of settlements. In studying this network, Human Geography (of which more will be said below) was greatly influenced in the late 1950s and the 1960s, as was Archaeology more recently, by Walter Christaller’s theory of “central places”. The best-known spatial organization model formulated by this German geographer (model K-3) is based on the ability of higher-order settlements to supply whatever lower-order settlements supply, plus a number of goods and services of a higher level. On the basis of this model, the following are created: a specific geometric distribution of settlements in space, an equally specific hierarchy of settlements by orders and a set of hexagonal trading regions of the settlements (fig. 5). Christaller formulated two

Dependence may also be more generally political and administrative. Such an example is provided in Greece by the Local Self-Government Authorities, which demonstrate the administrative dependence of local communities on the state and state legislation. The history of their competences again shows the change in form of dependence in connection with the change in state policy, which in its turn was generated by the structural transformation of international capitalism. Specifically, less than 15 years ago the essential, and marginal, responsibilities of Local Self-Government Authorities were 4

The City, the Village and the Social Sciences the street network, greenery (parks) and refuse collection. The highly-centralized national state was responsible for all development issues. The world economic crisis in the early 1970s led to a substantial restructuring of the international economy and brought a radical crisis in the welfare state. In these new circumstances, the state was no longer able to meet, from the centre, the overall cost of development and so passed on part of this cost to the local communities; in other words, it was compelled to proceed to a form of decentralization, while at the same time encouraging collaboration with private capital. In this international conjuncture, new areas of competence devolved by law to Local Self-Government Authorities, so that they might play a role in development, a fact that altered the nature of their dependence (without of course eradicating it) by widening their relative political self-sufficiency.

5. W. Christaller’s K-3 model (from B.J. Garner, “Models of urban geography and settlement location”, 1967, 30, fig. 9.1).

An interesting change in the form of political dependence and, in relation to this, of the form of political and social selfsufficiency, can be followed in Mexico. During the period 1940–1960 the villages of the Zinacantán region had an informal public life and a non-integrated social life. Public life was not formally organized and central government considered local leaders to be marginal. They were responsible for collecting locally taxes for public works, communal fiestas and other activities, and for handing these over to the officials of the pueblo, the political and religious centre of the wider community to which the villages belonged. Most formal activities of the community took place at this centre and it was there that religious functions could be performed.

The villages acquired services, institutions and officials, which facilitated their connection to the higher administrative echelons. They ceased to be politically marginalized, but at the same lost their relative political self-sufficiency. On the other hand, the very factors that caused these phenomena permitted a fuller integration of social life and thus a greater social selfsufficiency and independence from the regional centre. It is characteristic that from the 1970s the national state had reasons to extend its control over the villages of the region, which task was facilitated by the global movement of capital, with the supply of loans to Third World countries.8

In the absence of churches, the villages were outside the organized religious system and their inhabitants had to travel to the centre to attend religious services. At the same time, there was a limited proportion of exogamy, which contributed to the incomplete integration of social life, while important social functions took place at the centre rather than locally.

Anthropology of the city Many criticisms have been levelled against Christaller’s ideal model, such as that it is based on the simplifying assumptions of a uniform distribution of population and of purchasing power, of a uniform topography and of identical possibilities of transport to all destinations, or that it could be found in agricultural societies but not in industrial ones. Nevertheless, in spite of its weaknesses, it identifies essential characteristics both of geographical sets of settlements, namely that they constitute an interdependent network and are distinguished into hierarchical orders, and of particular settlements, namely that they belong to orders with discreet comparative characteristics in relation to the orders below them and above them.

This type of village disappeared during the decades 1960–1980, when many villages were modernized and acquired a church, a school and a community building, as well as individuals with formal political roles, obedient, of course, to state rules. Thus villages gained full formal substance through an organized local system. New taxes were levied, this time to fund the local fiestas. Many villagers continued to visit the centre for important events, such as major religious festivals, others, however, restricted their activities to the village. Comparison of the two periods reveals the profound political and social changes made in the villages with regard to issues of dependence and self-sufficiency. During the first period the villages combined their geographical distance from the centre of their community with administrative alienation and remoteness from the higher echelons of the state. They enjoyed substantial political independence and self-sufficiency, though without ceasing to be dependent on the centre; dependence was loose but was subject to rules. This relative political self-sufficiency coexisted with political marginalization. Concurrently, they did not have an integrated social life, which lack they covered, to a certain degree, by visits to the centre, which was far more socially integrated than the village. They had limited social self-sufficiency and a strong social dependence on the centre.

R.E. Blanton employs these positive characteristics in the framework of Social Anthropology, in order to define the city. He attempts to formulate criteria which would be sociologically relevant but not universally valid. In order to achieve this goal he adopts a functional view of the city, stating specifically that in a society there are central institutions, such as leadership, government or the market, which tend to be concentrated in certain geographical locations that turn into central places of society, that is its cities. These central institutions link up the sub-systems of a society and their concentration arises in order to optimize the energy required for their operation and the time required for their transactions. Blanton, who obviously embraces the model of central places, does not accept the absolute and universal criteria of population size, density and form, as criteria for defining the city; he defines

By the end of the second period this dynamic had been reversed. 5

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos

6. Reconstruction of the central area of Chichén Itzá of the Maya, circa AD 1100 (from The Magnificent Maya (Time-Life Books), Alexandria, Virginia 1993, 120).

cities in a relative way, as the central places that happen to be at the upper end of the hierarchy of settlements, and towns as the settlements that follow them. Cities and towns are the settlements in which “nodal functions” are concentrated.9

a quantitative transformation which accompanies the city and is accompanied by a technically superior and more impressive built environment. The exclusion of these settlements from the phenomenon of the “city” is based also on a non-relative criterion for the definition of the city: namely that the city is characterized by a significant concentration (not defined, however, in absolute terms) of population, which is heterogeneous to a greater or lesser degree, in other words, socially stratified. To go back to the Maya centres, recent archaeological findings indicate that the administrative-religious centre was not isolated, but was also the urban centre of a large population, perhaps of very low density but of high geographical proximity both internally and to the centre.10 Of course, a sizeable segment of the population consisted of peasants (classed in the primary sector of the economy), but this is a rather general characteristic of the ancient city, in contrast to the modern city, in which agriculture has a minimal presence if it exists at all. However, craft manufacturers (classed in the secondary sector of the economy) formed another significant segment of the population, another characteristic of ancient cities. But the predominant characteristics of these Maya cities are the control and governance exercised by the centre as city, as well as the fact that both the latter and the city constitute centres of communication and transportation. Governance, control and communications are tertiary economic activities and presuppose the existence of a social group free from the manual labour activities of the primary and secondary sectors.

For Blanton, then, it is the existence of central institutions – which historically may have different forms – that creates the city. This perspective is more flexible than Max Weber’s view that only the West produced real cities and that the city is defined by specific institutions and features. These institutions would include, apart from the marketplace, the law-court and an at least partially independent legislature, which leads to at least partial autonomy and to a legislatively regulated form of social coexistence. For Weber the city is founded on law and, as for Pirenne, on commercial relations. Blanton’s view of the city avoids ethnocentrism and is flexible enough to allow for its adaptation to social facts each time; nevertheless, this flexibility is its weak point. Let us take as an example the centres of the lowland Mayas of pre-Columbian America during the classical period (AD 25–900), whose nucleus is distinguished by monumental buildings such as pyramidal temples and palaces (fig. 6). Many archaeologists characterized these as “ceremonial centres” and not as cities. This characterization was based on the view that they were “royal-ceremonial” complexes and were inhabited by an élite, without being surrounded by residences of other social groups. If this were indeed the case, then one would have to agree with the archaeologists and disagree with Blanton. Indeed, if such types of settlements or other types of central settlements of a purely geographical character existed at the top of the hierarchy of central places, they should not be considered as cities. Of course, one could define the city in such a way – since its definition is relatively arbitrary – as to be able to include them, but then one would lose both a qualitative and

The more or less important presence of the tertiary sector (in the form of political or religious governance, trade or information and financial organizations) characterizes both the initial transformation of the agricultural settlement into a city and the entire evolution of the city. It runs parallel to a series of sociological 6

The City, the Village and the Social Sciences

7. The city of Teotihuacán in Mexico, which at its zenith in AD 500 had a population of between 125,000 and 200,000 (from National Geographic 188 (6), December 1995, 12; the map is from the atlas compiled as part of the Teotihuacán Cartographic Programme, headed by R. Millon).

characteristics of seminal significance: the transformation of an egalitarian, illiterate tribal society structured on the basis of kinship systems, into a stratified society with differentiated and specialized occupations yet functionally unified and with a common script, which is controlled politically by a minority, employs territoriality and not kinship as a mechanism of integration, and presents a formal collective identity. According to Émile Durkheim’s terminology, the city is distinguished by

the transformation of “mechanical” into “organic” solidarity. The presence of the tertiary sector and of governance, social stratification, population size and permanence – points closely akin to those posited by the archaeologist V. Gordon Childe – are the structural features of the settlement that holds the order of city in the settlement network, features that are distinguished from the derivative ones such as the morphology of urban space (fig. 7). 7

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos to environmental conditions. But caution is the keynote in the Marxist interpretation too, to avoid isolating economic from social processes. There is no universal definition of subsistence levels and of surplus, for these are social products that are subject to social determinants. Thus, R. Adams, for instance, transposes the cause of urbanization to social organization, which in his view also has repercussions on technology, subsistence levels and religion. Even Marx himself did not ignore the social element, since in his view the appropriation of the surplus goes hand in hand with the existence of exploiters and individuals who are the victims of exploitation. For Marxism, the first historical appropriation led to the “primitive accumulation”, which was responsible for the beginning of urbanization. It is the investment of the appropriated surplus that creates the manmade environment of the city. In addition to the economic theories concerning the beginnings of urbanization, there is also a military theory, according to which the city was the result of the need for protection. The city originated from the defensive fortifications that were supervised by a military unit. According to the economic theories, however, it was not military needs that led to social stratification but, on the contrary, it was the ruling group that institutionalized warfare.

8. Mean daily traffic densities in the USA “Megalopolis”, 1957–1958 (after J. Gottmann, Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States (M.I.T. Press), Cambridge, Mass.-London 1961, 645, fig. 203).

The city and urbanization If the phenomenon of the “city” is defined in this way, then we may ask: To what factors does it owe its emergence? Since urbanization begins with the city, the question may also be phrased: What historically was the cause of urbanization? Many and varied answers have been given.11 One economic theory considers that trade, either long-distance (external) or regional (internal), is the factor that creates the city; in the second case, the city is created as the seat of the region’s internal transactional processes. Pirenne’s definition of the city springs from such a perspective, but his theory suffers from the disadvantage of ethnocentric generalization from the experience of the European cities of the post-Roman period.

All three theories on early urbanization outlined above have, despite their differences, one common characteristic: they attribute this phenomenon to material processes that are independent of subjective representations, of ideology and volition, independent, that is, of the semiotic factor. This view of urbanization, and of social phenomena generally, can be considered as “objectivism”. There is, however, the opposite perspective, that of “subjectivism” (not to be confused with subjective – unscientific – research), which explains social phenomena through the semiotic prism as derivatives of the (social or even individual) ideology of the historical subjects. Subjectivism is represented in the theories of the beginnings of urbanization by the religious theory, according to which the city originated from sacred places designated by tribes and run by a priesthood. The priests provided protection, not by means of walls, but by means of rites and ceremonies against natural hazards. They constituted the first ruling group and they possessed surplus, not from production but from offerings. So, metaphysical concepts are to be found behind urbanization. This theory seems to find support in the relationship between cities and the world of mythology, and the alignment of the city’s material microcosm with the mythological macrocosm. But religion and the relationship between the settlement and myth existed long before the city, so these cannot possibly be explanatory factors of the city’s emergence.

Another economic theory, mainly of Marxist provenance, carries greater theoretical weight and considers the existence of a surplus as a cause of the emergence of the city. On one level the surplus is the product that exceeds the minimum required for subsistence, while in Marxist terms it is the “surplus value” extracted by exploiting the workers’ “excess labour”, that is the labour that exceeds the “necessary labour” for their subsistence. On the basis of this theory, also adopted by Childe in Archaeology, urbanization is due to the aforesaid surplus, in accordance with a sequence of processes. Specifically, the tendency to increase agricultural yields motivates the construction of irrigation works, which secure a surplus on the one hand and need a complex bureaucracy for their operation on the other. This bureaucracy not only controls the surplus but also is associated with social stratification and occupational specialization; the city is the expression of this new social structure. A landmark study in the relationship between irrigation and “hydraulic” societies, as well as of urbanization, is that by Karl A. Wittfogel, who calls these societies “Asiatic” – though he does not restrict them to this region – and speaks of “oriental despotism”.12

In fact, the search for one exclusive causative factor of urbanization is unsatisfactory and we must accept a nexus of factors. Objectivism supplies certain determinant factors, but it would be wrong not to articulate these with the ideological factor of subjectivism. This early urbanization of the first cities, which became synonymous with civilization, was a pale precursor of the explosion of urbanization that followed the so-called industrial revolution, that is the arrival of the first form of organized capitalism. Cities expanded geographically and multiplied at

In its simplistic form this theory runs the risk of environmental determinism, that is the mechanistic reduction of social systems 8

The City, the Village and the Social Sciences an exceptional rate; their networks became singularly complex and included a number of city orders. Three main geographical types of cities exist today. The first is comparable to the historical city – notwithstanding the radical socio-economic differences – in the sense of a clearly defined, separate urban space. The second originates from the continuous geographical expansion of a city, which incorporates smaller independent settlements, resulting in the creation of a continuous and diffused urban region, which may, nonetheless, enclose some pockets of agricultural land or natural features. Such cities are the “metropolitan areas” of the USA and the “urban complexes”, such as Athens and Thessaloniki in Greece. Finally, the third type of city is the outcome of the unification of independent cities, as is the case with the USA’s “Megalopolis”, which is created by the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington axis or corridor and which already included 37 million inhabitants in 1960 (fig. 8).

The epistemologies of space

9. E.W. Burgess’s concentric model, which endeavours to depict the basic organization of the modern city (after E.W. Burgess, “The growth of the city: An introduction to a research project”, in R.E. Park and E.W. Burgess, The City (The University of Chicago Press), Chicago-London 1967 [1925], 51, fig. 1).

We have seen that the settlement and the city can be approached from different disciplines. These disciplines are not internally homogeneous because various epistemological currents or paradigms run through them. No scientific analysis exists that is not in reality founded on some conscious or unconscious selection of a paradigm. Many human sciences have dealt with the city – Human Geography, Sociology, Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Economics, Demography, Psychology, and notably the scholarly domain of Semiotics and the applied field of Urban Planning. We shall refer briefly to some of the most important approaches to the city and to space generally, in an endeavour to identify the paradigms employed and their epistemological prerequisites.

is the perspective of the latest trend of Human Ecology, the “socio-cultural” trend, which perceives the organization of space as the result of attitudes, values and sentiments, that is, of ideology. It is clear that this trend places the cultural level of classical ecology at the centre of its interest and moves within the sphere of subjectivism, which views space as a derivative of subjective processes. The same polarization also characterizes the other analyses of space today, and indeed the social sciences in general. After the Second World War, the positivist New Geography held sway in Human Geography and singled out space as its unique subject, setting aside the wider socio-economic dynamic. This is a geography of universally applicable mathematical models and spatial laws, of which Christaller was precursor. New Geography came to believe that it was possible to formulate “morphological” laws of space – hence its characterization as “social physics” –, independently of “processual” laws of society, which it left to the rest of the social sciences.

A particularly interesting school of Urban Sociology which has studied the city, even though largely of historical interest today, was the school of Human Ecology, known as the Chicago School, which appeared in that city in the mid-1910s. The first trend of this school differentiated society into a basic “biotic” level and a mainly derivative “cultural” level. The second level, which the classical Chicago School does not consider its field of inquiry, is the level of social conventions and communication (the semiotic level as we would call it today), while the first level is founded on the ecological mechanism of competition between members of a community. This concept was taken over from the Darwinian view of the animal and plant kingdoms, and forms the basis for the theoretical construct of a series of new ecological mechanisms that interpret the social dynamic and, being spatial, the geographical dynamic simultaneously. With the help of the above ecological mechanisms, classical ecologists tried to explain the basic organization of the contemporary city (fig. 9).

In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, a reaction to this type of geography began to appear, represented by three currents. The first was Marxist Geography, which originated in Paris in connection with the events of May 1968. This overturns New Geography completely, abrogates the detachment of geographical space from society, considering space as a social product, and refutes the universality of spatial laws, since space is the geographical manifestation of specific societies and types of societies. Despite their radical differences, however, New Geography and Marxist Geography share the epistemological substrate of objectivism, since both ignore the role of the ideological-cultural factor in the formation of space. This deficiency is not structural in Marxism, since the latter embodies a theory of culture and of ideology, but in

This Social Darwinism was sharply criticised and new trends appeared in Human Ecology, all of which, except for the latest, share the characteristic that, in spite of their substantial differences, they study space as an external object which obeys a material extra-subjective dynamic, that is they adopt the perspective of objectivism. Diametrically opposite to this 9

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos Geography it was the result of the combination of the then intense economic emphasis of Marxist theory with the basic needs of Geography.

despite postmodernist pressure, many researchers are trying to overcome this inhibiting dualism.

Conversely, the other two tendencies in Geography come under the umbrella of subjectivism. The first is Cognitive (Behavioural) Geography, which, like New Geography, has positivist foundations and was inspired by Cognitive Psychology, in particular Environmental Psychology. According to this Geography, subjective representations of space are shaped, taking the form of a cognitive “map” and, in combination with decision-making processes, direct spatial behaviours and finally spatial organization. Whereas Cognitive Geography employs systematic methods and techniques, the other current of geographical subjectivism, Humanistic Geography, is essentially qualitative in character and is inspired by the philosophy of phenomenology. The epicentre of this geography is not the external “space” but the innermost experience of space and its investiture with meaning, values and sentiments. This subjective space is now a “place” and it is this place, and not socio-economic forces, that regulates the production of space.13

Notes W.H. Sears, “Settlement Patterns in the Eastern United States”, in G.R. Willey (ed.), Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the New World (Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, 23), New York 1956, 45. 2 P. Lavedan, Histoire de l’urbanisme: Antiquité – Moyen Age (Henri Laurens), Paris 1926, 2. 3 The information on Southeast Asia is taken from R. Waterson, The Living House: An Anthropology of Architecture in South-East Asia (Oxford University Press), Oxford-New York-Toronto 1991, 36–38, 59, 140–156. 4 D.L. Lawrence and S.M. Low, “The built environment and spatial form”, Annual Review of Anthropology (ARA) 19, 1990, 461, 463. 5 See also E. Jones, Towns and Cities (Oxford University Press), LondonOxford-New York 1966, 1–12. 6 See also B.J. Garner, “Models of urban geography and settlement location”, in R.J. Chorley and P. Haggett (eds), Models in Geography (Methuen), London 1967, 307–318. 7 Waterson, The Living House, op. cit., 97. 8 The analysis of the Mexican villages is based on information in F. Cancian, “The hamlet as mediator”, Ethnology 35 (3), 1996, 215–228. 9 R.E. Blanton, “Anthropological studies of cities”, ARA 5, 1976, 250–253, 261. 10 D.Z. Chase, A.F. Chase and W.A. Haviland, “The classic Maya city: Reconsidering the ‘Mesoamerican urban tradition’”, American Anthropologist 92, 1990, 499–506. 11 See e.g. H. Carter, “Urban origins: A review”, Progress in Human Geography 1, 1977, 13–27. For the generic characteristics of the city and the factors of urbanization, see also D. Konsola, Early Urbanization in the Early Helladic Settlements: Systematic analysis of its characteristics, Athens 1984, 37–49 (in Greek). 12 K.A. Wittfogel, Le despotisme oriental: Étude comparative du pouvoir total (Minuit), Paris 1977 (English edition 1957). 13 For the approaches mentioned see also A.-Ph. Lagopoulos and K. BoklundLagopoulou, Meaning and Geography: The Social Conception of the Region in Northern Greece (Mouton de Gruyter), Berlin-New York 1992, 3–17. 14 C. Lévi-Strauss, Anthropologie structurale (Plon), Paris 1958, 85–86, 90– 91, 96–98, 140–170, 320–322, 326, 347–348, 362–366, 391. 1

The description of settlements was an ongoing subject of Social Anthropology, but it acquired new and systematic dimensions with the Structural Anthropology of Claude LéviStrauss. For him society is articulated with space through two major processes. The first is the direct or indirect projection of the unconscious social structure, or the projection of a conscious model of the society, which is contradictory to the actual social structure but can be reduced to it. Thus, there is generally a direct or indirect projection of the various social sub-structures, the “infrastructures” (a term Lévi-Strauss borrows from Marxism), such as the system of kinship or of techniques; the infrastructures belong to the “experienced” (vécus) levels (although in Marx’s view these levels are material and not cognitive). The second process is the projection of the “superstructures”, the “conceived” (conçus) or cognitive levels, that is the projection of the ideological-cultural sphere. Both processes are communicative, with the result that the organization of space is (only) a semiotic text.14 The same subjectivism of Structural Anthropology also characterizes the semiotics of space, which continued the work of the former. The general theory of Semiotics, which, like Structural Anthropology, goes back to the Structural Linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, supplied the bases for the postmodern paradigm, which has penetrated all the social sciences, chiefly during the 1990s, reorienting them and their approach to the subject of space. Just like anthropological structuralism, postmodernism captures fully the study of space in its meaning and denies accessibility to any external material process of space production. In spite of its frequent incorporation of many elements from Marxism, which focuses precisely on the material processes of society, postmodernism assimilates them through the semiotic prism of meaning and thus appears as the polar opposite of Marxism. The vacillation of the theory of space, and of the social sciences generally, between objectivism and subjectivism dissects the study of space and of society in an inappropriate manner. Marxism has already supplied a framework for synthesis, and today, 10

CHAPTER 2

The Prehistoric Settlement Quantities and Qualities Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis Professor Emeritus of Prehistoric Archaeology Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Archaeological activity is legitimized only as a process of producing information and of transforming this into knowledge, and so into a social good. Such an admission does not imply an intention to define the discipline whose research objective is the study of the past, namely Archaeology. Nor is it the well-known mischievous attempt to return to a framework of discussion around the inexorable question: What is Archaeology? I simply wish to remind all those who keep forgetting it that archaeological activity acquires scientific prospects only when it transfers its inquiries from the study of objects to the study of the relationships existing between these objects.1 In those cases where it does not try to do this, it necessarily remains trapped in the research practices of the nineteenth century. In other words, in research practices which are considered completed by those employing them, only when they lead to conclusions founded in formal logic. That is, practices which excel when judged by specialists on issues of “objectivity”. Issues that in most cases have been developed independently of “history and those who make it”.2 Archaeology is, in any case, in constant danger of being confined to the compilation of chronological tables, typological categories and, in recent years, the formulation of proposals aimed at interpreting through quantification the distribution of objects in arbitrarily defined “space”.

space of archaeological research is given, because it is produced by human action, in other words by history. By the conflicts which, regardless of how we describe them, remain dynamic. They remain, in essence, productive processes. They produce space and objects. Thus, the space being studied is not defined by us on the basis of our own research objectives, because such a procedure concerns only the typological prejudices that afflict the archaeological routine.

The theory Having accepted the existence of a given space as an object of research, our next step should be to distinguish it into two categories. The first category includes natural space, whose quantity and quality are determined by the elements of Nature, either visible and therefore contemporaneous with the research, or deductible only with the help of archaeometric methods. The second includes manmade space, whose quantity and quality are determined by the remains of human social activity. Without it being my intention to draw here a full historical picture of the “Archaeology of Space”, I should like to refer very briefly to the relevant information that tries to define, albeit empirically, the epistemological traits that archaeological study of space assumes within the framework of each archaeological “school”. Because I believe that D. Clarke’s proposal remains classic, since its constituents contain a most notable dynamism, I too wish to agree with his distinction of four versions. The first, always according to Clarke, is the European version, with its individual ascertainments. The Austro-German School of the Human Geographers who developed the formal charting of the characteristics of objects, aiming to distinguish and explain cultural networks, as well as the extension of this approach to the charting of existing relations between prehistoric settlement patterns and environmental variables.4

So, what needs to be done first in this brief note, whose purpose is to refer not only to the theoretical discussions but also to the respective practical applications being developed in the framework of studying space as an archaeological “object”, is to draw a simplistic – yet innocent and well-intentioned – distinction between natural and manmade space. What I mean is that, try as we may to find specific and easily comprehended relations between Archaeology and Geography, we shall not succeed. These relations, however wisely formulated, are arbitrary, because they arise from a spatial system constructed by the researcher ex post facto. In other words, an archaeologistgeographer necessarily resembles a romantic rambler in a landscape that exists only in his own consciousness. And we are well aware that what our own consciousness constructs cannot be considered as objective reality. For, try as we may to avoid it, there comes a time when we have to confess, even in a generalized manner, that it is not consciousness that determines life but life that determines consciousness.3 This means that the

The influences of the Austro-German School are overt in the field of British archaeology. So too is the view that prehistoric and historical settlement patterns are regulated by environmental factors. In the framework of this research perspective, a number of archaeologists-geographers proposed the elaboration of mapping techniques whose objective would 11

Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis be to depict the changes that might appear at sites or in entire regions over the span of several millennia.

A list of researchers who apparently organize their individual priorities on the basis of their theoretical assumptions rather than on the basis of the research traditions prevailing in the countries in which they operate. Fields such as distribution analysis, location analysis, study of the neighbouring region, exchanges and market systems, and, finally, programmes for the study of settlement patterns are added and developed in the framework of spatial archaeology.

In Clarke’s view, spatial research in prehistoric archaeology was interrupted by the focus of interest on economic issues. From the early 1960s, however, the New Geography School formulated its theoretical proposals regarding the archaeological research of space, among which the most influential was that of “catchment area analysis”, launched by C. Vita-Finzi and E. Higgs.5

The very important overriding question, however, in such a discussion is that relating to the theoretical foundations of one or other research option. Clarke proposes the adoption of four theoretical schemes, in the framework of which these options can be explored:

In America, the archaeological objects themselves and their distribution in the archaeological site do not occupy a central position in the development of spatial archaeological research. There, more emphasis is placed on seeking those elements that might help in formulating proposals relating to social organization and the existence of patterns in the field of prehistoric settlements. In other words, the anthropological character of research holds sway, rather than the geographical. Within this framework archaeological research of space attempts to locate and to map the presence of prehistoric sites at a regional level,6 a research strategy that highlights the theoretical substrate of a peculiar environmental determinism, since the objective, as the relevant bibliography reveals, is to describe and to interpret the processes of adaptation of settlement and social patterns to the environment.7

1. An anthropological theory of space. 2. An economic theory of space. 3. A socio-physical theory of space. 4. A statistical-mechanical theory of space.9 I shall not attempt an analysis of these theories, since this is outside the scope of my article here. Nonetheless, I would like to air my objections to Clarke’s proposals and to state that if we want to define the characteristics of the theoretical arguments employed by each version of spatial archaeology, we have to take into account the general framework of archaeological theory, which, because of its vagueness and ambiguity, on many levels of its elaboration or application suffers from inherent difficulties concerning the production of reliable and logical conclusions, and their empirical testing.

It would, therefore, be no offhand criticism to maintain that in the framework of such an archaeology of space, a general relationship between space and information is dominated by research mechanisms that promote the study of sociological, economic and ecological data as research priorities. This does not of course mean that the archaeology of space, both as a theoretical preparation and as a practical application, is relegated to an auxiliary role.8 If we accept such an ascertainment, this means that we are more interested in the ideological substrate of the research process than in a general epistemological version, as this is proposed with its methodological options. Besides, even a purely spatial archaeology, whose sole priority is to convert observations into measurable conclusions and nothing more, is practised with one sole goal: to interpret the causes that establish the general relationship between institutions, technology and the environment. And it is well known that archaeology can penetrate the inscrutable in such a relationship. An archaeology, that is, which utilizes practices absolutely conversant with the study of space; with the study of the constituents of space.

Thus, all versions of spatial archaeology invented and applied prior to V.G. Childe’s theoretical formulations are founded, one way or another, on the theoretical proposals of O. Montelius, “spiced up” slightly by theories of evolution, such as those proposed by Darwin, Spencer and Marx in the midnineteenth century. Any developments that have occurred in spatial archaeology since the 1960s should be incorporated in the framework of New Archaeology.10 And from the early 1980s, within the framework of the post-processual proposals of another scientific paradigm that attempts to undermine New Archaeology’s credibility by accusing it of ignoring the fact of ideology, which, according to the adherents of Postprocessual Archaeology, is a significant part of culture, acting “like a mask, in order to hide the ambiguities and conflicts within society”. For them, “ideology contributes to society’s continuity and reproduction”.11 This means that in the framework of these theoretical formulations (of Processual and Post-Processual Archaeology) spatial archaeology does not constitute an autonomous research option whose basic foundation is the one or the other “paradigm”, always closely bound to an indistinct and indeterminate tradition, as preserved by the ruling ideology. This is so because archaeological research, whatever its object, must serve first and foremost the social class that invests its prospects of dominance in a network of social or humanist sciences in general, which in no way promote revolutionary changes in the way in which knowledge is produced.

Two other “schools” that base their research references on the development of spatial archaeology are the French, which is also associated with the tradition of geographical approaches, and the Russian. The latter, indeed, is associated with the Marxist version, which from its first principles places special emphasis on the study of settlement and social structures, engaging in large-scale excavations at the level of settlement and of region. Very often in these cases the time covered spans the Gravettian period to the era of Medieval towns. Independently of this narrative and certainly conventional “sketch” of the tendencies that typify the archaeology of space, I should emphasize that when we analyse the typical research objects of this form of archaeological activity, we find that, every so often, we are able to compile a list of scientific “paradigms”.

The proposals of New Archaeology, however, with the “fascinating” vehicle of positivism, brought to the centre of archaeological debates new, almost revolutionary changes, which arose “from the clash between the interest in dating 12

The Prehistoric Settlement: Quantities and qualities

The settlement

diagnostic artifacts and their distribution over time, and the move towards an intense emphasis on ecological, environmental and palaeo-economic avenues in order to acquire knowledge of the past. And together, to an equally intense emphasis on the quantification and the legislative potential of archaeology”.12

It may be concluded from these introductory notes that archaeological approaches to space cannot be incorporated in the framework of a theoretical field. Each time such an approach is attempted, a specific methodological proposal founded on the scientific paradigm expressed by the particular researcher arises. What I am trying to say with this observation, admittedly in a satirically inflated manner, is that Spatial Archaeology, through its repeated theoretical-methodological options, gives the impression of being at the mercy of intraarchaeological “revolutions”. A careful analysis of each application leads us to the conclusion that it is futile to try to “draft” a historical note that would follow the evolution of the archaeology of space. For this reason, I should like to propose, in the framework of this almost “popularized” article, the acceptance of three general periods in which one can identify certain “potential” differences regarding the theoretical and methodological approaches to space.

The new methodological approaches to the problem of space developed through these changes, their basic theoretical foundation being the view that “the study of animal remains, of the organized use of space and of ecological systems must be considered as the most useful research field for the development of an interpretative theory of Archaeology”.13 It goes without saying that in the context of this brief introductory article such a concept is no substitute for the theoretical propositions of New Archaeology in their entirety. Nevertheless, it is indicative of the importance that should be attached, in its supporters’ opinion, to the study of space in combination with the study of the dietary remains in the space and of the ecological systems. An opinion that appears to get bogged down in the shallow waters of environmental determinism and of philosophically abstruse neo-positivist “ecologism”. I could claim the same for the proposal which, in trying to define the three important fields of archaeological research, relates to the study “of the geographical regions of ethnic or nationalistic groups and of the human species in general”.14 And with the help of this reference, it reaches the conclusion that “archaeologists view their material as what remains from a picture of those events which had, in the past, been whole within a specialized region associated with specific ethnic groups or with the general history of the human species. The basic problem was how to reproduce those splintered pictures of the past, when the only things remaining from their original appearance were some fragmentary images. Historical archaeologists solve this problem, in part, by reference to written sources. Prehistorians have recourse to ethnography”.15

1. The period of formal geographical description of the archaeological landscape (19th and first half of 20th century). 2. The period of transmutation of archaeological space into an empirical magnitude whose functions are reduced to numerical categories in order to serve the needs of positivist approaches, on the basis of the options of New or Processual Archaeology (from V.G. Childe to L. Binford and his school, also known as “Binford’s mafia”. 1940s to the present). 3. The period of Postprocessual Archaeology, during which, even though spatial approaches remain essentially positivist within the field of discussion, there is an invasion of arguments of a symbolic, cognitive and pseudo-Marxist nature (by I. Hodder and his admirers. From the 1980s to the present).

A proposal

So, when archaeologists have no texts to help solve problems arising from the study of space, and especially when efforts to draw conclusions from space-group-man associations are hampered by the piecemeal nature of archaeological information, they become “ethnographers”. This is a confession which reveals all the theoretical underpinning as well as the methodological options of New Archaeology, at least in the domain of the study of space.

Independently of the remarks made above, I would like to propose another way of approaching space, as an archaeological category whose quantitative and qualitative traits are determined by the basic objective magnitude of the archaeological material, that is the settlement. In other words, I believe that it is impossible to construct a theory as a functional mechanism of Spatial Archaeology if we distance ourselves from the settlement as a specific area organized and used by means of specific architectural arrangements and equally specific uses, in an effort to present it as a symbolic, structural or cognitive construct. I also believe that it is impossible to build a theory when we approach settlement through an empirical analysis of its form, as proposed by the brilliant investigator of Greek prehistory Ch. Tsountas (fig. 1). I would like, therefore, to propose first of all the coining and use of a conventional term, thus creating a framework of linguistic reference that is free from the value-loaded words of research tradition. And it is well known that on many occasions these value-loaded words interfere almost automatically, obstructing attempts too create an inter-subjective language that would facilitate effectively the smooth development of discussions that so often consume substantial amounts of valuable research time, without reason. I thus propose that the descriptive categories of “space” and “settlement” be conflated into one word: Ecospace. This

Postprocessual Archaeology too, without moving away from the methodological options of its Processual “cousin”, also adds its own arbitrary options, basing them on the one hand on the research logic of symbolistic, structural and cognitive approaches, and on the other on those of critique and the Marxist approach. This means that when archaeologists who are disciples of the high-priest of Postprocessual Archaeology, I. Hodder,16 decide to engage with issues of space, they stay close to the options of New Archaeology. They talk about “cultural meaning” and proclaim that the formulation of an archaeological conclusion, that is the interpretation of observations on the organization and the use of space, should take ideology, social actions and cognitive functions into account. They also categorically reject New Archaeology’s postivist insistence on “hypothetico-deductive” and “nomothetic” aims as “inhuman” and “repulsive”. 13

Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis

1. Schematic representation of the form of development of prehistoric settlements, after Ch. Tsountas.

2. Circular development pattern of prehistoric settlements (CiDP).

3. Compact development pattern of prehistoric settlements (CoDP).

4. Multi-centric development pattern of prehistoric settlements (MDP).

5. Development of prehistoric settlement vertical to a productive source (DPVS).

14

The Prehistoric Settlement: Quantities and qualities proposal is not prompted by the need for incomprehensible linguistic affectation, but by the need to state in the framework of a general proposal that, both the intra-community and the inter-community relations which essentially fuel the speculations of Spatial Archaeology should acquire historical substance, hence research validity, only when they are portrayed as actions of a specific habitational exploitation in a specific space. And protagonist in the case of such exploitation is the evaluation of the qualitative and the quantitative elements of the space, which are the outcome of the daily activities of the subjects of space-organization and space-use. Namely of the inhabitants! Whatever occurs as a phenomenon of inter-community relations, either in the field of exchanges or the field of conflicts, is a reflection of the intra-community drama. So, if we do not comprehend the coincidences and the divergences that develop inside a prehistoric community, it is impossible to talk about an indeterminate geographical space without running the risk of being considered merely as anxious nature-lovers!

excavation investigation, in order to verify the following settlement developments-contexts of intra-community relations: i.1. i.2. i.3. i.4.

Circular development pattern (fig. 2). Compact development pattern (fig. 3). Multicentral development pattern (fig. 4). Development vertical to a productive source.

Conclusion As can be readily understood, such a proposal by no means excludes theoretical “preconceptions”. Both time and area are utilized as specific categories at the theoretical level. Thus they acquire analytical possibilities within the context of the researcher’s consciousness. The problem, therefore, does not arise from selecting one or other theoretical starting point, but from the precise determination of the processes that produce a space during a given time phase. So, when we decide to adopt an archaeological approach to space this must mean that we decide to search for the remains or indication of products which accrued from specific space-organizing, economic and ideological processes. By which I mean the processes that can be specified by the presence of human power and historical time. In my opinion, any reduction to a symbolic, structural or cognitive field refutes the researcher’s objectivized subjectivity.

What remains in order to make the proposal I am trying to formulate operationally complete, is the definition of the fields of the research effort. By this I mean that what remains for me to define, with the assistance of a circuitous description, is the way of organizing our research practices. I believe, then, that when we decide to approach the archaeological elements of a particular ecospace it would not be arbitrary to define two fields for the development of research: a. The “diachronic” field and b. The “synchronic” field. a. I consider every excavation effort that aims to decipher, rationalize and eventually interpret the qualitative and the quantitative nature of archaeological deposits in relation to the temporal axis as an approach to a prehistoric ecospace in the “diachronic” field.17 In other words, such an effort is legitimized as a methodological option from the moment it undertakes to describe the creation of the “archaeological” space with the help of space-organizing, economic and ideological terms. If we wanted to have an indicative example, we could argue that the study of a settlement’s development along the temporal axis must be founded on the description of the following factors:

Notes D. Clarke, “Spatial information in archaeology”, in Spatial Archaeology (Academic Press), London 1977. 2 A. Jaubert, The (Self )critique of Science, 1973. 3 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology (Greek transl. K. Filinis and K. Kritikos) (Gutenberg), Athens 1973. 4 See Clarke, “Spatial information”, op. cit., with relevant bibliography. 5 C. Vita-Finzi and E. Higgs, “Prehistoric economy in the Mount Carmel area of Palestine: Site catchment analysis”, in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 36, 1970. 6 R.G. Willey, “Prehistoric setlement patterns in the Viru Valley, Peru”, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 155, 1953. 7 See Clarke, “Spatial information”, op. cit. 8 See Clarke, “Spatial information”, op. cit. 9 See Clarke, “Spatial information”, op. cit. 10 There is a voluminous bibliography in which the proposals of New Archaeology are developed. I confine myself to one of L. Binford’s basic theoretical manifestos, “Archaeology as Anthropology”, in An Archaeological Perspective (Seminar Press), London 1972. 11 P.J. Watson, “The razor’s edge: symbolic-structuralist archaeology and the expansion of archaeological inference”, American Anthropologist 92 (3), 1990. 12 Watson, “The razor’s edge”, op. cit. 13 L. Binford, In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record (Thames and Hudson), London 1983. 14 R.I. Anderson-Hunter, “A theoretical approach to the study of house form”, in For Theory Building in Archaeology (Academic Press), New York 1977. 15 See Anderson-Hunter, “A theoretical approach”, op. cit. 16 Basic works by I. Hodder, which have influenced a large number of (mainly British) archaeologists,: Symbol in Action, 1982; Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, 1982; Postprocessual Archaeology 1985; Reading the Past, 1986. 17 S. Androu and K. Kotsakis, “Dimensions of space in Central Macedonia: Imprints of intra-community and inter-community space-organization”, in Ametos, a Festschrift for M. Andronicos (A.U.Th.), Thessaloniki 1986 (in Greek). A very important proposal for the study of the rates of development of prehistoric settlements in northern Greece. 1

i.

Number, sizes, building materials, horizontal distribution of architectural constructions. ii. Basic productive processes (food provision and food distribution) iii. Nature, specialization and allocation of constituent productive activities. iv. Ideological actions (functional specialization of constructions, development of ideological assemblies, allocation of materials through the possible central authority). b. I consider an approach to a prehistoric ecospace in the synchronic field to be: i.

The development of a surface survey to describe the boundaries of an inhabited space. ii. The study of remains of all intra-community activities during a single time-phase. In case i, our research argumentation is constructed on the basis of the archaeological material “collected”. In case ii, the study is determined by the development of just one horizontal 15

CHAPTER 3

Historico-Geographical Views on the City and Urbanism from Prehistoric to Modern Times Mark Billinge Ph.D. Cultural Geography

Few phenomena have had a more permanent or significant place in the study of Historical Geography than those of the city and urbanism. Taken over the longest span, from the origins of urban society, through Medieval, Renaissance, modern and into post-modern times, the city and urbanism have come to represent – indeed to express – the very elements which define historico-geographical analysis at its core: on the one hand the human experience, the occupation and organization of space (“geography”), and on the other the desire and ability of humankind to represent itself and its highest ideals through the specific medium of the built form (“history”). In other words, the record of the city is, in a very real sense, the record of social evolution itself, or, expressed differently: the real history of history. As the eighteenth-century English poet and commentator William Cowper put it: “God made the country, but man made the city”. Within this general claim, it can also be argued that there is a vital distinction to be drawn between the city (conceived primarily as the built environment) and urbanism (theorized more generally as that set of economic, social, political and cultural understandings which the built form has sought variously to represent and express). Recognition of this distinction has, in turn, remained crucial to the conduct of historico-geographical inquiry; and if, formerly, it was the city and its changing morphology which preoccupied researchers, then it is clear that more recently, scholars have turned to the greater challenge of attempting to define and explain the more amorphous, though perhaps more fertile and more invariable, concept of urbanism itself. This is hardly surprising, for it is clear that in the built-form of the city, important as it is, we have merely the container of that wider process: the product and representation of urbanism, not its inspiration, determinant or motor. For even if we choose to characterize the city, for substantial periods of its history, as, either broadly productive, or consumptive of wealth and resources, we must still recognize that this production and consumption were based on a more generalized mode of surplus extraction, of which the city was only an organizational part. For Historical Geography then, the history of the city is but a part of the wider history of the impulse toward urbanism (fig. 1). 1. Bern: Four evolutionary stages of the city, before 1200-mid 14th century (E. Egli, Geschichte des Stadtebaues, vol. 2, Das Mittelalter (Eugen Rentsch), Erlnbach-Zurich and Stuttgart 1962, 151, fig. 116).

In this respect, historical geographers have been greatly influenced by their colleagues in the Social Sciences more 17

Mark Billinge the theme of the city in historico-geographical inquiry, then we must address too its larger relative: the impact of urbanism on the historical past.

The city: function and form As the above makes clear, the analysis of form and of function, as well as of the city and of urbanism, are separate and identifiable strands in historico-geographical analysis. Naturally, different traditions of inquiry have sprung up to address each, developing as they have done so their own methodologies, theories and orthodoxies. Even so, as far as the city itself is concerned, significant attempts have also been made to relate form to function and to consider how the primacy of one over the other might be established or challenged. Philosophically, much has hinged on the legitimacy of general theories of both functionalism and causation: does form determine function or vice versa? More specifically, does the form of the city determine the nature of urban life within it, or alternatively, does the city only achieve coherent form when its functions, both autonomous and more widely societal, are uniformly and coherently expressed? Much too has been made of the alternative theories of co-determination and contingency, of human agency and structural imperative, or, within Marxist studies, of the dialectical constructions of historical materialism.

2. Knidos, the Classical city of Antiquity (E. Egli, Geschichte des Stadtebaues, vol. 1. Die alte Welt [Eugen Rentsch], Erlenbach-Zurich and Stuttgart 1959, 224, fig. 169.

generally. The twentieth century has demonstrated, as no other, how, under different technologies, urban society has extended beyond the physical limits of the city as we know it, outgrowing its former shell to urbanize even those who do not live, and have never lived, within the city itself. Nowadays, this is less a matter of physical spread, or even of population migration (of “urbanization” as the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries might have known it), but more a feature of cultural, social, political and economic hegemony: the penetration of ordinary people’s lives the world over by values, perhaps urban in origin, but global in impact.

But regardless of the method, or indeed the period, of study (to which I shall return), it remains true that all of these attempts, either to understand the form of the city alone, or to relate its built form to the processes it contains, have advanced primarily by locating their arguments within the broader framework of economic and social transition, signalled by such well-established arguments as those of the transition from pre-feudalism to feudalism, from feudalism to capitalism or, more recently, from modernity to post-modernity. Thus, the urban archetypes of historical geographical analysis can be quickly established as: a) the pre-feudal proto-cities of Antiquity (fig. 2), b) the feudal (or pre-industrial) cities of the European Middle Ages (fig. 3), c) the capitalist (or industrial) city of the modern period (fig. 4), and d) the ambiguous forms of the post-capitalist, post-modern cities of contemporary experience. Leaving aside the last of these for the moment, the most significant contribution of Historical Geography has been to our understanding of the form of the city during feudal and capitalist times: times when, not coincidentally, the prevailing levels of technology conspired to produce a more intimate relationship between socio-economic function and the physical arrangement of the city than was the case either before or since. (Like most social scientists, geographers have relied heavily upon the archaeologists for their understanding of pre-historic urban forms, even if they have had much of unique distinction to say about the processes which gave rise to the first cities - see below.)

Much recent Historical Geography has sought to capture and to deploy in its analyses this larger sense of the city, extending beyond its own confines, to reach out and saturate the world beyond. Just as we now recognize that we live (whether in Tokyo or New York, the Pyrenees or the Dodecanese) in an urban society, in which the doings and affairs of the city are the doings and affairs of the contemporary world, so Historical Geography has come to recognize and to understand that, in a very real sense, things were always thus, if on a more limited geographical scale. Was not Memphis or Babylon, Athens or Rome, Alexandria or Constantinople, Venice or Florence, each a centre of the then-known world, spreading its sense of urbanity (of higher social order, civil administration, cultural achievement), as well as its arresting economic power into both immediate locality and, through long-distance exchange, into the wider world abroad? What separates these ancient and early-modern cities from their present day counterparts is technology not purpose: history not essence, architectural form not strategic function. The result of these recognitions, for historical geographers at least, is clear: firstly, the concept of urbanism is neither contained by nor identical to that of the city; and secondly, the history of urbanism is essentially one of continuity not disjuncture. The city and its fabric remain important, of course, not least as an object of historical inquiry, but its plastic, changeable form is (in comparison with the greater stability of the urban process) more a matter of anatomy than of physiology, for it is, more often than not, the cast-off skin of an always much larger creature, the living body of which has passed on to bigger and perhaps more dangerous things. If we are to address properly

Clearly historical geographers also recognize that other types of city have existed, which fall only imperfectly into these ideal categorizations, chief amongst them the colonial cities of the early-modern and modern periods, as well as the non-capitalist (“socialist”) cities of twentieth-century China and the Soviet Union. Typically, however, these more exceptional phenomena 18

Historico-Geographical Views on the City and Urbanism from Prehistoric to Modern Times

3. Luneburg, Lower Saxony, mid-15th century (M. Girouard, Cities and People (Yale University Press), New Haven-London 1985, 42, fig. 34). Feudal, pre-industrial or pre-capitalist city?

have been regarded as modifications and adaptations of the particular forms characterized above, and though detailed studies have been made of them by historical geographers, they have failed to establish general models of an absolute and alternative kind. Taking these observations together, and recognizing Historical Geography’s greater preoccupation with recorded history than with prehistory, it is possible to claim that its most significant contribution to our understanding of urbanism and the city has been to define: 1) the form and function of the feudal/ Medieval and the capitalist/early modern/modern city, 2) the complex relation between city and countryside during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and 3) the nature of urbanism more generally.1 These three aspects may now be considered in turn.

The city and urban morphology Within Historical Geography, the earliest considerations of the form of the city under both feudalism and capitalism derived originally from the work and traditions of the early twentiethcentury Chicago School of Human Ecology (the theorizations of R. E. Park, E.W. Burgess and H. Hoyt,2 as well as the extensions of those theorizations by G. Sjoberg,3 and latterly from that School’s revisionist critics. The Chicago School itself derived much of its strength from its incorporation of Social Darwinism into its vision of the city as a structured, dynamic and ecologically animated social organism. Burgess specified the essential form of the industrial (modern) city and his later colleague G. Sjoberg modified those understandings to suit what he considered to be the different technologies evident in the smaller and more parochial pre-industrial city forms.

4. Manchester, Britain. Part of a work by William Wylde, 1851 (Girouard, Cities and People, op. cit., 260–261). The industrial city in the 18th-19th centuries.

have been taken to apply to any city of essentially industrial character – was segregated into homogeneous areas, based upon the functional divisions of commerce, industry and housing, and that these divisions and their spatial pattern derived their regulation from the underlying economically organized land market. Competition for land between

Burgess’s view was that the ‘modern’ city – his model was of Chicago in the twentieth century, though its broad parameters 19

Mark Billinge social development, and allocating it more to institutional and quasi-institutional structures, the decisions of which may be expressed spatially, but may not originate in space itself.4 Closer to the interests of historical geographers of the Middle Ages was the work of Sjoberg, who attempted to modify Burgess’s plan in order to produce an equally generalized model of the pre-industrial city. Whilst the idea of basic coherence in the urban land-market was retained (a fundamental flaw), and thus the overall thesis of spatial organization and the segregation of functions remained, Sjoberg argued that here, in the smaller walled-cities of the Middle Ages, social status preferences were reversed, leading to the location of the urban élite at the centre, close to symbolic landmarks in the city (the church, the market and civil government), with a decline in the status of both residence and function towards the perimeters of the city. Beyond these perimeters, in quasiurban space lay the excluded groups with their marginal urban functions. If Sjoberg’s once influential vision of the city was essentially pre-industrial, its emphasis on spatial coherence, organized through the underlying land market, remained straightforwardly capitalist, and in this sense inadequate to the understanding of what was, after all, an essentially feudal city. It was left to the revisionist theories of J. E. Vance5 to give historical geographers an alternative view of the Medieval city, which at once recognized both its pre-capitalist status and its essentially guild-based and socially-grounded nature.

5. Comparison of two early geographical models of urban space: top, E.W. Burgess’s concentric model (see also ch. 1 by A.Ph. Lagopoulos in the present volume, fig. 9); bottom, H. Hoyt’s sectoral model.

these different functions ensured that they were involved in attempts to secure the most advantageous (cost-effective) sites. Prevailing technology dictated that the site of greatest utility was the geographical centre of the city, and that a hierarchy of land-uses spread equidistantly from it. This produced a city of concentric functional zones (or, in a modification proposed by Hoyt, and based on differential arterial access to the centre, wedge-shaped sectors), underlying all of which was an active land-market with a characteristic bid-rent curve (fig. 5). Historical geographers were not slow to realize that what had initially been proposed as a model of the industrial city was in fact a more general model of the capitalist city, in which the commodification of land (its availability on the open market as a negotiable commodity) was the key to its allocation.

Thus Vance’s work emphasized not the spatial order or even disorder of the Medieval city, but the social imperatives and very different organizing principles of the pre-capitalist world, which gave it form and cohesion. Here was a city in which urban space was not yet subject to commodification, and was thus both assigned through inheritance (rather than sold on a market) and strongly influenced by the local peculiarities of individual locational preference, craft associations, social status and ecclesiastical power. Location in particular areas of the city (though important to some functions which required close spatial connection) was less significant than position in society, giving rise to a city organized (like much else in feudal society) more vertically than horizontally, more hierarchically than competitively, and more in relation to symbolic ideals than strictly geographical arrangements (fig. 6).6 Status was hereby confirmed by the level at which individuals lived (their elevation) rather than their absolute location. Interestingly, L. Leontidou7 has recently proposed a broadly similar model for the contemporary Mediterranean city, emphasizing the primary significance of inheritance, of the family’s stage in the life cycle and the economic conditions for the evolution of types of land uses.

The details of Burgess’s and Hoyt’s models were rapidly disputed, and even abandoned, though some aspects were retained as basic heuristic* devices, through which it was possible to understand, in the simplest terms, the underlying nature of the spatial arrangements of any Western European city organized along capitalist lines. More interesting was the attempt, within the housing sector, to identify and locate different social groups and to argue along social class lines, the extent to which capitalism’s impact on society was to create functional relations between home, work, status and economic power: a form of environmental social determinism. Social status within the segregated residential areas was held to increase outwards from the centre as the urban élite substituted reduced accessibility to the centre for the increased amenities of the suburban periphery.

Here then were two typifications, which emphasized a significant disjuncture between the feudal and the capitalist city. One was a model of uncertain morphology, grounded in social relations and defined by moral economy, the other was a model of spatial coherence, based upon economic competition and founded in political economy. Within them, the transition from one to the other is thus easily expressed as one from disorder to order, from casual accretion to proper functionality. And yet, in one respect at least, transcending these obvious differences remains a greater continuity: that of the nature of

Historical geographers have increasingly rejected these simple notions, not least by reversing the equation, wresting power away from the locational and the purely economic aspects of 20

Historico-Geographical Views on the City and Urbanism from Prehistoric to Modern Times the prevailing (essentially mechanical) technology, which in its general demands remained common to both the feudal and capitalist city. Thus, whilst the sophistication of technology changed (as signalled by the move from craft manufacture to industrial machino-facture), its continuing influence as a general means of production (not least for the concentration of people and resources) served to dictate the mechanical limits of the city and much of its basic form. More broadly viewed, the changes evident between Medieval and modern were essentially matters of efficiency and scale, and their impact matters of relatively localized relocation. What in the end makes both these types of city similar to each other, but different from any form of the city before or since, is their common acceptance that the built form must serve the needs of production: that form and function are synonymous; even that the city is urbanism mechanically expressed. Only subsequently has the city regained its freedom from such constraint; and only in the post-modern city, with its nexus of telecommunications, have function and form once again regained the independence and freedom they enjoyed prior to the mechanization of society during the feudal, capitalist and industrial-capitalist phases.

City and countryside: urban-rural relations As the discussion of the form and the function of the city happens to be incorporated within the relationship of feudalism with capitalism and the respective transition, it is perhaps inevitable for opinions to be polarized, not only concerning the nature of the city, but also about its relations with its surrounding countryside. Thus, whilst claims have been voiced that the Medieval city was essentially an alien capitalist institution, which penetrated a, still feudal, countryside (following M. M. Postan’s famous formulation, that Medieval cities were “nonfeudal islands in a feudal sea”), they nonetheless insisted that the city retained, throughout the Medieval period, its strong sense of feudal organization and identity, and was therefore closely linked to its immediate hinterland through local exchanges. This tendency to view the city as either capitalist or feudal deeply influenced, in turn, scholars’ perception of the nature of the city-countryside relation: some identify the city as the source of capitalism’s gradual diffusion throughout the countryside, while others view the countryside as a freer and more dynamic environment, which nurtured and propagated (agricultural and industrial) capitalism. These arguments were deeply influenced by two further historical controversies. The first is related to the relative political and economic standing of the crafts and merchant guilds in the city (and recognizes that the first retained most, if not all, the characteristics of European feudalism, whilst the second proved to be substantially more progressive). The other concerns the progress of early industrialization, a process during which craft-manufacture strikes up in the countryside, even though under no systematic control to safeguard merchants’ interests grounded in the city.8 The focal point in both controversies is not only the ultimate portrayal of the city and the countryside (whether each is exclusively feudal or capitalist), but also the allocation of the real impulse for change between them. Was it the city or the countryside which hesitantly towed Europe into the modern era?

6. Even after the rebuilding of Paris, many of the residential buildings retained social differentiation by height, which J.E. Vance considers to be typical of the pre-capitalist city.

Historical geographers and historians in general, appeared, until rather recently, to be divided equally between these two views, even though a new approach has surfaced of late, raising an even more fundamental question: to what extent is it possible to consider that city and countryside may have a distinct and split identity at whatever stage in the evolution of their relationship? Thus, J. Langton and G. Hoppe9 have formulated the view that elements of feudalism and capitalism were simultaneously present in both city and countryside, and that throughout the city-countryside range of differentiation there appears to be juncture rather than disjuncture. One such juncture may take the form both of a higher level of trade, that is “exchange value” (between bourgeois merchants and capitalist farming interests), and exchange of low-level goods, that is “use value” (between craft manufacturers and smallscale agricultural interests), that is processes within which there occurs a redistribution (surplus-value transfer) between the two strata and in both locations (see diagram 1). This visualization allows us to handle the city-countryside relation far more accurately, but also shed more light on the very nature of urbanism; its influence and limitations, as well as its relation with the development of capitalism, are determined with greater clarity.

21

Mark Billinge

7. Venice, 1500 (Egli, Geschichte, op. cit., vol. 2, 58, fig. 20). A striking example of Renaissance wealth, originating from international trade.

Urbanism: process and transformation

use-value economies of prehistory towards the ranked/ redistributive/ social hierarchies of feudalism and subsequently to the stratified/market-exchanging economies of capital (fig. 8). It was the first of these transitions which gave rise to the first cities, as the tendency to inequality, surplus accumulation and the social redistribution of that surplus produced both the materials and the wealth to furnish and make necessary a centralizing built form. Here the establishment, by whatever means, of collectivized tribute linked to the institution of social inequality, created widespread division, so that the new social differentiation between the (non-productive) élite and the (productive) non-elite was mirrored geographically by the new urban/rural divide. It was the second transition, the increasing capitalization of society and the commodification of its resources, which gave urbanism its increasing dynamic, its territorializing rationale and its technically determined form (see above).

Such thoughts of urban-countryside continuity and of urbanism’s relation to the form of the city lead us naturally to considerations of historical geography’s characterization of, and contribution towards our understanding of this wider phenomenon of urbanism. In formulating their theories of urbanism as a general, transcendent and even time-invariant phenomenon, historical geographers have drawn upon a number of disparate sources. Worth noting are: a) the most general ideas of urbanism within political economy – notably Marx and Weber, b) general theories of the origins of urbanism and the degree to which these original impulses have been maintained over the longer term, and c) general theories of the relationship between urban centres, for example the pioneering work of H. Pirenne on long-distance European trade (fig. 7) as well as that on protoindustrialization by Medick and Mendels.10

URBAN EXCHANGE VALUE (CAPITALISM) (CAPITAL)

Again, all of this theorization has been conducted within a more general context, and here that context was supplied, at least in part, by Polanyi’s work in establishing the major transformations which have taken place in the history of human society .11 The task of historical geography has been to establish the degree to which urbanism can be inserted into these transitions. To remind ourselves, Polanyi postulated a two-phase transition between three states: that is, from the egalitarian/reciprocal

USE VALUE (FEUDALISM) (COMMODITIES)

MERCHANT GUILDS

AGRICULTURAL ⇔

LARGE AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS

⇑

⇑

EXPORT OF SURPLUS VALUE

IMPORT OF SURPLUS VALUE

⇑

⇑

CRAFTSMEN GUILDS

⇔

SMALL FARMING

Diagram 1. City-countryside relations.

22

Historico-Geographical Views on the City and Urbanism from Prehistoric to Modern Times

8. Bruges, Flanders. Work attributed to P. Claessens the elder, circa 1550 (Girouard, Cities and People, op. cit., 86).

It can be argued, however, that it was the first transition, that original impulse to urbanism, which gave the city its true ahistorical character: its permanence, which, though later modified superficially, it has never lost. Accordingly, much of the debate in Historical Geography has been concerned with the following questions: precisely why the transition took place and what single characteristic it gave to the urban process. Economic theorists (D. Harvey12) have emphasized the production and concentration of surplus, concluding that urbanism is a mode of production; social theorists (L. Mumford13) have emphasized the development of dynastic familial groups, based in turn upon the movement from huntergatherer to sedentary agriculturalist, concluding that urbanism is instituted social inequality; technocrats (K. Wittfogel14) have stressed the importance of socially-centralizing inventions (particularly new forms of water-control), concluding that urbanism is technical change socially instituted; whilst cultural theorists (P. Wheatley15) have underlined the creation of an incorporative belief-system and the evolution of a priesthood, concluding that urbanism is the symbolic representation of sacred space.

and consumption); b) a political phenomenon (a device for territorial control, as well as a means of organizing an unequal civil society); c) a social phenomenon (a means of amalgamation and association as part of the natural expansion of a gregarious population); or d) a cultural phenomenon (the highest expression – not least morphologically and architecturally – of a civilized (Latin civitas), urbane (Latin urbs) society). It should be clear then, that the ultimate importance of these theories of urban origins lies less in the degree to which they predict or explain a particular geography of the city (in terms either of its spatial form or its diffusion over space and time) than in the extent to which they hint strongly at the place of urbanism in social life. In so far as several conceive the power of urbanism to be strongly symbolic (as much as it is material), they prefigure more recent, post-modern theories of the city. In so far as they insist on the establishment of a built city form, they confirm the assertion that the apogee of urban achievement occurred in the early modern and modern periods, when architecture, spatial arrangement and ordered function came into perfect synthesis. It was not coincidental that in much of Northern Europe in the seventeenth through to the nineteenth century, and in much of the rest of the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, did concepts of city, urban and above all urbanization become conflated and coresponsive.

Put another way, the central question of significance for historical geographers remains whether the city was at its origin (and has remained ever since) primarily: a) an economic phenomenon (a mode of surplus accumulation, extraction 23

Mark Billinge

a.

b. 9. a. Plan of 19th-century suburb (Camberwell, London). b. 20th-century suburb (Skelmersdale, Britain).

The end of urbanism: post-modernism and the city

business terms we call “the City”), in the telecommunicativecommunicable information super-highway, in the quartenary activities of place-independent exchanges, urbanism thrives in just another form. Economic exchange, surplus extraction, social inequality, symbolic production, technological advance, human interaction - those very staples out of which urbanism was fashioned - continue in new guises as vigorously as ever.

The foregoing suggests that the decline of the city, the decline of capitalism (and, some would argue, the decline of society) are part of a connected continuum, and such ideas have been reinforced recently, as Historical Geography has turned its attention to the city in post-modern times. In so doing, it has confronted the most obvious feature of the last decades: that the vigorous city of history has turned into the problematical patient of the contemporary world. But if the problems of the city, like the problems of capitalism of which it is so clearly a part, remain both obvious and disturbing, questions still arise as to whether the decline of the physical city also signals the decline, even the end, of urbanism itself. Are the two, in this sense at least, once again so closely enmeshed that the very forces which threaten the one now threaten to paralyse the other as well?

Conclusion: A return to beginnings The earliest urban societies had only rudimentary cities, which expressed their fundamental functions in only partially built forms. The strength of urbanism during that period lay not in its materiality, or even ultimately in its defensibility, but in its symbolic power, its ability to unify, and bring to common purpose the hitherto atomistic elements of sedentary agricultural society. Temples, palaces, grain stores were but the sacred and secular expressions of that purpose: the representations of that urbanity. During the Medieval and modern periods the mechanization of the process of urbanism and the particular built form of the city were fully and clearly interdependent, lending to the Western European city – and especially the Western European perception – the city’s distinctive functionalism and signalling the temporary suspension of the purely representational form. The mass urbanism which followed led both modern theoreticians and later scholars to focus on the purely morphological dimensions of the “issue of urbanism” and to seek essentially technocratic solutions to the problems they perceived (fig. 9). This interest was lost only lately, thus allowing historical geographers to occupy themselves once more with the fundamental abstract continuities at the heart of urban evolution. This in turn led to an important realization: that the contemporary post-modern city, just like its prehistoric ancestor, expresses its real power (and demonstrates its fundamental nature) in symbolic form, as it too has its “temples”, “palaces” and “grain stores”. Perhaps it is only the gods who have changed (see diagram 2). The future of Historical Geography lies in recognizing this, in tracing the power of urbanism in all of its manifestations and in recognizing its most fundamental attributes. As Mumford16 said, in the finest definition of urbanism ever offered: “the city is a collective contrivance for making irrational systems work and for giving those, who are in reality its victims, the illusion that they stand at the very pinnacle of human achievement” (fig. 10).

In truth, there is reason to doubt such a prognosis. Certainly the city is sick: not only in environmental terms (pollution, congestion and disorder), but also in social and economic ones (revenue and fiscal crises, dysfunctionalism, social decline, criminality). Certainly too we can no longer see the city as the epitome of human achievement, as it was for the Renaissance and even, in a different sense, for the Industrial Revolution (it was Benjamin Disraeli who claimed that “rightly understood, Manchester is as great a human exploit as Athens”). Rather, it seems the symbol of global capital gone mad: cancerous, incurable and finally, perhaps, even irrelevant. Yet this is, of course, to fail to recognize what is simply yet another metamorphosis, to identify another empty cast-off skin from which the vigorous creature has again long departed. The city may be dying, but urbanism, in whatever form we choose to see it, lives on. In the computers of the world’s financial clearinghouses and exchanges (what in REPRESENTATION OF SPACE

COSMOLOGICAL

SYMBOLIC

TYPE OF URBANISM

FEUDAL

IDENTITY

SOCIAL RELATIONS

MERCHANT CAPITALISM

LOGICAL

ABSTRACT

INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM

POST- INDUSTRIAL

PRODUCTIVE RELATIONS

ABSTRACT INDIVIDUALISTIC

Diagram 2. The nature of urbanism (according to Henri Lefebvre).

24

Historico-Geographical Views on the City and Urbanism from Prehistoric to Modern Times

10. Hanover Square, London, late 18th century. The square’s design refers to Roman models and has been influenced by European Neoclassical urban ideals.

Notes

(Geobooks), Norwich 1983. 10 H. Pirenne, Medieval Cities (Princeton University Press), Princeton 1925. See also Langton and Hoppe, City and country, op. cit., and J. de Vries, “Patterns of Urbanism in pre-industrial Europe” in H. Schmal (ed.), Patterns of Urbanism since 1500 (Croom-Helm), London 1981, 7–109. 11 K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Farrar), New York 1944. 12 Harvey, Social Justice and the City, op. cit. 13 L. Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Transformations and its Prospects (Secker and Warburg), London 1961. 14 K. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (Yale University Press), New Haven 1957. 15 P. Wheatley, Pivot of the Four Quarters (Edinburgh University Press), Edinburgh 1971. 16 Mumford, The City in History, op. cit., 289.

* heuristic: (as a noun) part of the historical method, its object being to search for sources and testimonies (Encyclopaedia Papyrus-Larousse-Britannica.). 1 See, e.g.: H. Carter, An introduction to Urban Historical Geography (Arnold), London 1983; J.E. Vance, This Scene of Man: The Role of the City in the Geography of Western Civilization (Harper and Row), New York 1977; and D. Harvey, Social Justice and the City ( Johns Hopkins University Press), Baltimore 1973. 2 R.E. Park, E.W. Burgess and R.D. McKenzie, The City (Chicago University Press), Chicago 1925, and H. Hoyt, The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities (Federal Housing Administration), Washington, D.C. 1939. 3 G. Sjoberg, The Pre-industrial City (Free Press), New York 1960. See also M. Billinge, in R.J. Johnston (ed.), The Dictionary of Human Geography (Arnold), London 1986 (2nd edition). 4 D. Harvey, The Urbanization of Capital (Blackwell), Oxford 1985, and idem, Consciousness and the Urban Experience (Blackwell), Oxford 1985. See also M. Castells, The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach (Arnold), London 1977. 5 J.E. Vance, “Land assignment in the pre-capitalist, capitalist and postcapitalist city”, Economic Geography 47, 1987, 101–120. 6 P. Clarke and P. Slack (eds), Crisis and Order in English Cities 1500–1700 (Routledge and Kegan Paul), London 1977. 7 L. Leontidou, The Mediterranean City in Transition (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1990. 8 For a complete interpretation of at least one aspect of protoindustrialization, see F. Mendels, “Protoindustrialization: The first phase of the industrial process”, Journal of Economic History 32, 1972, 241–261. 9 J. Langton and G. Hoppe, Town and Country in the Development of Early Modern Western Europe (Historical Geography Research series 11)

25

PART II THE PREHISTORIC AND THE PROTOHISTORIC SETTLEMENT II.a. The Neolithic Settlement and Early Urbanization

CHAPTER 4

The Neolithic Settlement Space of Production and Ideology Kostas Kotsakis Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Introduction

were thus obliged to remain more or less in the same place until harvest time, and afterwards too, in order to guard and store their crop. This practice had the advantage of permitting better control of the product of their labour and, of course, its distribution. Equally important, however, were the social changes that accompanied the economic ones and were closely linked with the precepts and rules of social life, as well as with agriculturalists’ views of their position in the social reality, in other words of their identity. In this domain we may assume a profound reorganization of relations and the emergence of social mechanisms to control oppositions between community members or to impose co-operation between individuals or groups not related by direct kinship ties. Such changes were essential for the maintenance of social cohesion and must have found their ideological expression in an ideology of continuity resting on genealogy and descent. This must have formed the cohesive bonds in the groups of sedentary farmers.

The use of space, namely the dynamic relationship with the environment, is a basic characteristic of all living organisms. Human activity takes place in space and its dimensions relate to the environment. If, however, this characteristic relates more closely to man as a biological species, then the production of space, that is the particular relationship of man’s influence over the environment, relates more to his social dimension. This aspect of human activity became clearer at the end of the Pleistocene, when climatic changes on the planet were linked with a seminal turning point in human history, observed in the region of the Middle East. During that period, humans gradually located their productive activity in smaller areas with specific boundaries and abandoned the tactic of mobility, which had been essential to their strategy for exploiting the environment for millions of years. The causes of this turning point are the subject of scholarly debate. There is, however, no doubt that this change brought to the fore the notion of productive space, that is the area where productive activity is carried out exclusively. It could be said that a new concept was formed, that of locus, which henceforth constituted one of the basic cognitive categories of human thought.

Discussion of the causes of this change in the Late Pleistocene is beyond the scope of this paper. Relevant research attributes it to a series of “external” factors, such as population pressure, or correlates it with the availability of suitable food resources, or considers it to be the result of internal socio-political processes. Whatever the cause, there is no doubt that it led to the creation of a particular and multi-level cultural space, productively and ideologically defined: Neolithic space. The field – the space of production –, the dwelling and finally the settlement all belong here; spaces of economic and ideological reproduction, spaces where humans negotiated their new relationships within a specific natural environment. Thus, the environmental characteristics and the form of Neolithic settlements are viewed as closely linked with crucial and essential values of Neolithic life.

Contrary to the image projected by research in the past, Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers were by no means simple passive recipients of environmental constraints. Their relationship with the environment was active and their intervention often created desirable features in the environment, which were adapted to their needs. However, what was transformed at this stage was the need for intensification of exploitation, which appears to have become more pressing with the climatic changes in the final Pleistocene. Intensification linked man with a particular area and led to the adoption of agriculture, a strategy of productive management that assured the maximization of output in a given area.

Neolithic settlements in Greece

The adoption of agriculture further encouraged permanent settlement, as the returns from cultivation necessarily follow the cycle of plants and have delayed rather than immediate results, in contrast to hunting and gathering. Arable farmers

The geography of the sites The emergence of permanent Neolithic habitation in Greece did not follow the long developmental course and formative 29

Kostas Kotsakis major excavation programmes of the 1960s and 1970s were conducted, and it is here that the better-known settlements are to be found. Research interests are focused currently on Macedonia, where large-scale excavations, such as those at Makrygialos in Pieria and Dispilio near Kastoria, are under way,7 continuing the work inaugurated by the excavation at Nea Nikomedia.8 Macedonia accounts for 143 sites, but for the present, with the exception of Western Macedonia, the Early Neolithic phases (7th-early 6th millennium BC) seem to be absent. Central Greece together with Euboea account for 186 sites, while the Peloponnese has only 63. Finally, 135 sites have been identified on Crete. Smaller numbers of Neolithic sites are reported from the islands of the Northeast Aegean (7), the Dodecanese (45) and the Cyclades (22), as is to be expected, since islands, particularly the smaller ones, are not the first option for Neolithic farmers (fig. 1).

Diagram 1: Distribution of Neolithic sites according to their distance from the nearest one (in km.).

stages that research has ascertained in the Middle East. It seems that Neolithic habitation was adopted rapidly here and the first settlements had apparently already acquired the principal traits of Neolithic life. Their appearance early in the seventh millennium BC places the Greek Neolithic at least two thousand years after the Early Neolithic settlements in the Middle East.1 It is for this reason that the provenance of the Neolithic in Greece is the subject of controversy.

The distribution of Neolithic settlements in the various regions of Greece reflects, to a degree, the uneven scale and intensity of surface surveys, which yield the quantitative data.9 For this reason the picture that emerges should be regarded as provisional, since research keeps adding new sites, even in areas considered less likely choices for Neolithic farmers. A site in the Langadas area of Central Macedonia is a case in point. Surface surveys carried out there10 located a Late Neolithic site in mountainous terrain, and specifically at 600 m. a.s.l., which is not usually considered a preferred zone for Neolithic farmers. This discovery allows us to suppose that the absence of Neolithic sites at similar altitudes11 could be due simply to the limited research in analogous areas and to the bias towards hilly zones and plains, which are thought to be the typical selection zones. Research preconceptions about the form of settlements are no less important for the credibility of the sample. The relevant bibliography, for instance, apparently assumes that the form of the Neolithic settlement in Thessaly and Macedonia is almost exclusively that of a tell (toumba or magoula).12 This assumption has led to the under-representation of sites that lack the supposedly typical morphology, unfoundedly as will be shown below.13

Most scholars seem to favour the view that the Greek Neolithic was brought from the Middle East,2 although there is no unanimity on the exact region that could be considered its original cradle. Setting aside the theoretical difficulty of referring to or determining the “original forms” and the “original cradle” when dealing with issues and aspects of culture, the relationship between the Middle Eastern and the Greek Neolithic can only be viewed as a broader analogy, for the time being. Plenty of similarities have been ascertained between the two regions, but nothing was exactly the same. Nor is a more precise positing of the problem helped by our inadequate knowledge of the coastal zone of Asia Minor and Western Anatolia, where research has not yet progressed sufficiently in extent and in depth.3 Independently of the issue of origin, the Neolithic in Greece remains in essence, as in other regions where it appeared earlier, a transformation of the production of social space, which was formed either by local processes or by the application of structures already elaborated elsewhere and adapted to the special conditions of Greece.4 In both cases it is important to follow systematically the formation of the Neolithic settlement, since, as noted above, the form as well as the area and the type of settlement constitute significant sources of information for Neolithic life as a whole. Even if it is of exogenous or alien provenance, the adaptation of the general Middle Eastern Neolithic model to the conditions of a different geographical zone may contain its own interpretative dynamic.

The selection of a site for a Neolithic settlement was obviously linked closely with men’s productive activities. From this aspect, Neolithic farmers preferred the areas most suitable for practising agriculture and small-scale animal husbandry. However, this ascertainment, which is to some extent a tautology, should not be taken as implying a unilateral definition, since the reverse process is valid too: men adapted their productive activity to the possibilities and resources that the given environment offered. More recent research considers that an equally significant role should be attributed to indirect productive factors, such as the control of the area by neighbouring communities, the conflict or competition between communities or groups, and even the symbolic dimensions acquired by the landscape as it was interpreted and incorporated as an inextricable element of Neolithic man’s universe.14

To date, 917 Neolithic habitation sites have been recorded in Greece.5 Many of these, which include settlements and cave-dwellings, are in Thessaly, which accounts for 276 sites, representing all periods of the Neolithic Age, from the Early Neolithic and the disputed Aceramic (Pre-pottery)6 to the Final Neolithic period, and constitutes the main axis of Neolithic research. It is, moreover, in this region that the

In general, it is neither easy nor, perhaps, expedient to proceed to the construction of a prediction model as far as site selection is concerned. Models of this type, such as that of catchment area, were particularly popular in the early 1970s, when archaeology, under the influence of geography,15 was going 30

The Neolithic Settlement: Space of production and ideology

1. Map of Neolithic sites in Greece (based on G. Papathanassopoulos (ed.), Neolithic Culture in Greece, 1996).

through its “hard-line” positivist phase, which came to be known as New Archaeology. The aim of models is to simulate the productive activities of the settlement16 through the quantitative determination of environmental resources. The venture is based on the assumption of rational human behaviour, which is supposed to lead to the optimum management of resources and the maximization of yields. These assumptions are now seen as hardly convincing, especially following our awareness of modern man’s irrational destruction of natural resources, which indicates that the concepts of rationality and management are historically determined and therefore of little use in impartial and objective cultural, that is cross-cultural and diachronic, evaluations. Similar objections of anthropological and historical content have been formulated to archaeological applications of other typical geographical models, such

as Christaller’s analysis or the analysis of central places.17 Moreover, an element of positivist modernism, in whose current New Archaeology belongs, is the downgrading of historical interpretation, which is considered to be particularistic, to the benefit of a diachronically firm objectivity, which is projected as regulating and generalizing. In the special case of Greece, one reason for the absence of such analyses is the elliptical nature of the data, which derive from patchy researches with different and not always reliable methodologies. Only in the region of Thessaly does more systematic research permit some generalizations on the relationship between settlements and their immediate or wider environment,18 while similar observations are not yet available from other regions of Greece. The first settlement sites appear to have been chosen broadly from two typical environments, 31

Kostas Kotsakis Distance in Km.

EN

MN

LN

0–0.5 0.5–1 1–1.5 1.5–2 2–2.5 2.5–3 3–3.5 3.5–4 4–4.5 4.5–5 5–5.5 5.5–6 6–6.5 6.5–7 7–7.5 7.5–8 8–8.5

0 4 2 5 13 8 12 3 3 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1

0 6 9 10 8 11 12 2 2 1 2 0 1 0 0 1 0

0 17 22 20 22 11 8 9 4 2 1 0 6 0 0 1 0

Table 1: The distance in kilometres between the Neolithic settlements of Thessaly and the corresponding number of settlements. EN: Early Neolithic, MN: Middle Neolithic, LN: Late Neolithic (based on P. Halstead, Strategies for Survival, 1984).

which perhaps corresponded to two different arable-farming techniques: areas of low hills with “light” soil, suitable for cultivation relying on winter rains and winter sowing, and damp areas of river beds or valleys, where periodic floods bring ground renewal and support spring-sown crops (fig. 2). The area of Sesklo in Magnesia19 is an example of the first, and of Platia Magoula at Zarkos20 of the second. The majority of the known early sites seem to have opted for the first alternative, but settlements that chose the second also exist. 2. The geographical location of the Neolithic settlements of Thessaly. Dots mark the region representing the lowest parts of the Thessalian Plain. The frequency of Neolithic settlements in this region is greater in the Early Neolithic period (based on T.H. van Andel and C.N. Runnels, “The earliest farmers in Europe”, 1995).

Generalizations of archaeological evidence always run the risk of underestimating the significance of distortional postdeposition factors, that is of processes responsible for the destruction or the disappearance of archaeological remains. This is equally valid for settlements, many of which may have been destroyed by human activity or natural erosion, or have been buried by large-scale alluvial episodes, a frequent phenomenon on land-fill plains such as that of Thessaly. Relevant studies have established that successive large-scale depositional episodes have taken place in this great plain, the last three of which coincided with human presence there.21 We get a good picture of post-deposition activity in the environment only in cases of systematic surface surveys, as is the case with Thessaly.

continuum, following the corresponding population growth. However, an indirect result of this “colonization” was that the new sites of the Late Neolithic gradually occupied areas with far more homogeneous environmental conditions. This choice, dictated largely by existing circumstances, exposed Neolithic communities to greater dangers of productive collapse, since unforeseen adverse physical factors had the same effect over the entire productive area of the settlement, which no longer enjoyed the safeguard of complementary micro-environments that more spaced-out location of settlements ensured. The lack of productive variety at the settlement level inhibited the mobilization of relevant techniques for coping with dangers to agriculture, used by agricultural economies in similar cases, mainly the dispersion of fields in different zones.23 This shortcoming must have coerced smaller settlements into closer collaboration and imposed their participation in wider exchange networks, for the existence of which there are strong archaeological indications, thus transferring productive variety from the settlement level to the regional level. The collapse of the settlements and the dramatic reduction in their numbers at the end of the Late Neolithic and in the Final Neolithic period may be related to this choice, as well as to the transformation or even the dissolution of inter-community networks.

Bearing in mind these necessary constraints, the examination of Thessalian settlements has revealed a gradual filling of the plain from the Early to the Late Neolithic period.22 This tendency can be observed characteristically in the progressive reduction of distances between the known Neolithic sites. Table 1 as well as Diagram 1, which is based on the same data, show that during the Early Neolithic just 20.75% sites were at a distance of less than 2 km. from their nearest neighbour, a proportion that rose to 38.5% in the Middle Neolithic and reached 48% in the Late Neolithic. From these figures, combined with the overall increase in the number of sites, we conclude that there was a progressive increase in the density of human habitation in the Plain of Thessaly. This tendency is to be expected, up to a point, and is consistent with the picture of Neolithic Culture developing in a smooth

We form the opposite picture for the Argolid.24 The Final 32

The Neolithic Settlement: Space of production and ideology Neolithic period in this region was marked by a vertical rise in the number of settlements, which continued during the following period of the Bronze Age, Early Helladic I-II period. This difference indicates just how difficult generalizations are on a broad geographical level, encompassing many and diverse environmental zones with particular characteristics.

settlements, which were accompanied, as we shall see below, by other particular features, since these might, in one view, represent large population concentrations. According to this interpretation, the large area of a settlement reflects a process of “proto-urbanization”, which is comparable to similar hypothetical processes in the Balkans.29 Yet, the hypothesis of large population concentrations in Neolithic societies faces a priori serious theoretical problems.

The form and features of settlements

Population size may be a central element of social organization, but, and perhaps for this reason, not an independently evolving value. It is determined largely by a community’s ability to control its internally generated oppositions and conflicts, which keep tending to disrupt it. Since it is likely that oppositions increase with the rise in the number of community members, the population initially tends to self-regulate at low levels. A substantial prerequisite for its increase seems to be the introduction of hierarchical social structures. The network of vertical obligations between inhabitants counterbalances the primal and primeval reciprocity with the separate aims of the productive units, households, extended families and so on, and removes the prospect of the group’s disruption, thus permitting larger population concentrations. Besides, it is not fortuitous that these concentrations are necessary to support the new productive relations which are associated with the presence of a social hierarchy and stratification.

The settlement is the space of reproduction and continuity of the social group. It consists of “houses/households”, units of social and economic reproduction, and, concurrently, culturally determined and symbolically meaningful parts of space. These were central reference points of Neolithic man’s consciousness, since by their presence they projected their objective reality and their symbolic image. The way in which houses are distributed in or occupied the space signified as a “settlement” is obviously of crucial importance. The form, size and special organizational characteristics of each settlement are directly related to its social organization and thus constitute tangible testimony of social relations among community members. Unfortunately, few settlements in Neolithic Greece are known to the extent and in the detail that would permit us to draw such conclusions. Almost all excavations have been restricted to investigations that aspire to determine cultural and chronological components, usually by excavating a small area that is often not representative of the whole settlement. The information on settlements we have is, therefore, necessarily limited to a small sample of extensive excavations.

Although we now know that processes of this nature were not unknown in the Neolithic Age, even before they became the main characteristic feature of the subsequent Bronze Age, we do not know whether they operated with the intensity and to the extent necessary to transform social structure and, by extension, population size. Consequently, the large size of some Neolithic settlements cannot be attributed with any certainty primarily to population growth.

Archaeological research considers the area of settlements as a significant trait and associates this with the size of their population. The simple ratio of built space per inhabitant, based on ethnographic observations, is usually employed.25 Even though this approach suffers from serious shortcomings, it is often used to make a first estimate of the Neolithic population, both at the level of settlements and over wider areas. The problem, however, is that the present level of knowledge of the Neolithic Age in Greece does not permit a secure evaluation of settlement size corresponding to all the country’s different regions and diverse environments. Nor are data available for all regions, except where surface surveys have been carried out. Even in such cases the results are of limited value, if intensive sampling and analysis techniques were not used, as is apparent from the instances of wide deviations in calculating the area of settlements.26 Nevertheless, in general terms and with all the reservations mentioned, the area of Neolithic settlements rarely exceeded a few hectares. It is interesting that there appear to be large deviations in size: at the lower end of the size distribution curve are settlements of less than one hectare, while a few settlements located recently in Macedonia and Thessaly are as much as 50 ha. in area.27 The vast majority, however, did not exceed 1 ha. According to the evidence from Thessaly,28 there is no correlation between size and period. In Macedonia, the large extensive sites seem so far to date to the Late Neolithic period.

The large area of these settlements does indeed appear to be due mostly to their spatial organization. As recent research indicates, habitation was sparse in extensive settlements and inhabited space alternated with productive space in much the same way as in modern rural settlements, in which gardens, courtyards and small-scale irrigated cultivation requiring intensive care are interspersed between houses. Only a few Neolithic sites of this kind are known at present (fig. 3). On the contrary, almost all Neolithic sites in Greece follow a type of settlement in which the two spatial categories are clearly distinct. These are sites in the form of a toumba or magoula, that is higher or lower tells which are distinctive features of the landscape. Such tells are a particularly common type of settlement in the Southeast Mediterranean and the Balkans. Their main features are not just morphological, as is perhaps commonly believed, but are related to the way the inhabitants used and perceived their habitational space, and more specifically: a) the settlement’s precise boundaries, identified with the slopes of the mound, b) the close and organized layout with a relatively small area of open or communal space, and c) the vertical development, namely the construction – as a rule – of new buildings upon the ruins of earlier ones.

A population of no more than 300 persons is considered to be commonly acceptable for the typical Neolithic sites. Nevertheless, opinions vary over the large and extensive

A typical settlement which combines both types from as early as the sixth millennium BC (Middle Neolithic period) is that at Sesklo in Magnesia (figs 4 and 5). During the Middle Neolithic 33

Kostas Kotsakis

3. The extensive Neolithic settlement at Makrygialos, Pieria. This is the only extensive settlement that has been excavated over a large area (photo. M. Pappas, published by permission of the excavator).

4. The tell of Sesklo, as it was in 1956 (photo. D.R. Theocharis).

34

The Neolithic Settlement: Space of production and ideology

5. The tell of Sesklo from the northwest (photo. K. Kotsakis).

this settlement covered over 10 ha., which fact led earlier research to interpret it as a large concentration of inhabitants, 3,000 to 4,000 strong.30 Dimitris Theocharis characterized this large area as a polis (= city), seeing in it the precursory form of the well-known urban layout of subsequent periods. Recent re-examination of the archaeological finds showed that the settlement was indeed organized in two distinct parts, one of them (the acropolis, according to Theocharis) was formed as a tell, while the other (the polis) occupied an extensive site, with the same features as those of extensive sites known from other regions in Northern Greece.31 In addition, the way in which space was organized in the two areas was substantially different. On the acropolis buildings were rebuilt systematically on the same spot throughout the Middle Neolithic. By contrast, in the polis settlement displays a high index of spatial discontinuity, giving the impression that habitation was much more sporadic, since re-buildings were carried out with a parallel shifting of the houses, while there were interpolated areas of the settlement that remained without houses for long periods. In this way the overall area of the archaeological site increased, but without ever representing a densely-built settlement. The fact that in the settlement at Sesklo both forms of habitational organization already mentioned coexisted, is of special significance since it allows us to make certain hypotheses about the importance the inhabitants attached to space and to the way it was organized and exploited (fig. 6).32

said provisionally that should an essential difference between these sites and the tells appear, it would be of no great surprise. Besides, this would accord with the radically different way their Neolithic inhabitants confronted and negotiated space, an issue to which we shall return in the epilogue. Research on this subject must, nevertheless, await the first systematic analytical publications. The sites in the form of tells are better known. Their internal layout follows the logic of intensive use of space, which is at times attributed almost exclusively to habitation. A typical example is Otzaki Magoula in Thessaly, in the sixth millennium BC. During that period buildings were constructed adjacent to one another and there were successive re-buildings on the same spot. The dwellings were of quadrilateral plan, built of brick, with a single and more rarely a double space, leaving limited free space, which must have served the needs of the inhabitants of each building. The interior was used for storage, food preparation and living, as attested by the presence of storage pits, hearths and sleeping spaces (fig. 7). It seems that for many centuries after the appearance of the Neolithic Culture in Greece, the internal layout of the settlements remained undifferentiated. Although buildings were not all of the same size, their form, size or location does not appear to reflect any particular role their inhabitants may have played in Neolithic society. Central buildings, that is buildings functioning as reference points, may have existed almost from the beginning of the age, as shown by the example at Nea Nikomedeia, but the data are insufficient for this case to be generalized. The probably symbolic nature of the finds from this specific building is at any rate significant, as a number of

As noted above, extensive Neolithic sites have only recently been detected. Research is still in its infancy and it is not easy to proceed to evaluations of the social structure or the economic nature of the extensive level sites, although it may be 35

Kostas Kotsakis

6. Topographical plan of Sesklo, showing the area of the “acropolis” (A) and the area of the extensive settlement, the “polis” (B) (after D.R. Theocharis, Neolithic Greece, 1973, drawing 8).

7. Arrangement of houses in Otzaki Magoula during the Middle Neolithic (based on V. Milojčić, Die deutschen Ausgrabungen auf der Otzaki-Magula in Thessalien, vol. II. Das mittlere Neolithikum: Die Mittelneolithische Siedlung, Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 1983, drawing III).

36

The Neolithic Settlement: Space of production and ideology stone axes and a “hoard” of chipped-stone tools representing stages in their production process, had been deposited in its interior, together with five clay female figurines.

consider the metaphorical function of these constructions just as important, since they segregated part of the settlement, or even all of it, and consequently restricted access to it, both literally and symbolically. Apart from the obvious practical functions, such as supporting the slopes of the tell or barring access to unwelcome visitors, this partition must have carried a clear message, of which the inhabitants of the settlement were aware. The emphasis on the settlement’s boundaries, the physical segregation of habitational from productive space, even the general separation of Culture from Nature, of the “internal” from the “external”, were perhaps elements of this message. Their presence indicates beyond any doubt the central social significance that the organized settlement and the management of space acquired during the Neolithic Age. It is perhaps this dimension of settlements that certain scholars, with a tendency to simplify, confuse with the “defensive” function, which is not in any case by definition excluded.

Interesting too are certain buildings restored by research as having two storeys. According to Theocharis, Building 11–12 at Sesklo, Tsountas’s “House of the Potter”, was of this form. On the basis of Theocharis’s representation, the building had a wooden loft for sleeping quarters in its north half, while the space underneath was used for storage, as the large number of storage vessels found there testifies. Similar two-storey buildings are known from the wider area of the Balkan Peninsula, but the Sesklo building is the only example in Greece to date. A clay model from Thessaly indirectly confirms the existence of twostorey buildings in the region.33 The picture of relative uniformity of houses changed towards the fifth millennium BC (Late Neolithic period). In the settlements of Thessaly a form of multi-space building with a porch on its façade and occupying the central part of the settlement now appeared. Such buildings, usually called megara, are known from Sesklo and Dimini, but also from Aghia Sophia Magoula, while recent excavations have unearthed new examples in the region.34 The example of Aghia Sophia is of particular interest. On this site, the central megaron was connected to a burial mound, which preserved signs of ceremonial, perhaps cult practices. The whole layout was surrounded by an enclosure, separating the architectural ensemble from the rest of the settlement and standing on a socle of mud bricks. During a subsequent phase, the whole arrangement was encircled by a ditch.35

This component of the symbolic function of inhabited space introduces us to another interesting dimension of Neolithic settlements, which is directly related to their form. It is the way in which the inhabitants organized their space, mainly in relation to the layout and spatial distribution of buildings, which differed as we have seen, in extensive settlements and tells. The persistent reconstruction of buildings on the same spot, a typical feature of tells, certainly reflected the particular relations their inhabitants developed and negotiated, with the organization of space concurrently as their pole, but at the same time it produced a specific spatial form which dominates the landscape and can be recognized at a distance. Inside the settlement the fixation on space was a type of symbolic metaphor of genealogy and descent, evoking an ideology of continuity that laid the foundation of each household’s rights. The settlement functioned outwardly as a point of reference, authority and dominance in the landscape, as a kind of monument symbolizing the powerful presence and duration of the social group inhabiting the tell. Two more typical Neolithic space-use practices should be put in a similar context: the burial of the dead inside the buildings and the intentional formation of tells by retaining and buttressing works that emphasized their morphology.

Similarly segregative constructions are known from both Dimini and Sesklo, and suggest the singular though not necessarily symbolic position these particular buildings occupied in the settlement. It has been suggested that they reflect the appearance of a more complex social hierarchy and the emergence of some form of aristocratic hegemony.36 Whatever the case, they were undoubtedly important buildings that differed from the rest of their contemporaries, both in size and in the central position they occupied, as well as in their megaroid form. It would appear that the need to segregate part of or even the whole settlement from the rest of the space was not associated solely with the large buildings of the Late Neolithic, since it existed in earlier periods. The supporting walls and ditches that have been found in the settlements of the Middle and even the Early Neolithic (7th-6th millennium BC) seem to indicate this. The best-known example is again that of Sesklo, where, after the mid-sixth millennium BC, the tell was separated by a system of walls from the extensive level settlement to its north and west, which Theocharis called a polis, as we have seen. The function of these structures has been much debated. Earlier research claimed that their purpose was defensive, a view which agrees with the description of these settlements as acropolises. Georgios Chourmouziadis, following the re-examination of Dimini,37 rejects this interpretation and considers that their basic function was associated exclusively with layout, the organization of the settlement’s space.

In the case of extensive settlements, there are no corresponding features in the negotiation of space. Here households were not characterized by continuity and longevity in space, and the settlement itself did not represent a dominant presence in the prehistoric landscape. For the reasons discussed above, it is probable, although speculative, that the domain of conflict and collaboration of groups that organized their space in this way was not defined equally by an ideology referring to the uses in the past. The distribution pattern of Neolithic settlements, namely their distribution in space, is one more issue connected indirectly with the previous observations. Although we are not in a position to restore any physical element, such as the road network pattern in the Neolithic Age, we are able to restore the Neolithic landscape, using as reference points the tells which dominated and organized the inhabitants’ communication. We possess ample and convincing archaeological data that this communication was intense and continuous.39 A series of

More recent views are in line with this, since they too reject a simple and unilateral defensive function.38 Instead they 37

Kostas Kotsakis artefacts, mainly pottery, shows that a great part of Neolithic people’s effort was directed at creating single communication spaces, common fields of human experience, within which social continuity found its confirmation and legitimization. The ideology of past use, which was being reproduced by the special use of space, must have played a central role on this front as well.

The Neolithic tells are smaller or larger characteristic features which dominate the landscape. Their form resulted from the accumulation of manmade deposits on the same spot for thousands of years. The interior of the tell is dominated by the unit of habitation, the Neolithic architectural construction which symbolized the basic Neolithic social unit, the “household”. As we have seen, the characteristic of tells is the persistent reconstruction of buildings on the same spot, often for many generations and multiple re-buildings. The tell created in this way, as a result of the inhabitants’ daily practice, constitutes the material expression of the settlement’s continuity, of the persistence and occupation of the specific space, both built space signified by the manmade mound and natural space, the landscape in which the tell is situated. The tell is consequently a symbol of multiple meanings, stating the presence of time and memory, a kind of material historical narrative of the antiquity of the settlement and its inhabitants, which refers to their collective rights in the landscape and constitutes their identity. That the Neolithic inhabitants were well aware of this dimension of the tell is related to the observation we have already made, that tells are often surrounded by enclosures and ditches or are buttressed by retaining walls, as at Sesklo and Dimini, so emphasizing their monumental form and enhancing their dominance over the landscape. We can discern here what we qualified above as the strategic importance of space, which is always based on men’s everyday practices.

Epilogue The way in which contemporary archaeological research has come to perceive space today differs substantially from the approaches over the past twenty years. During that period the neo-positivist perceptions of New Archaeology dominated the research scene and treated space as a neutral frame of reference, within which human behaviour is recorded in a homogeneous manner. According to the contemporary archaeology of space, anthropological pre-industrial space is socially generated and is always at the centre of human activities. When defined in this way it is closely linked with the concepts that human activities invest in it and is, therefore, neither homogeneous nor neutral. The concept or concepts inscribed in it are perceived through relations of power, authority and symbolism, which are related to age, descent, social status and, more generally, relations with other people.40 Space is thus subjectivized and acquires a dynamic strategic significance which shares in the conflicts and clashes between individuals in the course of their everyday activities. And, naturally, this process evolves over time, so that space is being continuously produced, reproduced and transformed through the action of social agents.

The persistent positioning of buildings inside the tell transmitted similar messages. It signified the origins of the particular social group inhabiting the building and reinstated a sort of personal genealogy recognizable to the other members of the community. In the building’s relation to the settlement we can see the dialectic of contrast and conflict between the collectivity of the settlement and the individuality of the single household, a sort of ideology of descent. The last was emphasized even more when, as mentioned above, the dead ancestors were brought into the house, their inhumations being part of the biography of the group inhabiting it.

This concept of space as a field of meanings and symbolisms we call place. A place is a space invested with meaning. It is a real or symbolic space which is unique, a space where everyday experience has been inscribed or bodily activity developed, to which people ascribe meaning and with which they form sentimental bonds and memories. The places, in our case the Neolithic places, are, like the landscape, mainly and above all spaces subject to continuous processes of interpretation and reinterpretation, both in the past, by the very people who experienced them, and in the present, by their latter-day observers.

There is no doubt that this reading of space follows the general characteristics of what we called, at the beginning, anthropological space. The location of settlements as well as of humans themselves in the landscape represents first and foremost a practice that creates meaning. The specific choices of Neolithic people, their everyday activities associated with age, gender and social status, reproduced the physical and symbolic space of settlement and building, and transformed it into a locus of continuity situated in the landscape. Neolithic space, like any other pre-industrial space, was full of forces, symbols and meanings. We are in a position to approach only a few of these. As for the rest, let us simply hope that we can imagine them.

Human activities are inscribed on the landscape in a way that makes all its constituents known and familiar. According to Christopher Tilley’s analysis,41 movement within the landscape produces individual biographies, which recall previous contacts with it for each person, but also contacts with other persons, groups or communities within it. From this point of view the landscape encapsulates the social and private time of memory, which, being consolidated in space, produces narratives, that is, movement in time. Landscapes themselves acquire a history, which is none other than the stratified human experience that humans recognize and read in the landscape. The relationship is deep and substantial. If the stratified cognitive experience – and of course its material formulation – is taken away, the landscape switches back to a neutral and homogeneous frame of reference, open to exploitation, separated from humans and history, an object of control and use. This is the perception, or at least the objective, of contemporary, industrial, capitalist space.

Notes The general chronological scheme used here is based on calibrated radiocarbon dates and is the following: Early Neolithic 6700/6500–5800/5600 BC Middle Neolithic 5800/5600–5400/5300 BC 1

38

The Neolithic Settlement: Space of production and ideology Bender (ed.), Landscape, Politics and Perspectives, (Berg), Oxford 1993. 15 M. Chisholm, Rural Settlement and Land Use: An Essay in Location, (Hutchinson), London 1962. 16 F. Higgs (ed.), Papers in Economic Prehistory, (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1972. 17 I. Hodder and C. Orton, Spatial Analysis in Archaeology, (New Studies in Archaeology 1, Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1976, and T.K. Earle and R. Preucel, “Processual archaeology and the radical critique”, Current Anthropology 28 (4), 1987, 501–538. 18 P. Halstead, Strategies for Survival: An Ecological Approach to Social and Economic Change in the Early Farming Communities of Thessaly, Greece, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge 1984; Gallis, Atlas, op. cit.; Andreou, Fotiadis and Kotsakis, “Review of Aegean prehistory” op. cit. 19 D.R. Theocharis, Neolithic Greece, (National Bank of Greece), Athens 1973, and K. Kotsakis, “The coastal settlements of Thessaly”, in Papathanassopoulos (ed.), Neolithic Culture in Greece, op. cit., 49–57. 20 van Andel and Runnels, “The earliest farmers”, op. cit. 21 A. Demitrack, The Late Quartenary Geological History of the Larissa Plain of Thessaly, Greece: Tectonic, Climatic and Human Impact on the Landscape, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Stanford, 1996, and van Andel and Runnels, “The earliest farmers”, op. cit. 22 Halstead, Strategies for Survival, op. cit., and Gallis, Atlas, op. cit. 23 P. Halstead, “Waste not, want not: Traditional responses to crop failure in Greece”, Rural History 1 (2), 1991, 147–164. 24 van Andel, Runnels and Pope, “Five thousand years of land use and abuse”, op. cit. 25 R.M. Schacht, “Estimating past population trends”, Annual Review of Anthropology 10, 1981, 119–140; C.C. Kolb, “Demographic estimates in archaeology: Contributions from ethnoarchaeology on Mesoamerican peasants”, Current Anthropology 26 (5), 1985, 581–599; and M. Ember and C.R. Ember, “Worldwide cross-cultural studies and their relevance for archaeology”, Journal of Archaeological Research 3 (1), 1995, 87–111. 26 Andreou, Fotiadis and Kotsakis, “Review of Aegean prehistory”, op. cit. 27 S. Andreou and K. Kotsakis, “Dimensions of space in Central Macedonia: Plotting the inter-community organization of space”, in Ametos, Festschrift for Professor Manolis Andronicos, (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Thessaloniki 1986, 57–88 (in Greek), and K. Kotsakis, “The use of habitational space in Neolithic Sesklo”, in La Thessalie. Quinze années de recherches archéologiques, 1975–1990: Bilans et perspectives, (Colloque international, Hellenic Ministry of Culture), Athens 1994, 125–130, and Kotsakis, “What tells can tell”, op. cit. 28 Halstead, Strategies for Survival, op. cit., and Gallis, Atlas, op. cit. 29 D. Grammenos, Neolithic Macedonia, (Archaeological Receipts Fund), Athens 1987 (in Greek). 30 Theocharis, Neolithic Greece, op. cit. 31 Kotsakis, “The use of habitational space”, op. cit., and “What tells can tell”, op. cit. 32 Recent research in the Balkans seems to show that settlements outside the bounds of the tells are not unknown (D. Bailey, “What is a tell? Settlement in fifth millennium Bulgaria”, in J. Bruck and M. Goodman (eds), Making Places in the Prehistoric World: Themes in Settlement Archaeology, (UCL Press), London 1999, 94–111). This observation does not, however, diminish the importance of tells as distinctive settlement forms. 33 Gallis, Atlas, op. cit. 34 See the paper by G. Toufexis, “Recent Neolithic research in the Eastern Thessalian Plain”, at the International Symposium: The Aegean in the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, Urla-Izmir, 13–19 October 1997. 35 V. Milojčić, Die Deutschen Ausgabungen auf Magulen im Larisa in Thessalien, (Rudolf Habelt), Bonn 1976. 36 P. Halstead, “The north-south divide: Regional paths to complexity in prehistoric Greece”, in C. Mathers and S. Stoddart (eds), Development and Decline in the Mediterranean Bronze Age, (Sheffield University Press), Sheffield 1994. 37 G.Ch. Chourmouziadis, Neolithic Dimini, (Society of Thessalian Studies), Volos 1979 (in Greek). 38 Kotsakis, “The use of habitational space”, op. cit., and “What tells can tell”, op. cit. 39 K. Kotsakis, “Exchanges and Relations”, in G. Papathanassopoulos (ed.), Neolithic Culture in Greece op. cit., 168–170. 40 C. Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, (Berg), Oxford 1994, 9–11. 41 Tilley, A Phenomenology of Landscape, op. cit., 27–29.

Late Neolithic 5400/5300–4700/4500 BC Final Neolithic 4700/4500–3300/3100 BC (S. Andreou, M. Fotiadis and K. Kotsakis, “Review of Aegean Prehistory V: The Neolithic and Bronze Age of Northern Greece”. American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) 100, 1996, 538). 2 C. Perlès, “New ways with an old problem: Chipped stone assemblages as an index of cultural discontinuity in early Greek prehistory”, in E. French and K. Wardle (eds), Problems of Greek Prehistory (Papers presented at the Centenary Conference of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, Manchester, April 1986), (Bristol Classical Press), Bristol 1988, and Les industries lithiques taillées de Franchthi (Argolide, Grèce): Les industries du mésolithique et du néolithique (Excavations at Franchthi Cave, Greece), vol. V, (Indiana University Press), Bloomington-Indianapolis 1990; C.N. Runnels and T.H. van Andel, “Trade and the origins of agriculture in the eastern Mediterranean”, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 1 (1), 83–109; and C.N. Runnels, “Review of Aegean prehistory IV: the Stone Age of Greece from the Palaeolithic to the advent of the Neolithic”, AJA 99, 1995, 699–728. 3 M. Özdogan, “Neolithization of Europe: A view from Anatolia, part 1: The problem and the evidence of East Anatolia”, Poročilo o Raziskovanju Paleolitika, Neolitika in Eneolitika v Sloveniji XXII, 1995, 25–46. 4 K. Kotsakis, “The Neolithic mode of production: Native or colonist”, in International Conference on Ancient Thessaly in Memory of Dimitris R. Theocharis, (Archaeological Receipts Fund), Athens 1992, 120–135 (in Greek), and P. Halstead, “The development of agriculture and pastoralism in Greece: When, how, who and what?”, in D.R. Harris (ed.), The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, ( UCL Press), London 1996, 269–309. 5 See G. Papathanassopoulos (ed.), Neolithic Culture in Greece, (N.P. Goulandris Foundation, Museum of Cycladic Art), Athens 1996, 200–208. 6 E.F. Bloedow, “The Aceramic Neolithic phase in Greece reconsidered”, Mediterranean Archaeology 4, 1991, 1–43. 7 M. Besios and M. Pappa, “The Neolithic settlement at Makrygialos Pieria”, Athens Annals of Archaeology 23–28, 1998, 13–30 (in Greek), and G. Chourmouziadis, Dispilio, Kastoria, Thessaloniki 1996 (in Greek). 8 R.J. Rodden, “An early neolithic village in Greece”, Scientific American 212 (4), 1965, 83–91. 9 Over the last twenty years there has been an upsurge in systematic surface surveys in Greece, following the exemplary, for its time, surface survey on Melos (C. Renfrew and M. Wagstaff (eds), An Island Polity, (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1982) and the influence of J. Cherry and the Cambridge School. In addition to Melos, systematic surface surveys have been conducted on Kea ( J.F. Cherry, J.L. Davis and E. Mantzourani, Landscape Archaeology as Long-Term History: Northern Keos in the Cycladic Islands from Earliest Settlement until Modern Times, (Monumenta Archaeologica 16, Institute of Archaeology, University of California), Los Angeles 1991), in the Argolid (T.H. van Andel, C.N. Runnels and K. Pope, “Five thousand years of land use and abuse in the southern Argolid, Greece”, Hesperia 55 (1), 1986, 103–128), Nemea ( J.F. Cherry, J.L. Davis, A. Dimitrack. E. Mantzourani. T. Strasser and L. Talalay, “Archaeological survey in an artifact-rich landscape: A Middle Neolithic example from Nemea, Greece”, AJA 92, 1988, 159–176), Boeotia ( J. Bintliff and A. Snodgrass, “The Cambridge/Bradford Boeotian expedition: The first four years”, Journal of Field Archaeology 12, 1985, 123–161, and A. Snodgrass and J. Bintliff, “Surveying ancient cities”, Scientific American, March 1991, 64–69), Langada (S. Andreou and K. Kotsakis, “Prehistoric rural communities in perspective: The Langadas survey project”, in P. Doukellis and L. Mendoni (eds), Structures rurales et sociétés antiques, (Annales Littéraires de l’Université de Besançon), Paris 1994, 64–69), and the Serres Plain (M. Fotiadis, Economy, Ecology and Settlement among Subsistence Farmers in the Serres Basin, Northeastern Greece, 5000–1000 B.C., unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Indiana 1985). This list is far from complete (P. Kardulias (ed.), Beyond the Site, (University Press of America), Langham MD 1994). 10 K. Kotsakis, “The Langadas intensive surface survey project: Second period 1987”, EGNATIA 2, 1990, 175–186 (in Greek), and Andreou and Kotsakis, “Prehistoric rural communities”, op. cit. 11 See e.g. K. Gallis, Atlas of Prehistoric Sites in Eastern Thessaly, Larisa 1992, 223 (in Greek). 12 D. Grammenos, Neolithic Researches in Central and Eastern Macedonia, (The Archaeological Society at Athens), Athens 1991, 105 (in Greek), and Gallis, Atlas, op. cit., 11. 13 K. Kotsakis, “What tells can tell: Social space and settlement in the Greek Neolithic,” in P. Halstead (ed.), Neolithic Society, (Sheffield University Press), Sheffield 1999. 14 C. Tilley, “Interpretation and a poetics of the past”, in C. Tilley (ed.), Interpretative Archaeology, (Berg), Providence-Oxford 1993, 1–27, and B.

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CHAPTER 5

Built Space and Neolithic Builders Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis Professor Emeritus of Prehistoric Archaeology Aristotle University of Thessaloniki … searching in demolished buildings which might perhaps have been our home trying to remember dates and heroic deeds; shall we be able? … George Seferis Whichever way a prehistoric settlement develops, whether on the diachronic or the synchronic axis, basic units of this development are its built elements. In other words, the architectural constructions undertake to promote and to fulfil everyday uses, as these arise from the space-organizing, foodpurveying and ideological needs of the prehistoric community. Since not all these architectural constructions promote the same use, they are distinguished into a number of “categories”; into a series of functional “things” that are constructed on the basis of a theoretical analysis of the related need. I propose, therefore, that architectural constructions be distinguished into the following categories: dwellings, food-processing constructions, workshops and storage cists. However, since this short article does not intend to deal with all the products of the prehistoric farmer’s building activity, it will be confined to a synoptic analysis of the dwelling. This is, after all, the most important work of prehistoric architecture, since it informs us of the sum of prehistoric man’s activities.

of provoking, will certainly also overturn the development of dwellings within the framework of the settlement (e.g. location of the ruler’s dwelling at the centre of the settlement, erecting a “shrine”, an altar, etc.). But the dwelling itself will undergo qualitative differentiations too. Qualitative with regard to its internal arrangement, perhaps also its “artistic” enrichment (see below the description of the megaron). Another observation I wish to add at this point concerns the empirical character of research approaches, as these are selected for the study of architectural elements that fall within the framework of spaceorganizing contrivances. This means that their location and description, and even their interpretation, are founded upon the study and the comprehension of exclusively qualitative data. One of the most basic “processes” of studying the quantitative data of the prehistoric dwelling is the dimensions in which the dwelling develops. First it is founded and then it is enriched at the level of its functional missions, such as accommodation, storage, stabling, perhaps also security. These dimensions are not of course hypothetical, they are real and reveal not only the needs that the functionalism of the “unit” serves, but also the relations that develop between these during the course of producing the settlement.

The prehistoric dwelling The dwelling in the prehistoric era had many forms. It can be argued that the final formulation of these forms is not implied by definition. That is, we conclude that the prehistoric dwelling does not obey exclusive suggestions of a sum of traditional experiences. It is refuted continuously, on the one hand under the pressure of specializations or allocations, and on the other under the pressure of functions that arise according to the nature of the specializations and allocations. It is therefore easy to recognize morphological refutations of quantitative as well as qualitative content, which are imposed by contrivances:

Another research process is the study of the dwelling’s orientation, which may be associated with constructional problems and their solutions, with the organic dependence of the “unit” on productive spaces (rivers, lakes, sea, pastures, etc.), or last, as some researchers have suggested, with the pursuit of space-organizing solutions of an ideological nature.1 2. Food-purveying contrivances. The prehistoric economy essentially provides an answer to the question: What should I produce, how and for whom?2 The prehistoric producer answers the first question by utilizing his cognitive relationship with the environment. He answers the second question by putting to good use his technological potential, his ability to process natural materials and to turn them into active things, into vessels and tools. His answer to the third question, which arises through the prehistoric farmer’s economic consciousness, depends on his social maturity. On the basis of the approach, research attempts to open the relevant discussion, by assuming,

1. Space-organizing contrivances. These concern the more general development of the settlement. They are imposed by demographic differentiations, often arise from the nature of the social relations linking the members of the community and are undoubtedly linked in most cases of change, if not in all, with contrivances 2 and 3 (see below). This means that an overturn, or even a change, of ideological behaviours, which the presence of a central authority, secular or religious, is capable 41

Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis

1. Conventional plan of a single-space or simple prehistoric dwelling.

2. Conventional plan of a multi-space or complex prehistoric dwelling.

Types of prehistoric dwellings

quite easily, that the empirical observations the prehistoric farmer, closely bound with nature, is obliged to make, are in time transformed into axiomatic generalizations, into conclusions, which help him in his endeavour to reproduce intentionally some of the phenomena that surround him. In other words, they help him to build up slowly but surely his ecological consciousness, or to put it another way, to construct a conceptual and mental mechanism with the help of which on the one hand he perceives the dangers that might be lurking in his cohabitation with a more or less hostile environment, and on the other he realizes, over time, his own potential, primarily as a producer but also as a hunter-gatherer, to master this environment and exploit it for his own benefit.

On the basis of all these observations arising from the research approaches to the prehistoric farmer’s space-organizing decisions, as these are affected and differentiated through partial contrivances, I propose a codification of prehistoric dwelling types. This codification is not, of course, founded solely on relevant theoretical discussions, but also on archaeological material, which is the basic bearer of the related information. I propose therefore that we should class prehistoric dwellings in two types: a. The single-space or simple (fig. 1) and b. the multispace or complex (fig. 2). There are two variants of the second type: b.i. the megaroid (figs 2 and 3) and b.ii. the megaron (fig. 4).

However, the sum of the processes falling within the framework of food-purveying contrivances makes up a specific subsystem within the context of the complex cultural system, therefore we should accept the view that these processes, whatever changes they may undergo in the form of objective (nature) as well as subjective (contrivances) interventions, affect and eventually differentiate the form as well as the “coexistence” of the dwellings in the framework of the settlement. The kind of products, e.g. the natural or the intentional surplus, the initial or the systematized commercialization, the kind of stores and reserves are a series of events and activities which on the one hand affect the category of dwelling and on the other lead to contrivances that demand the addition of new “categories”, such as the food-processing constructions and the storage cists.

a. Single-space or simple dwelling (sssd). The two descriptive categories: single-space and simple cover both the constructional and the functional development of the dwelling. This means that we are dealing with a building of rectilinear groundplan, which the prehistoric builder can construct on the basis of his empirical capabilities. A construction within which the uses that develop accumulate in the same space, therefore its function is simple and social relations are direct. b. Multi-space or complex dwelling (mscd). This type of prehistoric dwelling does not arise from the simple redistribution of uses and the planned development under its roof of social relations between family members. Nor is it simply the functionalistic answer to a series of expected or unexpected everyday needs. The mscd reaches its fulfilment through processes imposed by the development of the social formation, not only in the domains of the organization and the use of space, but also in those of economy and ideology. What I want to say is that a mscd is not produced simply through the development of the prehistoric farmers’ experience in working the structural materials and the final architectural utilization of them. The mscd undertakes to carry out all the decisions pertaining to the organizational maturing of the social formation. It undertakes to play roles which are now complex, and therefore to state these possibilities in its final architectural formulations, whether these are morphological or only constructional. There are two alternative versions of these “statements” of the mscd: the megaroid dwelling and the megaron.

3. Ideological contrivances. Other contrivances operating in the form of a subsystem and influencing, with their various differentiations, the social formation’s space-organizing decisions are the ideological ones. These are the contrivances that are prompted by the effort the prehistoric farmer makes to rationalize and interpret objective phenomena, from the simplest to the most complex; from the transformation of mud into pottery to the relation between sexual intercourse and childbirth. And from the realization of the necessarily productive role of a family within the context of a social formation, to the social relations that impose the initial structuring of a central authority and its eventual institutionalization. So, on reaching the conclusion that the ideology of the prehistoric farmer is a nexus of rationalizations, interpretations and decisions, which cover his relations not only with nature but also with his social milieu, I believe that all behaviours arising from this nexus in the form of the decision affect space-organization as a whole and therefore its partial “categories”.

b.i. The megaroid dwelling (figs 2 and 3). This type of prehistoric dwelling comprises numerous spaces. It is therefore a dwelling that houses many uses, which is why it is also characterized as 42

Built Space and Neolithic Builders

4. Conventional plan of the prehistoric megaron.

3. Prehistoric megaroid dwelling in the settlement at Dimini.

5. Plan of the building relationship between megaroid dwelling and enclosure.

6. Elements A and B of the plan of the megaroid dwelling and the megaron, showing also traces of a hearth (A4, B4).

complex, since these many and diverse uses constitute its final complex function. It appears in the Middle Neolithic period (c. 5000 BC) and it is clear that it was formed as a constructional and functional variation under the pressure of two factors. One is the presence of enclosures (fig. 5), which on the one hand delineate specific areas of craft activities within the boundaries of the settlement and on the other define specific axes on which architectural constructions can develop. The other factor is the settlers’ decision to construct covered spaces in which uses are incorporated in intentional arrangements. Thus, they resort to building dwellings that have three internal subdivisions (fig. 2). The first subdivision, which later – in the megaron – remains open on its narrow front and so becomes a space in antis, taking the form of an open-air “veranda”, is where the occupants congregate to work; it is thus a workspace, what we archaeologists frequently call a workshop. The climate of Greece permits such types of gatherings and activities, even when it is raining or the weather is not fine. This workshop may be either simply a closed subdivision and therefore a small space closed in front (if the dwelling is of megaroid type), or an

open subdivision which has been transformed into a space in antis (when the multi-space dwelling is a megaron). In it potters, leatherworkers and toolmakers, for instance, could make their products without being affected by weather conditions and without the noise, smoke and dirt from their tasks disturbing the rest of the residents and normal life inside the house. In the second closed subdivision, where we usually find the remains of the large hearth (fig. 6), we assume that non“disturbing” activities took place on a restricted scale, some of which could later be carried out on the “veranda”. At the same time, however, we again assume that small gatherings could have taken place in this space, which we call the doma (particularly in the megaron). In other words, prehistoric “get-togethers” where issues relating to transactions, smallscale production plans, agreements for building teams and so on were discussed. Thus we assume that a space of this kind, closed and with a central hearth, and certainly a smoke-hole in the roof, was the “living room” of the prehistoric family, later to become that of the ruler. Such a hypothesis is based on archaeological arguments arising from study of the megaron 43

Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis

7. The plan of the prehistoric settlement at Dimini shows the alternation of roofed and open-air spaces (squares), small streets and the whole organization of these elements in the framework of the settlement.

44

Built Space and Neolithic Builders during the Mycenaean period as well as during the so-called “historical” periods, when the megaron took the form of the temple and its central cella housed mainly public gatherings. It was there that the faithful gathered to communicate with their god, bring their votive offerings and, perhaps, in the midst of the odours of the burnt sacrifices and the utterances of the priests, comment adversely on the latest law. Last, the third closed subdivision, which is called the thalamos, was reserved for private family moments. It is here that the residents of the megaron must have slept, “exchanged” their biological information and died. One observation of a general character is that the dimensions of these houses do not confirm the archaeological propositions regarding the uses they ought to support. The general impression is that these dwellings are very small and cannot, therefore, correspond to the interpretative descriptions attached to them, always in relation to the form of the family and its productive and social role within the framework of the social formation. The answer to this observation is not an easy one. Nonetheless, it could be given through the logical approach to the relevant problems. It would not be far off the mark to say that in prehistoric settlements the covered spaces (dwellings) were not strictly distinguished from the open spaces (small squares, central or not, and small streets, fig. 7), at least during the Neolithic Age. In prehistoric times intra-community activities do not seem to have required specific spaces, with the specific meaning of the word. Archaeological finds, as these are distributed over the wide space of the settlement, help us to suppose that these activities could well be moved here and there, sometimes under a roof and sometimes not, depending on the needs of the community and depending, of course, on the way this community decided to confront them. On the basis of this approach, we could say that the “dividend” (in our attempt to apportion usages in the framework of the settlement) is made up not only of covered spaces but also of open ones. Such a hypothesis views the Neolithic community as a totality of complex constitution in which the active elements are not only the animate ones. Space, as a horizontal and organized area, can be understood as a productive force only in relation to organized human action. And the same should be argued as far as man is concerned. To paraphrase a quote from Marx’s study Der Mensch in Arbeit und Kooperation,3 in which he states that “society is not composed of individuals but expresses the sum of relations within which the individuals are confronted”, I would say that an organized space too, that is a prehistoric settlement, expresses the sum of relations through which man produces or simply is active and “makes space”. And it is precisely this process of “space-making” that we are unable to perceive through the partial relations of uses and constructions, but through the reduction of these historical elements to the level of the whole settlement.

8. The Middle Neolithic megaron uncovered at Sesklo, proving the early appearance of this form of dwelling on the Greek Mainland.

Age in Greece, or did it arrive here as a contrivance of builders in the East or another region? The second question is: Was the megaron built as a dwelling for a specialized social function, or simply as a type of multi-space dwelling intended to serve multiple uses within a preconceived arrangement of closed and open internal subdivisions? The question of the provenance of the megaron can, I think, be considered closed.5 After the find at Sesklo,6 we can be sure that the megaron existed in Greece from the early sixth millennium BC. The second issue that fuels the debate about the megaron concerns the possibility of its exclusive use in the realm of ideology.7 In other words, the view is put forward that this multi-space prehistoric dwelling arose as a space-organizing contrivance together with the creation and the imposition of a central authority in the prehistoric social formation. According to this same view, the emergence of a “ruler” demanded the contrivance of a dwelling form that would not only house the specialized activities of such a person but would also constitute the complex function of a symbol, responsible for announcing to the settlement’s inhabitants the existence of an agreed system of control over their activities. I am not suggesting that we should accept such a view. To put it simply, I would say that the megaron was conceived and constructed for the reasons expounded in the paragraph on the mscd. That is, initially as a megaroid building and subsequently as a megaron.8 What is certain is that the megaron later evolved into a large and dominant architectural construction with specialized uses and complex functions. Such an evolution took place under the pressures of the economy, which was being transformed from a productive to a mercantile one, with the introduction of metals into the technology, the intentional production of a surplus and the need to store and to stock this.9

b.ii. The megaron (fig. 8). The descriptions and the theoretical observations I have tried to formulate in the previous paragraph also apply to the megaron. For this reason I shall not repeat them here. I shall only endeavour to refer to a series of observations, questions and suggestions which have fuelled the discussion relating to the provenance and the character of the megaron as a prehistoric dwelling.4 The basic, central question is: Was the megaron conceived and built during the Neolithic

These changes in the field of productive forces caused substantial reversals in the domain of social relations. On the one hand specialization improved products but on the other it brought shortages, accumulations and unequal distributions. Thus, a control of these realignments becomes obvious, in the same way as the consolidation of this control becomes obvious 45

Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis through its subsequent institutionalization, with symbols and constructs, the creation of myths and theoretical systems.10

Notes

The megaron is therefore a par excellence dynamic and very durable form of dwelling. Noteworthy is its resistance to time. There is no doubt that it acquired its final form in response to specific needs as these were formulated within the framework of productive forces and social relations. This means that during one stage of its evolution it was utilized in the ideological field. It became a palace and a temple. We would be well advised when talking about the prehistoric megaron to remember this history from its beginning. From the time, that is, when things were associated with the hands and not with the soul!

2

D. Srejovic, Lepenski Vir, (Thames and Hudson), London 1972. P. Samuelson, Economics, (Papazisis), Athens 1975 (Greek translation by D. Karayorgas). 3 K. Marx, Der Mensch in Arbeit und Kooperation, 1857. 4 I dealt with this subject analytically in my study of Neolithic Dimini: G.Ch. Chourmouziadis, Neolithic Dimini, (reprinted by Vanias), Thessaloniki 1993 (in Greek). 5 For the discussion concerning the megaron see V. Milojčić, Die deutschen Augsgrabungen auf der Otzaki-Magula in Thessalien (I. Das Frühe Neolithikum, Band 10, Teil I), (Rudolf Habelt), Bonn 1971; F. Schachermeyer, Die ältesten Kulturen Griechenlands, (W. Kohlhammer), Stuttgart 1955; S. Weinberg, “The relative chronology of the Aegean in the Stone and Early Bronze Age”, in R. Ehrich (ed.), Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, 1965; R. Treuil, et al., Les civilisations égéenes, (P.U.F.), Paris 1985; and K. Kotsakis, “Sesklo: The excavations of D. Theocharis”, 1994 (unpublished) (in Greek). 6 A Neolithic settlement 15 km. west of Volos. See the study by K. Kotsakis, op. cit., concerning the architectural organization of the settlement. 7 F. Schachermeyer, Dimini und die Bandkeramik, Bonn 1954. The relevant bibliography is not given in full here because a full negotiation of the subject is not attempted. 8 Details can be found in my study Neolithic Dimini, op. cit. 126ff. 9 K. Touloumis, Surplus in Prehistory and the Archaeology of Storage, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, School of History-Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 1994 (in Greek). 10 S. Weinberg, “The Stone Age in the Aegean”, in The Cambridge Ancient History, (C.U.P.), Cambridge 1965. 11 K. Kotsakis, “Computer-generated restoration of façades of post-frame houses in the excavation at Mandalo, W. Macedonia”, in Eilaipine: Festschrift for Professor N. Platon, (Literary and Historical Studies of the Municipality of Herakleion), Herakleion 1987 (in Greek). 12 G. Chourmouziadis, Dispilio at Kastoria, (Vanias), Thessaloniki 1996 (in Greek). 1

In the field All the above hypotheses and propositions, convictions and questions, assume another form within the framework of archaeological research. There they are not just fine words and corresponding descriptions. There they are things. They are pieces of actions and material remains, which rarely come to light in the form of organized and easily recognizable groundplans. For this reason we can only comprehend what concerns prehistoric architecture, the building materials and the forms of the houses, by the reduction of the partial elements in the framework of the settlement level. What I am trying to say, in the last analysis, is that if we are to understand the role space played in the evolution of prehistoric man’s life, we must study it in the form of the settlement. All things are included there. There are the stones, the postholes11 and the plasters, the ditches and the shelters acquire the potential and the right of historical discourse. There they reveal their secrets to us. And that is why until archaeological research decides to uncover prehistoric settlements in their entirety, it will be trapped in unanswerable questions and metaphysical speculations. No conclusions can be drawn from excavation trenches measuring 10×10 m. Thus we shall remain facing a silent unknown in perpetuity.12

46

CHAPTER 6

Early Urbanization in Mainland Greece Dora N. Konsola Professor Emerita of Cultural Policy and History of Greek Civilization Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences

Introduction

being associated with the phenomenon of urbanization in Antiquity?4 It is well known that the problem of defining this phenomenon has been the starting point for very complex approaches by scholars in various disciplines, who have attempted to record its traits. Since it is not possible to present these various views here, it was deemed essential, for the needs of our specific investigation, to use the classification of the traits of urbanization into two major categories, which we proposed in an earlier study.5

The Early Bronze Age, which followed the long Neolithic Age and spanned the third millennium BC, was an era of dynamic developments and catalytic changes of an economic, social and cultural nature for the entire Aegean region. Notable among these changes were the increased use of metals, mainly bronze, the intensification of communication and exchange networks, the appearance of more fully organised settlements and the burgeoning of the arts. These characteristics appeared to a greater or lesser degree in all the geographical and autonomous cultural unities of the time, that is the Early Minoan or Prepalatial culture of Crete, the Early Cycladic, the Early Helladic and the culture of Troy and the Northeast Aegean.

The first category includes the principal or structural traits, which are related to the complexity of economic and social organization and are imprinted indirectly in space. Among the most important are the systematization of agricultural production, craft specialization, expansion of trading transactions, creation of a mechanism for redistribution of produce, appearance of a central authority and social stratification. The second category includes the external or “derived” traits, which refer to the layout of the settlement and the individual constructions, and are therefore more directly detectable in the excavation data. One of these traits is the large size of the settlement, accompanied by high density of occupation. Urban planning, public works, a high level of construction technology, monumental architecture for accommodating central functions, and so on, are also considered to be determinants of urbanization.

This chapter focuses on the Early Helladic Culture, which developed in the southern part of mainland Greece, with the regions of the eastern mainland and the Peloponnese as its epicentre. Archaeological activity in these regions has been quite intense since the early twentieth century and has brought to light a large number of sites with considerable architectural remains, a few cemeteries and a host of moveable finds (predominantly pottery) of the Early Bronze Age.1 Of the 120 excavated sites, only a few dozen have yielded notable building remains and abundant moveable finds. Prominent among them are Eutresis, Orchomenos, Lithares and Thebes in Boeotia, Aghios Kosmas, Rafina and Askitario in Attica, Kolona on Aegina, Manika on Euboea, Zygouries and Tsoungiza in the Corinthia, Tiryns, Lerna, Asine and Berbati in the Argolid, and Akovitika in Messenia (fig. 1). 2

The search for the presence of the above traits in the settlements of the Early Helladic period is made here on the one hand by a summary presentation of relevant data and the other by an attempt to “decipher” these data. In the event of this research leading to an affirmative answer to the basic question posed earlier, another complementary question arises: What was the hierarchical ranking of the settlements on the basis of the level of urbanization each of them reached?

Over the last three decades, hundreds more Early Helladic sites have been added to the list of those already known from excavations. The new sites were identified in the course of surface surveys of “extensive” and, more recently, of the systematic, “intensive” type, in Boeotia, Pylos (Messenia), the southern Argolid, the Nemea valley, Laconia and elsewhere. The surveys have supplied valuable information for the diachronic change in settlement patterns in these regions.3

Surveying the data The data presented below refer mainly to the second of the three consecutive phases into which the period under examination is subdivided. This phase, Early Helladic II (2650–2200 BC), was the longest and undoubtedly the most important of the

With regard to the Early Helladic settlements, the question considered in this chapter is, in a nutshell: To what extent can certain of these be characterized as “cities”, that is as settlements with those features that have been established as 47

Dora Konsola

2. Southern Argolid, distribution of Early Helladic sites. The sites are classed in a hierarchy of three categories on the basis of the quantity and the variety of collected artefacts (M. Jameson, C. Runnels and T. van Andel, A Greek Countryside, 1994, 351, fig. 6.9).

1. Map of the important Early Bronze Age sites in mainland Greece and the Aegean islands: 1. Poliochni, Lemnos. 2. Thermi, Lesbos. 3. Emporio, Chios. 4. Heraion, Samos. 5. Ayia Irini, Kea. 6. Chalandriani/Kastri, Syros. 7. Paroikia, Paros. 8. Grotta, Naxos. 9. Panormos, Naxos. 10. Skarkos, Ios. 11. Phylakopi, Melos. 12. Akrotiri, Thera. 13. Orchomenos, Boeotia. 14. Lithares, Boeotia. 15. Thebes, Boeotia. 16. Eutresis, Boeotia. 17. Rafina, Attica. 18. Askitario, Attica. 19. Aghios Kosmas, Attica. 20. Manika, Euboea. 21. Kolona, Aegina. 22. Zygouries, Corinthia. 23. Tsoungiza, Corinthia. 24. Berbati, Argolid. 25. Asine, Argolid. 26. Tiryns, Argolid. 27. Lerna, Argolid. 28. Akovitika, Messenia. 29. Palamari, Skyros.

4. Zygouries, plan of the settlement (D. Konsola, Early Urbanization, 1984, 79, fig. 13).

three.6 The greater part of the excavation and survey material, which documents the introduction of innovations and their gradual consolidation, dates to this phase, in particular its last 250 years.7 This was, therefore, the phase during which it is probable that the first urban centres emerged, albeit in elementary form. In contrast, the initial phase of the period, Early Helladic I, is characterized by a slow rate of growth, while the last, Early Helladic III, shows recession compared with the previous phase of zenith.

3. Lerna, plan of the Early Helladic settlement with fortification wall and the two successive “Corridor Houses” (D. Konsola, Early Urbanization, 1984, 85, fig. 18).

The main axis of reference in the present article is space, as the field where human activity develops and consequently where the evolution of social and economic phenomena is reflected. 48

Early Urbanization in Mainland Greece It was thus considered pertinent to present the summary examination of the data on three levels of analysis, which are certainly interrelated and interdependent: 1. the macro level or inter-community, which concerns both the location and the distribution of settlements in space, as well as relations between them, 2. the meso level or settlement layout, which concerns the organization and use of space within the settlement, and 3. the micro level, which relates to architectural constructions and their functions.

Concurrently, however, there were concentrations of small or medium-size settlements, which controlled plains, lakes or littoral zones, without the presence of a strong central place.8

2. Meso level (settlement layout) Settlements ranged in size from very small, of less than one hectare, to huge by the standards of the period (over 20 ha.). The majority, however, occupied a rather limited area (1–3 ha.), while large or very large ones were rare (Tiryns 6 ha., Eutresis 8 ha., Thebes 20 ha., Manika perhaps 80 ha.).9 In certain settlements (e.g. Askitario, Rafina, Manika, Thebes) parts of enclosures, of varying thickness and method of construction, probably for defensive purposes, were uncovered. A highly advanced example of fortification techniques, for the time, is found at Lerna, where there is a mighty enclosure consisting of two parallel walls with casemate rooms and external horseshoeshaped bastions for more effective protection (fig. 3).

In addition, we shall also mention moveable finds which were found in the buildings, or more rarely in graves, and provide us with information essential to comprehending the social conditions that demanded their making and use. We should stress from the outset that the depth and the breadth of the analysis are limited by the archaeological data. No settlement has been excavated extensively enough to provide a single, integrated – to a significant degree – urban entity. In most cases fragmentary building remains (small groups of buildings or scattered walls) have been uncovered, which often still await publication. Nevertheless, in spite of the large gaps in research, the problem of the appearance of urbanization should not be considered intractable. The available data can be utilized as an essential input, in an attempt to penetrate some of the basic components of the problem, that is to assist the scholar in identifying the major elements of the socioeconomic function of settlements and to proceed, up to a point, to reconstructing the model of spatial organization.

With regard to the internal structure of settlements, the first impression on examining the ground plans of their excavated sections is that their layout was rather haphazard. Streets, narrow as a rule, separated buildings into irregular insulae, which were usually very densely built. More careful observation and study of relevant publications reveals the presence of features of singular interest. It is worth noting that most settlements had a street network, albeit incompletely structured, with main thoroughfares up to 2.5 m. wide and smaller secondary streets (fig. 4).10 Almost all the streets, as well as some open spaces (squares?) in front of important buildings, were paved with stones. It seems too that rudimentary rules of spatial organization were often observed, such as the common orientation axis of buildings, arrangement of buildings in insulae and interventions with extensive artificial levelling to form the available space. Even so, it is not possible to document the existence of a predetermined plan. However, since the development of settlements does not appear to be disorderly, it is possible that a central authority was concerned with applying some fixed principles for the rational arrangement of constructions and open spaces.

1. Macro level (location and distribution of settlements) In approaching this level of analysis, the archaeological and environmental evidence from surveys is extremely useful. There was an impressive increase in the number of sites during this period, which must have been accompanied by a corresponding demographic increase. Coastal as well as inland sites were chosen in almost equal proportions as places for settlement. Determinant factor in the selection of location was the presence of productive resources, mainly access to fertile land. Intensification of agricultural production, with the introduction of new crops and of technological innovations, such as the plough, permitted the cultivation of hitherto unexploited land and the accumulation of a surplus from crop yields. In the case of coastal sites it is quite clear that the determinant factor in selecting these was the development of sea transport, due to progress in shipbuilding technology.

3. Micro level (architectural constructions) The available data relating to architectural constructions are richer and allow us to form a much clearer picture than that we have of settlement patterns and settlement layout. Buildings were founded on a stone socle, on which the upper structure was built of mud bricks. Many features testify to the advanced level of construction; namely, relatively thick walls, over 60 cm. on average, a stone socle about 1 m. high, rectilinear walls, right angles, wooden doorframes, wall coatings, stone-paved or clay-covered floors, etc. The interior of the buildings often preserves auxiliary constructions and equipment, such as built benches and clay hearths, some with stamped decoration on their rim. An important innovation was the use of terracotta tiles, like those found in large quantities at Lerna, and elsewhere too, which ensured waterproof roofs.

The spatial distribution of sites is by no means uniform in all the regions to which Early Helladic culture spread. At a local or regional level the settlement pattern appears to be dense, with small distances between sites, ranging from 1 to 10 km. Differences between settlements can also be observed in the area they covered and the type and number of artefacts recovered from them, which confirm the existence of a settlement hierarchy, even though not a strict one. Most larger sites also appear to be important centres for their region (“central places”). These centres were often surrounded by a close network of satellite installations, which must have been within their direct or indirect ambit of influence (fig. 2).

Buildings were quite large for the time, ranging from 30 to 50 m.2, excluding those of special function. The buildings that 49

Dora Konsola

5. “Corridor House”, Kolona Aegina: Restoration drawing of the “White House” (H. Walter and F. Felten, Die vorgeschichtliche Stadt (Alt Aegina III.1), Mainz 1981, 19, fig. 14).

6. Clay sealings from the “House of Tiles” at Lerna (C. Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilisation, London 1972, 113, fig. 7.7).

appear to have been simple dwellings were usually quadrilateral or, more rarely, with an apsidal ending of their long walls, and two- or three-roomed. More spacious buildings, of more complex plan and up to 80 m.2 in area, also existed.11

of such an elaborate model which, moreover, required for its execution a specialist labour force, skilled in advanced building techniques. A reasonable explanation would be that they were the seat of one or, more likely, several persons (a group) invested with special power and prestige. In each settlement, this leading group will have co-ordinated the various sectors of productive activities, controlled access to certain scarce sources of raw materials, constructed public amenities such as roads and enclosures, as well as imposed elementary rules of social organization.13 Thus, these buildings can be qualified justifiably as “proto-palatial”.14

In some settlements, such as Thebes, a differentiation of the built environment was ascertained, that is deviations between buildings in terms of design, dimensions, technique of construction and contents. This differentiation probably suggests an uneven distribution of wealth and power among various individuals or groups within the same settlement and may be considered, in conjunction with other features, as an indication of the existence of at least rudimentary social stratification.

Other buildings of special functions were those that served the basic economic activities of the community, those used for specific manufacturing processes (workshops) and for storing commodities. These include the bronze workshops at Rafina and on Aegina, the silver workshop at Koropi, as well as the obsidian workshops at Lithares and Manika. The existence of separate craft workshops would certainly support the hypothesis that they housed full- or part-time craftsmen engaged in commercial production.

It is also important to emphasize the existence of certain special-purpose buildings or rather buildings of central functions, that is buildings intended to serve elementary functions associated with the administrative and economic organization of the settlements and the religious activities of the inhabitants. Outstanding among them is a series of independent buildings which undoubtedly constitute the most important achievement of Early Helladic architecture. These buildings were quite widely distributed, since examples are known at Lerna (the well-preserved and well-known “House of Tiles” and its predecessor Building BG), Aegina (the “House on the edge of the cliff ’ and the later “White House”), Akovitika (the successive Megara A and B), Thebes (the “Fortified House”) and possibly Zygouries. They were monumental by the standards of the time, of large size (25×12 m. at Lerna), two-storeyed and most carefully constructed. Their singularity lies mainly in the fact that they all have a more or less standardized and quite complex plan, with square or rectangular main rooms and characteristic lateral corridors, after which this type of building was named Corridor House (figs 2 and 5).12 Their dimensions, advanced construction technology and sophisticated layout were apparently dictated by their functional status as “administrative centres”. Only buildings of this type could have been designed on the basis

Unique in the entire Aegean region is the huge circular building (Rundbau) at Tiryns, which, with its elaborate ground plan and particularly strong external walls, has been interpreted as a communal granary for the storage of the agricultural surplus intended for redistribution in the wider area of Tiryns. However, according to another view this building was a defensive tower, some compartments of which were used for storage.15 The circular constructions with thick walls found at Orchomenos in Boeotia must have been public granaries too.

Moveable finds Certain moveable finds, which will necessarily be mentioned selectively below, are highly illuminating, particularly with regard to the organization of the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. 50

Early Urbanization in Mainland Greece These include some clay vases of sophisticated technique as well as standardized stone tools and vessels of Melian obsidian or imported volcanic stones (such as andesite). The fashioning of these objects seems to have moved from the stage of household production to cover family needs, and to be now in the hands of experienced craftspersons, most probably working in separate workshops.

vague and do not appear to have been crystallized into stable models. Thus we may conclude that the settlements are in a primary formative or early stage of urbanization.16 Innovations of catalytic significance, even though in embryonic form, had already appeared by this stage, such as craft specialization, development of technology, widening of exchanges, institution of central authority and emergence of social stratification, with intensive synergy between them.

In addition, metal artefacts (weapons, tools and, more rarely, jewellery) brought to light in most settlements, as well as in the large cemetery at Manika, are extremely important. The archaeologically documented exploitation of raw material sources, such as the mines of Thorikos-Laurion, a significant source of lead and silver, as well as the obsidian and andesite quarries, allows us to suppose that specialized mining-quarrying teams were installed on site, probably temporarily. The notable progress of metallurgy and metalworking at certain centres bears witness, more than any other indication, to the presence of craftsmen with advanced technical know-how.

It is easy to appreciate that the further dynamic activation of the network of these innovations would have led to the fulfilment of the urbanization process. However, this did not happen in the settlements of the period. On the contrary, the ascendant course of Early Helladic culture towards achieving a high level of urbanization was cut short at the end of its second phase, before reaching its climax. In the succeeding phase, Early Helladic III, we see a substantial decrease in the number of settlements, an arresting of growth and signs of retrogression.17 This major cultural change, whose causes have been variously interpreted, was felt over the entire region considered here.18 Thus we observe the phenomenon of the Greek Mainland passing for several centuries to the margins of developments taking place in other regions of the Aegean.

It goes without saying that mass-production of standardized utensils and tools from various materials went hand in hand with the development of a dense and wide-cast exchange network. This was the only way to secure for the workshops the steady supply of raw materials, especially metals, as well as the distribution of finished products to distant markets. It is within this framework that the established close trading relations of mainland Greece with the islands of the Aegean and the shores of Asia Minor should be viewed. An additional indirect but significant testimony to the operation of a sophisticated system of managing and trafficking commodities are seals and their impressions on pieces of clay (sealings), which will have secured chests and vessels. Numerous caches of such sealings have been found at Lerna (fig. 6) and more recently at Geraki in Laconia and Petri near Nemea.

Hierarchy of settlements As far as the complementary question of the settlement hierarchy of the period is concerned, we can say that on a regional scale a hierarchical order of at least three basic levels had developed, the first two of which were of urban or, more precisely, proto-urban character.19 a. The first, uppermost, level represents the highest scale of early urbanization and included settlements in Boeotia, Euboea, the Argolid and the Corinthia, regions of exceptional economic and cultural development. The settlements of this category, with their central position and specialized functions, may be considered as central places. In other words, centres that occupied a nodal position at regional level and consequently controlled, even though loosely, neighbouring satellite settlements. Thus, they will have been responsible for co-ordinating the inter-local differentiation of production and the redistribution of produce. Thebes, Manika, Aegina, Lerna, Tiryns, et al., are some examples.

What has been stated above in relation to craft specialization and the consequent division of labour, combined with information drawn from architectural remains, advocate the view that the formation of occupational classes of differentiated status in the social hierarchy had already begun in settlements of the period.

Conclusions

b. The second level includes settlements such as Rafina and Aghios Kosmas, smaller in area, often coastal, with weaker structure and social and political organization but with quite advanced small-scale craft and trade. By exploiting their favourable geographical location, these settlements will have undertaken the trafficking of essential raw materials and at times even the processing of these in situ, and will have evolved into self-sufficient craft-industrial and transit centres.

Following the summary presentation of the principal evidence from the settlements of the Early Helladic II period, we can return to the questions posed at the beginning of this chapter.

Level of urbanization It is possible to answer the first and more critical question affirmatively. It would not be too risky to suggest that the gradual transformation of the basically agricultural settlements into “urban centres” with more complex productive relations and social structures had already begun in the period considered here. During its final phase in particular, the socalled “phase of the Corridor Houses”, the rate of evolution had accelerated and the transformation had progressed to a quite satisfactory degree. It should be clarified, however, that the manifestations of the urbanisation phenomenon are still rather

c. Dozens of other small villages as well as rural installations inhabited seasonally, totally lacking in urban traits, will have formed the lowest level of the local or regional hierarchy. They will have functioned mainly as dependent satellites of their larger neighbouring centres. In general, the Early Helladic settlements, whether early urban centres of the first or the second level, or secondary installations of rural character, each held a different position within a 51

Dora Konsola cohesive economic, social and perhaps political system, which operated on a regional scale yet at the same time formed part of the wider Early Helladic II culture.

Konsola, Early Urbanisation, op. cit., 170–171. Among the features documenting the cultural retrogression in this phase are the low standard of construction technique and the disappearance of monumental buildings of “Corridor House” type. 18 There are two main views on the causes of this cultural change: one view links it with migrations or invasions of new people and the other attributes it to changes in the natural environment (climatic or anthropogenic). These problems have been dealt with among others by J. Forsén, The Twilight of the Early Helladics: A Study of the Disturbances in East-Central Greece Towards the End of the Early Bronze Age, SIMA 116, Jonsered 1992 and Maran, Kulturwandel, op. cit., who both present a summary of the various views. See also Rutter, “Review of Aegean Prehistory II”, op. cit., 763–766. 19 The issue of ranking Early Helladic settlements has preoccupied research, without arriving at a satisfactory division. See indicatively Konsola, Early Urbanization, op. cit., 158–162, 165–169; Jameson, Runnels and van Andel, A Greek Countryside, op. cit., 358–362; Pullen, Social Organisation, op. cit., 344–364; and idem, “Site size, territory and hierarchy”, in K. Polinger Foster and R. Laffineur (eds), Metron: Measuring the Aegean Bronze Age, Liège 2003, 29–36; B. Wells and C. Runnels, The Berbati-Limnes Archaeological Survey 1988–1990, Stockholm 1906, 118–120. 16 17

Notes For a detailed list of Early Helladic sites see K. Syriopoulos, Prehistoric Habitation in Greece and Birth of the Greek Nation, Archaeological Society, vol. I, Athens 1994, 373–474, with relevant bibliography (in Greek), and E. Alram-Stern, Die Ägäische Frühzeit, 2 Band, Wien 2004, 537–740. 2 For the most important building remains of the Early Helladic period see: D. Pullen, Social Organization in Early Bronze Age Greece, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1985; R. Hägg and D. Konsola (eds), Early Helladic Architecture and Urbanization, SIMA 76, Göteborg 1986; M. Cosmopoulos, The Early Bronze Age 2 in the Aegean, SIMA 98, Jonsered 1991; J. Renard, Le Péloponnèse au bronze ancien, Aegaeum 13, Liège 1995; Alram-Stern, Die Ägäische Frühzeit, op. cit., 229–278. 3 See J. Rutter, “Review of Aegean Prehistory II: The Prepalatial Bronze Age of the Southern and Central Greek Mainland”, American Journal of Archaeology 97, 1993, 747–758, with discussion of the methodological problems of these researches; see also idem, “Addendum: 1993–1999” in T. Cullen (ed.), Aegean Prehistory: A Review, American Journal of Archaeology Suppl. 1, Boston 2001, 148–149. 4 D. Konsola, Early Urbanization in Early Helladic Settlements: Systematic Analysis of its Characteristics, Athens 1984 (in Greek). The views expressed in the present chapter are partly based on the results of this earlier study, in which mathematical taxonomy was used as an analytical tool. 5 Konsola, Early Urbanization, op. cit., 41–47. See also chapter 1 by A.Ph. Lagopoulos in the present volume. 6 These are the dates proposed by S. Manning, The Absolute Chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age, Sheffield 1995, 171–172. 7 For the developments that appear in the last part of this phase see in particular M. Wiencke, “Change in Early Helladic II”, American Journal of Archaeology 93, 1989, 495–509. The subject is examined in detail by J. Maran, Kulturwandel auf dem griechischen Festland und den Kykladen im späten 3. Jahrtausend v. Chr., Habelt, Bonn 1998. 8 For a brief discussion of settlement pattern, function and hierarchy of Early Helladic sites see Cosmopoulos, Early Bronze Age 2, op. cit., 3–13. For an exemplary presentation of the evolution of settlement patterns in a specific region, the southeast Argolid, see M. Jameson, C. Runnels and T. van Andel, A Greek Countryside: The Southern Argolid from Prehistory to the Present Day, Stanford 1994, 348–366. 9 See mainly D. Konsola, “Settlement size and the beginning of urbanization”, in P. Darcque and R. Treuil (eds), L’habitat égéen préhistorique (Actes de la Table Ronde Internationale, Athènes, 23–25 juin 1987), Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénique, Suppl. XIX, 1990, 463–471. It should be noted that as far as Manika is concerned, we have to regard with circumspection the area of 80 ha. proposed by A. Sampson, Manika II, Athens 1988, 9 (in Greek), since this seems highly unlikely for the time and the region in question (see also Maran, Kulturwandel, op. cit., 215, n. 604). 10 D. Konsola, “Beobachtungen zum Wegnetz in Frühhelladischen Siedlungen”, Archäologischer Anzeiger 1984, 197–210. 11 S. Harrison, “Domestic Architecture in Early Helladic II: Some observations on the form of non-monumental houses”, Annual of the British School at Athens 90, 1995, 23–40. 12 For a systematic study of this architectural type see J. Shaw, “The Early Helladic II Corridor House: Development and form”, American Journal of Archaeology 91, 1987, 59–79, and idem, “The Early Helladic II Corridor House: Problems and possibilities”, in Darque and Treuil, L’habitat égéen préhistorique, op. cit., 183–194; see also M. Wiencke, Lerna, A Preclassical Site in the Argolid, IV: The Architecture, Stratification and Pottery of Lerna III, Princeton 2000, 291–304, 649–652. 13 For the various views on the use of “Corridor Houses” see above n. 12 and Pullen, Social Organization, op. cit., 263–267; Hägg and Konsola, Early Helladic Architecture, op. cit., 96; Wiencke, “Change in Early Helladic II”, 503–505; Maran, Kulturwandel, op. cit., 193–197. 14 Maran, Kulturwandel, op. cit., 461. 15 K. Kilian, “The circular building at Tiryns”, in Hägg and Konsola, Early Helladic Architecture, op. cit., 65–71, where the view that it is a granary is analysed. The idea that the circular building was a defensive tower is proposed by Maran, Kulturwandel, 197–199. 1

52

CHAPTER 7

Early Urbanization in the Aegean Islands Christos G. Doumas Professor Emeritus of Prehistoric Archaeology National and Capodistrian University of Athens

Several contemporary scholars have argued that the word civilization, on the basis of its etymology– root of which is the Latin noun civitas, meaning city –, can only be used of those societies which, in the long course of their historical development, created social institutions necessitated and imposed by living in cities.1 Given that the first cities in Greece appeared during the Early Bronze Age, the term civilization – according to this view – is only applicable to societies from this period onward. Etymology aside, it is worth investigating what civilization implies. For the emergence of cities was not a sudden, accidental event, but simply one link in the unending chain of the history of mankind.

measuring, weighing, counting, the creation of high art are all elements that can be detected in the archaeological record and used as criteria to determine the degree of urbanization of the society that created them.3 The roots of many of these elements can be traced back to periods much earlier than the appearance of the proto-urban centres. The art of the Upper Palaeolithic, for example, with its remarkable sculptures and cave-paintings, has been characterized as the earliest evidence of craft specialization and division of labour.4 On the other hand, urban planning can be detected in societies’ very first attempts at permanent settlement. The choice of a suitable site for founding a settlement, which should not only provide safety and protection for community members but also ensure easy access to the means of survival – water sources, food supplies, etc. – is predicated on basic preconditions which Palaeolithic man had taken into consideration even for his temporary encampments. It is also known that public utility works, as manifestations of communal effort, appeared at the very beginnings of permanent settlement. The protective walls of Jericho in Palestine5 and at Khirokitia on Cyprus,6 which both date to the seventh millennium BC, certainly required central planning and co-ordination for their construction. The dawn of the trend towards centralization of authority should also be sought in the leaders of the migrant Palaeolithic bands. Nevertheless, the sedentary way of life and the need to solve vital problems were undoubtedly an impetus for this trend to acquire a more concrete form during the Neolithic Age. From this perspective, collective works such as those referred to are the earliest material evidence of the process of centralization of authority, a process which, with the appearance of the first cities, led eventually to state formation. Thanks to the favourable environmental conditions in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, population “explosions” occurred as early as the fourth millennium BC and it is therefore not fortuitous that the first cities and the first organized states developed in these areas.7

Culture, as the product par excellence of human behaviour, is in effect the sum total, the resultant, of man’s responses to the pressing challenges of the environment (natural and manmade). That is why the nature of the culture created by human societies in different environments differs. The differences observed between the cultures of our planet (e.g. of the steppe, the desert, the Arctic, of mountainous, lakeside, riverside or coastal regions, of the islands) are not due to racial or genetic differences of their creators, but to environmental differences that demand and impose different ways of coping with them. Indeed, the way in which each society confronts these diverse problems, in order to ensure better living conditions, can be said to determine its cultural “level”.2 The cultural level of urbanization or civilization is determined by the specific solutions man gave to the demographic problem at a particular moment in time. The passage of human societies from the food-foraging (hunting and gathering) stage of the Palaeolithic Age to the food-producing stage of the Neolithic Age had enormous repercussions and imposed revolutionary changes in their organization. The improvement of living conditions as an outcome of permanent settlement and the securing of sufficient food supplies, in various parts of the planet, contributed to the rapid growth of populations, generating new pressing problems whose solution demanded more coordinated efforts. Problems of housing, subsistence, sanitation, harmonious coexistence, and so on, demanded the planning and implementing of public works, in order to deal with them. Urban planning, land-improvement works (drainage, irrigation), water-supply and waste-disposal networks, craft specialization and division of labour, systems of writing,

The urbanization process in the Aegean islands In the Aegean too, the beginnings of the urbanization process can be observed in the Neolithic Age, mainly in the plains watered 53

Christos G. Doumas by large rivers. The choice of sites for founding settlements, the plan and standardization of the house, the protection of the settlements with built enclosures or with ditches point to the existence of a central co-ordinating agent.8 In Thessaly, the so-called Neolithic megaron9 could be considered as the seat of such an agent. Conversely, the excellent quality pottery and figurines not only bear witness to the artistic inquiries of their makers but also belie technical know-how and possibly specialization in these sectors, while they could also be perceived as indicators of a social hierarchy.10

archaeological testimony, in the islands of the north and the east Aegean was different from that in the archipelago of the Cyclades, with the former clearly leading the field. In comparison with the Cyclades, the islands of Lemnos, Lesbos, Chios, Samos are larger, have more extensive tracts of cultivable land and are richer in natural resources. Precipitation is more frequent, while proximity to the landmass of Asia Minor was a fixed pole of attraction for their inhabitants. That is why the islanders from an early date transformed the littoral zone of Asia Minor into their Lebensraum, a kind of peraia, which guaranteed their self-sufficiency in foodstuffs. On the other hand, the narrow strip of sea between the islands and the large landmass was the safest channel for maritime communications between the north and the south Aegean. On this sea route the islands became havens and staging posts for the ships of the age. It is perhaps no coincidence that the best-known Early Bronze Age settlements on the islands of the north and the east Aegean (Poliochni on Lemnos, Thermi on Lesbos, Emporio on Chios, Heraion on Samos) had been founded facing the Asia Minor coast rather than looking out into the open sea (see Chapter 6, fig. 1).

The Aegean Islands, essentially a landmass fragmented by the sea, with their limited natural resources, were not a favourable environment for the aggregation of large populations, as was the case in the fertile lowlands of mainland Greece and of Crete. Thus, there were neither population “explosions” nor their consequent settlement problems here. The restricted tracts of arable land, the sometimes inclement weather, the frequent periods of drought were chronic problems that the islanders had to face, involving them in an ongoing struggle with the natural elements. Confrontation of these inherent problems contributed to forming the islanders’ frugality and to stimulating their ingenuity and inventiveness, enabling them to exploit their meagre resources to the full. The discovery, quarrying, working and utilizing of stones such as obsidian, marble, emery, trachyte, for fashioning tools and vessels, and the development of metallurgy, metalworking, shipbuilding and navigation skills date back to the beginnings of settlement of the islands, in the sixth millennium BC,11 but flourished remarkably during the third millennium BC.

Of the known Bronze Age settlements (3200–1100 BC) in the North Aegean Islands, very few have been investigated and even fewer to a degree that provides adequate information on their development. Nonetheless, the process of urbanization does not seem to have progressed at the same rate in all. Many of these settlements were apparently founded in the Late Neolithic period (mid-6th-late 4th millennium BC) by incomers who, judging from their material culture remains, migrated from Asia Minor opposite.

The islanders’ occupations sharpened their powers of observation and whetted their appetite for acquiring knowledge, albeit empirical, of geology, physics, chemistry, meteorology, astronomy and so on, much earlier than the mainlanders. Thanks to this knowledge, they developed technology, the products of which, together with their seafaring services, they could exchange for goods from the large landmasses. And so they managed to survive on their small islands. The craft specialization that occupations demanded, such as locating lodes of metal ores, mining and smelting them, metalworking, shipbuilding, navigation, stone-carving and others, removed individuals from primary production and led to division of labour. Depending on the importance that the island community attached to each specialist task, this gave those practising it status, so giving rise gradually to social stratification. Indications of this stratification exist in the archaeological record, in the size and arrangement of houses, in architecture, in grave goods, etc. Within these early maritime societies of the islands, relations were forged and institutions formed, many of which still obtain today.12 Through the islanders’ activities the entrepreneurial character of the Greek economy took shape, the beginnings of which can be traced back to the third millennium BC.

These settlements, conforming to the norm for coastal settlements in the Bronze Age Aegean, were founded on a hillock thrusting into the sea as a small promontory. The sandy coves on either side were ideal for beaching small boats, making these safe havens for replenishing supplies and engaging in mercantile transactions. As has been said, the existence of potable water was another basic criterion for choosing a settlement site and the exploitation of springs or the sinking of wells are typical features of insular settlements in the northeast Aegean. Other “public” works attested in these settlements are the protective walls, cobbled/paved streets, drainage-sewerage networks and buildings for communal use. All these, in conjunction with the urban plan, the obvious craft specialization and the corresponding division of labour, bear witness to the long way the Early Bronze Age societies in the northeast Aegean had come in their course towards urbanization. Information on the Early Bronze Age settlements in the Northeast Aegean islands continues to be restricted primarily to the excavation reports. Synthetic studies in which the excavation data are analysed are still few, in both the Greek and the international bibliography. It was therefore deemed useful to present here those data that will help us to understand better the progress of these settlements towards urbanization.

The urbanization process in the Aegean Islands cannot be examined without taking into account the conditions and factors outlined above, because it is precisely these factors that differentiate the island societies not only from the contemporary mainland societies, but also from one another. This explains why the process of urbanization, as confirmed by

Heraion Beneath the ruins of one of the most famous sanctuaries of Antiquity, the Heraion (sanctuary of Hera) on Samos, 54

Early Urbanization in the Aegean Islands These are large, quadrilateral buildings of oblong plan, with an antechamber, usually with gravel pavement. The antechamber leads into a large rectangular hall, as a rule provided with a hearth. These residences, of so-called megaroid type, are the norm in the Heraion settlement, although exceptions are also encountered. A megaroid building of large dimensions (at least 6.10×8.50 m.), with robust walls some 0.50 m. thick (Megaron II), seems to have held a special place in the settlement of Heraion II, north of the north Archaic stoa. It faced northeast and had an upper structure of mud bricks. A similar building (Great Megaron) of even larger dimensions (7.10×13.90 m.), facing southeast, is dated to the phase Heraion IV. Built partly on the remains of Megaron I, its walls are 0.90 m. thick. The space in front of its narrow east side is paved with flagstones, indicating that the entrance to the building was here. The exceptional size of these buildings and their construction on the same site undoubtedly had a significance that eludes us. Possibly these edifices were intended for functions relating not just to the members of one family group but of the entire community, in which case they could be qualified as “communal”.

1. Heraion, Samos. Plan of the prehistoric settlement (H. Walter, Griechische Heiligtum dargestellt am Heraion von Samos (Urachhaus), Stuttgart 1990, 18 abb. 4).

Another monumental building in the Heraion settlement, fragmentary foundations of which were located under the pronaos of the second great temple, must also have been for “public” use. The masonry of its walls is particularly strong (1.50 m. thick), but we can only speculate as to its purpose. It may have been part of communal storehouse, a section of the fortification or a very ancient precursor of the later temples, as has been suggested on occasion.

excavations of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens have brought to light the remnants of an extensive prehistoric settlement (fig. 1).13 The founding of this settlement is dated early in the third millennium BC and coincides – according to the excavators – with the late phase of Troy I. The absence of Neolithic remains perhaps indicates that the settlement at the Heraion, like Troy, was the result of a synoecism of small villages of the Late Neolithic period. One such village has been excavated at Tigani (mod. Pythagoreion), where the city of Samos flourished in historical times.

The mighty defensive wall, part of which – orientated northeast-southwest – has been exposed in the area between the north Archaic stoa and the old temple, was certainly a public work. Up to 2 m. thick, its lower part is revetted with large stones inside and out, while the upper part was built of mud bricks. Large oblique grooves found inside the wall seem to be the imprints of wooden beams that reinforced its fabric. The section of the wall revealed passed over the architectural remains of at least two phases and enclosed the southwest part of the settlement.

The choice of the site for the settlement at Heraion seems to have been dictated by the existence of a plentiful water source – even today the sanctuary is inundated by the River Imbrasos – and of the flat sandy beach that offered safe anchorage for prehistoric ships. Directly opposite Mount Mykale on the Asia Minor coast and in front of the southern mouth of the homonymous straits, it was an ideal provisioning and trading station. On the other hand, the proximity to the large landmass of Asia Minor facilitated the role of the settlement at Heraion as a node in the chain of communication with the rest of the islands in the Aegean.

The diverse moveable finds from the Heraion settlement point to activities not only in the primary sector – agriculture, animal husbandry – probably of domestic character, but also the secondary – processing of wool (spindle whorls), possibly weaving and basketry, and so on. Activities associated with fire technology, such as vase-making and metalworking, for which there is considerable evidence, certainly demanded specialized knowledge and skills. Indications also exist for the external relations of the Heraion settlement with the landmass of Asia Minor, the other northeast Aegean islands and the Cyclades.

The excavators have estimated that the prehistoric settlement at Heraion covered an area of approximately 3.5 ha., of which only a small part (0.2–0.3 ha.) has been investigated. Exhaustive and systematic exploration of the settlement is not possible, because of the presence of the important overlying buildings of the sanctuary, and has of necessity been confined to areas free of later monuments, such as that between the temple and the north Archaic stoa. Many of the architectural monuments in the sanctuary have deep foundations, which destroyed considerable sectors of the prehistoric settlement. So, although five architectural phases have been identified (Heraion I-V), it has not been possible to ascertain any canons of urban planning. It would appear that there was no preconceived plan and the building seems to have been dictated by the available space. That is why independent houses without uniform orientation coexist with blocks of houses with party walls.

Emporio The closeness of Chios to Asia Minor and the large size of the island surely contributed to its early habitation, in the sixth millennium BC (Middle Neolithic period), as attested by the finds from two neighbouring caves in the village of Ayio Galas, at its northwest tip. The settlement at Emporio, on the southeast of Chios, was apparently founded by settlers from 55

Christos G. Doumas VII-I) it was protected by walls, embankments or platforms, which were continuously maintained and improved (fig. 3). From Period VII an elevated paved causeway, 2.20–2.30 m. wide and flanked by protective walls, linked the well to the settlement. Measures were constantly taken to keep both this causeway and the protective walls in good condition, so ensuring safe access to the well for virtually the whole time of the settlement’s existence. In Period VI the well was lined with dry-stone walling, so that the wellhead measured 2.30×2.10 m. The paramount role of the well in life at Emporio seems to have been related also to ritual or cult practices enacted around it. This is the explanation offered for the presence of abundant sherds of jugs in the vicinity, which do not give the impression of being rubbish or discards. These sherds are dated down to after Period V. The well was abolished in Period I, presumably after other wells were sunk at a lower level. Through successive levelling of the fill, the settlement had expanded to south, west and north of the well from as early as Period IV. After a major destruction by conflagration, the settlement was rebuilt in Period III and protected by a mighty wall. Basic trait of the houses at Emporio is that their walls stood directly on fill, without foundations. Of rectangular plan, the dwellings had floors coated with clay on a layer of earth and were provided with several hearths, both inside and outdoors. The roofs were probably flat, while from the absence of staircases it is deduced that the houses were single-storeyed.

2. Emporio, Chios. The peninsula with the acropolis and the prehistoric settlement (S. Hood, Chios, 1981, 86, fig. 47).

From early on, Emporio established contact with the neighbouring islands and the Cyclades, as is attested by the imported vessels and the local imitations of them. Relations with Troy were evidently close too, especially during Period I, which is contemporary with the final phase of Troy II.

Asia Minor, in the closing centuries of the sixth millennium BC, on the North-South sea lane. Thanks to its privileged position on a small promontory that ensured a dual anchorage, and particularly to a small fresh-water source, Emporio was destined to have a long life, represented by ten occupation periods (X-I). Excavation of the site, which took place in several seasons before and after the Second World War, was limited to exploratory trenches on the hill of the later acropolis and at its foot (fig. 2).14 On the basis of the findings in these soundings, it is estimated that the prehistoric settlement covered an area of some 3 ha. Of the habitation periods, the first three (X-VIII) date to the Late Neolithic and the rest (VII-I) to the Early Bronze Age (3200–2000 BC).

The moveable finds suggest that the way of life of the inhabitants of Emporio during the Early Bronze Age differed very little from that of their Neolithic predecessors. Agriculture and stock raising continued to be basic subsistence activities for the community. Cattle, and to a greater extent sheep and goats, and even molluscs were not only a source of food but also of raw materials for covering other needs: hides and wool for clothing, bones and shell for making tools and jewellery. The advances in pyrotechnology brought improvements in pottery production, as borne out by the wide repertoire of vase shapes, and in food preparation (see tripod cooking pots). However, their effects were most pronounced in the use of metal objects, such as various tools (chisels, awls, needles, knives, fish hooks). The discovery of crucibles for smelting ore and moulds in which metal tools were cast confirms that metallurgy was practised locally.

The architectural evidence from Period X is limited to fragments of walls. The discovery of four skulls and human bones under a house floor points to the habit of intra muros burial. A strong wall, 1–1.5 m. thick, which dates from Period IX, ran down to the foot of the hill and girt the area, concurrently protecting the water source there. This wall, as a manifestation of collective effort, is the earliest public amenity on Chios. It appears that during the succeeding period (VIII) the spring was exploited more systematically: a well was sunk on the same spot, which too was protected by a strong wall, this time constructed at a higher level. Outstanding among the house remains of Period VIII is an apsidal room, on the floor of which flakes and numerous cores of Melian obsidian were found. It was therefore interpreted as an obsidian-knapping workshop, one of the earliest of its kind in the Aegean, outside Melos.

Public works, such as the community well and the protective wall around it and along the access to it, division of labour, which some of the aforementioned activities demanded, and contacts with the rest of the Aegean world, all indicate that Emporio was implicated in the developments that led to the emergence of proto-urban centres.

Thermi

During the Early Bronze Age, life at Emporio was directly dependent on the well, care of which never ceased. Of irregular ovoid shape, for the duration of its use (Periods

Thermi is situated about 10 km. north of Mytilene, on the point of Lesbos that is closest to the opposite coast of Asia Minor 56

Early Urbanization in the Aegean Islands

3. Emporio, Chios. The area of the well in different periods (Hood 1981, 92, fig. 51).

57

Christos G. Doumas

4. Map of Lesbos (E. Melas (ed.), Die griechische Inseln (Dumont Buchverlag), Köln 1978, 323).

5. Thermi, Lesbos, period II: plan of the settlement (W. Lamb, Excavations at Thermi, 1936, plan 2).

58

Early Urbanization in the Aegean Islands (fig. 4). The prehistoric settlement was founded on a knoll between two shallow streams, the sandy estuaries of which were ideal for mooring small craft. Due to its direct contact with the sea, a considerable part of the site has been eroded by the waves. The excavation conducted before the Second World War brought to light only part of the settlement, about 0.45 ha., whereas the entire area is estimated at 1.5–1.6 ha.15

this infrastructure the beehive-shaped dome of the oven was built of clay, reinforced at the sides with stones and sherds. Both the hearths and the ovens point to familiarity with fire technology at Thermi and its use for everyday needs. Another characteristic of the inhabitants of Thermi, particularly of Cities III and IV, is the large number of small pits (bothroi) cut into the floor and lined with mud 2–5 cm. thick. Although their function is enigmatic, it seems to have been related to both their shape and their size, which vary enormously: they range in depth from 5 to 7 cm. They might have been storage spaces, bases for narrow-bottomed pithoi, secondary hearths mainly for heating, etc.

In the excavated sector, five architectural phases were identified (Thermi I-V), of which the most accessible and best known is the last. Rudimentary principles of urban planning are already discernible in Thermi II, in which there is a network of streets in radiate arrangement. The houses, which were narrow-fronted and had a party wall along their long side, formed building blocks. “Cities” II (fig. 5) and III also kept the centripetal arrangement of their building blocks. A radical change is observed in the plan of Thermi IV, where two parallel streets constituted the basic axes, along which the narrow-fronted houses are built adjacent to each other along the long side. Thermi V was smaller in area, yet better planned and more carefully built (fig. 6). It had broad streets running parallel with and perpendicular to the line of the fortification wall, thus forming almost rectangular building plots, while there was a spacious paved square at the centre. Successive cobbled street surfaces, witnesses to the constant care for the upkeep of the thoroughfares, have been noted on the central artery of Thermi IV, which is almost 4 m. wide, and on streets of Thermi V.

One of the most impressive communal works at Thermi is the complex defensive wall that enclosed City V, presumably to cope with some external threat. An inner wall, 2 m. thick, is surrounded by two or more external enceintes. The preserved height of the main wall does not exceed 1.10 m. and it is not possible to confirm whether the upper part was of stone or of wood and earth. There were at least two gateways in the wall, a west one and a south, which was evidently on top of the corresponding entrance to City IV. A branch of the wall on one side and a quadrilateral tower on the other, protecting the west gate, bespeak an advanced art of fortification. Thermi was supplied with water from wells sunk down to the aquifer of the region. Of the eight wells uncovered in the section of the settlement investigated, three can be dated securely to the first and two to the fourth city. The rest probably date to the Middle (2000–1650 BC) and the Late (1650–1100 BC) Bronze Age.

In general the houses at Thermi were stone-built and large, often 4–5 m. wide. The entrance from the street is identified by the stone threshold and the stone socket for the door hinge. Basically the houses comprise a smaller room in front, towards the street, and a larger on behind, while small ancillary spaces also existed at the back. The floors were commonly paved with sea pebbles or schist slabs, the interstices between which were filled with pebbles. Small clusters of same-size pebbles on the floor were interpreted by the excavator as bases upon which large vases were set. The roofs of the houses were probably flat, although it is not known how their beams were arranged since there are no indications of pillars, columns or median walls, which would have reduced the span between the long walls. Low platforms, benches, niches or other constructions in the interior were presumably part of the furnishing of the houses.

Poliochni Although the island of Lemnos lies at a relatively great distance from the Hellespont (Dardanelles) (34 miles) and from the other landmasses (30 miles from the Athos Peninsula), it was from early times a nodal point on the sea route between the Aegean and the Euxine Pontus (Black Sea). Favoured by its geographical position, its relatively flat and fertile terrain, the routes of maritime communication with the cyclonic and anticyclonic currents in the area,16 as well as by the smooth and sheltered coasts, the island was an important pole of attraction from the Neolithic Age. Its importance for early seafaring in the Aegean is underscored by the three prehistoric coastal settlements that have been identified to date: Myrina on the northwest coast, Koukonisi in Moudros Bay and Poliochni on the east coast. Research at Myrina and Koukonisi is still in its infancy and it is thus difficult to draw conclusions beyond the fact that both were significant centres in the Early Bronze Age.

The houses had hearths, normally more than one, inside and outside but in no standard position. By and large the hearth was a carefully constructed installation, with some exceptions probably due to its successive component layers. It comprised a stone-built base on which there was a layer of pebbles, upon which was another layer of sherds. Last, the use-surface of the hearth was paved with fired bricks. Of comparable construction was the oven, of which there are two variations, the jar-oven and the beehive oven. The former, of small dimensions, consisted of a broken storage jar (pithos) placed sideways, coated with clay and frequently reinforced with stones, in front of which a small hearth was arranged. The latter, of larger dimensions had a solid base was formed of quite sizeable stones with earth in the interstices and a horizontal surface paved with sea pebbles, upon which was laid a kind of mosaic of coarse sherds of large pots, often covered by a second mosaic of smaller sherds. Upon

Poliochni, in Vroskopos Bay, opposite the Hellespont, extends upon a long knoll which, flanked by two small torrents, Psatha to the north and Avlaki to the south, must have jutted into the sea as a headland in prehistoric times. This at least is indicated by the intense erosion it has suffered over the millennia. In other words, at Poliochni too the choice of site was dictated by the same norm as observed at the other Bronze Age coastal settlements in the Aegean: to secure two sheltered harbours where light vessels could moor. As is the case with other 59

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6. Thermi, Lesbos, period V: plan of the settlement (Lamb, 1936, plan 6).

contemporary settlements, proximity to the sea has meant that a considerable part of the eastern quarters of the settlement has been washed away by the waves and disappeared together with its geological substrate.

7. Poliochni, Lemnos. Plan of the settlement of the Yellow period (Bernabo Brea, Poliochni, vol. II, 1976, 18, fig. 1).

flank of the west (main?) gateway of the settlement (fig.8). The south building (Bouleuterion) is of oblong plan (13.20×3.80– 4.10 m.) and has two stepped rows of stone seats down its entire long sides, which could accommodate some fifty persons. It has further been ascertained that it was repaired and used well into the Yellow period. Although there is no doubt that the space was intended for public assemblies it is difficult to define the nature of these. It could have served social, religious, economic or political needs. However, its long lifespan coupled with the fact that none of the other buildings uncovered in the settlement has yielded evidence that could designate it as the seat of some authority, bolster the view that gatherings of a political nature cannot be precluded. So, we can see in this building an embryonic form of the agora of Classical times. Indeed, this was the rationale behind the name Bouleuterion, given it by the excavators.

Poliochni was excavated by the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens in two periods (1930–1936 and 1951–1956), in the course of which an area of 1.5 ha. was exposed.17 In the thick deposits, up to 10 m. deep in places, seven cultural periods were identified, which were named conventionally by a colour: Black, Blue, Green, Red, Yellow, Grey and Mauve. The Black period, with seven building phases, spans the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. The Blue, Green, Red and Yellow periods date to the Early Bronze Age and are also represented by architectural remains, while the Grey and Mauve periods are recognized only through their pottery, which belongs to the Middle Bronze Age. As is to be expected, the architectural remains of the Yellow period are the best preserved (fig. 7). Nevertheless, sections of the monumental defensive wall and two of the most important buildings revealed at Poliochni have been dated to the Blue period. These are the so-called Theatre or Bouleuterion and the community Granary, both of which are built on the inside of the wall, demarcating respectively the south and the north

The function of the other building, the Granary, is less equivocal. Measuring 16.80×3.50–3.75 m. and with walls surviving to a height of 4.50–5.40 m., completely devoid of doors and windows (there are just two small ventilation slits, 60

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8. Poliochni, Lemnos. Plan of the Granary and the Bouleuterion of the Blue period (A. Archontidou, S. Tiné, A. Traverso, “Poliochni 1988. Nuovi saggi di scavo nell’ area del Bouleuterion e della piazza principale”, Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene LXVI-LXVII, 359, fig. 1).

0.22×0.25 m.), it was certainly intended as a storage facility. This interpretation is backed also by the presence of two low walls in cruciform arrangement on the ground, which have been interpreted as supports on which a wooden floor was laid. Air would circulate under this floor, thus preventing humidity from affecting the stored goods.

9. Poliochni, Lemnos. Plan of building insula VIII (Bernabo Brea 1976, 138, fig. 93).

the other island settlements in the northeast Aegean, its primacy is indisputable. The documented early development of pyrotechnology, and indeed of metallurgy, indicates that the island of Lemnos, which has no metal ores itself, played a leading role in the introduction of copper and know-how to the Aegean from the Euxine Pontus.19 Chemical and isotopic analyses have disassociated the Early Bronze Age bronze objects in the northeast Aegean from the metalliferous regions of the south Aegean, Siphnos and Laurion: in the northeast Aegean there are tin bronzes, in contrast to the south Aegean where there are arsenical bronzes.20 Nevertheless, geological research in Southeast Europe and throughout Turkey has also ruled out these regions as the provenance of the copper. The very great geological age of their ores associates them with the geological strata of Afghanistan, from which region the early import of tin and lapis lazuli to the Aegean is proposed.21

Of the other constructions, the paved streets and squares, the drainage-sewerage network and the wells for the settlement’s water supply are public works. The earliest examples of a drainage and a water-supply network are found in the Blue period. The conduits, with stone-built sides and paved bottom, were only for channelling off rainwater and not sewage from the houses. Two wells, in a good state of preservation, are located in one of the two large squares of the settlement. One well is square and the other round; the walls in both are lined with dry-stone masonry of excellent quality. The houses at Poliochni are less standardized, in dimensions and in plan, than those at Thermi. Thanks to the presence of ancillary spaces in direct communication with the house proper (which here, as at Thermi, is long and narrow), they give the impression of elaborate building complexes, each of which is accessible via a courtyard. Two or more complexes of this kind make up the building blocks (insulae) which are the distinctive feature of Poliochni’s layout (fig. 9). The differences observed in the size and arrangement of the houses, in comparison with Thermi, presumably reflect a different way of life and perhaps the greater affluence of the inhabitants of Poliochni.

Strange as the trafficking of goods between regions so far apart may seem, it is confirmed already in the Neolithic Age by the presence from Palestine to the Persian Gulf of obsidian from the area of Lake Van.22 Consequently, the idea of importing metals originating from Afghanistan through the Caucasus Mountains and from Colchis via the Euxine Pontus should not be ruled out. And it is perhaps not without significance that the ancient Greek myths relating to metallurgy, such as of Prometheus, the Golden Fleece, the Argonauts, link the Aegean with the region of Caucasus, where metallurgy did indeed develop much earlier.23 And if this is what really happened, Lemnos, in front of the Hellespont, was undoubtedly the first port of call in the Aegean. Consequently, the development of Poliochni into a city, indeed the first city in Europe, can be readily attributed to the introduction of early metallurgical technology and the circulation of its products in the rest of

It goes without saying that the conception, planning, implementation and successful functioning of public utility works presupposes the existence of a central co-ordinating agent, some kind of central authority. If the so-called Bouleuterion was indeed a venue for decision-making, then it can be argued that the exercise of authority at Poliochni was collective.18 Although some of the proto-urban characteristics of Poliochni – defensive wall, paved streets, community wells, craft specialization, division of labour – are recognized in 61

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10. Kastri, Syros. The fortified ECII/III settlement (E.M. Bossert, “Kastri auf Syros”, Archaiologikon Deltion 22, 1967, 56, plan 2).

the Aegean, possibilities which its strategically important geographical location secured. Moreover, Lemnos is ascribed this role by other ancient myths that place there the discovery of fire and the forge of Hephaistos, whose sons or grandsons, the Kabeiroi, also smiths, were worshipped there.24

11. Panormos, Naxos. The fortified ECII/III settlement (Ch. Doumas, “Weapons and fortifications”, in L. Marangou (ed.), Cycladic Culture. Naxos in the Third Millennium BC, Athens 1990, 91).

For reasons that still elude us, the island settlements in the Northeast Aegean were abandoned towards the end of the Early Bronze Age, cutting short their urbanization.25 This abandonment and the almost contemporaneous appearance of elements of a similar material culture on the Aegean coasts of the Greek Mainland and the coasts of the South Aegean islands constitute the evidence that historians have interpreted as indicative of the alleged arrival of Hellenic tribes.26 However, there is as yet no archaeological documentation of this supposed event, the “Coming of the Greeks”. Our knowledge of the ensuing periods, the Middle and the Late Bronze Age, in the Northeast Aegean islands is still scant, almost non-existent.

the EC II period there was a synoecism, a congregation of the scattered households of the farmsteads at sites which, as a rule, combined the requirements for a mixed-farming economy with safe anchorages for ships. A typical settlement of this period is the one being excavated currently at Skarkos, in the innermost cove of the Bay of Ios.28 Although investigations are still in a preliminary stage, certain traits of incipient urbanization are obvious. Such traits are the system of buildings adjoining one another, the layout of streets, the construction of twostorey houses – attested for the first time in the Early Bronze Age Aegean –, which are also some of the solutions devised by the Early Cycladic communities to cope with the problems arising from the synoecism of households. Similar settlementsvillages of the same period have been identified at Grotta on Naxos, Paroikia on Paros, Ayia Irini on Kea, Akrotiri on Thera, Phylakopi on Melos, Chalandriani on Syros, and elsewhere.29

The villages and proto-urban centres in the Cyclades The development of settlement in the Cyclades was different from that in the Northeast Aegean islands. Although no architectural remains from the Early Cycladic I period (3200– 2700 BC) have been found, the scattered cemeteries yield quite illuminating information.27 With one burial per grave and with 20–25 graves at most in each cemetery, it is inferred that these cemeteries did not serve large communities. They probably covered the needs of extended families or maybe clans, dispersed on each island, depending on the amount of arable land available to them. So we reach the conclusion that, in terms of settlement pattern, the Early Cycladic I period was characterized by scattered, isolated farmsteads of households engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry.

In this period too a greater propensity towards craft specialization and division of labour is observed, with the development of metalworking, marble-carving and, primarily, shipbuilding and seafaring. For the last, information is not confined to the discovery of objects of Cycladic provenance in other regions, but is also drawn from the representations of ships on clay vessels and rock-carvings of the period, or from stone boat models.30 Hints on the stratification of EC II society are given by the construction of the graves and the nature of the grave goods: the dead in well-built, sizeable graves were usually accompanied by prestige objects or “status symbols”, such as marble vessels and figurines, bronze tools/weapons and silver diadems.31 All this evidence bespeaks significant steps towards urbanization, during what could be dubbed the period of villages in the Cyclades.

During the Early Cycladic II period (2700–2300 BC) there is a decrease in the number of cemeteries on each island, accompanied by an increase in their size and in the number of burials in each grave – multiple successive inhumations. This implies the existence of organized settlements. In fact, in several instances settlement remains have been identified near EC II cemeteries. It is therefore concluded that during

The small, fortified settlements that appeared towards the end of the EC II period, such as at Kastri on Syros (fig. 10) and Panormos on Naxos (fig. 11), do not seem to fall within the 62

Early Urbanization in the Aegean Islands smooth course of settlement development in the Cyclades. Rather they were a stopgap solution, as is indicated by their brief lifespan (less than one generation) and their sudden, violent abandonment. Particularly significant is the fact that their appearance coincides temporally with the abandonment of the proto-urban settlements in the Northeast Aegean islands. For this reason it has been argued that the remote, fortified, short-lived settlements in the Cyclades might well have been bridgeheads, through which refugees from the Northeast Aegean attempted to settle in the South, bringing with them some, at least, of their economic activities, such as metalworking and transit trade.32 The material culture of these said settlements is not at variance with this proposition. The violent abandonment of the settlements seems to indicate that the “incomers” were ousted from the Cyclades. Nevertheless, they succeeded in settling permanently in other regions, such as the Argolid (Lerna) and Aegina (Kolona). The archaeological evidence for this intra-Aegean episode casts doubts on the theory of the ‘‘Coming of the Greeks”, hitherto based on this evidence.33 Available information on the settlements of the final period of the Early Bronze Age in the Cyclades, Early Cycladic III (2300–2000 BC), is extremely limited, since their architectural remains are covered by later phases of habitation at the same sites. What is certain is that there is rarely more than one site of this period on each island. Thus it seems that the process of synoecism continued until the coastal villages of the preceding period amalgamated and evolved into proto-urban portcentres. It is precisely these centres that emerged during the next period, the Middle Bronze Age, as true cities, frequently of cosmopolitan character. Phylakopi on Melos, Ayia Irini on Kea, Paroikia on Paros, Grotta on Naxos and Akrotiri on Thera belong in this category. The best example of a Middle Cycladic city is preserved at Akrotiri on Thera, under the thick layers of pumice and volcanic ash (pozzuolana) that covered the island after the enormous volcanic eruption in the seventeenth or sixteenth century BC. The city seems to be the culmination of the gradual development of settlement at the site, which dates back to the Late Neolithic period. This at least is implied by the lack of an organized urban plan. Nevertheless, the city has paved streets, a drainage-sewerage network and multi-storey public and private buildings (fig. 12).34 The five buildings that have been investigated thoroughly are but a small sample for formulating any rule. What is certain is that all were decorated with wall-paintings of superb quality,35 while the private houses had organized sanitary facilities. These features point to the urban or “bourgeois” mentality of Theran society at that time, a mentality that was cultivated gradually through the accumulation of moveable wealth from shipping and trade.

12. Akrotiri, Thera. Plan of the Middle Cycladic city (Archive of the Akrotiri, Thera Excavations).

The settlement at Kolona on Aegina On a small promontory at the northwest edge of Aegina are the ruins of the ancient temple of Apollo, dominated by one standing column, after which the promontory is named: Kolona. Seven metres beneath the foundations of the temple, on the bedrock, a prehistoric settlement had been founded on a site that met the needs of the time: a small peninsula with safe anchorage either side. In the seven-metre fill, the excavator identified ten settlement periods (Kolona I-X),37 one dating to the Final Neolithic period and the other nine to the Bronze Age, down to the first millennium BC. Already in the second settlement (the first of the Bronze Age), certain features that were kept as the rule in all subsequent periods, appear: the houses, with stone-built socle and mudbrick upper structure with timber reinforcements, are long and narrow with rooms aligned one beside the other. The excavator characterized the fifth settlement (Kolona V) as a ‘‘city”, because only there do ‘‘alleys and streets that organize the houses into urban units, square blocks” exist (fig. 15).38 However, some other traits, such as collective works, division

The eruption of the Thera volcano in the early Late Cycladic period surely had a disruptive effect on Aegean societies, particularly those on the islands. It would appear that in those Middle Cycladic cities that did not suffer the fate of Akrotiri, such as Paroikia, Phylakopi (fig. 13), Grotta, Ayia Irini (fig. 14), et al., life continued, perhaps with intermittent periods of prosperity and recession.36 63

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13. Ayia Irini, Kea. Plan of the Late Cycladic city (W.W. Cummer and E. Schofield, Keos III: Ayia Irini, House A (Philipp von Zabern), Mainz am Rhein 1984, pl. 3).

14. Phylakopi, Melos. Plan of the Late Cycladic City II (C. Renfrew and M. Wagstaff, An Island Polity: The Archaeology of the Exploitation of Melos (University Press), Cambridge 1982, 42, fig. 4.3).

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15. Kolona, Aegina. Plan of the settlement of period V (H. Walter, The World of Ancient Aegina, 1985, 69, fig. 41 [in Greek]).

of labour and monumental construction occur earlier. For example, in the third settlement (Kolona III) remnants of a defensive wall and buildings for specific activities (“House of the Dyer”, “House of Jars”) were uncovered, as well as an impressive large building (9×18.30 m.) which because it was coated with lime plaster was dubbed the “White House”. This last building is of the type known from mainland Greece as a “Corridor House”. It has been interpreted as the residence of the head of the settlement, which was perhaps used as a place of assembly for the men of the community. Whatever the case, it is interesting that this building was evidently not continued: during the period of Kolona IV a bronze foundry of advanced technology, the earliest known in the Aegean, was installed in its ruins (fig. 16). In the fifth settlement, which as we have said is characterized as a city, the houses are separated by party walls and organized in blocks, delineated by streets (fig. 15). Each house is onestoreyed, has its own entrance and is divided into two or three rooms, behind an open “porch”. An important sector of the defensive wall, which survives for a length of 70 m., with two gateways protected by semicircular towers, is irrefutable testimony of the sophisticated art of fortification. Kolona V was destroyed by a great fire, which left an ash layer up to half a metre thick, and the sixth settlement was built upon the ruins, with no change to the houses. With continuous improvements to the defensive wall, the city passed to the Middle Bronze Age, when it enjoyed a particular heyday as a centre of transit trade. The key location of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf is the paramount reason for the early development of the settlement at Kolona. Betwixt Attica and the Peloponnese, the island is also on one of the main sea currents in the Aegean.39 The art of fortification, prominent at the settlement in all its phases, the advanced metallurgical technology, the technical traits and shapes of the pottery, all bear witness to close affinity with the societies of the Northeast Aegean islands. These elements, which differentiate the inhabitants of Kolona from their contemporaries in mainland Greece and the Cyclades, lead us to consider the settlement at Kolona as a kind of early “colony” of islanders from the North Aegean, via which they trafficked goods and know-how. As a transit-trade station it has the

16. Kolona, Aegina. Plan of a bronze foundry of period IV (Walter, 1985, 65, fig. 39).

characteristic features of insular settlements in the Bronze Age. A singular element is the so-called “Corridor House”, in the third settlement period.

Urbanization and the birth of central authority in the Aegean As the nature of the cultures that developed in the Aegean region during the Early Bronze Age indicates, the process 65

Christos G. Doumas of transition from the farming village to the early city was different on the islands from that on large landmasses, Crete included. Two of these cultures, the Early Helladic on the Greek Mainland and the parallel Early Minoan on Crete, were mainland cultures: their economy was based on agriculture and stock-raising. On the contrary, the island cultures had an economy based primarily on maritime activities. The paucity of resources made the islanders frugal and inventive, while at the same time impelling them to engage in risky pursuits and become involved in trade. In the island cultures of the Aegean the economic activities that brought wealth and created a surplus were seafaring, transit trade and advanced technology.

The urban-planning development of the prehistoric settlements in the Aegean islands presents a completely different picture. Here too works demanding collective effort can be traced back to the Final Neolithic period, as is borne out by the protective enclosure around the settlement on Saliagos, close to Antiparos. Collective works such as fortifications, cobbled/ paved streets, water-supply and drainage/sewerage systems, are more distinctive of the island settlements in the Early Bronze Age Aegean and are indications of the existence of some form of central authority. In none of these settlements has a building been found that could be designated as the residence of some headman, as seat of authority, like that encountered on the Greek Mainland, in Crete and in the Troas. Only at Poliochni, as we have seen, does a building exist that could be characterized as a venue for decision-making.

If we consider the settlement as the shell within which a society develops, then we should expect this shell to be formed according to the demands of the society it encloses. In the remains of an ancient settlement we should be able to distinguish aspects of public and private life that have been recorded in material form. On the basis of this argument, we shall try to seek out information on the social and political organization of the prehistoric societies of the Aegean by tracing the urban development of the corresponding settlements.

Through this summary comparison of the early settlements in the Aegean, the difference between mainland (Greek Mainland, Troas, Crete) and island ones emerges clearly. In the mainland Aegean, with the development of new methods of cultivation and their continuous improvement, an agricultural surplus was created which had to be collected together for redistribution or exchange for goods not produced in the community. The agent responsible for amassing the agricultural surplus was able to exercise greater influence over the members of the farming community, thanks to the relationship of dependence/clientage developed between him and the producers. This influence, in conjunction with its concomitant economic power, gradually evolved into authority. In contrast, in the small islands with their limited tracts of arable land, the preconditions for producing an agricultural surplus never existed. Here the surplus and wealth resulted from maritime and mercantile activities, which are more collective in character. Fruit of hazardous group enterprises, a surplus of this kind – which, moreover, was not endangered by deterioration or destruction, as is the case with most agricultural produce – did not need to be gathered up by an individual. In any case, the creators of this surplus, the merchants-mariners, themselves controlled the transactional processes. It is my contention that the prehistoric settlements in the Aegean islands reflect the lack of opportunities for concentrating power in the hands of one person.

In mainland Greece, from as far back as the Late Neolithic period, there existed in the settlements of Thessaly a building that stood out from the rest, by virtue of its plan, dimensions and dominant position. This is the so-called megaron, which Dimitrios Theocharis characterized as a “Community House” or as residence of the headman of the settlement.40 The beginnings of the co-ordinating role that this megaron played in Late Neolithic Thessalian society can perhaps be detected in the Middle Neolithic period (5th millennium BC), when the first protective enclosures or ditches were constructed around the settlements. As works that demand planning and coordination in their implementation, enclosures and ditches are the earliest works of collective effort in the Aegean. With the growth of trade and sea transport, during the third millennium BC, the centre of gravity of cultural developments shifted from Thessaly, an agricultural region par excellence, to the islands and to southern Greece, where evolution continued at a faster rate. Here too, however, it is noted that in settlements dominating large plains there is a central building, clearly distinguished from all the other buildings in the settlement, in position, plan and size. This is the so-called “Early Helladic Megaron” or “Corridor House”, known from the settlements of Thebes in Boeotia, Lerna in the Argolid, Akovitika in Messenia, and elsewhere.41

We shall probably never be able to discover the nature of the body politic, the system of government, in the prehistoric societies of the Aegean islands. Nonetheless, I would argue that Poliochni gives us some directions in this quest. As we have seen, the large space with two rows of seats on its long sides could have accommodated the assembly of many people. Reasons for an assembly such as this could have been economic, social, religious, political; indeed, it is quite possible that the assemblies in the Bouleuterion at Poliochni served all these aims simultaneously. It is not illogical to presume that in a community in which the “class” of sailors and merchants played the most important role in the economy, it would also have held the reins of power. In Crete, mainland Greece and the Troas, the establishment of the palaces and the concentration of power in or around these seem to be an outcome of the agricultural economy in these regions. The “palace” collects the agricultural surplus and channels it to other markets, exchanging it for other goods. But the trafficking of the transactional goods, the transit trade in the Aegean, was in the

The limited possibility of investigating the sites where the Minoan palaces of Crete were subsequently erected prevents us from looking for similar central buildings there in the Neolithic Age and the Prepalatial period. However, it should be stressed that in the Late Bronze Age too, the Mycenaean period (1550–1100 BC), both in Crete and in mainland Greece, the buildings identified as palaces stand in locations that survey and control large lowland areas. At Troy, the material culture of which is in many respects virtually identical to that of the nearby Northeast Aegean islands, the megaron and the fortifications are features of the settlement from the time of its founding. That is why Troy has been described as a seat of royal authority from its outset.42 66

Early Urbanization in the Aegean Islands hands of seafarers from the small islands, at least during the Early and the Middle Bronze Age. If this were not the case, that is if either Crete or mainland Greece had played the role of middleman and carrier, then the power of the palaces would never have lasted so long. It would have been challenged by the “class”’ of merchants and mariners, exactly as happened later in the ancient Greek cities that developed into maritime powers (Athens, Eretria, Chalkis, Corinth, Miletos being cases in point).

In the Aegean, where we have seen the first seeds of collective government, the birth of democracy, there is no need to abrogate the individual. The individual is the vital cell of Aegean society. The intrepid sailor who holds his own in the struggle with the natural elements will not abide abrogation. His horizon is unrestricted and he is not daunted by the unknown lurking behind some physical obstacle (such as a mountain). The seafarer refuses to succumb to imaginary threats and seeks a logical explanation for every natural phenomenon.

Thus, it is deduced from the archaeological data that the collective system of government is the brainchild of the island communities of the Aegean and was applied throughout their prehistoric era. Over the millennia, the seafaring activities and trading transactions of the Aegean islanders brought them into contact with other societies and other cultures. So, scientific and technological knowledge, and philosophical ideas, reached the Aegean, alongside the material goods, acting as a catalyst and stimulus for further investigation and inquiry. The island seamen, thanks to their role, left shipping an important legacy in what is now known as the Law of Average, according to which the losses incurred by ejecting cargo, as a safety measure in rough seas, is apportioned among all owners of cargo on the vessel and does not burden only the owner of the cargo cast overboard. This principle, which was codified by the Rhodians in the Hellenistic period, must have existed as an unwritten rule, as customary law, for many centuries, if not millennia before. From the Rhodians it was adopted by the Romans (Lex Rhodia de jactu), from whom it passed to the Byzantines, who incorporated it in their legislation as Lex Rhodia Navalis). Today it is one of the fundamental canons of international transit trade.43

The development of liberal thinking and philosophy in the coastal cities of the Aegean did not happen by chance. The preSocratic philosophers of Ionia, who sought logical explanations for physical phenomena, did not appear out of the blue. They are creations of the Aegean, where cultivation of the intellect went back thousands of years. It was the liberated mind of sailors and traders that prepared the way for Ionian philosophers such as Anaximander and Archelaos (both from Miletos) to be the first in the world to perceive the human species as part of Nature and to class it in the animal kingdom, two thousand years before Darwin demonstrated this scientifically. It is this same intellectual liberation that prompted Herodotus to study the peoples of his day, laying aside racial prejudices and ethnocentrism, and to become not only the “Father of History” but also of Ethnography. The maxim of the Sophists in the fifth century BC: “Man is the measure of all things”, was not a new idea. It had been elaborated and crystallized in the minds of the inhabitants of the Aegean since prehistoric times. What we nowadays call Humanism and Humanist Ideals were shaped by the simple fishermen, seamen and traders of the prehistoric Aegean. This is confirmed by the anthropocentrism in their art, their politics and their ideology.

The tolerant and democratic mentality formed in the Aegean, thanks to its seamen and merchants, is reflected also in the region’s art. On the other hand, the limpidity of light, the vibrancy of colours and the precision of outlines that distinguish the figures and forms in the natural environment of the Aegean surely influenced artists from prehistoric times. The art of the Aegean, even in those cases where the technique is imported from the East (as is the case with the art of wall-painting), is from first to last “democratic” art. Logic, clarity and naturalism are its distinctive traits. No monstrous figures that instill fear were created in Aegean art. Even when such creatures were borrowed from elsewhere, they were gradually tempered and ennobled. We should not overlook the fact that the art of the Aegean is quintessentially anthropocentric. In the Neolithic and the Early Cycladic figurines, in the Cretan and Mycenaean wall-paintings, in Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic art, even in the art of Byzantium, man and the human condition are the principal source of inspiration for artists.

Notes J. Alexander, “The beginnings of urban life in Europe”, in P.J Ucko and G.W. Dimbleby (eds), Man, Settlement and Urbanism (Duckworth), London 1972, 842–844; C.C. Lamberg-Karlowsky, “Bronze Age cities and civilizations”, in C.C. Lamberg-Karlowsky (ed.), Hunters, Farmers and Civilizations (Scientific American), 1979, 165–167; R. Whitehouse, The First Cities (Phaidon), Oxford 1977, 8–10. 2 F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, of Property, of the State (Synchroni Epochi), Athens 1984, 21–27 (Greek translation). 3 R.M. Adams, “The origin of cities”, in Lamberg-Karlowsky (ed.), Hunters, Farmers and Civilizations, op. cit. 173–175; V.G. Childe, Man Makes Himself (Collins: The Fontana Library), Great Britain 1965, 140ff. 4 A. Hauser, Social History of Art, vol. 1 (Kalvos), Athens 1984, 37 (Greek translation). 5 K. Kenyon, “Ancient Jericho”, in C.C. Lamberg-Karlowsky (ed.), Hunters, Farmers and Civilizations, op. cit., 120. 6 A. Lebrun, C. Cluzan, S.J.M. Davies, J. Hansen and J. Renault-Miskowsky, “Le néolithique précéramique de Chypre”, L’Anthropologie 91 (1), 1987, 283– 316. 7 Childe, Man Makes Himself, op. cit., 140ff. 8 Collective works of this kind are the protective enclosures in the settlements at Sesklo and Dimini, the ditch at Soufli Magoula in Thessaly, as well as the enclosure of the settlement on Saliagos, off Antiparos. 9 D.R. Theocharis, Neolithic Culture (National Bank of Greece), Athens 1981, 149. See also K. Gallis, “The Neolithic world”, and K. Kotsakis, “The coastal settlements of Thessaly”, in G. Papathanassopoulos (ed.), Neolithic Culture in Greece (Museum of Cycladic Art – N.P. Goulandris Foundation), Athens 1996, 65 (megaron at Magoula Visviki) and 54 (megaron at Sesklo) respectively. 10 K. Gallis, “The Neolithic world”, K. Kotsakis, “Pottery Technology”, Ch. 1

Although it is difficult to describe the ideology of prehistoric peoples, some of the material manifestations of a society’s activities undoubtedly contain ideological elements. For example, in the settlements and the architecture of the prehistoric Aegean the human scale is consistently maintained. Nowhere do we find the enormous temples or the huge palaces whose purpose is to abrogate the individual and to impose the will of the god or, primarily, of his representative on earth, the dynast. This is characteristic of the civilizations of the East. 67

Christos G. Doumas Marangou “Figurines and models”, in Papathanassopoulos, Neolithic Culture, op. cit., 34, 108–109 and 146 respectively. 11 For the constraints and the potential of the islands in general see J.D. Evans, “Islands as laboratories for the study of culture process”, in C. Renfrew (ed.), The Explanation of Culture Change (Duckworth), London 1973, 517–520. See also A.B. Knapp and T. Stech (eds), Prehistoric Production and Exchange: The Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean (Institute of Archaeology, University of California), Los Angeles 1985, 14–15, and in particular the articles by J.F. Cherry (12–29) and C.N. Runnels (30–43). 12 Ch. Doumas, “The early Aegean and its contribution to the development of Western Thought”, in The Aegean: Epicenter of Greek Civilization (Melissa), Athens 1992, 425–431. 13 H.P. Isler, “An Early Bronze Age settlement on Samos”, Archaeology 26, 1972, 170–175; V. Milojčić, Samos I. Die prähistorische Siedlung unter dem Heraion (Rudolf Habelt), Bonn 1961. 14 S. Hood, Chios: Prehistoric Emporio and Ayio Gala (Thames and Hudson), London 1981. 15 W. Lamb, Excavations at Thermi on Lesbos (University Press), Cambridge 1936. 16 D.K. Papageorgiou, “Currents and winds in the North Aegean”, in Ch.G. Doumas – V. La Rosa (eds), Poliochni and the Early Bronze Age in the North Aegean, Athens 1997, 424–442 (in Greek). 17 L. Bernabò Brea, “Greater than Troy and Older: Poliochni in Lemnos and the seven towns and seven villages which make up its earlier history”, Illustrated London News, iss. 234, 1959, 662–663; idem, Poliochni, Città preistorica nell’ isola di Lemnos (L’ Ermà di Bretschneider), Rome 1964 (vol. I), 1976 (vol. II). 18 Ch. Doumas, “Poliochni: socio-economic structure”, in Doumas – La Rosa (eds), Poliochni, op. cit., 211–222. 19 Ch. Doumas, “Lemnos and early metallurgy in the Aegean”, in Ch. Boulotis (ed.), Lemnos Philtate, Proceedings of the 1st Conference of Aegean Mayors, Athens 1994, 11–17 (in Greek). 20 J.D. Muhly, “The copper ox-hide ingots and the Bronze Age metal trade”, IRAQ 39, 1977, 73–82; E. Pernicka, F. Begemann, S. Schmitt-Strecker and A. Grimanis, “On the composition and provenance of metal artefacts from Poliochni on Lemnos, Oxford Journal of Archaeology (OJA), 9,3. 1990, 263– 298. 21 N.H. Gale, “Lead isotope analyses applied to provenance studies: A brief review”, in Y. Maniatis (ed.), Archaeometry (Elsevier), Amsterdam – New York – Tokyo 1989, 495; J.D. Muhly, “Sources of tin and the beginnings of Bronze Age metallurgy”, American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) 89, 1985, 277–286; idem, “Beyond typology: Aegean metallurgy in its historical context”, in N.C. Wilkie and D.E. Coulson (eds), Contributions to Aegean Archaeology: Studies in Honor of W.A. McDonald, (Center for Ancient Studies), Minnesota 1985, 119–132; Pernicka et al., OJA op. cit., 9,3, 1990. 291. 22 J. Yakar, Prehistoric Anatolia: The Neolithic Transformations and the Early Chalcolithic Period, Tel Aviv University 1991, 282–283. 23 Ch. Doumas, “What did the Argonauts seek in Colchis?”, Hermathena CL, 1991, 31–41; J.-P. Mohen, “Principes de la metallurgie du cuivre et du bronze, in J.-P. Mohen (ed.), Avant les Scythes: Prehistoire de l’ art en URSS (Réunion des Musées Nationaux), Paris 1979, 12; E. Tchernykh, “La révolution métallurgique’’, in V. Yanine (ed.), Fouilles et recherches archéologiques en URSS (Éditions du Progrès), Moscow 1985, 5ff. 24 Doumas, “Lemnos and early metallurgy …”, op. cit., 12. 25 J. Mellaart, “The end of the Early Bronze Age in Anatolia and the Aegean”, AJA 62, 1958, 9–11. 26 E.g. J. Caskey, “Greece, Crete and the Aegean islands in the Early Bronze Age”, Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 1, ch. XXVI (a), 1971, 774–807; S. Hood, “Evidence for invasions in the Aegean area at the end of the Early Bronze Age”, in G. Cadogan (ed.), The End of the EBA in the Aegean (Brill), Leiden 1986, 31–68; M. Gimbutas, “The destruction of the Aegean and East Mediterranean urban civilizations around 2300 B.C.”, in R.A. Crossland and A. Birchall, Bronze Age Migrations in the Aegean (Noyes Press), Park Ridge 1974, 129–137; M. Sakellariou, Les Proto-grecs (Ekdotike Athenon), Athens 1980, 152ff. 27 Ch. Doumas, “Grave types and related burial practices during the Early Bronze Age”, in Renfrew (ed.), The Explanation of Culture Change, op. cit., 559–563; C. Doumas, Early Bronze Age Burial Habits in the Cyclades (Paul ÅstrÖm), Göteberg 1977. 28 M. Marthari, “Skarkos: An Early Cycladic settlement on Ios’’, in Lectures (N.P. Goulandris Foundation- Museum of Cycladic Art), Athens 1990, 97– 100 (in Greek). 29 For Bronze Age settlements in the Cyclades in general see R.L.N. Barber, The Cyclades in the Bronze Age (Commercial Bank of Greece), Athens 1994,

54–67 (Greek translation). 30 Ch. Tsountas, “Cycladica”, Archaiologike Ephemeris 1899, 90 (in Greek); Ch. Doumas, “Korfi t’Aroniou”, Archaiologikon Deltion 20, Meletai, 1965, 49 drawings 4 and 7 (in Greek). 31 C. Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilisation (Methuen), London 1972, 492. 32 C. Doumas, “EBA in the Cyclades: Continuity or Discontinuity?”, in E.B. French and K. Wardle (eds), Problems in Greek Prehistory (Bristol Classical Press), Bristol 1988, 21–29. 33 C. Doumas, “The Early Helladic III and the coming of the Greeks”, Cretan Studies 5, 1996, 51–61. 34 C. Doumas, Thera, Pompeii of the Prehistoric Aegean (Thames and Hudson), London 1983. 35 C. Doumas, The Wall-Paintings of Thera (Thera Foundation, Petros M. Nomikos), Athens 1992. 36 Barber, The Cyclades in the Bronze Age, op. cit. 37 H. Walter and F. Felten, Alt Aegina III, 1 (Philipp von Zabern), Mainz am Rhein 1981. 38 H. Walter, The World of Ancient Aegina (Tria Phylla), Athens 1985, 68 (in Greek). 39 Papageorgiou, “Currents and Winds …”, op. cit., 428, fig. 4. 40 Theocharis, Neolithic Culture, op. cit., 149. 41 See chapter 6 by D. Konsola, in the present volume. 42 C.W. Blegen, J.L. Caskey, M. Rawson and J. Spezling, Troy, vol. I. General Introduction: The First and Second Settlements (Princeton University Press), Princeton 1950, 38. 43 D.G. Letsios, “Lex Rhodia Navalis. Introduction to Byzantine and Western European maritime law”, Naval Review 493 (vol. 141) 1995, 303–308 (in Greek); G. Michailidis-Nouaros, “A glorious page in the legal history of Rhodes”, Nomiko Bema 33, 1985, 209–214 (in Greek).

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II.b. Settlements in the Creto-Mycenaean World and the Dark Ages

CHAPTER 8

The Cities of Crete during the Minoan Age Clairy Palyvou Associate Professor, History of Architecture Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

A century of archaeological research

every single thing within a more general system of reference and to comprehend the processes that lead to change. The worry now is not to neglect any factors, as all are significant. It is not permissible to speak about the “palace” of Knossos unless we take even the smallest hamlet in its periphery into account, and we cannot understand the way society functioned if we do not investigate all sectors of life concurrently.

Archaeological research in Crete is one hundred years old. Its history unfolds in the maelstrom of the twentieth century; a century of rapid developments and seminal technological achievements which deeply influenced excavation and restoration practice as well as archaeological thinking. Thus, much has changed since the time when Sir Arthur J. Evans, at the beginning of the century, was seeking names to christen his unprecedented finds, and absolute dates to put some order into the ten important levels his excavations uncovered on Kefala Hill, just 5 km. from Herakleion.1 Consonant with the spirit of his age, he visualized kings and queens ruling from splendid palaces, princes and nobles residing in villas, and a half-hidden populace toiling in the countryside and serving the ruling class. At the top of this pyramid Evans saw the legendary King Minos, whose name he borrowed to accord proper prestige to the brilliant civilization he was bringing to light. As for the dimension of time, he handled this on the basis of principles inherited from the century before: evolution, which is defined by the passage of time, cannot but follow the Darwinian cycle of life: birth-maturity-decline-death.

Characteristic too is the proliferation of fields of research: even the soil, for instance, is examined under the microscope by palaeobotanists, who find traces of pollen and carbonized seeds, as well as otoliths, insect wings and other materials invisible to the naked eye, from which important conclusions can be drawn about the flora and fauna of the time.4

The land of Crete: unity through plurality Let us forget kings and palaces, for the time being, and take a look first of all at the land. The natural environment of Crete has changed little since Antiquity, at least in its basic features, and the same is true of its climate. Thus the physical stimulus that the land of Crete offers us today is much the same as that which the inhabitants of the second millennium BC perceived: plains and vales, high mountains, slopes and hills, bays and peninsulas, sandy beaches and precipitous cliffs, which not only coexist but alternate continuously. The alternation is quick but the scale is almost always close to human measure.5

The names/terms – Minoan Civilization, palace, throne room – and the chronological system – Early, Middle and Late periods – have been inherited irrevocably. The ideas, however, have changed, while the number of scholars who would like to change the nomenclature too is by no means negligible.2 And these are persistent, almost anxious, efforts, because many believe that the new name/term will not only describe the data more effectively but will also free us from the interpretative ghosts hiding behind the names/terms of Evans’s day.

The unity through plurality and the familiar feeling that the landscape emanates are enhanced by the mild climate, which being friendly to man’s biological needs not only makes this land easy to live in but also fosters the open-air lifestyle so characteristic of Aegean people. As a nineteenth-century traveller to Greece remarked, “Greeks build their houses in order to live outside them”,6 a most perspicacious observation, for how do we define “outside” if there is no “inside” next to it? This tight dialectical relationship between open and closed space is the cornerstone of Minoan architecture and, by extension, Minoan urban planning.

At last, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are observing the “Minoan” world from another perspective and it is indeed necessary for us to distance ourselves from the interpretations forced upon us by words. Today, most of us no longer recognize in Knossos, Phaistos and elsewhere, either palaces on the Victorian model or kings and diminutive queens (according to Evans, the smaller rooms were intended for the women),3 or heyday and decadence among the periods, which were arbitrarily named Early, Middle and Late.

The land lends itself to a mixed farming economy – agriculture, animal husbandry and fishing –, which is characteristic of Cretan life from the earliest periods. The main products were

What, then, is the new view of things? Modern thinking, as shaped primarily from the 1970s onward, attempts to interpret 71

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1. Crete. Indicative map of Minoan sites. 1. Chania 2. Nerokourou 3. Rethymnon 4. Ida Cave 5. Hagia Triada 6. Phaistos 7. Kommos 8. Tylissos 9. Juktas 10. Vathypetro 11. Archanes 12. Knossos 3. Amnisos 14. Nirou 15. Malia 16. Chondros 17. Kato Symi 18. Pyrgos 19. Myrtos 20. Vasiliki 21. Gournia 22. Pseira 23. Mochlos 24. Makrygialos 25. Achladia 26. Siteia 27. Zou 28. Petras 29. Palaikastro 30. Zakros.

always olive oil and wine. Lewis Mumford, in his distinctive eloquent style, describes the civilizations of the East as “beer and barley civilizations” and those of the Aegean as “wine and olive oil civilizations”.7 The implications of such a formulation are important: cultivation of the olive and the vine required less labour than cereals, which meant that surplus energy turned from early on to other activities, such as metallurgy, favouring division of labour and craft specialization.8

excavation work, these numbers have risen. At Knossos, Evans excavated a complex of houses of the Late Neolithic period (4th millennium BC), buried under deposits up to 7 m. thick (fig. 2).11 The dwellings consisted of rectangular rooms ranged around internal courtyards. At least three buildings of this type adjoin each other, with double walls, forming perhaps the most ancient “building block” in the south Aegean.

On the other hand, seafaring and trade were from early times basic axes of the Cretans’ life and played a significant role in local developments. On their long voyages in quest of raw materials, Cretans came into contact with the works, way of life and ideology of other peoples. This contact was certainly extremely fruitful, offering them an immense field of knowledge, particularly in the building sector, the works in which cannot be transported in the hold of a ship.

These finds are extremely important, because they show that basic choices in the field of architecture were made very early on and were preserved until the end; the rectangular, almost square shape of the rooms, which was transferred to the shape of the building itself, and the dense, juxtaposed structuring, are fundamental principles of Minoan architecture. The first proved decisive for the peculiar communication system that typifies Minoan architecture, which was circuitous and multi-polar around a central space (a court, a large room with central pillar or a set of pier-and-door partitions (polythyra)),12 while the second constituted the basic canon of settlement layout throughout the Bronze Age (2600–1100 BC) and, by and large, the entire history of the island.13

All this meant that the Cretans quickly left behind the stage of farming and moved on to a more complex way of life. This dynamic advance is reflected in a correspondingly rapid march towards urbanization.

The Earliest Forms of Organized Habitation: The Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age

The long tradition of co-habitation undoubtedly influenced building technology, house form and settlement structure, not to mention the mentality of the inhabitants, since this type of proximity makes people more tolerant and amenable to living together and obliges them to apply themselves systematically to managing the common weal.

Let us try to reconstitute the history of settlement development on Crete, as this is presented to us by the archaeological evidence, by unravelling the thread of time from the earliest periods to the “golden age” of the Minoan world, the Neopalatial period (fig. 1). We should, of course, remember that we are studying a silent world with no other information save that which is encapsulated in the material substance of each find. Of valuable assistance are the works of art of the period, which depict – but without captions – the Minoan world as the Minoans themselves saw it.9

The very nature of the topography of Crete determines geographical districts, to which many archaeologists see corresponding settlement unities centred on the largest settlement, which can be discerned already in the Early Bronze Age: Knossos, Phaistos, Malia. The Early Bronze Age (EM I-EM III) is distinguished by intense activity in all sectors and it is characteristic that most of the known prehistoric sites in Crete have remains of this period in their lower levels: in other words, they were founded at this time. This period inaugurated a long era in the history of Crete, spanning fifteen hundred years, the phases in which are presented in diagram 1.

The earliest architectural remains date from the Middle Neolithic period (5th millennium BC). At the time Colin Renfrew wrote his book The Emergence of Civilization,10 he estimated that there were at least 40 Neolithic sites on Crete, whose population reached some 13,000 inhabitants. Today, thanks to intensive 72

The Cities of Crete During the Minoan Age

2. Knossos, plan of a complex of Neolithic houses (A. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos, vol. II, part 1, London 1928, fig. 8).

3. Myrtos, building complex of the Early Bronze Age (P. Warren, Aegean Civilizations, Oxford 1975, 64).

BRONZE AGE PREPALATIAL PERIOD

2600 BC EARLY MINOAN I EARLY MINOAN II EARLY MINOAN III MIDDLE MINOAN IA

PROTOPALATIAL PERIOD

2000 BC MIDDLE MINOAN IB MIDDLE MINOAN IIA MIDDLE MINOAN IIB

NEOPALATIAL PERIOD

1700 BC MIDDLE MINOAN IIIA, IIIB LATE MINOAN IA LATE MINOAN IB LATE MINOAN II

POSTPALATIAL PERIOD

1400 BC LATE MINOAN IIIA LATE MINOAN IIIB

4. Vasiliki, the large stone-paved square of the EM IIB period ( J. Wilson Myers, E.E. Myers and G. Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas of Ancient Crete, Los Angeles 1992, fig. 41.4).

LATE MINOAN IIIC 1100 BC

Throughout the Bronze Age, the Minoan settlements were unfortified, which fact led Evans to the hypothesis of the pax minoica, a political theory with many ramifications, which profoundly influenced our perception of the Aegean world as a whole but which many challenge today.

Diagram 1. Periods of Minoan Civilization.

A very different example of a settlement of the same period is Vasiliki (fig. 4). Built on the slopes of a low hill about half way along the isthmus of Hierapetra, it is in the form of a single complex, which includes a primal form of organized public open-air space.15 Just a brief glance at the ground plan of Vasiliki, with its right-angle corners and parallel walls over a wide area, its sub-unities of spaces with standardized storage units and stone-paved courtyard, suffices for us to appreciate the high level of architectural planning the Minoans had already reached by the early second millennium BC. Whatever the function of this impressive complex – considered by some

Myrtos, a small rural settlement of the Early Minoan period, seems to be an exception to this rule (fig. 3). Built on a steep slope facing the Libyan Sea, it has dense, haphazard building.14 The eighty or so rooms, which are difficult to distinguish into separate houses, form a perimetric enclosure with two entrances. The general purpose – to protect or to isolate – is obvious. This humble settlement had a short life span, being founded in EM I and abandoned at the end of EM III. 73

Clairy Palyvou scholars as the precursor of the Minoan palace – there is no denying that as an architectural entity it contains many of the planning principles that we come to admire later in Neopalatial architecture.

fragmentary, because most settlements carried on dynamically into the “golden age” that followed and consequently the Middle Minoan levels are covered by those of the Late Minoan (LM) period.

In the middle years of the Early Bronze Age (EM II), certain large buildings, which were differentiated from the ordinary houses of a settlement, appeared for the first time. Of high building art, they show that community organization had advanced to such a degree that the first buildings of special functions were now founded. Part of such a building, with walls 2 m. thick and extending in a straight line for 35 m., has been excavated at Palaikastro.16

Only Malia offers a fuller picture of the Protopalatial period.19 By lucky coincidence, together with the palace and the houses, large complexes for special functions have survived, some of which provide us with the precise link we need to comprehend the evolutionary course of urbanization and the birth of the palaces to which it led. The city was built on a plain not far from the sea and spread unconfined by the morphology of the terrain. There were no walls, so there were no limits of that kind either. Nevertheless, the building was dense and organized. Houses had square ground plans and two storeys, and formed building blocks with indented façades. An organized street network with main and side streets, a waste disposal system and even pavements existed.

At Vasiliki, where habitation continued, the existence of a second storey is confirmed for the first time. This feature is exceptionally important because it points not only to an advanced building technology but also to a sophisticated conception of building design, since the functions of the building were separated not just horizontally but vertically and were served by an elaborate system of internal communication, in which more than one staircase was used. The twostorey residence was henceforth an institution of Minoan architecture.

The type of the Minoan city had by now taken shape: the basic features, mentioned summarily, will be looked at below in the fullness of their development, in the cities of the great heyday. However, what is of special interest in this transitional stage, just before the aspect of the palatial city was crystallized, is the form of public space, both built and open-air.

Information from the Early Bronze Age is piecemeal and does not permit a complete representation of the settlement. Nonetheless, the picture is already familiar: as a rule, low hills beside the sea were preferred sites, while rectangular shapes and a juxtaposed arrangement created building complexes of similar form.

The palace in its primal form, about which we know very little, was situated in the midst of the houses in the city, on the same flat ground. It was two- or three-storeyed, just like the houses, and interlinked with the city in all directions (even height-wise) except the west. Located here was the large, stone-paved West Court, an organized, open-air, urban space that functioned as an intermediate zone or interface between city and palace (fig. 5).

An important ascertainment is that the corners of buildings face the cardinal points (Vasiliki, Phournou Koryphi, Zygouries, Palaikastro). This trait is characteristic of the early settlements in many regions of the Aegean (e.g. Ayia Irini on Kea), as well as of the Eastern Mediterranean in general,17 and has been interpreted as indicative of a ceremonial/ritual association of the building with the points of the compass.

Not far away were three impressive building complexes: the Agora, the Hypostyle Crypt and Quartier Mu (the names given by the excavators). The Agora (fig. 6) was a large enclosed openair space for gatherings, the Hypostyle Crypt comprised chiefly magazines with controlled access to Quartier Mu, an elaborate complex of workshops, administrative and ceremonial/ritual spaces, and dwellings (fig. 7 and Chapter 9 fig. 3). From the singular architecture of these buildings, as well as from the finds inside them, we conclude that they were most probably public and that their function was complementary to that of the palace.

Additional information on the period comes from cemeteries, the par excellence nuclear form of organizing units in space and perhaps the oldest form of “permanent installation”. In the Mesara Plain a peculiar tomb architecture prevailed, with circular burial chambers and rectangular additions. In front of the entrances are stone-paved “terraces” for ceremonial/ ritual gatherings, which presage the organized open-air spaces of cities.18

The close relationship between city and palace, almost a relationship of coevals, is documented vividly in the Middle Minoan city at Malia. However, the three complexes surrounding the palace are not encountered again; the functions they housed were henceforth removed from the city and incorporated in the palace, in its second form.

The first palatial cities of the Middle Bronze Age The great watershed in the life of Crete was the appearance of the palaces at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (MM), a period characterized by many and important innovations, such as the first script (hieroglyphics) and the fast potter’s wheel, in other words organized production.

So, from Evans’s “palace” as seat of the king and resultant of imitating Eastern models,20 the prevailing view today is of a complex of multiple functions – mainly administrative, economic and religious – integral to the city itself and which arose from the evolution of its social structures.

The population increased substantially, trade and shipping flourished, the economy was thriving and the countryside was relatively safe. Within this context, settlements grew rapidly all over the island and many of them acquired the basic organizational elements characteristic of a city. Again, however, the information supplied by excavation data is 74

The Cities of Crete During the Minoan Age

5. Malia, the West Court of the palace. A causeway of white rectangular stones cuts across the polychrome paving of the court (K. Davaras, The Palace of Malia (Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Archaeological Receipts Fund), Athens 1989, fig. 7).

6. Malia, the enclosed, open-air space of the Protopalatial Agora (H. van Effenterre, Le Palais de Mallia, vol. I, Paris 1980, fig. 265).

75

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7. Malia, Quartier Mu. A causeway cuts diagonally across the paved court in front of the entrance to the complex (photo. C. Palyvou).

8. Zakros, the city and the palace. The distinction between the two in the area of contact is not always clear (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., fig. 44.2).

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The Cities of Crete During the Minoan Age

9. Hagia Triada, general view of the archaeological site (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., fig. 7.2).

The “golden age” of the Neopalatial period

number and distribution show that during this period Crete was thriving and functioning on the basis of a well-established hierarchy and a common administrative system.

The first palaces were destroyed around 1700 BC. They were rebuilt immediately, however, following in general the same plan and principles as the old ones. The rebuilding of the palaces marked the beginning of a splendid era for Crete. This is Evans’s “golden age” (Nikolaos Platon’s Neopalatial period), an era of relative peace and prosperity, principal traits of which were the wide dissemination of Linear A script and the palatial way of life. An era of linguistic and religious unity throughout the island, and of a high level of administrative organization, attested by the distribution of seal-stones and seal impressions in all the cities of Crete and even in the Aegean islands.

There is plenty of information on Neopalatial cities, mainly in central and eastern Crete, whereas there is less for the western part of the island, possibly because it has not been investigated sufficiently. Most cities are old, going back to the beginning of the Bronze Age, although new ones were founded too (Nerokourou, Sklavokampos, Metropolis, Makrygialos, Achladia). It is characteristic that these were also the first to fall into decline after the end of the Neopalatial period. According to one view, this was perhaps because they had a special function in an administrative and re-distributive system that collapsed.23

The palatial cities – that is cities encompassing complexes commonly accepted as “palaces” – were four: Knossos,21 Phaistos, Malia and Zakros (fig. 8). One more, Galatas, has been added recently, at a short distance from Knossos.22 Apart from these, there were numerous settlements that had at least one large building complex with “palatial” elements, such as Gournia (see Chapter 9, fig. 9), Petras, Kommos, Archanes, Hagia Triada at Phaistos (fig. 9), Tylissos, Amnisos, NirouHani, Makrygialos and many more. Some of these complexes have been characterized as “palaces” by their excavators. It is very difficult to distinguish the numerous “palatial”-type complexes into categories: in reality they cover a very wide range of functional needs, according to each case. Nevertheless, their

The cities of this period were large and densely populated. Except for this general observation, however, it is very difficult to speak of actual sizes. There are no safe and reliable models for estimating the population of a prehistoric city, since the way of life and the household structure remain unknown. We cite indicatively the estimates made by some scholars (mainly the excavators themselves): Knossos, area 30 ha., population 15,000; Palaikastro, area 14.4 ha., population 2,750–7,500; Gournia, area 2.5 ha., population 700; Pseira, 1.5 ha., population 400.24 77

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10. Palaikastro, plan of part of the city (R.C. Bosanquet and R.M. Dawkins, “The unpublished objects from the Palaikastro excavations, 1902–1906: Part I”, BSA, Suppl. 1, 1923, fig. 1).

11. Malia, Quartier Delta (P. Demargne and H. Gallet de Santerre, “Fouilles exécutées à Mallia: Exploration des maisons et quartiers d’habitation”, Études Crétoises IX, Paris 1953, fig. LXVII).

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12. Vathypetro, the “villa” excavated by S. Marinatos, with the stunning view over the plain. Recent investigations have shown that the building is part of a wider settlement ensemble (photo. C. Palyvou).

The buildings formed complexes, at times quite extensive, which fall into two categories on the criterion of size: large, average area 215–220 m.2, and small, average area 80 m.2. The recurrence of these measurements was such that Evans came to ask himself whether this was a conscious standardization. It is also interesting to note that these measurements coexisted even in the same building block, as at Palaikastro for example (fig. 10). The coexistence has been interpreted variously: K. Branigan thinks that the owner of a large plot leased its free space to economically weaker members of the community, while J.M. Driessen and J.A. MacGillivray believe that the smaller buildings were later additions occupying the free space between large buildings.25 According to the latter view, each building block represented an extended family which, as it grew, created new demands for housing space. The basic functions, however, remained within the nuclear dwelling. All interpretations are predicated on – or entail – speculations on the structure of Minoan society, a particularly difficult and precarious issue.

they covered the entire front of the upper storey in the form of a veranda, they dominated the building façades. There were regular verandas too, with columns or pillars as supports on the ground floor, at Palaikastro and Malia (see Chapter 9, figs 1, 3 and 5). A characteristic trait of this period was the diffusion of palatial architectural models to house building. Particularly impressive in this respect are the ashlar-masonry façades of some of the larger houses, such as those either side of the central street at Palaikastro. The type of the Neopalatial house is common and readily recognizable all over the Minoan world (see e.g. Akrotiri, Thera: Chapter 9, fig. 4). However, this common model emerged from a remarkably wide gamut of variations – this is the unity through plurality that also characterizes the Cretan landscape. The architecture of Minoan times, given in a nutshell above, is not only of a high technological and aesthetic standard for its time, but also strikingly “familiar” to us today, thirty-five centuries later. The picture of the city would, by extension, be “familiar” too. We can appreciate this almost directly, because fortunately quite a few representations of cities/towns have survived in contemporary artworks, which convey through the eyes of the Minoans themselves the general impression of a Cretan urban centre of the fifteenth century BC.27

The typical house at the nucleus of the city had two storeys, the upper one normally covering the entire area of the ground floor, resulting in the creation of unified frontages of considerable height along the length of the streets. Few dwellings had a third storey, whereas all had accessible flat roofs which contributed substantially to the life of the residents. There were no forecourts and the main doors opened directly onto the street. Thanks to the indented façades however, it was easy to secure a small widening in front of the entrance (fig. 11).

Numerous country-houses or “villas” were built in the countryside of eastern Crete in this period (Zou, Manari, Vai and others), which together with those of central Crete (Sklavokampos, Vathypetro (fig. 12) and Metropolis) constituted a close-knit network of settlement installations

The large volumes of the buildings were enlivened by numerous openings. Windows are, in any case, the major novelty of Minoan architecture:26 single, double or even multiple, so that 79

Clairy Palyvou adorned the palace entrances. A particularly interesting feature of Minoan urban streets, which began in the Protopalatial period, as the city of Malia shows, is the pavement (see fig. 7). This was a slightly raised walkway, about 1 m. wide and made of very thick rectangular stone slabs, which followed a straight or zigzag route on the axis or, more usually, on one side of the street. Smaller sections branched off from this, leading to house entrances. Like the indented façades, pavements were mainly features of the main streets.

13. Schematic rendering of a street-layout canon.

The practical function of these pavements is obvious: their level, durable, elevated surface made an ideal causeway for pedestrians or even small, wheeled vehicles and safeguarded against the irregularities in the earth street and the winter mud. Apart from the functional role, however, their morphological and semeiological contribution to the urban landscape was substantial: they defined the axes of communication, ranked the street network and, through their strict geometry, furnished public spaces with the regularity and order that the free frontage lines of the buildings were unable to provide.

embracing the entire island (see fig. 1). These country-houses had large storerooms, workshops, household shrines and comfortable residential spaces. They formed the nuclei of small settlement complexes and were not, as previously believed, isolated “villas” – yet another term with foreign overtones, from Evans’s day.28 A correspondingly dense network of roads, with lookout towers and service stations, linked not only the cities but also the remotest villages.29 The general picture is that the countryside was safe and that people settled close to the land they exploited.

In the large palatial cities of Knossos, Malia and Phaistos the raised causeways converged on the area where the city met the palace, at the West Court, and led to the entrances and other main points of the palace. And they did not stop there, but penetrated inside the palace, which fact further enhances their semeiological value as indicators of the close intermeshing between palace and city (see fig. 19).

The street network and the urban tissue of Minoan settlements Roads are among the first organizational elements to be etched on the landscape: routes established since time immemorial as the interconnecting axes between points of special interest. The rural footpath eventually becomes an urban street, thanks to the buildings flanking it. The façades of the buildings determined not only the lines of the constructions but also those of the streets, since, as we have said, Minoan houses did not, as a rule, have forecourts.

Many of those who study the Minoan world focus on the palace area and have interpreted the raised causeways as primarily processional, that is, intended for ceremonial/ritual uses.31 However, when we observe the extent of their application and their significance for the whole city, their presence takes on another dimension: the causeways function as an “Ariadne’s clew”, connecting the palace – that is, the administrative, economic and spiritual centre of the wider district – with the city, and through this with the countryside.

The habit of indenting the frontages of houses held sway from early on in Minoan architecture; this is a system of projections and recesses of the outside walls, in some cases no deeper than 0.50 m. (see fig. 11). Much has been written about this peculiarity, which characterized not only the prehistoric Aegean but also many other regions of the Eastern Mediterranean. Several scholars have ascribed it to static reasons – the small transverse walls functioning as buttresses – but it is more probable that it was a “street network canon” which enabled buildings with right-angle corners and specific orientation to adapt to a given curved route (fig. 13).30

In the street network of each city at least one main thoroughfare can be distinguished, sometimes straight (Palaikastro) and sometimes annular (Gournia) (see fig. 10 and Chapter 9, fig. 9). This street was lined by the largest and most important buildings, while smaller streets, more or less at right angle to each other, served the rest of the city. At Gournia, due to the slope of the terrain, many side streets were stepped. In some cases the street network can be traced beyond the limits of the city: at Palaikastro, for example, some main streets continued as roads in the countryside and to other cities in eastern and central Crete. It is interesting that during the Neopalatial period new foci of settlement grew up along these arteries, in the form of “suburbs”.

It should be noted that from this period onward the orientation of buildings changed: it was no longer the corners that faced the cardinal points but the walls. In addition, indented façades did not appear on all constructional lines; they are distinctive of the main streets and the most important open-air public spaces. That is, their function was semiotic, to distinguish and to rank the importance of a public space.

The street network defined by the building lines widened locally in quite a few places, particularly at entrances. It also had impasses and very narrow gaps between buildings, as well as free areas – the “spare grounds” of the city. All these open-air spaces conform to a particular logic. In addition to the main streets, which most probably existed before the emergence of the settlement, the remaining open spaces were usually remains of a fill-in building development, which obeys

Moreover, the city’s roofline was indented too, with the flat roofs of the two- and three-storey buildings (single-storey buildings are extremely rare in an urban milieu). The only distinguishing feature in terms of height, and the major reference points for visitors, were the so-called horns of consecration and perhaps the stands with double axes, which 80

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15. Pyrgos, plan of the central square of the settlement (G. Cadogan, “Pyrgos, Crete”, Archaeological Review 24, 1977–1978, fig. 21).

short distance, in a side street, the city shrine. It is small, freestanding and has a built bench outside the entrance. There is a similar situation at Gournia, where part of the square is contiguous with the “palace”, whereas the shrine is a little further off and again in a side street. The Minoans’ public urban shrines were small and unobtrusive, with no decisive presence in the organization of the city. By contrast, the peak sanctuaries, open-air sanctuaries on remote mountaintops dominating the surrounding region, were a dynamic presence. Each region had its own peak sanctuary and many scholars consider that these made a decisive contribution to the formation of the major Neopalatial cities, since the Central Court of each palace seems to have been orientated not only towards the points of the compass but also towards the respective peak sanctuary (fig. 19).34

14. Pseira, plan of the settlement (P. Betancourt and C. Davaras, “Excavations at Pseira”, Hesperia 57 (3), 1989, fig. 1).

certain basic rules of good neighbourliness. Each new building had to respect the right of access, ventilation, illumination and waste disposal of already existing buildings.32 Observance of these fundamental rules created the widening in front of the entrance, the cul-de-sacs giving access to the houses in the nucleus of a building block and the very narrow gaps between the buildings.

Minoan architects had developed a truly high art in shaping open-air public spaces, exploiting all the planning elements offered them by the ground, the landscape and the very nature of the materials they used. Shape, colour and texture were the basic planning parameters, with refinements and combinations that endow Minoan architecture with its singular and fascinating appearance.

As a rule, the gaps related to sewage disposal and ventilation, and were not a functional part of the street network (it is characteristic that there were no front-doors in these narrow gaps). It should be emphasized that most settlements had a well-organized sewerage system with covered pipes running under the streets and public spaces. Many buildings also had sanitary installations that connected to the network of sewers.33 The construction and maintenance of such a network points to the high level of community organization, while the presence of latrines undoubtedly bears witness to the high standard of living that the Minoans enjoyed.

Let us take a look, for instance, at the Neopalatial settlement of Pyrgos in southern Crete (figs 15 and 16). A stepped street leads to the hilltop at the heart of the town, where there is an exceedingly beautiful little square: one of its sides is open – the hill is cut abruptly there – and the sea view is breathtaking. Buildings of semi-public function, with dressed-stone walls and small colonnades creating shady porticoes, surround the other three sides of the square. The scale of the space is friendly and the refined aesthetics of the urban landscape reach their climax in the colourful harmony of the surfaces. The street leading up to the square is paved with greyish stones and the square itself with smaller multi-coloured stones. On the north side, in front of the portico formed by two columns and a central pillar, is a prominent white strip, a short elevated causeway of large rectangular flagstones. The pillar bases beside it are a dynamic presence, not only because they protrude from the ground but also because of their bright red stone. Perpendicular to the

Most instances of local widening of the streets, as well as in front of the entrances, are small-scale and shapeless. In only a few cases can we talk about “squares”, in the sense of an organized public space: the square of Pseira is a typical case (fig. 14). Located on the highest point of the small peninsula on which the town stood, it measures 16×20 m. and has an uneven surface due to the bedrock, although some parts were levelled with earth fill. A large stone slab with cavities (rather like a kernos, a ceremonial/ritual vessel for offerings) had been incorporated in the ground of the square and was probably used in ceremonies/rites attended by all the citizens. In the area around the square we find the larger buildings and at a 81

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16. Pyrgos, the multi-coloured pavement of the central square (photo. C. Palyvou).

aspect too: the beige of the walls of the dressed local sandstone, the ochre of the wooden columns and colours of the capitals. We can also imagine the Minoans themselves, milling around in their elaborately variegated costumes, in the haughty poses portrayed in the figurines and the wall-paintings of the period.

The Minoan palace and large open-air spaces The Minoan palace was interwoven inextricably with the city; the city gave birth to the palace and so close was the relationship between the two that it never went through a “weaning” stage. It could be said that the palace emerged from the stitching together of pre-existing architectural forms scattered in the city, as we saw them at Malia, and housed the various functions of managing public affairs. In this stitching together it was the open-air spaces and not the closed ones that played a definitive role.

white causeway is another strip, of small red stones. On the side of the buildings, the causeway is defined by a row of dark grey dressed stones and a red column base.

In Minoan architecture, open-air spaces have a surprising range of applications, starting from the smallest and most private unit, which is the light-well. The full spectrum can be admired in the palace, with the most refined differentiations imaginable (fig. 17). Of all the open-air spaces, however, those that define the very identity of the palace are the Central and the West Court.

The surrounding buildings will have presented a colourful

The Central Court is the par excellence predetermined part

17. Knossos, the light-well of the Grand Staircase in the palace (K. Davaras, Knossos, Athens 1986, fig. 31).

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18. Knossos, the west front of the Central Court of the palace (restoration drawing by Piet de Jong).

of the palace, with a particular orientation and specific dimensions or dimensional ratios (24×52 m. or 1:2). It is a space that cannot be economized from within, which means that it takes precedence over all others in the planning process. As an outdoor space it acquires architectural substance only through the buildings that surround it. Consequently, the Central Court exists only through the palace, but the palace, conversely, exists only through this court. The façades around the court are two- and three-storeyed (not four-storeyed as was thought earlier) and are punctuated by colonnades, multiple doors (polythyra) and multiple windows (polyparathyra) (fig. 18). Thus, the court’s relationship with the buildings around is at once direct and exclusive, since the only means of access to the court is through these buildings. The Central Court was controlled by the palace but functioned basically as a semi-public open-air space where citizens gathered when circumstances dictated. This can be surmised from its large size and the means of access: the “Processional Causeway” at Knossos, which secured access to the Central Court, was in fact the extension of the city street into the palace (fig. 19). The characteristic pavement, described above, penetrated the palace, the only difference being that it no longer needed to be elevated: the symbolic distinction achieved by the colour contrasts and the shapes of the flagstones sufficed – off-white rectangular slabs on the axis of the causeway and greenish irregular schist on the rest of the surface. The West Court, in contrast, was not incorporated in the tissue of the palace. It was an interface between palace and city, and functioned as a space for the free assembly of citizens, though in the shadow of the palace.

19. Knossos, the Processional Causeway of the south Propylon is the continuation of the raised causeway in the West Court. Visible in the background is Mt Juktas with the Peak Sanctuary (Davaras, Knossos, op. cit., fig. 9).

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20. Phaistos, the West Court of the palace, with the raised causeways cutting across it diagonally in the Theatral Area (photo. C. Palyvou).

21. Knossos, the Theatral Area (Davaras, Knossos, op. cit., fig. 43).

84

The Cities of Crete During the Minoan Age The front of the palace onto the West Court was in fact the only front of the palace that faced the city and it is characteristic that even this had no clear boundaries to north and south, while its monumental character is limited to the section framing the court (fig. 20). This front rose like an imposing and forbidding curtain, functioning at the same time as a backdrop for the ceremonies/rituals enacted in the court. The other sides of the West Court were delimited by the houses of the city and were irregular.

Minoan sites except Knossos were abandoned and the picture of Crete changed radically.36 Mycenaeans were now living on the island. This is attested inter alia by the clay tablets found at Knossos, which are inscribed in Linear B, the script of the Greek language of the Mycenaeans. In these records, 85 Cretan cities are mentioned, indicating that Mycenaean influence extended over the whole of Crete. The palace of Knossos was eventually destroyed circa 1375 BC, but life continued in the city, as evidenced by the cemeteries in the region. In the meantime, other old-established urban settlements revived to some degree (Amnisos, Tylissos, Phaistos, Hagia Triada, Malia, Gournia, Palaikastro) and new ones were founded (Kephali Chondrou, Aghia Pelagia, Gournes). Greater mobility is observed now in western Crete and particularly Chania, which appears to have played a leading role during this period, taking over from eastern Crete.

The West Court was paved with stones and intersected dynamically by the precise paths of the elevated causeways, some parallel to the building lines and others diagonal. The latter in particular are extremely impressive since they constitute a bold intervention in the logic of rectangular shapes that typifies Minoan architecture (see figs 7 and 20). The white of the causeways adds a further element of vivid contrast and conspicuousness to them, especially in the dark (could this have been a conscious aim?).

Mycenaeans and Minoans coexisted until the twelfth century BC, when Crete, like the entire Eastern Mediterranean, entered a difficult and obscure period which scholars have dubbed the “Dark Age”. Dark because in reality we know very little about an interval of around 350 years, dark also because there is nothing that recalls the multifarious, colourful and resplendent world of “Minos”. Continuity did in fact exist – attested by many individual traits – but the change was catalytic. Nevertheless, it seems that this period will not remain dark for long and that the rejection of yet another term is simply a matter of time.37

The theatricality of the space culminates and is literally fulfilled in the Theatral Area. At Knossos, this area is one of the loveliest examples of urban landscape architecture (fig. 21; see also fig. 20); the street ascends smoothly from the city to the palace – as smoothly as the gradation from the base to the apex of the social hierarchy – terminating in an embrace defined by two rows of low steps in L-shaped arrangement. The raised causeway bifurcates as it nears the “theatral area”: one branch ends at the east tier, while the other bypasses the theatre and continues in the direction of the palace entrances. Nano Marinatos interprets the network of causeways differently: at both Knossos and Phaistos two elevated causeways, one from the city and the other from the palace, converge in the Theatral Area. At Phaistos, indeed, the point of convergence is at the beginning of the steps of the theatre and the now common causeway continues along the steps themselves, ending at a high retaining wall. In Marinatos’s view, these “theatral areas” functioned as a kind of grandstand, where palace representatives stood to receive envoys of the city. Throngs of people could attend the ceremonies/rituals performed in the West Court. She rightly notes that the focus of interest is not the small space in front of the steps (a kind of “stage”, according to Evans), but the “grandstand” itself.35

Notes For the history of the first excavations at Knossos, see A. Brown, Arthur Evans and the Palace of Minos, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 1989. 2 See e.g. the term “megastructure”, which D. Preziosi proposes instead of “palace” (D. Preziosi, Minoan Architectural Design, Mouton, Berlin-New YorkAmsterdam 1983). Also, P. Darque, “Pour l’abandon du terme ‘mégaron’”, in P. Darque and R. Treuil (eds), L’habitat égéen préhistorique (Actes de la Table Ronde Internationale, Athènes, 23–25 juin 1987), Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique (BCH), Suppl. XIX, 1990, 21–31. 3 See A. Zois, Knossos: The Ecstatic Vision, Herakleion 1996 (in Greek), for a fascinating analysis of the sorely-tried process of interpreting the prehistoric civilization of Crete. 4 Conclusions such as these can give indirect information even on cultivation practices, and, by extensions, the way of life, land-ownership system and so on – e.g. crop rotation and fallow fields, implying planning and flexibility, can be deduced from the presence of a particular species of weed (see A. Sarpaki, “A palaeoethnobotanical study of the West House, Akrotiri, Thera”, Annual of the British School at Athens (BSA) 87, 1992, 219–230. 5 See C. Palyvou, “The poetic power of landscape”, Archaeology and Arts, 55, 1995, 33–44 (in Greek). 6 From A. Constantinidis, Elements of Self-Knowledge, Athens 1975, 311 (in Greek). 7 L. Mumford, The City in History, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth Middlesex 1966, 142. 8 P. Warren, “The place of Crete in the Thalassocracy of Minos”, in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds), The Minoan Thalassocracy: Myth and Reality (Proceedings of the Third International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 31 May-5 June 1982), Stockholm 1984, 39–44. 9 See Ch. Boulotis, “Aegean wall-paintings: A colourful narrative discourse”, Archaeology and Arts 55, 1995, 13–32 (in Greek). 10 C. Renfrew, The Emergence of Civilisation, London 1972. 11 A. Evans, The Palace of Minos, vol. II, London 1928, 1–21; see also K. Branigan, Pre-palatial Crete, Amsterdam 1988, 37–39. 12 See C. Palyvou, “Circulatory patterns in Minoan architecture”, in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds), The Function of the Minoan Palaces (Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 10–16 June 1

In conclusion, the palace was not a self-contained and conspicuous building but an organic part of the city. Only the Central Court is self-contained and “conspicuous”, and it is around this that we should seek the monumental façades of the palace. It is not fortuitous that most of architectural representations in Minoan art that are recognized as palatial are identified precisely with these façades. Palace and city intermingle in all directions and only on the west do they really confront each other. This confrontation is defined on the part of the city by the large open-air space of the West Court, and on the part of the palace by the imposing West Front.

The enigmatic “end” of the Minoan world The late fifteenth century BC was marked by widespread catastrophes, the causes of which still preoccupy scholars. All 85

Clairy Palyvou 1984), Stockholm 1987, 195–293. 13 On the contrary, in the North Aegean (e.g. at Thermi on Lesbos) and the Greek Mainland, the oblong shape was established, which was dictated to a degree by the corresponding form of the “megaroid space”, which is the nucleus of the houses. 14 P. Warren, Myrtos: An Early Bronze Age settlement in Crete, BSA, Suppl. 7, 1972. 15 For full bibliography see Zois, Knossos, op. cit. 16 J. MacGillivray and J. Driessen, “Minoan settlement at Palaikastro”, in L’habitat égéen préhistorique, op. cit., 399. 17 K. Branigan, Pre-palatial Crete, op. cit., 43, cautiously attributes this orientation to religious or climatic reasons and considers influence from Eastern models possible. 18 N. Marinatos, “Public festivals in the West Courts of the Palaces”, in The Function of the Minoan Palaces, op. cit., 135–143. Branigan considers these courts precursors of the West Court of the palaces (K. Branigan, The Tombs of Mesara, London 1970, 135). 19 H. van Effentere, Le palais de Mallia et la cité minoenne, vols I and II, Rome 1980. 20 In an interesting article on the “Eastern model”, J.W. Graham makes acerbic criticism of the savants of his day for their flippant and unsubstantiated remarks on the affinities between the Cretan “palaces” and those of the Near East, which all too easily led to dogmatic positions ( J.W. Graham, “The relation of the Minoan palaces to the Near Eastern palaces of the second millennium”, in E. Bennet Jr (ed.) Mycenaean Studies, Madison 1964, 195–215). In another article, Graham demonstrates analytically that the Cretan palaces do not derive from Eastern models but are local creations ( J.W. Graham, “The Cretan palace: Sixty-seven years of exploration”, in A Land Called Crete: A Symposium in Memory of Harriet Boyd Hawes, Northampton 1968, 17–44; See also Zois, Knossos, op. cit.). 21 Views differ on the role of Knossos in this period: some scholars take for granted its superiority over the other cities, whereas others place greater emphasis on the autonomy of the “polities” (see J.M. Driessen and J.A. MacGillivray, “The Neopalatial period in East Crete”, in R. Laffineur (ed.), Transition: Le monde égéen du Bronze moyen au Bronze récent (Aegaeum 3), Liège 1989, 100–101. The domestic relations of the cities, economic and administrative, are essentially unknown. 22 G. Rethemiotakis, “The hearths of the Minoan palace at Galatas”, in P. Betancourt, V. Karageorghis, R. Laffineur and W.D. Niemeier (eds), Meletemata: Studies in Aegean Archaeology Presented to Malcolm H. Wiener as he Enters his 65th Year (Aegaeum 20), vol. III, Liège 1999, 721–728. 23 L. Nixon, “Neo-palatial outlying settlements and the function of the Minoan palaces”, in The Function of the Minoan Palaces, op. cit., 96–97. 24 See Driessen – MacGillivray, “The Neopalatial period”, op. cit., 107. 25 K. Branigan, “Minoan settlements in East Crete”, in P. Ucko et al. (eds), Man, Settlement and Urbanism (Duckworth), Hertfordshire 1972, 756; Driessen – Macgillivray, “The Neopalatial period”, op. cit., 106–107. 26 See C. Palyvou, “Observations sur 85 fenêtres du Cycladique récent à Théra”, in L’habitat égéen préhistorique, op. cit., 123–139. 27 See Chapter 9, by Ch. Boulotis, in the present volume. 28 See R. Hägg (ed.), The Function of the “Minoan Villa” (Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 6–8 June 1992), Stockholm 1997. 29 See I. Tzedakis, S. Chryssoulaki, Y. Venieri and M. Avgouli, “Les routes minoennes: Le poste de Xoiromandres et le contrôle des communications,” BCH 114, 1990, 43–65 and I. Tzedakis, S. Chryssoulaki, S. Voutsaki and Y. Venieri, “Les routes minoennes: Un rapport préliminaire. Défense de la circulation ou circulation de la défense?” BCH 113, 1989, 43–75. 30 C. Palyvou, “Notes on the town plan of Late Cycladic Akrotiri, Thera”, BSA 81, 1986, 179–194. 31 N. Marinatos observes that in the three major palaces these causeways led to the entrances to the first palaces, in the west wing where the magazines were located. She sees a ceremonial/ritual significance in this relationship: the first fruits were brought in procession along these causeways to the palace magazines (Marinatos, “Public festivals”, op. cit., 137). 32 Palyvou, “Notes”, op. cit., 179–194. 33 C. Palyvou, “Sewerage networks and sanitary installations in the 2nd millennium BC in the Aegean”, in Ancient Greek Technology (Proceedings of the 1st International Conference, Thessaloniki, September 1997), Thessaloniki 1997, 381–389. 34 Preziosi, Minoan Architectural Design, op. cit., 115 and J.W. Shaw, “The orientation of the Minoan palaces”, Antichità Cretesi I, Catania 1973, 47–59. 35 Marinatos, “Public Festivals”, op. cit. 137–139, n. 37. 36 H. Haskell, “LM III Knossos: Evidence beyond the palace”, Studi Micenei

ed Egeo-Anatolici XXVII, 1989, 81–110. 37 See Chapter 11, by N. Kourou, in the present volume.

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CHAPTER 9

Representations of Cities in Aegean Art of the Second Millennium BC Mute narratives of prehistory Christos Boulotis Ph.D. Prehistoric Archaeology Research Centre for Antiquity, Academy of Athens The movement from the actual experience of built space to its pictorial representation is, by definition, neither straightforward nor self-evident. Even more so when we are dealing with the second millennium BC and in particular with towns/cities, the most complex form of settlement, and their first appearance in Aegean art. For the city is as much that which is visible as that which is not, and is, as a rule, an elliptical visual experience. It may also be a memory, or sometimes an image through perspectives and narratives borrowed from third parties, in cases where the conjectural narration extends to foreign cities in distant parts, to which the artist has not travelled. There may be other reasons too, related to the Zeitgeist, conventions and dominant principles in the art of the period, and reasons pertaining to the artist’s intentions, his skill and ingenuity, his choices and his freedom in the use of “types” or his strict adherence to them.

figures, some of which were restored reasonably with bow and javelin (or staves?) in hand. The wavy lines on two fragments seem to suggest the sea, an element which is notionally consistent with the putative ship’s prow and the “shipwreck victims” on other fragments, and which finds, together with this maritime episode, close thematic parallels in other Aegean representations from the period immediately following. In other words, everything points to a replete narrative representation on the plaques, notwithstanding their fragmentary state. The possible use of moulds in the production of the plaques, which would facilitate rapid execution and duplication of types as desired, suggests that originally a larger number of houses of greater morphological variety was depicted, and possibly shared between more than one town/ city. The same applies to the topographical and landscape elements, and to the episodes and incidents of human activity that enlivened the composition.

Whatever the case, starting from Minoan Crete at the dawn of the Neopalatial period (17th century BC), and through the innovative influence of local artists, a narrative thematic cycle with the city as its fixed reference point was articulated and rapidly disseminated in diverse art forms in the Cyclades and Mycenaean Greece, reaching its peak during the Late Bronze I period (16th-first half of 15th century BC).

More possibilities open up for the pictorial and consequent narrative correlation of the individual elements, not only because of the fragmentary condition of the plaques but also because we have no idea of the initial span of the narrative and therefore of the actual number of plaques. Assuming as the most likely possibility that the plaques were inlaid in some wooden object – a chest, for instance –, the narrative would unfold with conceptual coherence in the form of a miniature frieze or perhaps a panel.

Here I have chosen to consider just some aspects of the issue, by broaching briefly the pragmatic as well as the symbolic underpinnings of depictions of the city, which should be apprehended as the earliest tangible pieces of Aegean historical memory.

In such a composition, embellished with anecdotal elements, the city (or cities) certainly occupied a generous portion of the narrative discourse. As a basic scenic component, it decisively signified space – the first basic parameter of narration. And not only built space but also surrounding open space, since many of the topographical-landscape elements are articulated with reference to the city, thus endowing it, together with the large number, form, diversity and urban-planning associations of its buildings, with a particular identity. To a degree, its image operated in a regulatory manner in the second parameter of the narrative too, time, since human action, its duration, obviously had as direct or indirect field of reference, as starting point or end point, the city and all that this represented on a pragmatic and a symbolic level.

The Town Mosaic: The earliest representations On present evidence, the beginning is marked by an appreciable number of small, coloured faience plaques from the palace of Knossos, some of them indeed in low relief (figs 1 and 2). Sir Arthur J. Evans named them the Town Mosaic, on the basis of the predominant presence of houses, as a rule two- or threestoreyed, some in the form of tower houses, with isodomic ashlar masonry, external decoration, many windows and a flat roof, occasionally topped by an attic (fig. 1). They were not, however, found alone. Other plaque fragments (fig. 2) belonging to the same composition feature elements of the natural environment, its native flora and fauna, and even male

Irrespective of the precise geographical location of the city depicted – an issue we shall touch on at the end –, the 87

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1. Drawings of the urban houses of the Town Mosaic from the palace of Knossos (A. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knossos, vol. 1, 1921, fig. 226).

instance in Quartier Mu at Malia (fig. 3). They are attested also at Middle Minoan IIIA Knossos, and are the norm in urban centres of the Late Minoan I/Late Cycladic I periods, with Akrotiri on Thera (fig. 4) an illuminating case, on account of the impressive state of preservation. The functionally correct positioning of morphological elements, their correlations as well as their proper proportions and the treatment of certain architectural singularities, which are far removed from the abbreviated or abstract ideogram of the “house”, belie direct observation and convince us that the artist of the Town Mosaic depicted specific types of urban houses with which he was familiar. These were most probably in the area of Knossos, if we accept the reasonable view that he was employed in the workshops of the palace there. In this sense, he recorded precious information on the vertical development of the urban houses of the period, their carefully constructed façades, the shape of the roof and the number, form and arrangement of their openings (doors, windows), that is, features which are difficult to detect or often only conjectured in actual habitation remains, especially as far as the storeys are concerned. Another valuable find, of roughly the same period, which testifies to the accuracy of the image in describing and reconstructing its architectural prototypes, is the three-dimensional clay house model from Archanes near Knossos (fig. 5), which with the verisimilitude of a maquette substantially enriches our knowledge of the urban house in the Middle Minoan IIIIA period.

2. Drawings of the fragmentary elements of the human activity and Nature, from the Town Mosaic (K. Polinger Foster, Aegean Faience of the Bronze Age, 1979, figs 30–49).

morphology and the decoration of its buildings, in whole and in part, clearly reflect the Minoan urban architecture of the period and are not, as H. Waterhouse has argued recently, simply pictorial borrowings from palatial architecture without actual correspondence in private houses. For, as we know, the palace was traditionally the ideal model to be imitated in the prestige architecture of the social élite.

Innovative elements

Multiple storeys may have been a basic trait of the palaces, but their tradition, in the Aegean at least, goes back to the third millennium BC, and indisputable examples of multi-storey houses of the Middle Minoan II period have come to light, for

If today the composition of the Town Mosaic appears more or less self-evident by our standards, it was by the standards of the Aegean world at the dawn of the seventeenth century BC 88

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3. Maquette of Quartier Mu at Malia (L’espace grec: 150 ans des fouilles de l’École Française d’Athènes, Athens 1996, fig. p. 28).

4. View of the “West House” at Akrotiri, Thera.

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Christos Boulotis On the contrary, there is every indication that in his narrative he intended to freeze pictorially an important event that was familiar and comprehensible to the court aristocracy of his time, that is the patrons and recipients of his work. The town/ city in this inaugural representation, as in the others that followed, appears as an integral part of historicity, since it is this which largely colours human activity and, as we have seen, had a regulatory influence on narrative time and place.

1. First of all, it inaugurated in Aegean art in general a multifaceted narrative discourse, without equivalence in preceding periods. Precursory architectural representations are almost totally absent, while narrative syllabisms and some perfunctory landscape elements, mainly in glyptics and pottery from the Middle Minoan II period onward, have a preliminary character. They prepared the way for and supported the inspired artist in his bold leap forward, while he was working in the palace of Knossos with the faience technique introduced from abroad, most probably from Syria or perhaps Mesopotamia.

3. In spite of the constraints imposed by narrative and scenic economy, the artist, in setting up convincing dialogues, one obviously intra-settlement and the other between built and open space, animated moreover by human figures, laid down all those basic pictorial elements that led me to speak at length elsewhere of a “portrait of a city”. These same elements, often developed further, were henceforth characteristic of almost all related Aegean representations of cities, culminating in those of the miniature frieze of the wall-painting of the fleet from Akrotiri, Thera (figs. 6, 7). The magnitude of this innovation can be measured better if we turn to comparanda in the art of the great civilizations of Egypt and the East, where, despite a long narrative tradition, we find that there are no representations of cities earlier than the Town Mosaic that display even remotely its narrative scope and such a large number of private houses so markedly differentiated. In Egypt, although house models appeared as early as the Predynastic period and detailed façades of temples and palaces from the beginning of the Old Kingdom, the first images of cities tend towards the ideographic. On 1st Dynasty palettes (fig. 8), for example, the artist, as a rule viewing the cities from above, renders them as in ground plan, confining himself to shorthand denoting of the walls and some square shapes here and there, presumably alluding to the presence of important buildings.

2. Concurrently, however, the apparent subject of the Town Mosaic is the first instance in Aegean art in which the dimension of historicity is felt, at least in the broad sense of the term. Because certainly the Minoan artist did not draw thematically on the imaginary, that is he did not invent out of the blue, did not arbitrarily fabricate a presumptuously hermetic “myth”.

An Akkadian “map” from Noutzi (c. 2500 BC) and some extremely summary sketches of cities have been compiled on more or less the same pictorial principles, with sparse additions of certain topographical references. A model of a city with its ziggurat, from Ur, dating from about 2100 BC, can be viewed as a three-dimensional exception. Things began to

5. The clay house model from Archanes (E. Sakellaraki, Archaiologia 53, 1994, fig. p. 34 (in Greek)).

an innovation of capital importance in many ways; literally a landmark, in my view.

6a. City IV in the miniature of the Wall-painting of the Fleet, from the “West House” at Akrotiri (S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera VI, 1974, col. pl. 9).

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6b. Drawing of the same city (Ch. Televantou, Akrotiri, Thera: The WallPaintings of the West House, Athens 1994, fig. 20 [in Greek]).

7b. Drawing of the same city (Televantou, Akrotiri, Thera, op. cit., fig. 22).

7a. City V in the miniature of the Wall-painting of the Fleet, from the “West House” at Akrotiri (Marinatos, Excavations at Thera VI, op. cit., col. pl. 9).

change in Egypt, in the 18th and especially the 19th Dynasty, when, always in combination with the narrating of military campaigns, cities were depicted, with emphasis on their walls – as earlier – and with some rudimentary geographical and topographical references. Representations of cities on Assyrian reliefs appear to be rather more detailed, but they are of a later date than the Aegean examples. From this necessarily brief review, it emerges that the visual conception of the “portrait of a city” was essentially Minoan, without external influences, or at least obvious ones. Indeed, in the way the artist’s eye captures the natural world, and in particular his detailed recording of private houses, I am inclined to recognize facets of the Aegean mentality, extrovert and flexible, forged to human measure and not weighed down by the shadow of despotism that hung over other contemporary court civilizations. The close, reciprocal, urban-planning relationship between city and palace, which will be referred to below, is indicative of this same mentality, as is the absence of

8. The Egyptian City Palette (K. Lange and M. Hirmer, Ägypten: Architektur, Plastik, Malerei in drei Jahrtausenden, Munich 1978, fig. 3).

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Christos Boulotis intrinsic to the concept of the city. We should consider as terminus post quem of this the years around 2000/1900 BC, given the concurrent construction of the first large palaces on the basis of a largely common architectural type. The convergence of at least the basic road arteries on the palace – the nodal reference point – testifies to its role as a regulating factor in the gradual, accretive expansion of the city. However, the growth of the tissue of the urban centres, with high-density building in blocks (insulae) and an efficient street system, did not follow a stereotypical model because of the different options and solutions dictated, inter alia, by the diversity of the Cretan terrain.

monumentality in official architecture and art in general, and of a clearly distinctive iconography of the supreme ruler. And it is not without significance that, in contrast to the emphasis Aegean art gave to the “portrait of the city”, it did not insist on enhancing and projecting the image of the palace as centre of authority. The relevant representations, only a few decades after the Town Mosaic, are limited to a few miniature wallpaintings from Knossos, on which certain parts of the exterior of the palace complex are depicted selectively, to be used as a rule as the setting for well-attended religious festivals. 4. Furthermore, in causalist affinity with narration and historicity, the Town Mosaic illustrates, for the first time in the history of the Aegean world, the concept, or rather awareness of the concept of the city, that is the largest settlement formation, stratified on the basis of political, social, economic and consequently architectural criteria.

It is no exaggeration to say that the city in its urban-planning and architectural applications, as well as in its socio-economic and institutional dimensions, was experienced differently in the major palatial centres than in the satellite urban settlements, and certainly differently in the coastal than in the inland ones. A Minoan of the Neopalatial period would have seen for himself, on his travels through Crete, what we have ascertained archaeologically: the typological variety and hierarchical ranking of settlement centres, both in a wider region and in its geographical divisions. Such an opportunity for multiple intra-Cretan comparisons would have contributed further to awareness of the concept of the city, as would mutatis mutandis the widening of the circle of comparisons to the South Aegean, where important ports such as at Akrotiri on Thera (fig. 7), Phylakopi on Melos and Ayia Irini on Kea were thriving. Finally, in his overseas travels our Minoan, and Aegean islander in general, would have had the chance to make additional comparisons with the great and far more complex urban formations in Egypt and the East.

After the manifestations of so-called early urbanization in the third millennium BC, in mainland Greece (e.g. Lerna, Tiryns, Thebes – see also Kolona on Aegina and Manika on Euboea) and, primarily, in the cultural unity of the Northeast Aegean (e.g. Poliochni on Lemnos, Thermi on Lesbos, Troy), the concept of the city in the southern islands and especially Crete was shaped essentially during the Protopalatial period, with the development of the palatial cities. The most characteristic of those excavated to date is Quartier Mu at Malia (fig. 3). The concept of the city acquired clearer limits and content with the dawn of the splendid Neopalatial period: through the internal developmental process, of which the palaces were the premier vehicle, and in conjunction with the population “explosion”, the consolidation of socio-political structures, the more effective co-ordination of economic life and trade – regional and overseas – the network of thriving urban settlements, varying in type, area, character and importance, grew denser, particularly in the east half of the island.

Comparative data from Mycenaean Greece of the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries BC have essentially not survived or been located. It is only after 1400 BC, at the time of the founding of the first palaces on the mainland, and mainly during the thirteenth century BC, that we can identify urban features and some urban-planning principles in settlement nexuses which grew up around the palaces, inside and outside the citadels, as in the cases of Mycenae and Tiryns. Irrespective, however, of the form, extent and symbolic dimensions the Mycenaean urban formations assumed, it is worth noting that thanks to four Linear B tablets from the palace archives of Knossos and Pylos, dating from the fourteenth and the thirteenth century BC respectively, the term asty (wa-tu = Fάστυ) is expressly attested. However, the clearest and most characteristic case of the use of the term in the sense of “polis”, i.e. city, is preserved in the famous tablet PY Tn 316 from the palace of Pylos, in which are recorded diverse offerings dispatched by the city (asty) of Pylos (pu-ro wa-tu) to numerous shrines and deities in the region Pa-ki-ja-na (= Σφαγιάνα). On the contrary, the actual word polis is not recorded on the Linear B tablets, except indirectly through the Knossian anthroponyms po-tori-jo and po-to-ri-ka-ta (cf. the words πτόλις, πτολίεθρον). The coexistence of the two terms means most probably a different conceptual nuance during the Mycenaean Age, with wa-tu (άστυ) characterizing the lower city or polis proper, and *poto-ri (= πτόλις, πόλις) denoting the fortified sector of the upper city, the citadel (acropolis) – a conceptual difference that can detected in Homer too, through critical reading of the relevant

Zakros, Palaikastro and Petras in eastern Crete, Kommos, most probably the outport of Phaistos, in the south, Poros, outport of Knossos in the area of Herakleion, and Chania, built directly on the sea, reveal, as excavations progress, the urban character of some of the most important harbour towns of the period, where craftsmen and especially mariners and merchants worked and prospered. The select houses of the social élite – and by extension the entire city – were concentrated around the palaces, frequently in their immediate vicinity (primarily Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, Zakros, Archanes, Petras, Galatas), thus abolishing in terms of urban planning, and therefore of symbolism, the strict demarcations between the seat of power and its surrounding urban tissue, which are tightly knit in an organic whole. The same is true of the island’s smaller urban settlements, such as Gournia (fig. 9), so far the only Minoan town of the Neopalatial period that is almost fully excavated. The density of building is impressive and the small palace dominates the hilltop, yet the rectangular court in front of it and marking it out was at the same time a place of assembly for the community – an occasional function of the external courts of other palaces too. In Minoan settlement complexes in which the palace is the architectural and symbolic nucleus, we can better appreciate the application of a co-ordinated “urban plan”, which is 92

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9. Plan of the town of Gournia, according to Boyd’s excavations. The street network is shown in grey.

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10. Drawing of the besieged city on the silver rhyton from Shaft Grave IV in Grave Circle A at Mycenae (Ch. Boulotis, “Villes et palais dans l’art égéen du IIe millénaire av. J.-C.”, 1990, fig. 5).

passages, as well as sporadically in later texts.

subject on the fragmentary stone rhyton from Epidauros (fig. 11) and the two miniature wall-paintings which in the form of friezes decorated select urban houses at Akrotiri on Thera (figs 6 and 7) and Ayia Irini on Kea, are the best-known examples. By its very nature, the long painted frieze was obviously ideal for the unbroken unfolding of the narrative. The painter at Akrotiri, with about sixteen metres of walls available to him in room 5 of the West House, “charted” panoramically and narrated in a continuous flow from wall to wall, a long voyage, with a remarkable variety of incidents on land and sea, genre scenes, peaceful and otherwise, which constitute almost an epitome of Aegean iconography in the period. In this prolix narrative, with the sea as warp and the course of the fleet from harbour to harbour as weft, there were at least five cities (I-V), differentiated architecturally, geographically and topographically, some built literally on the sea or at least beside the sea, on hills or on level ground, with one standing on a river delta. Five “portraits of cities” simultaneously! Among the three better preserved, the one (city V) at which the clockwise narrative ends (fig. 7), with its excited crowd eagerly awaiting the festive arrival of the fleet, is the largest, its buildings are more formal and have more pronounced urban features. In general, the length and narrative span of the Akrotiri miniature frieze serve as a guide for us to form a clearer picture of the original form of the very fragmented frieze from Ayia Irini, on which it has been possible to discern, apart from scenes of hunting, dancing and banqueting, fragments of at least two cities with analogous architecture, as well as elements of a seascape with rowboats and dolphins.

The thematic cycle of the city Diffusion Thanks on the one hand to the innate dynamic of innovation and on the other to the ever-growing need of the complex palatial-urban society to express its ideology and memories through the symbolic codes of the image, the Town Mosaic as a pictorial conception and impression was not without continuance. Precisely in this period, the beginning of the Neopalatial, we ascertain within the compass of Minoan art a co-ordinated articulation of the thematic cycles which, with Knossos as epicentre, radiated outside Crete to the southern insular region, to Mycenaean Greece and to those places under the beneficial cultural influence of the Minoans, especially during the sixteenth century BC. Tours and missions of artists to palaces and cities, exchanges and circulation of prestige objects with pictorial representations far from their place of origin, as well as reciprocal influences between various art forms, all these and other similar factors contributed to the gradual forging of an Artistic ‘Koine’ (common artistic language), without entailing the depreciation or disappearance of local idioms and preferences. It was on such a horizon that the thematic cycle opened up by the Town Mosaic expanded and diffused rapidly to various art forms. The surviving representations, which are but chance links in an artistic chain, give us an idea of the erstwhile frequency of the subject, open to variations and innovations.

No clear depictions of cities have yet been found in the miniature wall-paintings of Crete. Nevertheless, as I have suggested, everything seems to point to their previous inclusion in the

The dramatic siege of a coastal city on the silver rhyton from Grave Circle A at Mycenae (fig. 10), a representation of a similar 94

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11. Drawing of two fragments belonging to the same stone rhyton from Epidauros (Boulotis, “Villes et palais …”, op. cit., fig. 7). The corps of warriors marches towards the city, which has not been preserved.

12. Drawing of the Master Impression, the clay sealing from Chania (E. Hallager, The Master Impression, SIMA 69, Göterborg 1985, fig. 11).

thematic repertoire of painting there, even more so since the two miniature friezes from the Cyclades, as well as the kindred rhytons from Mycenae and Epidauros, can hardly conceal their Minoan models or influences. Moreover, the negotiation in colour of the pictorial themes of the Town Mosaic and their development on a frieze are reminiscent, as an artistic product, of the fresco examples of the cycle.

appear as a single settlement ensemble when viewed from afar. What happens after the Late Bronze I period? Does the thematic cycle of the city wane after 1450 BC? What is still unattested does not rule out beforehand anything with certainty, since images-signs of this kind have always had a place in the symbolism of palatial society in particular. And there was, of course, no lack of opportunity for city representations in the historical circumstances of the period. Fragments from depictions of buildings, of overtly Minoan inspiration, can be seen among the wall-paintings in the palatial centres of Mycenaean Greece, but these seem to render palaces and as a rule we know nothing of their precise narrative contexts. Just one fragmentary frieze of the thirteenth century BC, which adorned the throne room at Mycenae, with battle scenes and multi-storey building(s?) – irrespective of whether it depicts a palace or a city – could be considered a last echo of the earlier thematic cycle of the city. But consonant with the Mycenaean spirit in art, the narrative is much poorer, with emphasis on incidents in war, while references to landscape are rudimentary to non-existent.

In my opinion, a recent Late Minoan I find from Chania bridges the iconographic gap between the Town Mosaic and the city representations from outside Crete. This is the so-called Master Impression (fig. 12), a clay sealing, most probably from a gold seal ring, on the tiny surface (2.67×2 cm.) of which is represented with admirable adroitness an extensive building complex standing literally at the water’s edge, partly on a rocky eminence, with two gates and multistorey buildings bearing the conspicuous features of official architecture, which are comparable both to the Town Mosaic and other city representations, especially in the wall-paintings. The symmetry in the structuring of the buildings, combined with the male figure as sole human presence, in “epiphany” at the centre above the roof of the complex and holding a kind of sceptre, confers an almost emblematic character on the image. However, as the execution of the representation seems to be governed by the principle of pars pro toto, we should rather imagine the building complex as extending beyond the confines of the sphragistic surface. In his exhaustive monograph on the seal impression, E. Hallager attempts to identify the type of complex and although not totally excluding the possibility of a “palace-like structure” tends more towards the possibility of a city. The two possibilities are not, however, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they can coexist, the one implicating the other, since in the Minoan and Aegean context palace (or any seat of authority) and city, closely articulated in the urban plan, would

Viewing the city In all representations of the thematic cycle, the sea, from where the city is viewed, lies in the foreground. This is the visual experience that passengers would have had from the ships depicted in the Akrotiri frieze, a very familiar experience to the seafaring people of the Aegean and of course to the artist, who was well aware that the fullest view of coastal settlements and cities was to be had from the sea. As the distance from the shore increases, so the city is condensed into a compact unity with clearly distinguishable outer boundaries. And this is how the artist represents it with his wide-angle lens, panoramically, his 95

Christos Boulotis chief concern being to compose a generalizing yet convincing image of it: through a mechanism of necessarily selective abstraction, he drastically reduces the number of buildings without losing the sense of building density, while taking care to emphasize those architectural features he considers determinative for the city’s identity, in each case, even adding buildings that signpost the wider natural environment (e.g. Akrotiri frieze).

developed under Minoan influence in this period? As far as city V on the Akrotiri frieze is concerned, scholars are almost unanimous in recognizing the “portrait” of the local urban settlement, with clear topographical and landscape references to the pre-eruption picture of the surrounding area, as Christos Doumas for one has pointed out. In my view, this is the only city in the entire Aegean thematic cycle of cities that we can confidently identify. It is to this city that the fleet sailed in a festive atmosphere, and it is this city that the artist chose to depict in greater detail. It would indeed be strange to have omitted the city at Akrotiri from an overseas voyage to distant parts, which included at least five cities, and even more so if, as has been suggested, the occupant of the West House and “commissioner” of the frieze was involved in what is narrated, perhaps as “admiral” of the fleet. By the same reasoning, the settlement at Ayia Irini should also have been present among the cities portrayed on the frieze found there. The rest of the representations, however, defy attempts to identify them. Certain cities on the Akrotiri frieze have been sought in the southern Aegean and particularly Crete, and have even been given specific names (Palaikastro, Pseira, Gazi), and still others in Libya, Cyprus and on the Syro-Palestinian coast. However attractive, reasonable or plausible these proposals may appear, they still belong in the nebulous realm of hypothesis, since views diverge even on the specific character of each representation or individual episodes.

In the syntax of the more general composition, the artist employs standard pictorial principles of the age, achieving a mixed perspective: some elements of the natural environment are rendered mainly as seen from above, in the so-called “bird’seye perspective” or Kavalierperspektive, but most elements are rendered from the level of the human eye, among them cities as a rule, and in particular the constructions in the foreground (houses, fortification walls, gateways). However, those buildings which project as elevated – implied on a second or even third plane – overlap partially and become unavoidably merged with one another as well as with those in the foreground, which situation is heightened by the simultaneous denoting of multi-storey constructions. The Town Mosaic is the exception, because of the structural autonomy of each plaque. We should imagine the houses here without perspective superimpositions, adjacent to each other, arranged in more or less successive rows with small interstices and, as I have proposed in the drawing, with two gates, analogous to those of the Master Impression and city V in the Akrotiri frieze.

Mute pieces of historical memory

Identifying the cities: topos and utopia

As we have noted already, the Town Mosaic, among other things, introduced the element of historicity into Aegean art for the first time. Judging by the standards of his day, Evans considered the siege of a city on the rhyton from Mycenae (fig. 10) as “the most historic representation”. And it is true that almost all scholars, in their attempt to interpret representations in the thematic cycle of cities – especially the Akrotiri frieze – tend to draft persuasive historical scenarios by deciphering the images. For there is no doubt that these representatives bequeath to us the earliest snippets of Aegean history, each one of which, for want of accompanying inscriptions such as those on similar scenes from Egypt, for instance, allows of multiple readings simultaneously.

Aegean or non-Aegean? Where and which? And on what pretext? The desire to identify all the cities and the places depicted seems utopian. This is borne out, moreover, by the numerous, widely divergent proposals made concerning the identity of the besieged city on the silver rhyton from Mycenae (fig. 10) and, especially, of the five cities on the frieze from Akrotiri, proposals that would require a great deal of space merely to enumerate. The contemporary recipients of the representations would certainly not have shared our bewilderment and interpretational quandaries. They, with first and foremost the patrons and their close coterie, would have been able to name each of the cities represented, by “reading” the story, in part and as a whole.

The beleaguered city on the rhytons from Mycenae and Epidauros (figs 10, 11), almost three centuries before the Trojan cycle, surely illustrates important events of the period, such as those that nurtured epic poetry, which extols the brave deeds of the Mycenaean aristocracy. What is enhanced as an exclusive subject in the representations on both rhytons is but one episode in the prolix narrative on the Akrotiri frieze and takes place in one of the five cities. The subject in the inaugural work in the cycle, the Town Mosaic, appears to be similar, since both the male figures with bows and javelins and the maritime episode with the “shipwrecked sailors”, on some of its fragmentary plaques (fig. 2), recur consistently in all the above scenes of epic character. We are not going to reiterate here the view that it must be by definition a perfectly peaceful portrayal, using the oft-repeated argument that Minoan art, being the direct opposite of Mycenaean, left no leeway for martial scenes. Such scenes may be comparatively few, but they

We can profit considerably from a conservative but safe approach that enables us to detect for some cities at least their wider cultural and geographical features, by assessing not only the type of dress, hairstyle, weaponry or accoutrements of the figures, but also the more eloquent, in their singularity, architectural elements and symbols. Fortunately, such elements exist. The biconcave altars that decorate the lintel of the gateways on the Town Mosaic, the Master Impression and city V of the Akrotiri frieze, which are typical of Minoan sacred symbolism, refer directly to the South Aegean. The same is true of the so-called horns of consecration, which as an architectural crowning are encountered in city V of the Akrotiri frieze and on the Master Impression, according to Hallager. Specifically for cities represented on works from Crete, it is most likely that these were located on the island. But how can we rule out the possibility of Cycladic cities, for instance, like those that 96

Representations of Cities in Aegean Art of the Second Millennium BC do exist, and indeed from the Middle Minoan III-Late Minoan I period, contemporary, that is, with the thematic cycle of the city. Within this conceptual framework, the male figure in the Master Impression (fig. 12), “in epiphany” over the building complex – whether this is perceived as a city or, more likely, a palace plus city –, would probably symbolize the protection provided by the “patron” deity from enemy attack or perhaps domination, if the figure is perceived as an image of the ruler.

whole of Antiquity, but behind it were many sieges, which would have been praiseworthy and, given the Mycenaean origin of epic poetry, were assimilated anonymous into the Homeric melting pot, fuelling it. In his fleeting references to eponymous cities, Homer is far from sparing in his use of epithets in order to establish their identity, drawing most from the surrounding natural open space, with claims of topographical and landscape accuracy (e.g. anchialos (near the sea), ephalos (on the sea), hemathoeis (sandy), petreessa (stony), aipeines (lofty), polyknemos (with many mountain-spurs), ampeloessa (vine-clad, rich in vines), einosiphyllon (with quivering foliage)). On the contrary, the adjectives for the form of built space, that is the city, are appreciably fewer and used as repeated stereotypes, sometimes aimed at the architectural and defensive image (euktmenon (good to dwell in), teicheessa (walled), hypsipylos (with high gates)) and sometimes at its urban plan (euryagyia (with wide streets), eureie (easterly)).

The thematic cycle that begins with the Town Mosaic in Middle Minoan IIIA and expands during Late Bronze I, coincides chronologically with perhaps the most complex and at the same time the most splendid period of Aegean prehistory, from the seventeenth to the first half of the fifteenth century BC. This is a period of intense mobility, realignments, cultural osmoses and dynamic inquiries, which steadily brought the Aegean peoples onto the “international” stage of the age. The legendary but archaeologically attested Minoan thalassocracy, with the founding of emporia and colonies in the Aegean, not always by entirely peaceful means, the gradual build-up of the Mycenaeans during this period and their regulatory involvement in Aegean affairs, the concurrent flourishing of Cycladic coastal cities, such as at Akrotiri, active in maritime trade, with all the attendant hazards and adventures, the efforts to create and to maintain spheres of influence, and even the tactic of piratical raids on coastal cities; all these and other related factors constituted a broad and dense historical spectrum, on which the thematic cycle of the city drew.

Greek art has nothing to juxtapose to the multi-faceted thematic cycle of the city, as this was negotiated in the prehistoric Aegean, until Late Hellenistic and Roman times, when, with the new turn towards landscape, cities were once again “built into” the picture – the departure point for a new iconographic tradition which, with fluctuations and discontinuities, was to reach the painted friezes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, again in houses of urban character.

It appears, therefore, simplistic and risky to reduce collectively all the aforesaid scenes of epic character to one single historical event, since hostilities or sieges of cities were anything but rare. Moreover, the art of the Mycenaean military aristocracy of the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries BC often reflects armed conflicts of a different type, as shown in exemplary manner on a silver krater from Mycenae, which was found in the same shaft grave (IV) as the siege rhyton. Scenes inspired by similar martial episodes were not lacking in later Mycenaean times, mainly during the thirteenth century BC, when once again in the form of a painted frieze they decorated the palaces of mainland Greece. Among them, in the throne room of Mycenae, battle scenes around a multi-storey building complex which, as said already, seems to be a variation of the earlier subject of the siege of a city, but now on another historical horizon and with other pretexts.

Bibliography Ch. Boulotis, “Villes et palais dans l’art égéen du IIe millénaire av. J.-C.”, in P. Darcque and R. Treuil (eds), L’habitat égéen préhistorique (Actes de la Table Ronde Internationale, Athènes, 23–25 juin 1987), Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, Suppl. XIX, Paris 1990, 421–459. S. Chryssoulaki and L. Platon, “L’urbanisme minoen: A. Le réseau routier urbain. B. Espace intérieur et espace extérieur dan la ville minoenne”, in L’habitat égéen préhistorique, 371–399. C. Doumas, The Wall-Paintings of Thera, Athens 1992, 45–64. H. van Effenterre, “La notion de ‘ville’ dans la préhistoire égéenne”, in L’habitat égéen préhistorique, op. cit., 485–491. A. Evans, The Palace of Minos at Knosos, vol. I, London 1921, 301–314, and vol. III, London 1930, 81–106. A. Farnoux, “Image et paysage: L’exemple des fresques de la Maison Ouest de Théra”, in KTEMA: Civilisations de l’Orient, de la Grèce et de Rome antiques, Strasbourg 1990, 133–142. E. Hallager, The Master Impression, SIMA 69, Göterborg 1985. S.A. Immerwahr, Aegean Painting in the Bronze Age, Pennsylvania 1990. P. Lampl, Cities and Planning in the Ancient Near East, London 1969. A. Lembesi, “The Archanes house model”, Archaiologike Ephemeris 1976, 12–43 (in Greek). J. MacEnroe, Minoan House and Town Arrangement, Toronto 1979. N. Marinatos, Art and Religion in Thera, Athens 1984, 34–61. S. Marinatos, Excavations at Thera VI, Athens 1974, 38–57. L. Morgan, The Miniature Wall Paintings of Thera: A Study in Aegean Culture and Iconography, Cambridge 1988. C. Palyvou, “Notes on the Town Plan of Late Cycladic Akrotiri, Thera”, Annual of the British School at Athens (BSA) 81, 1986, 179–194. K. Polinger Foster, Aegean Faience of the Bronze Age, New Haven – London 1979, 99–115. G. Rodenwaldt, Des Fries des Megarons von Mykenai, Halle 1921. A. Sakellariou, “La scène du ‘siège’ sur le rhyton d’argent de Mycènes d’après une nouvelle reconstitution”, Revue Archéologique 1975, 195–208. A. Sakellariou, “The Cretan origin of a Mycenaean iconographic cycle”, in Proceedings of the IV Congress of Cretan Studies, vol. A2, 1981, 532–538.

Whether contemporary with their narrative images or partly earlier, the events presented in the thematic cycle of the city and related representations have an overtly anecdotal hue. The innovative inventions were in time overlaid with repetitions and variations of tried and tested “types”, thus creating a dense network of images whose interpretation may be approached each time from the safe starting point of where they were found and what they decorated. The thematic and narrative breadth of the representations frequently suggests the idea of lost epic cycles, particularly in Mycenaean Greece. Can it be fortuitous that the most telling annotation to many incidents in the friezes from Akrotiri and Ayia Irini, as well as the more general thematic cycle of the city, is to be found in the rich imagery of Homeric discourse? The siege of Troy may have been elevated to the epic thematic type par excellence for the 97

Christos Boulotis W. Stevenson Smith, Interconnections in the Ancient Near East, London 1965. Ch. Televantou, Akrotri, Thera: The Wall-Paintings of the West House, Athens 1994, 59–349 (in Greek). P. Warren, “The miniature fresco from the West House at Akrotiri, Thera, and its Aegean setting”, American Journal of Archaeology 1979, 115–129. H. Waterhouse, “Middle Minoan houses”, in O. Kryszkowska and L. Nixon (eds), Minoan Society (Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium, 1981), Bristol 1983, 311–321. J. Weilhartner, “Άστυ und πόλις im spätbronze-seitlichen Griechenland und bei Homer”, in F. Blakolmer (ed.), Österreichische Forschungen zur ägäischen Bronzezeit 1998: Akten der Tagung am Institut für Klassische Archäologie der Universität Wien, 2.-3. Mai 1998, Vienna 2000, 217–233.

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CHAPTER 10

Habitation in the Mycenaean Period Spyros E. Iakovidis Archaeologist – Academician

Excavations indicate that there were two types of habitation installations in Mycenaean Greece: palaces, either fortified (citadels) or not, and simple settlements. It is doubtful whether cities, that is to say settlements of some magnitude, with administrative organization either independent of or partly dependent on a central authority, with a region capable of sustaining the output of products essential for economic self-sufficiency, with social heterogeneity and division of labour among the inhabitants, and with a population density necessitating planned distribution of space between private dwellings, public buildings and communication arteries (streets, squares etc.), ever existed in Mycenaean Greece. However diverse, inadequate and vague proposed definitions of the city1 are, including the above, they do not seem to correspond to what we know about the Mycenaean period, from the information yielded by the texts (Linear B tablets) and by the excavations.

south of the Peneios river and east of the Pindos mountain range,4 some 650 sites have been identified to date. At least one is an unfortified palace (Pylos), five are large citadels (Mycenae, Tiryns, Athens, most probably Thebes, possibly Iolkos), and at least three are smaller citadels (Midea, Teichos Dymaion, Asine). Of the rest of the sites, 144 are cemeteries and 300 are settlements or parts of settlements together with tombs (fig. 1).5 Only one of the settlements has been excavated (Malthi in Arkadia), another has been surveyed and mapped in large part (Pavlopetri in the bay of Neapolis, Lakonia), and the other five are known from sectors of them, sufficient however to reveal their area and layout (Korakou, Lower City of Tiryns, Asine, Mycenae, environs of the palace of Pylos). Of the rest, some are represented by one or two published buildings or parts of buildings (Zygouries, Kirrha, Eleusis, Eutresis, Aghios Kosmas, Krissa), while most are just mentioned without systematic publication or have not even been excavated (Aegina, Thebes, Athens). Consequently, the existing material for simple settlements is minimal and merely indicative.

It emerges from the tablets of (Mycenaean) Knossos and Kydonia, as well as from Pylos, Thebes and – to a lesser extent – Mycenae that the administrative and economic centre, that is the seat of authority, in each region was the palace, fortified (citadel) or not, with its many and multi-functional spaces, the residence of the ruler (anax), its archives, scribes, workshops and shrines. Each palace had authority over and control of hundreds of settlements (various place names are recorded in the tablets) and their populations, permanent or transient, whose production it planned, collected and redistributed. It exercised this authority, at least as far as land allocation is concerned, through the damoi (demoi), which apparently corresponded to these settlements. The damoi, which appear here as administrative units, with the damokoros as representative of the anax, rather than as places of habitation, concede to various individuals the use of community land (έχουσι παρό δάμοι) or engage in disputes with the priesthood over the allotment of fields.2

The citadels

In addition to the damos, there is reference to another population unit, the wa-tu, which is read as asty, and there is also reference to a wa-tu-wa-o-ko3 (astyaochos), which is not a proper name and must be some kind of official. The meaning, however, is unclear and does not allow for secure conclusions. To what may the damos and the asty correspond?

The citadel, that is the walled palace built on top of a naturally fortified but accessible rocky height dominating a more or less extensive area, is one of the more typical features of the Mycenaean Civilization. The term citadel is preferable to acropolis, which means the summit, the highest and therefore fortified point of a city or even a fortified city in its entirety, before it expands beyond its original enceinte. That is, the walls enclose the whole settlement or, better, the settlement conforming to an urban plan, with streets, building blocks, public buildings and so on, was constructed intra muros. This is the par excellence picture of the cities of Asia Minor (Troy, Miletos, Halikarnassos), Canaan (Ugarit, Byblos) and Mesopotamia. In Greece, such settlements, albeit smaller and far less important, were built in Thessaly, the Cyclades, the Peloponnese and Aegina, as early as the Neolithic Age and later in the Middle Helladic period. They were girt by relatively low, narrow enclosures, built of small stones, which were unable to withstand fierce and lengthy attacks, and from beginning to end show no substantial change in their arrangement and construction, in other words no evolution.

In the cradle of Mycenaean civilization, that is mainland Greece

The citadels differ completely in their layout and types of 99

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1. Map of Mycenaean sites, mid-14th to late 13th century BC (from O. Dickinson, The Aegean Bronze Age, Cambridge 1994, 77, fig. 4.24).

buildings. It should be noted that they do not include Gla, which is no more than a huge fort that protected the drainage works of Lake Kopais and was used for storing produce from the plain, without being the seat of an anax (fig. 2).6

was that of Tiryns, the first phase of which, the Upper Citadel, dates from the early fourteenth century BC (c. 1375 BC), and the last to the late thirteenth (fig. 3). The first walls of Mycenae were built around the mid-fourteenth century BC (c. 1350 BC), the west extension with the Lion Gate about one century later, and the last, the so-called northeast extension with the underground fountain, circa 1200 BC (fig. 4). The citadel of Athens was circumvallated in this period too (fig. 5).

These citadels were neither fortified settlements nor unfortified palaces. They were palatial complexes surrounded by walls constructed of enormous boulders in the Cyclopean system, which covered the entire fortified area; they were, in a sense, the capitals of wide regions whose inhabitants lived in small settlements and farmsteads. These great fortifications housed the dynast and his retinue, and were the seat of the administration of his state and of its various economic activities. The subjects dwelt extra muros.

The prevailing view is that in times of war the people from the surrounding region took refuge in the nearby citadels. This would have been true for a certain number of persons, who would thus have reinforced the garrison. In general, however, there was very limited space available for those seeking refuge in the citadels. Moreover, those sectors of citadels supposed

Not all the citadels were built at the same time. The earliest 100

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2. Gla, topographical plan of the Mycenaean fort (after S. Iakovidis, Gla II, 1998, 2, fig. 1).

to have had this function were all later additions and were not included in the original plan. At Mycenae the buildings of the palace proper and its auxiliary installations covered the entire area of the citadel, and the successive extensions of the fortification were filled immediately with new analogous buildings. At Tiryns the Upper Citadel was from the outset occupied entirely, while the Lower one, which was added subsequently, came to be considered and interpreted as a Fluchtburg, that is a refuge for inhabitants of the region. However, both the earlier and recent excavations revealed and are revealing extensive and contiguous buildings. At Athens the continuous use of the site obliterated most traces, so that the original extent and number of buildings on the summit of the Acropolis rock are no longer visible, while the caves on the northwest side, the part that was later named Pelasgicon, were perhaps used as temporary refuges by those forced to seek protection from enemy incursions, as happened later during the Peloponnesian War. It is therefore certain that the role of the citadels as refuges was only incidental and to the degree that this was feasible, while their principal purpose was to protect the administrative machine living and moving around the ruler, as well as the wealth of the entire region in produce and commodities, since these were gathered together and stored in the palace, which supervised and directed their circulation and distribution. In other words, the citadel was first and foremost the administrative seat and the treasury of each Mycenaean realm or state. At the same time, with the looming mass of its walls and the difficulty of access, it constituted the symbol and

3. The Upper and the Lower Citadel of Tiryns (from D. Vasilikou, Mycenaean Civilisation (BAE 152), Athens 1995, 184, fig, 135 [in Greek])

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5. Acropolis of Athens, end of the Mycenaean period (after S. Iakovidis, The Mycenaean Citadel of Athens, Athens 1962, 204, fig. 38 [in Greek]).

auxiliary exits, narrow gallery-like sally ports which facilitated communication with the surrounding space and which could be blocked easily. These openings are found in later sections of the wall, indicating that the idea of constructing them was conceived as a result of experience gained over time, that is the wish to avoid as far as possible long and tiring routes along the length of the wall, without impairing the security of the fortifications. These imposing fortifications, which a relatively small number of defenders could easily make impregnable to the military means of the time, each enclosed a small but vital and perfectly organized world, whose activities developed within clearly defined boundaries. Firstly there was the palace, the residence of the anax and his family. Around this a host of buildings and spaces housed the storerooms for the region’s goods, the craftsmen and artists who were involved in processing raw materials, local and foreign, and making products for domestic use, exchange and export, the functionaries of the administration (magazine officials, scribes etc.), the ruler’s retinue and guard, and the shrines of the local deities, together with part of the priesthood. These spaces, built over a large area and at different levels, communicated with each other via a complex system of corridors, staircases, streets and stepped walkways, which at once facilitated circulation and separated them into specific and apparently specialized complexes. Thus, behind the strong walls, the interior of the citadel was teeming with life and activity, presenting a picture of a peaceful town rather than of an embattled fortress.

4. Sketch of the three successive phases of the wall of the citadel of Mycenae (after G. Mylonas, Mycenae Rich in Gold, 1983, 76, fig. 57).

measure of the power of the dynast who held it. Indeed, this may well have been the raison d’être of the citadels, since they had remained unfortified for centuries and since, in the case of the two largest and earliest, Tiryns and Mycenae, it was only during their final building phase, over a century and a half after they were founded, that they became truly invincible, when they acquired those installations that secured a safe and continuous water supply, without which they would have been unable to withstand any siege. Unlike most settlements, the citadels were all built on rocky heights and the line of the wall followed initially and everywhere the crest of the crag. The extensions also tried to adapt similarly to the lower contours of the hill, without always succeeding. The westward extension of the wall of Mycenae, for instance, which begins from the Lion Gate, surrounds Grave Circle A and ends on the bank of the Chavos ravine, was founded at the foot of the rock. The Lower Citadel of Tiryns is situated about 9 m. lower than the level of the palace on the Upper Citadel, and the Pelasgicon wall at Athens is 10–15 m. lower than the rest of the enceinte. In such cases the wall was necessarily built higher than the rest and reinforced in places.

The settlements The settlements, which were to a greater or lesser degree dependent on the palaces, that is, mainly the citadels, present considerable variety. Malthi in Messenia was a fortified and densely populated Early Helladic (EH, 2500–1900 BC), Middle Helladic (MH, 1900– 1600 BC) and Late Helladic (LH, 1600–1050 BC) settlement with some seventy-eighty houses of all periods, built on an uneven hilltop, on different levels underpinned by stepped terraces (fig. 6). In LH (Mycenaean) times the greater part of it was abandoned. No more than twelve dwellings, built or arranged on the ruined walls of earlier buildings, were in use during this period. These dwellings, dispersed in various parts

There were openings at intervals in the walls, in the form of gates of different sizes and importance, some distance apart and at points corresponding to the main approaches to the citadel, where the roads leading to them terminated. The fort of Gla had four gates, in a wall approximately 3 km. in perimeter, Mycenae, Tiryns and Midea had one main and one secondary or postern gate each, and Athens only one. Apart from these, in the two large citadels in the Argolid there were additional 102

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6. Malthi. Buildings of the Mycenaean period shown with solid outline (after N. Valmin, The Swedish Messenia Expedition, 1938, fig. IV).

of the settlement, consisted of contiguous quadrilateral rooms without any clear plan. Some were separated by party walls or built upon the fortification wall, as were the earlier ones. The only house that stands out by virtue of its dimensions and the relative regularity of its plan, is the so-called megaron – a misnomer – which appears to have been the residence of the local potentate: it consists of a unique quadrilateral room (4×5.50 m.), free-standing, built before one of the retaining walls of the hill and with its entrance, distinguished by the flagstones of its threshold, in its south wall. At the centre of its interior is an elliptical hearth surrounded by four stone slabs on which stood corresponding supports for the roof. Malthi was a small rural settlement which housed a few families of agriculturalists-herdsmen, with few amenities, few contacts with the world outside and no luxuries.7

7. Eutresis, Mycenaean houses. a. House B. b. House V. c. House K. d. House BB (H. Goldman, Excavations at Eutresis, 1931, 65, fig. 73 and 67, figs 76–78).

is separated from the previous one by a street, has a shallow antechamber and one room, only partly preserved, which had a hearth at the centre. The fourth (House V) was built onto House K and consists of a small open antechamber leading to a large room of trapezoidal plan. Traces on the floor suggest the existence of a lattice of branches and reeds between the two spaces, rather than a partition wall. In spite of its size and its fortification wall, the settlement at Eutresis was simple and rather poor, in many ways similar to that at Malthi.8

The Mycenaean settlement at Eutresis in Boeotia succeeded an earlier and more extensive settlement of MH times (fig. 7). Dwellings were concentrated on the relatively protected southeast side of the hill, occupying about 3.5 ha. inside a much more extensive wall which enclosed an area of 21.3 ha. Of these houses, four, belonging to different phases of the Mycenaean period, were excavated. In addition, some walls that do not appear to belong together and do not constitute clear building complexes, were discovered. The dwellings, which are only partly preserved, have different orientations and irregular quadrilateral rooms. The first (House B) was the earliest (LH I-II) and simplest, comprising one room with a hearth. The second (House K) and best preserved has two rooms, an entrance at the side and a base for a roof support at the centre of the main room. The third (House BB), which

From the Mycenaean horizon at Kirrha, in the bay of Itea, two parallel, oblong quadrilateral buildings have survived, orientated north-south and separated by a passage about 3 m. wide. The east one, which is preserved completely, consists of four square rooms of almost equal size, with connecting doors and a narrow entrance on the north front. The fourth 103

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8. Pavlopetri, topographical plan (after A. Harding, G. Cadogan and R. Howell, “Pavlopetri”, 1969, fig. 3).

room, at the south end of the building, of which the back wall is missing, is smaller and must have been a service space. The northwest half of the west building is lost, but it apparently had the same or more or less the same ground plan as the previous one. The proportions and the construction of these buildings are quite rough, and they do not appear to have belonged to an extensive settlement.9

submerged, which has not been excavated but has been mapped and dated by the few moveable finds recovered from the shallows (fig. 8). Fifteen dwellings of three-ten main and service rooms, and parts of about the same number were discerned. The buildings were free-standing, with no party walls, and separated from the adjacent ones by passages. Set quite far apart from each other, they are aligned along a street parallel to the shore and one of its side streets. Of average dimensions 16×10 m., they consist of a large central space (perhaps open-air), built onto which are smaller quadrilateral rooms with no unified or uniform plan. The population of the settlement is estimated to have been at least 600 individuals.12

Krissa, according to its excavator, “was no more than a village and its ample fortifications never surrounded a city. It would have sheltered shepherds of Parnassos and their herds in the months when they brought them down from the highlands”.10 At Aghios Kosmas, a small peninsula on the south coast of Attica, part of which was submerged by the sea and is now a reef, remnants of a small settlement were found, mostly fragmentary and incomplete. Two almost whole buildings were uncovered on land, each having an open porch (prostoon) with column bases on the front and a single chamber (domos) behind, measuring 9.55×5.80 m. and 7×4.60 m. respectively. In the larger building there was a clay bathtub set in the floor. In the smaller one there were bases for two roof supports along its axis and on their extension a projection of the end wall. Three more buildings, which can just be made out, were founded on the present reef. Two are separated by a street 2–3 m. wide. The settlement was not large and the pottery from it is run of the mill. Small finds included seashells and fish bones.11

The settlement at Aghios Stephanos, built on a hill on the coast of the bay of Gytheion, was inhabited intermittently from EH times down to the thirteenth century BC. It was investigated by excavating trial trenches, which were not continued once the stratigraphy in each had been determined. Furthermore, the site was full of graves of various periods, which had encroached on the architectural remains. Thus, although the extent of the settlement was established, of the order of 1 ha., the excavators did not manage to determine the number and layout of the dwellings, nor to uncover even one entire building. It appears from the small finds that the inhabitants made their living from the sea and the working of green prophyrite (lapis lacedaemonius) – of which there are seams at nearby Krokees – from which they fashioned various tools and vessels, some of which they managed to export.13

Pavlopetri in Lakonia was a similar coastal settlement, now 104

Habitation in the Mycenaean Period On Korakou hill, near Corinth, a coastal settlement that had been inhabited continuously from EH into LH times has been uncovered. The last period is represented by five houses and walls of some others, the ground plans of which, mutilated by the ravages of time, are unclear. The buildings, to which the excavators gave letters of the Latin alphabet, are free-standing, at a distance from each other or at any rate separated by wide passages. There seems to have been an empty space between houses M and H. The orientation of the dwellings varies: two face west and three south. All the rooms are quite regular and quadrilateral. Three of the buildings (H, L and O) are long and narrow with a shallow open space on the front, which had a column base at the centre in L. In L and O this space is followed by a second, likewise narrow, room. Next comes the largest, main room, which in L has a central hearth flanked by two column bases. There was a similar base in the middle of the main room of H. Finally, at the far end of L and H is one more almost square room, which was probably a storeroom. In other words, three of the five LH habitations on the hill were of megaron plan, with hall, prodomos, domos and opisthodomos, a form known from the palaces and which is considered to be representative of Mycenaean architecture, but which is in reality rare. The other two buildings (M and P), as well as the rest of the complexes, consist of a central room with hearth and pillars, and smaller quadrilateral and almost certainly service rooms built onto them as space allowed. In general, the layout of buildings in the Korakou settlement is random and does not reflect any organized urban plan.14

The extensive MH settlement at Eleusis was succeeded by a later Mycenaean one, which spread over the top and down the south and southeast sides of a hill, and grew even larger during the latter years of the LH period. Its area has been established, but its remains are few and fragmentary. The excavations of 1930–1931 revealed various walls and distinguished two adjacent houses with opposite orientation, so that their opisthodomoi face each other, separated by a small lane. The houses are quadrilateral and a shallow open prodomos leads to a large room that communicates with a narrower trapezoidal opisthodomos. In other words, they have megaron ground plans. The fortification wall of the settlement was sought but not found.

Another settlement has been excavated at Zygouries in the Corinthia. All the buildings on the hilltop were MH but soundings showed that in LH times the foot of the hill had been inhabited too. Only one of these buildings was uncovered and proved to be a potter’s workshop. It is a quadrilateral, almost square, construction with a corridor running through the middle. Five spaces along the north and east sides were cleaned and conserved, and represent about three-quarters of the building. The main northeast room (5×5.50 m.), accessible from the corridor, adjoins a smaller room to the north, with which it communicates. Adjoining these are the rooms on the north side, which all open onto the corridor: a narrow passage, a room full of apparently unused pots (hence the name of the building) and another passage on the west side, divided in two by a stone threshold, perhaps of a staircase. Three other rooms, corresponding to and opposite these, as attested by the doorsteps, must have existed in the southwest part of the building, which has been destroyed. Although this is the only LH building excavated, its function (specialized workshop) indicates that it must have been part of a rather developed settlement.15

At Asine, on the coast of the Argolic Gulf, a small citadel on a hilly headland was explored, which though dating to prehistoric times was inhabited and used later on occasion, as a consequence of which few of the earlier remains have survived. They also revealed a settlement on the lower west and northwest slopes of the promontory, where the ground descends stepwise towards the sea. The site was inhabited from EH to Geometric times and again later, during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In all, 178 walls have been uncovered, in various levels, which have been numbered and described one by one. Of these, 58 have been attributed to the LH period: the generally patchy and truncated ground plans of six buildings of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC were identified (houses G, H, J, K, L and W). The houses apparently consisted of one main quadrilateral – usually not rectangular – room, with a prodomos and several (up to 9) other smaller irregular rooms built onto it; they have roof supports and plaster floor. House H had in addition a kiln and House G, the largest, included a domestic shrine with clay votive offerings on a built bench. Due to subsequent interventions, there are no clear indications of the layout of these buildings. The settlement must have been quite an extensive one and served as a harbour which had confirmed contacts with Aegean islands.19

To these remains should be added the Mycenaean building found at a lower level, outside the bounds of the settlement and under the later Telesteria, inside a spacious, slightly trapezoidal enclosure. Its back wall is missing, although the line of it is indicated by traces on the rock. The building was quadrilateral and comprised an open prostoon 2 m. deep, probably with two columns on the front, and a main room (10×5.20 m.) with two roof supports on its axis. In front of the prostoon there was a built platform 3.40 m. wide, bordered by two staircases leading to the prostoon. The edifice was enlarged in the thirteenth century BC by adding three rooms to its north side. Without doubt it was for public use, perhaps the celebration of certain rites; according to the excavators, it was the primeval temple of Demeter.18 It is clear that, despite the paucity of extant evidence, Eleusis was an important centre of Mycenaean Greece.

In the Gourna quarter of Thebes, between the Kadmeion and the museum, on the lower northwest slope of the palace hill, remnants of walls of Mycenaean buildings have been noted but not investigated.16 The situation is similar on Aegina, where at Kolona a Mycenaean fortification wall and some buildings along it, still unpublished, were found under the later temple of Apollo. The excavator, Hans Walter, speaks of dense habitation and considers Aegina as one of the most powerful settlements of the Mycenaean period in the region.17

At Tiryns, the Lower Citadel, a lower and later addition to the palace and its environs, was soon filled with houses, ten of which have been excavated. It also acquired two shrines, an underground water cistern with double access and 25 storage spaces in the thickness of its wide wall. The houses that were uncovered abut the wall (thus having exclusive access to the casemate storerooms). Those built further inwards are separated 105

Spyros E. Iakovidis but walls were found almost everywhere and it was confirmed that the space was occupied by densely-arranged buildings of unknown ground plans and dimensions. The moveable finds (pottery, plaster fragments etc.) date these buildings to the time of the palace (LH IIIB, 13th century BC), although a few are earlier, and show that the palace of Pylos was surrounded by an extensive, populous and flourishing settlement similar to the Lower City (Unterstadt) of Tiryns.22 At Athens the uninterrupted use of site throughout prehistoric and historical times has erased all traces of Mycenaean settlements around the Acropolis, yet their existence is confirmed by the wells and graves that were found and excavated at the foot of the rock.23 The situation at Mycenae is less clear, here too due in part to the dearth of evidence. The fortification wall, as it was formed eventually in the late thirteenth century BC, enclosed the palace and twenty-eight diverse buildings investigated to date, at least four of which (House of Pillars, Artisans’ Workshop, Houses C and D) belong to the east wing of the palace. They are all closely built and occupy, together with the palace, the greater part of the hill. Separated by narrow passages and lanes into small complexes, they are made up of quadrilateral, not always regular spaces. The tendency to exploit available space to the limit, but without packing the buildings one next to the other, is obvious. Party walls exist but are rare. Some buildings are separated from the inside face of the fortification wall by corridors or courtyards, but most of them (18 of the 28, about two-thirds) abut it.

9. South of number 12: southwest quarter of Mycenae (from Mylonas, Mycenae Rich in Gold, op. cit., 92, fig. 72).

from the previous ones by passages and open spaces.20 Taken as a whole, these installations could be considered as constituting a settlement, which, however, was not independent but attached to the palace, whose water supply it indeed assured.

The so-called Southwest Quarter, which was constructed in the thirteenth century BC, after the erection of the Lion Gate and the westward extension of the citadel, presents the clearest urban plan (fig. 9). The ten buildings in this quarter, on the west slope of the hill, were separated by narrow horizontal streets and perpendicular stepped side streets descending to blocks occupied by one or two buildings. Of these, only the lower storey has survived, that is the service rooms, all of them regular quadrilateral and almost all of them blind; they communicated with the residential apartments in the upper storey via staircases and trapdoors.

A real settlement, dense and extensive, is the one that surrounded the citadel during the final phase of the Mycenaean period. To date, it has only been investigated by opening a few trenches, which have brought to light a multitude of walls, so far unrelated, as well as seven or eight building complexes, themselves dispersed and incompletely excavated. Overall, fifteen to twenty habitations have been brought to light, with irregular plans, diverse orientation and quadrilateral spaces. The clearest and most systematically excavated complex was found at the foot of the hill, below the galleries (syringes) at the southeast corner of the citadel. It comprises a large megaroid building, with a relatively shallow room on the front, a large central space and an opisthodomos. Two or three rooms with the same orientation have been added to this building and, obliquely to them, there is one more complex of rooms separated from the others by courtyards. In all probability this was a complex of two houses rather than a single residence with many auxiliary rooms. The other houses, separated by passages, seem to be smaller, but they are too few and the distances between them too great for a comprehensible general plan to emerge. In other words, the data are slight, but the density and extent of the settlement are beyond doubt.21

Another 12 houses extra muros have been discovered and excavated, partly or wholly. All were built on the slopes around the citadel, within a radius of 500–600 m. from its enceinte. There are also some remains of dwellings that were demolished when the tholos tomb, the so-called Treasury of Atreus, was constructed, as well as a secluded farmhouse south of the citadel, in the locality of Chania. Research will certainly reveal other similar buildings, but it is highly unlikely that the general picture, which is reminiscent of that at Tiryns, though not the same, will be changed. At Mycenae the uneven terrain precluded dense and regular construction. The buildings are tiered, either in complexes, like the Panagia Houses (three buildings), the House of the Oil Merchant (four), or the House of the Tripod Tomb (which should be associated with walls uncovered in the museum garden and the neighbouring Workshop, as it was called) and at Plakes, where there are indications of more buildings than those excavated, and other isolated ones, such as the House of Lead and the House of the Cyclopean Terrace. These complexes and buildings lie far apart

At Englianos, Pylos, the slopes of the hill on which the palace stands were investigated by excavating trial trenches around its perimeter. None of these soundings was expanded sufficiently to follow and reveal entire buildings or even parts of them, 106

Habitation in the Mycenaean Period but were interconnected with each other and with the citadel by roads that skirted the foot of the terraces underpinning the buildings on the slopes. For Mycenaean masons, as a rule, chose to set their buildings on artificial, built levels instead of surfaces dug in the bedrock.

de préhistoire phocidienne), Paris 1960. 10 van Effenterre, “La notion de ‘ville’ …”, op. cit., 491. 11 G.E. Mylonas, Aghios Kosmas, Princeton, N.J. 1959, 52–58, 148. 12 A. Harding, G. Cadogan and R. Howell, “Pavlopetri: An underwater Bronze Age town in Laconia”, Annual of the British School at Athens (BSA) 64, 1969, 113–123 and figs 1, 3–6. 13 W.D. Taylour, “Excavations at Aghios Stephanos”, BSA 67, 1972, 230–262, as well as Archaeological Reports for 1973–1974, 16. 14 C.W. Blegen, Korakou: A Prehistoric Settlement Near Corinth, Boston-New York 1921, 79–99. 15 C.W. Blegen, Zygouries: A Prehistoric Settlement in the Valley of Cleonae, Cambridge, Mass. 1928, 23–38. 16 N. Faraklas, “Report”, Archaiologikon Deltion 22 (B’ Chronika) 1967, 254 (in Greek). 17 See G. Touchais, BCH (“Chronique des fouilles”), 1986, 682; 1987, 527; 1988, 625; 1989, 772 and H. Walter, Aigina: Die Archäologische Geshichte einer Griechischen Insel, 1995, 26–27. 18 G.E. Mylonas, “Prehistoric Eleusis”, in K. Kourouniotis, Eleusinian Studies, Athens 1932, 29–36 and fig. 2 (in Greek), as well as G.E. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries, Princeton, N.J. 1961, 31–38. 19 O. Frödin, A.W. Persson et alii, Asine: Results of the Swedish Excavations 1922–1930, Stockholm 1938, and C.G. Styrenius, Asine: A Swedish Excavation Site in Greece, (Medelhavsmuseet Skrifter 22), Stockholm 1998. 20 P. Grossman and J. Schäfer, “Tiryns Unterburg: Grabungen 1965”, in Tiryns V, Mainz 1971, 41–75, and “Tiryns Unterburg: Grabungen 1968”, in Tiryns VIII, Mainz 1975, 55–96; R. Avila, P. Grossman, J. Schäfer, H. Knell, E. Slenzka and W. Voigtländer, “Grabungen in der Unterburg 1971”, in Tiryns IX, Mainz 1980, 1–178; K. Kilian, “Ausgrabungen in Tiryns”, Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1978, 449–470; 1979, 379–411; 1981, 149–194; 1982, 393–430; 1983, 277–328; 1988, 105–151; and S.E. Iakovidis, “Das Werk Klaus Kilians”, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung, 108, 1994, 9–27. 21 P. Gercke and G. Hiesel, “Grabungen in der Unterstadt von Tiryns”, in Tiryns V, op. cit., 1–19; and W. Gercke and G. Hiesel, “Tiryns: Stadt 1971”, in Tiryns VIII, op. cit., 1–36; H. Döhl, “Tiryns-Stadt: Sondagen 1968”, in Tiryns VIII, op. cit., 137–154; and A. Rieger and W. Bösch, “Das Neue Kartenwerk von Tiryns”, Tiryns XI, Mainz 1990, 165–171. 22 C.W. Blegen et alii, The Palace of Nestor, vol. III, Princeton, N.J. 1973, 47– 68 and figs 302, 313–318. 23 M. Pantelidou, Prehistoric Athens, Athens 1975, 206–207 (in Greek). 24 Ch. Tsountas, “Excavations at Mycenae 1896”, Praktika, 1886, 74–79 (in Greek); A.J.B. Wace et alii, Excavations at Mycenae 1939–1955, BSA, Suppl. 12, 1979; G.E. Mylonas, “Excavations at Mycenae”, Praktika 1975, 158–161 and pls 134–138 (in Greek), as well as Mycenae Rich in Gold, Athens 1983, 127–161. See also G.E. Mylonas and S.E. Iakovidis, “Excavations at Mycenae”, Praktika, 1984, 233–240 and pls 141–146; 18985, 30–38 and pls 4–7; 1986, 72–73 and pls 15–16; 1987, 44–51 and pls 17–21 (all in Greek). See last, S.E. Iakovidis, “Excavations at Mycenae”, Praktika, 1988, 15–20 and pls 6–10; 1989, 38–42 and pls 15–21; 1991, 67–69 and pls 22–24; 1992, 42–43 (all in Greek); A.J.B. Wace, Mycenae: An Archaeological History and Guide, Princeton, N.J. 1949, 55–58, 64–68, 91–97; Ione Mylonas Shear, The Panagia Houses at Mycenae (The University Museum), Philadelphia 1987; and I. Tournavitou, The Ivory Houses at Mycenae, BSA, Suppl. 24, 1995.

Of these forty buildings, whose dependence on the palace is probable though vague, only four (House M, House of Columns, Tsountas’ House, inside the citadel, and the West House in the Oil Merchant’s complex extra muros) had rooms laid out like a megaron, that is a shallow room at the entrance, a somewhat larger prodomos and the domos with central hearth. The rest were more or less dense, asymmetrical complexes of rooms, mainly without central hearths and often without clear indications of their function. It should not be forgotten, however, that the use of spaces in those times was not as specialized as it was later, and that a room could be, and most probably was, used for various purposes.24 The results of the excavations, however few, fragmentary and limited they may be, and the information from the publications, even less and usually summary, show that during the Mycenaean period there were poor and humble villages of arable farmers and stock-raisers or even fishermen, with a small and perhaps mobile population (Malthi, Kirrha, Eutresis, Aghios Kosmas), sizeable settlements with clear social differentiation or specialization, perhaps damoi (Korakou, Zygouries, most probably Pavlopetri, Eleusis, Aegina), and palaces, that is seats of rulers, with extensive and apparently dependent settlements (Tiryns, Mycenae, Pylos, certainly Athens and Thebes, and perhaps, on a smaller scale, Asine), which could correspond to the astea of the Linear B tablets. Cities, however, like those encountered in Crete and on some Aegean islands (Akrotiri on Thera, Ayia Irini on Kea, Phylakopi on Melos, Koukounaries on Paros, perhaps Grotta on Naxos), did not exist, whatever definition of the term polis we accept.

Notes See chapter I by A.Ph. Lagopoulos, in the present volume, as well as G. Hiesel, Späthelladische Hausarchitektur, Mainz 1990, 216–21, and H. van Effenterre, “La notion de ‘ville’ dans la préhistoire égéene”, in L’habitat égéen préhistorique (Actes de la Table Ronde Internationale, Athènes, 23–25 juin 1987), Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique (BCH), Suppl. XIX, 1990, 486–491. 2 M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge 1956, 251, 252, 256, 538. 3 Ventris and Chadwick, Documents, op. cit., 190, 286, 590. 4 This review does not cover the settlements known from the Aegean islands (Aghios Andreas on Siphnos, Akrotiri on Thera, Koukounaries on Paros, settlement of Delos, Grotta on Naxos, Ayia Irini on Kea, Phylakopi on Melos) and from Crete, because it is obvious that their architecture is different (different climate, affected by prevailing strong winds) and so is their development. 5 R. Hope Simpson and O.T.P.K. Dickinson, A Gazetteer of the Aegean Civilization in the Bronze Age, vol. 1, The Mainland and the Islands (SIMA 52), Göteborg 1979. The other 215 have been located in surveys, that is, only from surface finds. 6 S. Iakovidis, Gla I (Library of the Archaeological Society at Athens (BAE) 107), Athens 1989, and Gla II (BAE 173), Athens 1998 (both in Greek). 7 N. Valmin, The Swedish Messenia Expedition, Lund 1938, 169–185. 8 H. Goldman, Excavations at Eutresis in Boeotia, Cambridge Mass. 1931, 64–75. 9 H. van Effenterre, L. Dor, J. Jannoray and M. van Effenterre, Kirrha (Étude 1

107

CHAPTER 11

The Settlements of the Dark Ages Nota Kourou Professor of Early Iron Age Aegean Archaeology National and Capodistrian University of Athens

Continuity or discontinuity: The differentiation from Mycenaean society

The period from the end of the Mycenaean Civilization to the creation of the city-state of historical times, that is, from the late twelfth to the eighth century BC, is still referred to as the “Dark Ages”.1 This term, which was adopted in the early 1970s to denote the level of our knowledge of the period as well as the troubled social conditions that followed the great destruction of the palatial centres of the Mycenaean world, has recently been vigorously challenged.2 The ambivalence of this term used to be suited perfectly to this period, about which very little was known and the culture of which seemed to be in a state of decline and isolation. The cultural level, as it emerged from the sanctuaries and particularly the cemeteries, appeared to be drastically different, both materially and socially, from that of the Mycenaean Age. From the votive offerings in the sanctuaries and the grave goods in the cemeteries there is a systematic absence of objects made of precious metals or of imported materials, formerly abundant in Mycenaean society. The level of technology was by now generally much inferior and the paucity of bronze artefacts gave the impression that there might have been a shortage of ores for a time. Concurrently, the absence of imports or exports created the impression that communication with other Mediterranean regions had now ceased. Finally, finds from sanctuaries and settlements indicated that religion and social structure were radically different in character from earlier times.

The main question regarding the continuity or discontinuity of the Creto-Mycenaean world is now being phrased differently and viewed in another light. The continuity of tradition is often ascertained at the cultural level, but in parallel discontinuity of the Mycenaean world emerges clearly in the social and political structures of the period. The type of habitation and the form of Dark Age settlements differ, because the social structure and consequently the political organization were by now different. In the palatial society of Mycenaean times the religious and administrative centre was always located inside the walled citadel, which was the seat of the palace of the ruler who controlled a large region in which there were many small settlements. After the collapse of the palaces, and independently of the population movements taking place, habitation continued to be in numerous small settlements, but these merged politically at a later stage, perhaps towards the end of the period. It was in this way that the city-state of historical times emerged, which together with its territory (chora) constituted an autonomous political entity, with a large principal settlement in which the sanctuary of the patron deity and the agora with the public buildings were prominent. The city-state is thought to have been created in the eighth century BC, though in reality it was the culmination of a long process of socio-political transformation and development, which essentially commenced immediately after the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces. It is obvious that the notion of continuity existed at the level of popular culture and small settlements, whereas the concept of discontinuity exclusively concerned the palace and the higher cultural level of the Mycenaean ruling class.

Excavations conducted during the last two decades have begun gradually to alter the picture, particularly concerning the supposed poverty of the Aegean and its isolation from surrounding regions of the Mediterranean. The rich finds from some cemeteries of the period, mainly at Lefkandi on Euboea and Knossos on Crete, include imports from almost all Mediterranean lands and reflect the image of a prosperous society in those areas at least.3 At the same time, the large number of contemporary settlements found recently in Crete not only points to a large mobile population, but also helps our understanding of the prevailing social and political conditions.

Direct continuity of habitation in the major Mycenaean palatial centres is doubtful and minor population movements can be observed at most sites. The known Dark Age settlements were small villages close to cultivated areas, such as at Nichoria in Messenia, Argos in the Argolid and Corinth in the Corinthia. Settlements in mountainous terrain with direct access to pastures were also common, such as Vitsa in Zagori, or on high ground overlooking the sea, such as Emporio on Chios (fig. 1) or Donousa in the Cyclades (fig. 2). Settlements in locations with multiple options for agriculture and animal husbandry

Nonetheless, ambiguities and gaps in our knowledge of the culture of this period in the wider Helladic and Aegean region remain. For the settlements in particular, it is not yet possible to cross out the description of the age as “Dark”, because the data, especially for the mainland regions, are still too few and fragmentary. 109

Nota Kourou

2. Donousa, view of the settlement (Ph. Zapheiropoulou, “From the Geometric synoecism of Donousa”, Athens Annals of Archaeology 6, 1973, 256, fig. 1 (in Greek)).

1. Emporio on Chios, the acropolis and harbour (from J. Boardman, Greek Emporio, London 1967, tab. 1).

were naturally the commonest, such as Tsikalario on Naxos (fig. 3), with its settlement and tumulus cemetery, which dates mainly to the late ninth and the early eighth century BC (fig. 4). By contrast, habitation of the Minoan centres on Crete was frequently continuous or interrupted only briefly. Thus, the Dark Age settlement at Phaistos, for example, was built on hills around the palace, while the subsequent Geometric settlement not only developed upon the ruins of the Minoan palace but also utilized many of the still standing walls (fig. 5).

3. Tsikalario on Naxos, from the cemtery to the northeast (photo. N. Kourou).

New settlements The as yet limited data available for Dark Age settlements, large or small, do not permit us to draw any secure conclusions on their layout. Nonetheless, it can be stated in general that settlement was permanent, even though there does not appear to have been a typical, uniform urban plan. It is difficult to estimate even approximately the number of settlements in this period, because many of the known sites were not independent habitation units but open-air sanctuaries/shrines or cemeteries.4 An earlier study recorded 114 Late Minoan sites (11th century BC), 241 Protogeometric (10th century BC) and 383 Geometric (9th and 8th centuries BC), although many of these coincided.5

4. Tsikalario on Naxos, plan of tumuli (Ph. Zapheiropoulou, “Antiquities and monuments of the Cyclades: Naxos”, Archaeological Bulletin 20, 1965, 516 [in Greek]).

An impressive phenomenon in the period is the emergence of 110

The Settlements of the Dark Ages

5. Map of Crete with “refuge settlements” (K. Nowicki, “Arvi Fortetsa and Loutraki Kandilioro: Two refuge settlements in Crete”, BSA 91, 1996, 254).

numerous new settlements. The most interesting category is the famous “refuge settlements” in Crete (fig. 6). These were relatively short-lived yet well-organized and often sizeable settlements in remote locations, mainly in the eastern and central parts of the island.6 The geomorphology of Crete, with high mountains backing the coastal plains, offered the best possible conditions for such settlements, namely difficulty of access and possibility of surveillance over the coastal road network. The reasons for their founding and their role in Cretan society of the late second and the early first millennium BC have been variously interpreted, ranging from refuges for victims of piratical raids to lairs for pirates themselves.7 These short-lived and inaccessible settlements bear no relation to the subsequent city-state, but hint at the turbulent circumstances in the Aegean during the Dark Ages.

6. Phaistos, Geometric walls on top of the palace (D. Chatzi-Vallianou, Phaistos: An Archaeological Guide, Athens 1989, 15 [in Greek]).

Another significant category of Dark Age settlements covers those founded in the context of the Ionian, Aeolian and Dorian colonization of the East Aegean and the Asia Minor littoral, such as Samos, Ephesos, Miletos and Smyrna.8 Built on coastal sites, usually with good, sometimes twin harbours, these later grew into great civic centres which followed the ideologies and consequent styles of the metropolitan centre in Greece.

Unfortified settlements The unfortified settlements of the Dark Ages were usually small towns (komai). At first the habitation units were built in neighbouring areas, validating the Aristotelian term of “habitation in dispersed settlements” (κατά κώμας οίκησιν). In this type of habitation, even when the site of the overall settlement is unknown it is attested archaeologically by the presence of numerous cemeteries in the same area, as for instance at Lefkandi or Knossos.9 The precise location of these very important settlements of the Dark Ages, like that of many others, is not known, but the clusters of graves within short distances of each other – in some places barely 100–150 m. apart –, as at Lefkandi, suggests the presence of nearby habitation units. The subsequent political unification of these towns, often referred to as “synoecism” in the literary sources, was one of the fundamental causative factors of the development of the city-state. Even so, habitation in dispersed settlements continued after this period in many regions, mainly on the periphery of the Classical world. Telling in this respect is the reference by Thucydides (3,94,4) to the fact that even in his day the Aetolians “lived in unwalled villages, which, moreover, were widely separated” (οικούν δέ κατά κώμας ατείχιστους).10

7. Athens. Distribution of cemeteries (marked by a circle) and habitation (marked by S) during the Submycenaean (a), Protogeometric (b), Early and Middle Geometric (c) and Late Geometric I period (d) (after I. Morris, Burial and Ancient Society, 1987, 64, fig. 17). The fortification wall drawn as a topographical indication is of the 5th century BC.

numerous small settlement nuclei were located within short distance of one another, confirming the Aristotelian description of “habitation in dispersed settlements”, which preceded the creation of the city-state.11 The existence of these small towns is usually established today by the many small cemeteries in the area, as in the case of Athens, among other places (fig. 7). Furthermore, the myth of the synoecism of Athens by Theseus is a memory of the political merger of the small towns. Architectural remains of the Dark Age settlement at Athens are almost non-existent. A building of elliptical plan

At most of the sites where large city-states developed later, 111

Nota Kourou with an eschara, erected in the ninth century BC on the slope of the Areopagos Hill, is merely an example of a construction – house or sanctuary – of this period.12 Even so, the extent and form of Athens in the Dark Ages are not entirely unknown, but are deduced essentially from its cemeteries, which spread over a relatively large area around the Acropolis. Apart from the cemetery of the Kerameikos to the west, the other big burial ground of the period lay east of what is now Syntagma Square, on the site of the present National Garden. The precipitous hill of the Acropolis, with the Pelasgic wall of Mycenaean times, continued to be a mighty fortress and to provide security in perilous times. It was there that the first temple of Athena stood, mentioned by Homer, on top of the Mycenaean palace at the centre of the citadel.

danger, there was only one building, of megaron plan (fig. 8), whose function has not been elucidated. In mainland and island Greece, the earlier settlements of the Dark Ages were generally unfortified, unless they utilized the old fortified Mycenaean citadel, as at Athens or Aghios Andreas on Siphnos. Fortification of the cities spread to the islands and to the Asia Minor coast during the eighth century BC. Fortified settlements appeared quite frequently in the Cyclades, as on Donousa, on Oikonomou islet Paros, at Zagora and Aprovatou on Andros or Minoa on Amorgos, but the precise date of circumvallation is still unclear for all. So, the earliest known fortified city of historical times, excluding those on Crete, is Smyrna. The wall of Smyrna was built around 850 BC and fortified the city that had been founded long before.17 Constructed on a headland, 365 m. long by 250 m. wide, the present Bairakli Hill, which is no longer by the sea but 500 m. inland, Smyrna was fortified systematically and unhurriedly. Its rampart, which acquired a monumental aspect in the seventh century BC, has stone foundations, albeit only on its outer face, while the upper structure was built entirely of mud bricks (fig. 9).

Fortified settlements and acropolises One of the basic problems in modern research is the subject of fortified settlements during the Dark Ages. In Mycenaean times, only the citadel was fortified as a rule, while fortified settlements such as Phylakopi on Melos, Miletos on the Asia Minor coast, or Grotta on Naxos were rare. In the Archaic period, fortified settlements were established primarily in Crete and the Cyclades, whereas most of the known settlements in the Greek Mainland seem to have been unfortified until the eighth century BC, by which time the creation of the city-state was completed.13

For reasons so far inexplicable, fortified settlements were fairly ubiquitous on Crete during the Dark Ages. After the end of the palatial authority of Knossos, in late LM IIIA2, or LM IIIB according to others, Cretan control of the seas passed to the Mycenaeans.18 Mycenaean influence on the island reached its peak during the LM IIIC period, which corresponds roughly to the twelfth century BC. It was during this period that the Eastern Mediterranean was plagued by plundering incursions, the best known being that of the “Sea Peoples”. Many coastal areas suffered destruction and consequent population realignments occurred in almost every Eastern Mediterranean land. The creation of the Phoenician state on the SyroPalestinian coast was, among others, one of the great changes that took place in the region. In the same climate of widespread turmoil, there was the novel phenomenon of the sudden appearance of fortified settlements in Crete, immediately after the twelfth century BC.

According to Homer, who relates the founding of Scheria (Odyssey, vii, 266–267, viii, 44), the founding of a city entailed its simultaneous fortification. In the relevant verses of the Odyssey, Nausithous, father of Alcinous, who led the Phaeacians to Scheria, builds a wall around the settlement he founds and then shares out the land to the colonists. This phenomenon of founding fortified settlements after the demise of the palaces and before the eighth century BC has so far been identified in the Cyclades, the Asia Minor coast and Crete.14 In mainland Greece settlements were normally not walled and the few known exceptions, such as the small, fortified settlement at Aghios Athanasios, near Galaxeidi in Phokis, evidently date to the end of the eighth century BC.15

The fortified settlements of this period on Crete were not restricted, as used to be thought, to “refuge settlements” in remote places, since even known centres, such as Phaistos, had now acquired walls. At Knossos, by contrast, the site of the palace was abandoned and from the LM period onwards the city developed to the west of the hill on which the palace stood. Nevertheless, a section of wall 2 m. thick on the southern foot of this hill has raised the question of whether fortifications existed or not in Postpalatial times.19

The founding or the utilizing of fortified acropolises during the Dark Ages is of particular significance for the problem of the continuity or discontinuity of the Mycenaean world, mainly in the mainland and island regions. Aghios Athanasios in Phokis, Emporio on Chios and Melie in Asia Minor, which date from the end of the period, all belong in the first category, that is, of the founding of a fortified acropolis. The exact date of the fortification of these acropolises is not clear, but there is no doubt that the settlements concerned are of the Geometric period and that, in accordance with Mycenaean tradition, only their acropolis was fortified; within the acropolis there was, instead of the palace, just one building, possibly the residence of the local ruler or the temple.16 All cases are clear indications of the survival of the Mycenaean tradition and occur rather on the periphery of the Hellenic world. At Emporio on Chios the site of the settlement is known too, which extended over the hillside along the road leading up from the harbour to the acropolis. As at Melie, so inside the fortified acropolis at Emporio, which was presumably used as a refuge in times of

At Phaistos life continued at the same site even after the destruction of the palace and down to the early seventh century BC, when the settlement was finally abandoned following a severe earthquake (fig. 10). Phaistos remained an important city in control of the Mesara, the rich valley of the Yeropotamos. It developed on the hills adjacent to the palace, often on top of houses in the Minoan settlement that surrounded the palace, but by the eighth century BC at least also extended over the low palace hill.20 The contemporary cemeteries spread over the neighbouring hills (Petrokephali and Kalyviani) but Dark Age houses have been found on three hills around the palace: Aghia 112

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8. Emporio on Chios, view of the megaron from the west (photo. Th. Kouros).

9. Restoration drawing of the first wall of Smyrna (after R.V. Nicholls, “Old Smyrna”, op. cit., 1958–1959, pl. 1).

Photeini to the northeast, Chalara to the southeast and the hill to the southwest of the palace (fig. 11). However, in spite of the wide area of the settlement, the 2.80 m. thick wall of Phaistos, dating from the Subminoan and Geometric periods, apparently enclosed only the little settlement on a hill west of the palace. Only a small section of this wall remains, but other parts of its circuit, which were destroyed by land cultivation and the building of the premises of the Phaistos Stratigraphical Collection, are known.21 Although the dating of the wall is problematical, it probably belongs to early Postpalatial times when the settlement that later spread over the surrounding hills was perhaps still very limited in size.

evidence, this settlement, the proto-Greek settlement of Phaistos as its Italian excavators call it, was initially restricted to the hill west of the palace and was walled. Presumably much later, most probably in the eighth century BC, it expanded over the surrounding hills and took over part of the palace. The most interesting sector of the Geometric settlement is a chain of 30 rooms built partly on top of the Minoan city and partly on top of the west court of the palace. Some of the walls in fact stand on Minoan foundations (fig. 5) and, in contrast to the usual rubble masonry of the Geometric period, the walls here were in several cases built of regular blocks taken from the Minoan ruins, while the floors of the surviving houses are in many instances paved. The rooms are either rectangular or trapezoidal in plan and most follow the north-south orientation of the Minoan palace. A central hearth is preserved in one of these houses and in one other a built bench runs along one

It is clear that the great city of Phaistos, which is known by that name (pa-i-to) from the Linear B tablets of Knossos and from Homer (Iliad, II, 648: “Phaestus … well-peopled”), continued to be an important settlement in the Dark Ages. On present 113

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10. Phaistos, plan of the palace with all the later phases (Chatzi-Vallianou, Phaistos, op. cit., 10).

11. Phaistos, the wider environs of the palace (Chatzi-Vallianou, Phaistos, op. cit., 10).

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12. Kastrokephala, part of the east external face of the wall (B. Hayden, “Fortifications”, op. cit., 5, fig. 3).

13. Kastrokephala, diagram of the fortification (B. Hayden, “Fortifications”, op. cit., 5, fig. 3).

Kastrokephala in the Dark Ages was directly related to political realignments in the region. Vrokastro in eastern Crete was another important fortified settlement (fig. 14).25 It was a double settlement, one part of which was built on the higher and naturally fortified terrace of the hill and the other lower down, at the foot of the same hill (fig. 15: a and b). Only the lower settlement was walled, but the whole site is a natural fortress that offers itself as a “place of refuge”. The steep hill of the settlement was inhabited earlier, during the MM period, but remained deserted after that until the twelfth century BC. This second occupation of the site must have begun during the LM IIIC period, although very few of the published sherds are of this date and most are later. Even so, it becomes clear from the cemetery of the settlement that the settlement was already quite large by the eleventh century BC, since houses built then rest against the fortification wall, which is 1.50 m. wide. The upper settlement certainly dates from earlier times and presents a notable density of building. Natural rocks are often incorporated in the houses or are covered by a wall in the best of cases. There are no regular streets, just small paths between the houses. A drainage pipe was found in one house, suggesting the existence of urbanplanning amenities and therefore social cohesion.

14. Vrokastro, aerial photograph (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 288, fig. 43.3).

wall, while in another sector of the settlement a potter’s kiln has survived. The religious centre of this period has not been clearly determined, but the site of the later temple to the “Great Goddess”, southwest of the palace, may have already served that purpose.22 In general, it is clear that the glory of the tradition of the old Minoan centre of southern Crete, where, myth has it, Minos’ brother Rhadamanthys reigned, continued at Phaistos even after the end of the palaces. It can be argued that one of the most important walled settlements of the Dark Ages on Crete is that at Kastrokephala, west of Herakleion.23 On a hilltop 355 m. a.s.l., flanked by a ravine and a marsh that make it virtually inaccessible, a small fortified settlement was created, most probably in the closing years of the LM IIIB period, that is shortly before 1200 BC.24 The wall, 2.10–2.20 m. thick, survives in parts up to a height of 3.50 m. (fig. 12). The fortified hilltop is formed from three successive terraces, the highest of which relies only on strong natural defences, while the wall encircling the two lower ones (fig. 13) was obviously built where it was needed. A building of megaron plan on the topmost point of the fortified site may support the hypothesis that the site was used initially by some regional ruler who felt threatened. The significance of this fortified site is enhanced by the fact that the palace of Knossos was nearby and it is therefore clear that the fortification of

On Crete, as in mainland Greece, some of the fortified sites of the Dark Ages are no more than small acropolises or peak sanctuaries. The acropolis of Gortyna26 holds an important position in the category of walled acropolises, while Juktas27 holds a similar one in that of fortified peak sanctuaries. In both cases the founding date of the fortification is debatable, but it was certainly in use during the Dark Ages. The concept of the fortified citadel/acropolis, as it is known from the Mycenaean world, was unknown in Minoan Crete, whereas the peak sanctuaries, by contrast, were an authentic Minoan tradition. It is therefore possible that the fortifications of the Gortyna acropolis were in reality fortifications of a peak sanctuary, traces of which have in any case survived under later buildings.28 The reasons for 115

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B A 15. Vrokastro. A. Plan of the upper settlement. B. Plan of the lower settlement (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 286, fig. 43.1 and 290, fig. 43.4).

16. Kavousi, plan of the castle (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 122, fig. 16.1).

17. Kavousi, aerial photograph (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 121, fig. 16.2).

fortifying a great peak sanctuary, such as Juktas, are an issue that still engages contemporary research. Nevertheless, the social and most probably political insecurity that walled settlements imply for the Dark Ages in Crete, seem to warrant the circumvallation of acropolises and peak sanctuaries, or possibly the renewed utilization of existing fortifications.

inaccessible fort, it had no need of walls and was able to control the entire area of land and sea. The houses on the lower terrace, the northern sector of the settlement, overlooking the Aegean, were built with their backs against the natural rock, though this was not the case on the higher terraces. It appears that care was taken so that the doors of the houses faced east or west but not north. Most houses were of rectangular or trapezoidal plan with a single room, while two-room buildings are rare. The street of the settlement was merely the natural footpath that led to the hilltop, passing outside the houses.

Unfortified “refuge settlements” in Crete Apart from fortified settlements, settlements in naturally fortified sites with no need of walls occupy an important place on the map of Crete. The most characteristic case of a settlement of this type is at Kastro Kavousi in the eastern part of the island. Built on a mountain summit, at an altitude of 800 m., the Kavousi settlement developed on six levels and offered complete control of the sea as far as the Cyclades (fig. 16).29 Its nucleus was formed during the LM IIIC period, but by the end of the Geometric period the settlement, which was abandoned soon after, extended over six terraces (fig. 17). A natural and

The picture of another “refuge settlement”, at nearby Karphi, which primarily controls the hinterland, is different (figs. 18 and 19). At the north edge of the mountains ringing the Lasithi Plateau, at 1,100 m. a.s.l., the site, difficult to reach and far from the sea, has good water supply from nearby natural springs. This is the largest of the refuge settlements built on three neighbouring heights, with separate cemeteries. A small part of the settlement, with about 30 houses, has been excavated but this permits the hypothesis that if the remaining 116

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18. Karphi, aerial photograph (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 119, fig. 15.3).

19. Karphi, plan (H.W. Pendlebury and M.B. Money-Coutts, “Karphi: A city of refuge of the Early Iron Age in Crete”, BSA 38, 1937–1938, pl. IX).

buildings of megaron type, built beyond the densely built centre, were possibly for public use. The central sanctuary of the settlement, in which clay figurines of the goddess with raised arms were found (fig. 20), stood on the highest point of the hill. The type of building as well as the existence of a bench on which the figurines were placed respectfully follow Minoan tradition and bear no relationship to the subsequent temples. Most houses in the settlement comprise one room of multiple function and auxiliary spaces. The hearth was presumably the focus of family life, while the storage spaces were frequently simple cuttings in the bedrock, to receive a large clay jar (pithos). The houses, which were square or rectangular, are thought to have had a flat roof. The usual orientation of the buildings in Crete is east-west or north-south, although exceptions do exist. In mountainous sites too, such as Karphi, the lie of the land was a decisive factor for the organization of the settlement.31

20. Karphi, clay figurine from the central sanctuary (Herakleion Museum, photo. N. Kourou).

unexcavated space was equally densely built, there must have been 150–200 dwellings in all. Thus, the total population is estimated at between 750 and 1,200 persons. The settlement was built during the LM IIIC period, that is the twelfth century BC, when it is assumed that the “Sea Peoples” were menacing coastal regions, and consequently its distance from the sea was ideal. This settlement, like many others of the period in Crete that are characterized as refuges, was short-lived. At Karphi habitation lasted until around the beginning of the tenth century BC.30 The urban plan bespeaks a well-organized society. Basic axis of the settlement is the thoroughfare leading to the foot of the hill. There is a large residence of megaron type in the best-protected position in the settlement. Similar

Harbours Very few harbours are known from the Dark Ages, despite the fact that their role was significant. Knossos and Kommos in Crete, and Lefkandi on Euboea must have been very important 117

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22. Apsidal building at Nichoria in Messenia, plan (from W. Coulson, Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest Greece, vol. II, 1983, 20, fig. 2.10a and 21, fig. 1.10b). 21. Kommos, aerial photograph (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 153, fig. 18.8).

harbours for communications with Mediterranean lands at this time. However, only Kommos (fig. 21), on the south coast of central Crete, is known to some extent from excavations. It is a harbour with a long tradition as a staging post for vessels voyaging from the Eastern to the Western Mediterranean, already in palatial times, as is borne out by its form as well as by the many Cypriot and oriental imports discovered there. The harbour continued in use during the Dark Ages and a large quantity of Phoenician pottery found in levels of the tenth and ninth centuries BC is incontrovertible testimony of this. The settlement was not large, but its location on the sea route to the West determined its importance. It consisted of a row of closely-packed houses and, some distance away, a temple with three successive phases. A small sanctuary of Phoenician type within the space of the temple of the ninth century BC underlines the particular role of the port during that period.

23. Phaistos, paved street (from D. Levi, “Gli scavi à Festos per anni 1958– 60”, Annuario della Scuola Italiana di Atene 39–40, 1961–62, 417, fig. 65).

often encountered, which are usually interpreted as “ruler’s dwellings”;34 as a rule, houses were one-roomed with auxiliary spaces in the courtyard for stabling the livestock.

Regional planning and urban planning in settlements of the Dark Ages

The road networks of the period are not adequately known, but the roads leading to the settlement seem to have followed natural footpaths and were occasionally paved, as at Karphi or Phaistos (fig. 23). One road always led outside the settlement to a natural spring, the presence of which was an essential prerequisite for the creation of the settlement. Later, mainly after the seventh century BC, the spring located extra muros was arranged as a fountain, as for instance at Smyrna, and the road leading to it became a particularly important section of the road network.35 The precise architectural form of Dark Age fountains is not known, but all settlements of the time had direct access to some nearby natural water-source.

It is clear from the number and the form of inhabited sites that conditions of permanent settlement existed everywhere from the outset.32 Nowhere, however, is there a typical urban plan and the buildings in small settlements are often constructed with economy in relation to the geomorphology. Sometimes the settlement was densely built but with no precise plan, other times it was an agglomeration of isolated farmsteads, while examples of settlements with a row of houses built abutting the fortification wall appeared mainly towards the end of the period.33 On the mainland and in the islands there was usually a preference for elliptical and apsidal buildings (fig. 22), although rectangular and trapezoidal ones were present too, and in rare cases circular edifices for specific functions. The buildings were now normally constructed of mud bricks, whereas traditional stone masonry remained in use only on Crete. In small settlement nuclei some larger buildings are

From the eighth century BC onward, a substantial part of the settlement was occupied by the workshops, which were often situated next to the sanctuaries or the cemeteries.36 Since very few traces of workshops of the period have survived, it is difficult to establish whether there was any specific planning for their 118

The Settlements of the Dark Ages location within the settlement. It seems, however, that their location depended not so much on what they produced as on the type of economy they served. This was so because, alongside the production that developed within the framework of the domestic economy, there was also commercial production for a wider market. This is particularly clear in the case of pottery workshops, which in the case of the domestic economy were limited exclusively to handmade vases for storage and cooking. That is why the production of these pots was usually associated directly with the home and not with an organized workshop. It is interesting that archaeometric analysis has shown that the firing temperatures of a series of handmade vases of the LH IIIC period (12th century BC) from Tiryns was very low, presumably because these were made using an open fire, such as that of the hearth, and not in the regular kiln of a potter’s workshop.37 On the contrary, wheel-made pottery, destined as a rule for ceremonial and cultic use, was produced in organized workshops of clearly commercial character. This type of commercial production presupposes systematically organised workshops requiring plenty of space, for which reason they are invariably situated in a different quarter from the dwellings. So, when workshops are not close to cemeteries or sanctuaries, they are to be found in separate neighbourhoods, the potters’ quarters well known from Corinth, Athens and elsewhere. It is not as yet possible to determine when this organisation of space, which was very significant for the city, began. However, given that it existed in Mycenaean times, it can be argued that its emergence coincided with the original development of the settlement. A tenth-century BC metal-smelting furnace found in Argos was situated inside the small settlement of the Protogeometric period.38

24. Dreros, plan (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 86, fig. 10.1).

the foothills. The Delphinion is one of the earliest and most important temples in Crete, but although it has the typical megaron form, which was dominant in mainland Greece, it presents many other features that associate it directly with the tradition of Minoan Crete. In addition to the square central hearth, the temple has a horn altar at the back and a bench along its narrow wall, where three figurines, explained as effigies of deities, were found standing. The figurines, of hammered bronze and no longer of clay and wheel-made as earlier, are large: the naked male figure identified as Apollo Delphinios is 0.80 m. high and the two clothed female figures, which are thought to represent Leto and Artemis, are 0.40–0.45 m. high. The dating of the figurines has been the subject of lengthy debate, but they cannot be later than the late eighth or the early seventh century BC.40

From the sparse data available, it is difficult to identify public buildings in Dark Age settlements. The agora was clearly an element of the integrated form of the city-state, for which reason it only emerged in the eighth century BC. It seems that the agora acquired its architectural form in Crete, based on the memories of Minoan stepped amphitheatric spaces. The earliest known agora is that of Dreros (fig. 24), which was built in the late eighth century BC in direct association with the temple of Apollo Delphinios, erected in the same period. Dreros was a typical Archaic city, which seems to have been created during the LM IIIC period. Only the cemetery belongs to this period, whereas all the other known buildings date from after the beginning of the eighth century BC. Nevertheless, the excavation data leave little doubt that the city had already been organized before the end of the Dark Ages. In addition, the third-century BC kybris, the pillar inscribed with the oath of the 180 ephebes who were organized in agelai (“age-sets”) – a bilingual text in the Eteo-Cretan script on one side –, as well as the later agora or the prytaneion, support the view that this important city enjoyed a great local tradition.

The erection of the temple and the creation of the adjacent agora had preceded in the eighth century BC. The agora, 25×40 m. in area and with tiers built from asymmetrical blocks carefully positioned, is orientated north-south. At the north end, where the ground starts sloping downwards, there was a polygonal retaining wall, while on the south and west sides there was a row of steps which were used as tiers (cunei). The steps of the south side were rebuilt in the Hellenistic period, and indeed with earlier construction materials, but the plan of the agora was not altered. The appearance of an organized agora in the eighth century BC indicates that the form of the new system of government had already been consolidated. The process

As the settlement of Dreros spread over two hills, the public space devoted to worship (namely the Delphinion) and the space for public affairs (namely the agora) were located in its most central part, on the saddle between the lower slopes of the two hills on which the city was developing.39 The settlement was fortified and parts of the wall have been identified all over 119

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25. Hagia Triada, plan of the Postpalatial sanctuary (Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 72, fig. 7.2).

of social transformation, which commenced in the twelfth century BC and is ascertained today by the desertion of the palaces, the changes in the location of many settlements and the construction of fortifications, led to a state of prosperous stability in Crete during the eighth century BC.

Open-air sanctuaries were usually located outside the settlement and very often on top of Minoan or Mycenaean ruins. In the case of Crete in particular, the open-air sanctuary at Hagia Triada (fig. 25) is typical.45 Named by its excavators as the Piazzale dei Sacelli, the open-air sanctuary at Hagia Triada is situated above the Minoan villa and in the open space of a megaron-plan building of the final Mycenaean phase of the site. The numerous finds from this open-air sanctuary point to a peculiar local cult, which was probably associated with a developed form of the Great Goddess of Nature. Although the site of Hagia Triada remained uninhabited throughout the Dark Ages, continuous worship at the Piazzale dei Sacelli sanctuary is attested until at least the tenth century BC.

The standardization of the sanctuaries and the systematic appearance of temples came in the eighth century BC, whereas worship in the Dark Ages normally took place in the open air and around an altar.41 These sanctuaries continued the tradition of the open-air rural shrines, which in Minoan Crete were often peak sanctuaries. Worship in the peak sanctuaries and cult caves does not seem to have ceased, and was occasionally intensified during the Dark Ages on the island. Open-air sanctuaries far from settlements, large or small, are also encountered in mainland Greece and can sometimes be described, after Minoan models, as peak sanctuaries, as in the case of the sanctuary of Apollo Maleata at Epidauros.42 Openair rural sanctuaries, often in isolated and highland sites, such as the sanctuary of Zeus Ombrios on Mount Hymettos,43 formed part of the Mycenaean tradition, and for this reason were present in mainland and island Greece, though without exhibiting any direct affinity with the peak sanctuaries of Crete. Many of the open-air sanctuaries of this period later evolved into important cult centres. The Heraion of Samos is a characteristic case of a Dark Age open-air sanctuary which subsequently evolved into an important sanctuary outside the settlement.44 This sanctuary did not acquire a temple until the eighth century BC, but it had already been in continuous use since the tenth century BC, as the finds on the stone altar with the multiple phases testify.

In addition to open-air sanctuaries, there were also other types of shrines in Creto-Mycenaean society and the more important ones were incorporated in the palace or the settlement.46 It is not clear whether these sanctuaries survived, but they reappeared in most Mycenaean citadels using the palace area as a sanctuary, during the eighth century BC at the latest.47 Indeed, in the case of the palace of Tiryns, one wall of the palace was actually used as a wall of the temple (fig. 26). The direct continuity of Mycenaean tradition in certain sanctuaries is confirmed, even when it is not evident from architectural remains, by cultic and sacred vessels, votive offerings and figurines. The most characteristic indication of continuity is the survival of the figurine of the Great Goddess with raised arms in the Heraion of Samos until at least the tenth century BC, or even later in the Artemision of Hephaisteia on Lemnos. Another interesting survival is noted at Ayia Irini on Kea, where even in the ruins of the earlier settlement, already 120

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27. Ayia Irini on Kea, the “cult effigy” of historical times ( J. Caskey, “Investigations in Keos 1963”, Hesperia XXXIII, 1964, 314, pl. 60).

primarily the Geometric period. This worship was manifested in many ways, the most common being in the form of burnt offerings to the dead, in pits on or around the tombs of the ancestors. Except for the famous “hero’s tomb” at Lefkandi on Euboea, which dates from the second half of the tenth century BC,52 no other structure associated with hero cult has been identified. This apsidal building (fig. 28), very important though of debatable identity, is located in one of the several cemeteries at Lefkandi, the Toumba (tumulus) cemetery.

26. Tiryns, plan of the megaron and the subsequent temple (after G.E. Mylonas, Mycenae and the Mycenaean Age, Princeton 1966, 48, fig. 12).

This “heroon”, an impressive building for its period, is 50 m. long by 10 m. wide, peripteral and has three large chambers. It is thought to have been used as a residence, initially at least, by some obviously important personage, probably the ruler of the region. Nevertheless its final use differs, since a very luxurious double burial, of a man and a woman, together with a splendid sacrifice of four horses, was discovered beneath the floor of its central space. The richly-furnished male burial consisted of the ashes of the deceased, carefully wrapped in a cloth and placed in a Cypriot bronze krater, clearly a family heirloom. By contrast, the female burial was the rich interment of a young woman, bedecked with numerous gold coins. This Homeric type of burial can be reasonably attributed to the ruler of the settlement, who was inhumed with his spouse (or possibly concubine), his horses and costly grave goods, many of which had been imported from Eastern Mediterranean lands. Immediately following the burial, the building was covered by a tumulus, ostensibly functioning as a heroon. What still remains difficult to explain, however, is the location of the building. If the apsidal building of the “hero’s tomb” was originally the ruler’s residence, then it is an example of a building outside the settlement and raises questions about its placement in the cemetery. It is true that isolated buildings attributed to the local ruler have been found in other parts of the Aegean as well, but they are normally situated inside the walled acropolis associated with the settlement, as for instance at Emporio on Chios or Melie in Asia Minor.

destroyed by the twelfth century BC, there was a functioning sanctuary with the head of an early female figurine set upon a base (fig. 27), playing the role of the cult statue.48 According to later inscriptions on vessels, the sanctuary was dedicated to Dionysos and was fully operational in the eighth century BC, although the starting date of this cult and the settlement with which it was associated are not clear. Far better known than the settlements of the Dark Ages are the cemeteries, which were always located outside the settlement, as a rule along the roadside, and were well organised. It is indicative that the most important cemetery of Athens was in the Kerameikos (Potters’ Quarter), beside the River Eridanos, and along the later Hiera Hodos (Sacred Way), the route to Eleusis and the Peloponnese; the other cemeteries were located along natural pathways which were exploited later, in the fifth century BC, by the Themistoclean wall and gates were opened there (fig. 7).49 Thus the cemeteries of Classical times were usually located “before the gates” (ante portas) of the wall. From as early as the Dark Ages and the Geometric period, it was usual for the cemeteries of walled settlements to be situated almost directly outside the gate in the wall. Wellknown cases of this choice of location during the Geometric period are the west cemetery of Eretria50 and the cemetery of Minoa on Amorgos.51 In the case of large dispersed settlements composed of “scattered habitations”, the cemeteries have a similar formation and function as small or large clusters of graves, depending on the size of the town.

Urban-planning analysis and social structure

Ancestor worship or “hero cult”, as it is usually called, was a common phenomenon in cemeteries of the Dark Ages and

The picture emerging from our knowledge of Dark Age 121

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28. The “heroon” at Lefkandi, restoration drawing (Coulton, Lefkandi, vol. II, op. cit., pl. 28).

settlements to date is that the desertion of most Mycenaean sites had been completed by the eleventh century BC. The palatial centres had been abandoned and life continued exclusively in small settlement units or isolated farmsteads, as a rule outside the old palatial centres. Nonetheless, the usual displacements of settlements ascertained were small in range and appear to be, as a rule, simple shifts of population to a neighbouring region, which do not justify the supposed general desolation, nor the radical decline of the cultural level. It is, however, thought that concurrently a large part of the population sought a better life outside the Aegean, in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, and that a considerable number of those who left were the specialized craftsmen of the palaces.53 Those who stayed behind were mainly farmers, stock-raisers and fishermen, who lived in small towns far from the great palatial centres. At the same time, it is obvious that, together with the destruction of the palaces and the loss of the archives, knowledge of writing disappeared and, together with the workshops of the palace community, the use of techniques demanding specialist craftsmen vanished too.

exclusively religious duties.54 The social hierarchy of this period is identified at habitation level in the large dwelling that was differentiated from the others in the settlement or was located by itself on the fortified acropolis, as at Emporio on Chios or Melie in Asia Minor. It appears that this hierarchical social structure, which was a vestige and a variant of that of the previous period, soon changed. Thus, the settlements at the end of the eighth century BC did not feature any distinctive building except for the temple of the patron deity, which completely replaced the palace, but in a different role. Until about the eighth century BC, when the temples and the first Post-Mycenaean walls of the city-state were built systematically, there was no monumental architecture.55 Solitary large buildings, such as the “hero’s tomb” at Lefkandi, point clearly towards the interpretation of the hierarchical structure of settlements in the Dark Ages. At the same time, the gradual return to the use of palatial centres, which was completed during the eighth century BC, inaugurated their new use as religious centres. This phenomenon indicates, more explicitly than any other, a turn of the evolving, mainly agricultural and stock-raising society of the Dark Ages towards the new social hierarchy of the integrated city-state, which not only required a well-organised urban centre, but also a tradition to enhance

However, it was not long before each remaining small society of the towns developed its own aristocratic system under one leader, the basileus, who by this time had apparently almost 122

The Settlements of the Dark Ages the status of the ruling class. The preservation of historical memory by the epics led to the return to the traditional palace, which was now adapted to the new social structure, in which religion possibly played the most decisive role. Concurrently, the agora became the centre of the city, with the public buildings necessary for the operation of the body politic of the city-state.

op. cit., 8, and “Vrokastro”, in Wilson Myers, Myers and Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas, op. cit., 286–291. 26 Hayden, “Fortifications”, op. cit., 12. 27 A. Karetsou, “Juktas” (excavation report), Work of the Archaeological Society, 1979, 30 (in Greek). 28 A. di Vita and A. la Regina, Ancient Crete: A Hundred Years of Italian Archaeology, Athens 1985, 111. 29 W. Coulson, “Excavations and survey at Kavousi, 1978–81”, Hesperia 52, 1983, 389–420. 30 K. Nowicki, “The history and setting of the town at Karphi”, in Incunabula Graeca LXXXV, SMEA 26, 1987, 245. 31 B. Hayden, The Development of Cretan Architecture from LM IIIA through the Geometric Period, Philadelphia 1981. 32 A. Snodgrass, An Archaeology of Greece, Berkley-Los Angeles 1987, 170– 210. 33 Lang, Archaische Siedlungen, op. cit., 58–63. 34 For the relevant arguments see Mazarakis-Ainian, From Ruler’s Dwellings, op. cit., 375–390. 35 Nicholls, “Old Smyrna”, op. cit., 63. 36 Lang, Archaische Siedlungen, op. cit., 128–134. 37 Concerning this pottery see K. Kilian, “Ausgrabungen in Tiryns”, AA 1981, 167ff. 38 M. Piérart and G. Touchais, Argos, Paris 1996, 22. 39 Hayden, “Fortifications”, op. cit., 17. 40 W. Fuchs and J. Floren, Die griechische Plastik, vol. 1, Munich 1987, 135– 137. 41 For the open-air sanctuaries and their role in the development of the citystate see F. de Pollignac, La naissance de la cité grecque, Paris 1984. 42 V. Lambrinoudakis, “Veneration of ancestors in Geometric Naxos”, in R. Hägg and N. Marinatos (eds), Sanctuaries and Cults in the Aegean Bronze Age, Stockholm 1981, 59. 43 M.K. Langdon, A Sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Hymettos, Hesperia Suppl. 16, 1976, 6. 44 E. Buschor, “Heraion von Samos: Frühe Bauten”, Athenische Mitteilungen 55 (Beilage II), 1930. 45 See L. Banti, “I culti minoici e greci di Haghia Triada (Creta)”, Annuario della Scuola Italiana di Atene 3–5, 1941–1943, 52, and A.-L. D’Agata, Haghia Triada II, Padua 1999. 46 G. Albers, Spätmykenische Stadtheiligtümer, BAR International Series 596, London 1994. 47 See E. Thomas, “Griechische Heiligtümer in minoischer und mykenischen Palästen”, in R. Rolle and K. Schmidt (eds), Archäologische Studien in Kontaktzonen der antiken Welt, Veröffentlichung der Joachim-JungiusGesellschaft der Wissenschaften Hamburg 87, Hamburg 1998, 205–218. 48 M. Caskey, Keos II, Princeton 1986. 49 I. Morris, Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State, Cambridge 1991, 65. 50 C. Bérard, Eretria III, Bern 1970. 51 L. Marangou, “Walled settlements of Geometric times”, in Proceedings of the Academy of Athens 63, Athens 1988, 83ff. (in Greek), and N. Kourou, Excavations on Naxos: The South Cemetery during the Geometric Period, Athens 1999, 138–139 (in Greek). 52 J. Coulton, Lefkandi, vol. II.2, London 1993. 53 V. Karageorghis, The First Greeks in Cyprus, Athens 1991 (in Greek). 54 Sakellariou, The Polis-State, op. cit. 55 Snodgrass, Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State, op. cit.

Notes A. Snodgrass, The Dark Age of Greece, London 1971, and V.d’A. Desborough, The Greek Dark Ages, London 1971. 2 P. James, Centuries of Darkness, London 1991. 3 M.R. Popham, L.H. Sackett and P.G. Themelis (eds), Lefkandi I, BSA Suppl. 11, London 1979, and J.N. Coldstream and H.W. Catling (eds), Knossos North Cemetery, BSA Suppl. 28, London 1996. 4 A. Wallace-Hadrille (ed.), City and Country in the Ancient World, London 1991. 5 K. Syriopoulos, Introduction to Ancient Greek History: The Transitional Years, Athens 1983 (in Greek); see also I. Morris, Burial and Ancient Society, Cambridge 1987, 58–71. 6 B. Hayden, “Fortifications of Postpalatial and Early Iron Age Crete”, Archäologischer Anzeiger (AA) 1988, 1–21; K. Nowicki, “Arvi Fortetsa and Loutraki Kandilioro: Two refuge settlements in Crete”, BSA 91, 1996, 254 (with earlier bibliography), and Defensible Sites in Crete c. 1200–800 BC, Aegaeum 21, Liège 2000. 7 L. Watrous, “Lasithi: A history of settlement on a highland plain in Crete”, Hesperia Supplement XVIII, 1982, 326. 8 For these settlements see F. Lang, Archaische Siedlungen in Griechenland: Struktur und Entwicklumg, Berlin 1996 (with earlier bibliography). 9 See J.N. Coldstream, “Dorian Knossos and Aristotle’s villages”, in C. Nicolet (ed.), Aux origines de l’ hellénisme, Paris 1984, 314; also J.N. Coldstream, “Knossos: An urban nucleus in the Dark Age?”, in D. Musti et alii (eds), La transizione dal miceneo all’alto arcaismo: Dal palazzo alla città, (Atti del Convegno Internationale, Roma, 4–19 Marzo 1988), Rome 1991, 287–299. 10 G. Huxley, “Aristotle on the origin of the polis”, in Stele: Volume in Memory of N.M. Kontoleon (volume title in Greek), Athens 1980, 262 ff. 11 M.B. Sakellariou, The Polis-State: Definition and Origin, Athens 1989, and Huxley, “Aristotle on the origin of the polis”, op. cit., 258–264. 12 A. Mazarakis-Ainian, From Ruler’s Dwellings to Temples, SIMA CXXI, Jonsered 1997, 86, figs 126–127. 13 A. Snodgrass, Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State, Cambridge 1977. 14 See Lang, Archaische Siedlungen, op. cit., 181–187; also Hayden, “Fortifications”, op. cit., 1–21, and Nowicki, “Arvi Fortetsa”, op. cit., 254. 15 E. Baziotopoulou and P. Valavanis, “Deux acropoles antiques sur les montagnes de Galaxidi”, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique (BCH) CXVII, 1993, 198–209. 16 Mazarakis-Ainian, From Ruler’s Dwellings, op. cit., 375–390. 17 For the wall of Smyrna see R.V. Nicholls, “Old Smyrna: The Iron Age fortifications and associated remains on the city perimeter”, BSA 53–54, 1958–1959, 35–137. The earliest settlement at Smyrna has yielded the grey pottery of Aeolis (bucchero) and not Attic or other pottery of mainland Greece. It seems that the settlement was originally either an Aeolian colony or a settlement of indigenous people whose culture was akin to that of the wider region of Aeolis and Troy and who used this kind of pottery. 18 For the problem of the date of the destruction of the palaces see E. Hallager, The Mycenaean Palace at Knossos, Medelhavsmuseet Memoir 1, Stockholm 1977. 19 S. Alexiou, “Walls and citadels in Minoan Crete (the myth of the pax minoica)”, Kretologia 8, 1979, 51 (in Greek), dates this wall as Middle Minoan, whereas Hayden, “Fortifications”, op cit., 9, as Postpalatial. 20 E. la Rosa, “Phaistos”, in J. Wilson Myers, E. Myers and G. Cadogan, The Aerial Atlas of Ancient Crete, London 1992, 232–236. 21 Hayden, “Fortifications”, op. cit., 6. 22 La Rosa, “Phaistos”, op. cit., 240. 23 Hayden, “Fortifications”, op. cit., 3 ff. 24 A. Kanta, “The Late Minoan III period in Crete: A survey of sites, pottery and their distribution”, SIMA LVIII, Göterborg 1980, 19. 25 E. Hall, Vrokastro, Philadelphia 1914, and recently Hayden, “Fortifications”, 1

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PART III THE CITY-STATE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS III.a The City-State and the Hellenistic City

CHAPTER 12

City-Polis in the Late Geometric and the Archaic Period Alexandros Gounaris Architect-Engineer N.T.U.A., Architect D.P.L.G. Doctorate in Regional Planning, Sorbonne. Ph.D. Faculty of Philosophy, University of Crete

Urban-planning and the meaning of the polis in the Late Geometric period

public banqueting halls (hestiatoria),14 hero-shrines (heroa),15 temples inside, around and outside the asty,16 rural,17 ethnic18 and inter-ethnic sanctuaries,19 sanctuaries of colonies.20 At any rate, tracing the architectural and urban-planning creations of the collective action of the new communities contributes to tracing the new state structures, since the old social structures (such as tribal ones) survived intact in early state formations of ethnos-state type, or even evolved within the new type of state formation, the polis.21

When those who study the societies of the Protogeometric and the Geometric period1 approach the mid-eighth century BC, they move within a research-stimulating dissonance regarding the definition of the city-settlement (city)2 and of the city-state (polis).3 Furthermore, research to date has not come up with a convincing answer to the question of when a settlement becomes a city, from a habitational and demographic viewpoint. Nor is there a satisfactory answer to the question of when a settlement formation, either of the city type or of the group-of-towns type, represents a state formation of the polis type. However, when research approaches 750 BC, it gives an answer via A. Snodgrass:4 in Attica the population-growth curve, calculated on the basis of the number of burials, is initially exponential (fig. 1a), but if, by approximation, more precise data on dates of burials between 780 and 720 BC are fed into the diagram, then the curve becomes “logistic” (fig 1b).5 In other words, this alteration at settlement level signifies a leap in demographic development, while in the sector of social and state structures it reflects some revolutionary change. It is a prelude to the arrival of the polis. So, although the issue of the date of the emergence of the city and of the polis is difficult to resolve,6 we have, nevertheless, for both entities together, the city–polis, an indication of the time when their asymptotic courses begin to be concurrent in protohistory.

In quantitative terms, what are the sources for creating pictures of urban-planning during the Late Geometric and Archaic periods? At the dawn of the twenty-first century and after almost one hundred years of surveys, excavations, the collecting of fortuitous finds and the handing over of antiquities to the State, archaeological research is equipped with catalogues of artefacts, which help us to form pictures of settlement, urban

Settlement, urban-planning and architectural evidence: the quantitative data The speculation on the genesis of the polis, when, how and why it emerged, is based on a body of evidence that relies mainly on data borrowed from other sectors of archaeological research, such as pottery and the minor arts.7 The use exclusively of urban-planning evidence from the Late Geometric and Archaic periods to articulate arguments and formulate answers appears to be still precarious. On the contrary, as discussed in the previous chapter, in these periods too isolated elements of the architecture8 of cities and towns are tested to substantiate answers to questions concerning the genesis and the evolution of the polis: fortification walls,9 agoras,10 sacred precincts (temene),11 solitary graves and cemeteries,12 ruler’s dwellings,13

1. Attica, a. Population trends from the 10th to the 8th century BC, calculated on the basis of the number of burials per generation. b. The same, with extrapolated figures for the subdivisions of the Late Geometric period (after A.M. Snodgrass, Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State, 1977, 11, figs 1 and 2).

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2. Map of habitation sites with constructions of the Late Geometric-Archaic period (after F. Lang, Archaische Siedlungen in Griechenland, 1996, 14, fig. 1).

planning and architecture in Greece as well as in the wider region of the Southeast Mediterranean during these periods. When we consider the number of habitation sites that are characterized as settlements in the Greek State (1991 census: 12,817 settlements), on which, as a rule, the settlements in the list of Protogeometric and Geometric finds are also based, the quantitative data are not without importance:

3. In terms of architecture, as well as of pottery and the minor arts, A. Mazarakis Ainian24 has investigated sanctuaries with Protogeometric and Geometric finds, originating from 304 settlements or sites in the wider Southeast Mediterranean region (fig. 3).

The city–polis and urban planning: the qualitative data

1. In terms of habitation, according to C.T. Syriopoulos,22 Protogeometric finds of architecture, burials, pottery and works in the minor arts have been recorded at 336 settlements or sites in the Greek State, while Geometric finds have been recorded in 554. It is, however, impossible to determine how many of these date to the last half of the eighth century BC, since in the primary publications finds are not always precisely dated within the Geometric period.

How many of these mapped sites, however, actually give us urban-planning pictures? As in all periods for which finds are meagre, so in the Late Geometric and in part the Archaic period, the number of pictures is limited. These fall into three categories: isolated urban-planning elements, urban-planning nuclei and a very few examples that can be qualified as urbanplanning ensembles. It is through these three categories that we follow the history of urban planning in the period.

2. Within the narrow framework of the architecture and particularly the urban planning of the periods, progress in quantitative research is reflected in F. Lang’s study,23 in which Late Geometric and Archaic architectural material from 137 settlements or sites in Greece (mainland and island) and Asia Minor is presented on a map (fig. 2) and that from 123 of these is catalogued.

1. Late Geometric and Archaic urban-planning elements are none other than the significant number of architectural constructions that constitute the “words” of the urban-planning “sentences”: the fortification wall, agora, sacred precinct (temenos) and even technical works such as water-supply systems and retaining walls for rudimentary organization 128

City-Polis in the Late Geometric and the Archaic Period

3. Map of sanctuaries with finds of the Protogeometric and Geometric periods (after A. Mazarakis Ainian, From Ruler’s Dwellings to Temples, 1997, map 3).

of spaces. Consideration of these, even as isolated elements of the urban-planning tissue, is not without interest. Their significative architectural synthesis is sometimes considered to be an interpretative clue to explaining the subsequent development of the rest of the urban-planning tissue that is woven inside or around them. At Archaic Megara Hyblaia (Megara Hyblaea), the development of the houses around the agora of trapezoidal plan explains the deviation from the strictly rectangular urban plan (fig. 4). The urban-planning elements that arouse the greatest interest, as evidence-indicators of urban planning and the emergence of the polis, are, of course, the Geometric and Archaic fortification walls, since these are considered to be the par excellence preconceived works of collective concern. Inevitably, the dominant view25 is based on the random conjunctures of research. Until the 1980s no Geometric walls had been recorded in mainland Greece. Almost all the Geometric walls that have been found are in two geographical regions, the Aegean Islands and Ionia. With 700 BC as the cut-off date, the western colonies and, with difficulty, mainland Greece can be put in the list of the later Archaic walls. The conclusion appears to be self-evident: in the Late Geometric period

4. Megara Hyblaia: the urban-planning tissue towards the end of the Archaic period (from G. Vallet, F. Villard and P. Auberson, Mégara Hyblaia III: Guide de Fouilles, Rome 1983, inserted fig. 3).

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5. Lathouriza, Attica, ground plan (after H. Lauter, Lathuresa, 1985, inserted fig. 1). The enclosure shown in the drawing was constructed by the excavator Ph. Stavropoulos in 1939. 6. Ancient Smyrna, imaginary reconstruction of the settlement in the late 7th century BC (after R.V. Nicholls and J.M. Cook, “Old Smyrna”, Annual of the British School at Athens (BSA) 53–54, 1958–1959, 15, fig. 3).

the appearance of city walls was governed by geographicalenvironmental factors, whereas during the Archaic period it was dictated by political-functional factors (from a military standpoint). However, the time has come to challenge this view, mainly because of:

elements and urban-planning nuclei. The picture of Ancient Smyrna (fig. 6) holds a permanent place in the relevant publications but is far from being the typical example of a Late Geometric-Archaic city. On the contrary, whereas we would expect the most characteristic examples of urban-planning ensembles to come from the cities of mainland Greece, these provide us with no more than simple topographical plans, with dots marking the places of discovery-recording of finds dating from the Late Geometric and Archaic periods. To what extent urban-planning ensembles can be traced on the basis of these plans will be examined below.

a. the re-evaluation of the importance of the Late Helladic walls, which, even though ruined, continued to play a defensive role during the Geometric period too, and b. the identification of walls – albeit few in number – dating from the Geometric period, in mainland Greece and in unrelated geopolitical milieux: Asine26 (Barbouna, Kastraki) and Aghios Athanasios at Galaxeidi.27 2. The urban-planning nuclei consist mainly of groups of houses. Their assumed repetition gives the equally assumed pictures of urban-planning ensembles, the eventual urbanplanning “texts”. Clusters of houses of apsidal plan or with curvilinear walls, entirely free-standing, aggregates of houses of rectangular plan, in rows or juxtaposed, determine the urban-planning typology of settlements of the Late Geometric and the Archaic period. Noting of the transition from construction principles encountered in nomadic settlements in mainland Greece to the construction principle of beams upon posts, which is more appropriate to sedentary settlements, is now of itself an hermeneutic observation: the city–polis continued to evolve and was completed in the Archaic period. It was imposed by the need for the cohabitation of population elements that were bearers of an ancient nomadic tradition with the indigenous inhabitants of the region, inheritors of an equally ancient cultural tradition, the Mycenaean. The example of the settlement at Lathouriza (fig. 5),28 a few kilometres south of the Late Geometric and Archaic city of Athens, has houses of varied architectural types and an urban-planning tissue not included in the usual typologies. Even so, it is a characteristic example of an urban-planning nucleus, presaging those that were developed subsequently in the settlement concentrations in the asty.

Whatever the case, there is no shortage of proposals for classifying those urban-planning ensembles that present a volume of architectural material. On the basis of morphological criteria, it is proposed29 to classify habitation sites of the period into those comprising isolated houses, concentrations of houses or houses in rows, and those displaying mixed forms of urban ground plans. Proposals for a typology30 based on functional criteria are limited to the formal classification of settlements into those with the main body of houses intra muros or extra muros, and those sine muris.

The Late Geometric-Archaic city–polis in geographical space The classification of the urban-planning types of Late Geometric and Archaic settlements seems to have a firm basis when it is made on the criterion of the wider geographical space in which these appear. We shall examine below the categories that these types make up: 1. The first category covers the urban-planning types of Asia Minor, with Ephesos, Smyrna, Miletos, Melie, Larisa-onHermos and Neandria as characteristic examples.31 These settlement concentrations make a maximum contribution to research, as the typology of their urban-planning nuclei

3. Urban-planning ensembles are theoretically made up of “syntagms”, that is systematized groupings of urban-planning 130

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7. Melie, ground plan (after W. Müller-Wiener, G. Kleiner and P. Hommel, Panionion und Melie, Jahrbuch des deutschen archäologischen Instituts 23, Ergänzungsheft 1967, from H. Drerup, Griechische Baukunst in geometrische Zeit, 1969, 58).

provides pictures that facilitate the clearer understanding of their evolution within the subdivisions of the Late Geometric and the Archaic period. At an early stage of research, the literary tradition regarding Ionian colonization, Ionian rulers and other founder-heroes (oikistai) who set off from Greece for the Asia Minor coast, dominated interpretations of the birth and growth of the urban-planning forms in the region. At Melie was recorded one of the most important urban-planning features in the history of the eighth and seventh centuries BC, the well-known oval plan of the acropolis wall at Kale-Tepe, close to Panionion (fig. 7). The fortified nature of the site is obvious, while graves with Protogeometric pottery existed before the wall was erected. The conclusion for research needs no explanation: the settlement represents the first urbanplanning type, the place of residence of the newly-arrived ruler (Herrenburg) from Greece.

urban-planning nuclei of the Archaic period is the expected one (regular quadrilateral shapes), the urban-planning forms do not evolve from the curvilinear ground plans into the rectangular shapes of the insulae, that is the precursors of the Hippodamian system. In “excavation sector H” (fig. 8) the quadrilateral ground plans of the Early Geometric and Middle Geometric periods precede, while the curvilinear ground plans of the Late Geometric houses follow. The respective urbanplanning nuclei denote not nomadic survivals from earlier periods but new settlement of population under pressing conditions of time and space. Review of the topographical plan of Miletos, with the urbanplanning elements of the Late Geometric and Archaic periods marked on it, casts further doubts on every unilateral interpretative model. Here, inter alia, the urban-planning scale changes too: urban-planning elements and nuclei spread over a larger area than that of Smyrna. Its topographical substrate includes three headlands, four natural harbours and four hillocks, with that of Kalabak-Tepe pre-eminent. This last, however, is not functionally predominant on the site. In the city we have not only the transition from curvilinear buildings to quadrilateral and rectangular ones, but also an additional factor: orientation axes can be faintly discerned in the curvilinear urban-planning nuclei of the Late Geometric period. These axes are almost identical to those noted in the rectangular nuclei of the Archaic period. Does this element perhaps herald the preconceived planning of space? Does it perhaps constitute the matrix of the urban-planning types which are recorded magnificently in the next, second category of urban-planning types?

However, if we move from Melie to Smyrna and Miletos, for the sake of verifying the said model, other thoughts are generated. These cities present more urban-planning nuclei in their plans, are more complex in their organization and do not have a one and only centripetal urban-planning element with a catalytic effect on the organization of their urban tissue. At Smyrna the acropolis is later than the settlement it dominates, since it is dated not earlier than Classical times, while from an interpretative viewpoint the elements dating from the Late Geometric and the Archaic period are not only more numerous but also bound organically to each other. These are: the cultic space in the area of the temple of Athena, the fortification wall with four constructional phases, and the three settlement nuclei dated to more than three periods, starting from the Protogeometric. Strangely, from the perspective of urban-planning typology, whereas the final formation of the

2. The second category comprises the types that mark the beginnings of urban planning in the region of South Italy and Sicily.32 131

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8. Ancient Smyrna, sector H (after R.V. Nicholls and J.M. Cook, “Old Smyrna”, BSA 53–54, 1958–1959, inserted pl.).

Proposal and counter-proposal:

However, a critical appraisal of urban planning in these places initially reveals different things. In the majority of relevant approaches, the urban planning of Late Geometric Asia Minor is bypassed, in order to focus interest on the relationship between the urban planning of the colonies of South Italy and Sicily and their metropolises in Greece. This is reasonable, since, according to the literary testimonia, most of the colonists started out from Greece and not from Asia Minor.

i. When the colonists boarded the ship, an open vessel often without a deck, they became united. The city-state was created then and there, brought about by the dangers of the voyage and the common destiny, when rich and poor (?) alike had to struggle for survival. When they eventually disembarked, they shared also the wealth on the ground into equal portions.33 ii. The above is a fanciful fairytale, because the picture of wellshared urban space in the eighth century BC is a creation of the archaeological investigation of the rationalized urban tissue of the fifth century BC. That is, it is assumed that the fifthcentury BC foundations are in their overwhelming majority the eighth-century BC ruins.34 Even the most pedantic arguments are mobilized against this. For example, Megara Hyblaia.35 According to the urban-planning evidence of the sixth century BC, each house plot measured 120 square metres. If we divide

The issue and the question: How can we explain the fact that colonists who had been living in the humble dwellings – essentially huts – of Eretria, Chalkis and Corinth, with given “urban-planning” perceptions of clusters of dwellings of indeterminate ground plans in their homeland, proceeded directly to construct rectangular houses and to preconceive urban-planning complexes conforming to a rectangular or at least a parallelogram grid? 132

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9. Kasmenai, ground plan (from A. di Vita, “Un contributo all’urbanistica greca di Sicilia: Casmenai”, in Atti del Settimo Congresso Internationale di Archeologia Classica, vol. II, Rome 1961, facing 70).

the area of the city by house plots and subtract from the dividend the 40% corresponding to public spaces, we get 3,000 house plots, which correspond to 5,000–6,000 inhabitants at the time of settlement. We know how many colonists could be transported by one ship. However large the number of incoming ships, this figure for the disembarking population seems unrealistic, particularly when we take into account the relatively limited population of the metropolis Megara at the time the colonists settled. It is, therefore, not possible for so many “blocks” to have been marked out immediately after arrival. It is more reasonable to lower the date of the regular urban-planning formations, into the Archaic period.

i. The absence of a fortification wall, as a rule.39

Nonetheless, let us cite the traditionally accepted views. First of all, the Late Geometric-Archaic sites in Magna Graecia36 on which research can draw are: Archaic Metapontion (Metapontum, founded 773 BC), Late Archaic Elea (founded 540 BC), Late Archaic Lokri Epizephyrii (founded 679 BC) and Archaic Taras (Tarentum, founded 706 BC). In Sicily37 for the same period we have: Naxos (founded 734 BC), Syracuse (733 BC), Leontini (founded 729 BC), Megara Hyblaia (founded 728 BC) and Gela (founded 688 BC). From the generation of “satellite” colonies (colonies of colonies), we have evidence for the colonies of Syracuse, Akrai (Acrae, founded 663 BC), Kasmenai (Casmenae, founded 643 BC), Kamarina (founded 598 BC), the colony of Megara Hyblaia, Selinous (founded 628 BC), and the colony of Zancle, Himera (founded 648 BC).38

iv. The prior conception of the sacred precincts (temene), already in the early stages of the colonies.

ii. The marking out of an urban tissue which conveys the familiar picture, first of parallelograms, then of rectangles, that is “building blocks” in current terminology. A special urban-planning form known from the Italian bibliography as a per strigas system (fig. 9), should be noted in particular, since it appears to be the forefather40 of the common final urbanplanning system of the colonies. iii. The particular care taken from the outset in making provision for the extension of the primal communal space in the asty, namely the agora.

Of the interpretations of causative factors in conceiving the scheme of the urban-planning tissue we select two: that which interprets the birth of the rectangular building blocks on the basis of the colonists’ need to reproduce inside the asty the rectangular shapes of the regularly divided and allotted agricultural plots outside the asty, and that which seeks the roots of colonial urban planning in the origins of the rationalized urban planning of the Asia Minor metropolises and especially Miletos. In other words, the changes that took place in the intellectual domain of the Ionian philosophers can be recognized in the urban-planning domain, despite the discrepancy in the times of recording the two phenomena, namely the time of the genesis of the colonies and the time of the emergence of pre-Socratic philosophy. Finally, could it be that the desirable indication of the harmony, of the matching

Among the common features of the urban-planning tissue we note: 133

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10. Pithekoussai: location Mazzola, workshop complex (from G. Buchner, “Recent work at Pithekoussai (Ischia), 1965–71”, Archaeological Reports (AR), 1970–1971, 65).

11. Eretria, complex of buildings in the south quarter (from L. Kahil, “Éretrie à l’époque géométrique”, ASAtene 59, n.s. 43, 1981, facing 174).

12. Eretria, buildings in the sanctuary of Apollo (from A. Alther-Charon and S. Amstad, Antike Kunst (AntK) 25, 1982, 155).

13. Skala, Oropos, workshop complex (from A. Mazarakis Ainian, in V.Ch. Petrakos (ed.), Ergon 1997, 1998, 26–27, plan by N. Kalliontzis (in Greek)).

of spirit and space, of the mental preconception and the consequent urban-planning materialization, is achieved in the third category of urban-planning types we note below, in those places where these two times appear to be more synchronous?

the concept of the rationalized urban-planning design may hail from even further away, from Ionia. 3. The singular types in the far reaches of colonial space. The most important examples of this category were Olbia and Histros, in the Pontos region,44 but also Cyrene in North Africa.45

Before reviewing the evidence on this third category, it is worth closing the issue with reference to the site where the first example of juxtaposition of buildings appeared, Pithekoussai (Pithecusa)41 (fig. 10) (founded early 8th century BC), in order to answer the primary question of whether the South Italian-Sicilian model was created independently or not. Although the buildings concerned have a specialized function (metal workshops), the ground plans of the Eretrian homeland immediately come to mind (figs 11 and 12). The counter proposal is that these had a different function, residential or religious. That might well be the case. We await publication of another urban-planning nucleus opposite Eretria, that of the metal workshop at Oropos42 (fig. 13). Then, and despite the fact that in the specific example Pithekoussai is not recognized as a polis (it is considered rather as an emporion),43 we may perhaps come to recognize that the city–polis was not created on board ship but came normally from the homeland, while

Archaic Olbia46 (fig. 14), which was founded by Milesians (647 BC), has been classed, not without objections, as a characteristic example of an urban-planning ensemble of a colony. However, a more careful reading of its Archaic urban tissue leads to a different conclusion. Just as in the foregoing categories of cities-colonies in the West, Olbia is indeed sine muris in the Archaic period, while in accordance with this same model it has an Archaic agora next to the Archaic temenos. But the three streets around these urban-planning elements are not enough to substantiate the beginnings of a system of rectangular street axes. Since Olbia was founded in the second half of the sixth century BC, the development of a more mature urbanplanning tissue would be expected. Nevertheless, the plan of Archaic Olbia was determined by the coastline of the marsh created by the two rivers, the Borysthenes and the Hypanis, 134

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15. Histros (from P. Alexandrescu, “Histria in archaischer Zeit”, in P. Alexandrescu and W. Schuller (eds), Histria: Eine Griechenstand an der rumänischen Schwarzmeerküste, Xenia 25, 1990, inserted plan).

Finally, during the third stage a particularly dense building concentration developed west of the level ground on which the city spread and pottery kilns have been identified in the northwest corner of this same flat area. 4. The types par excellence that portray what we would describe as autochthonous urban planning or ad hoc urban planning are those that appeared in Greece. It is here, however, that the most important non sequitur insinuates itself. The researcher would expect to recognize urban planning in the layout of crucially important regional settlement centres of the Late Geometric and Archaic periods, some of which had been metropolises during the colonial phenomenon of the Late Geometric period. We consider as regional settlement centres, for example, Athens (Attica), Argos (Argolid), Corinth (Corinthia), Eretria (Euboa) and Thebes (Boeotia). As we have noted already, in these cities we find no such pictures; in their place we have their topographical plans dotted with findspots of artefacts from these periods. Indeed, these are primarily sites with recorded pottery finds and secondarily sites with recorded funerary architectural finds, whereas only very few are sites with other types of architectural finds. But the last never constitute urban-planning nuclei. Depending on the density or sparseness of the said findspots and their distribution within the protohistoric time of the Late Geometric or the Archaic period, the urban-planning history of these cities can be traced. It is therefore logical, precisely because of the nature of the archaeological evidence, that the urban-planning text is read through the signposting of various approaches to it and not in a climate of consensus and commonplaces.

14. Olbia (from J.G. Vinogradov, Olbia: Geschichte einer altgriechischen Stadt am Schwarzen Meer, Xenia 1, 1981, 36).

and the beds of two smaller rivers, tributaries of the latter. The final triangular shape of the city seems to emanate from the geomorphology of the area, while, just as the architecture of the huts of the first colonists is consistent with the lack of timber hereabouts, the extensive use of stone promoted the formation of mainly quadrilateral and rectangular urbanplanning nuclei. At Histros47 (fig. 15), the other Milesian colony (founded 657 BC), we have the opportunity for comparisons, since it was founded in the same geographical region, south of Olbia, on the Danube Delta. The important advantage that this city offers research are the three phases of occupation during the Archaic period, between 630 and 513 BC, which permit us to follow the evolution of important urban-planning features and ultimately to trace the logic animating this evolution. During the first phase, Archaic Histros, founded on a peninsula, had a nine-metre-wide road that defined the external boundary of the city to south and west, and constituted the communication artery between the harbour and the hinterland. During the second phase, circa 575 BC, the wall enclosing the inhabited area and this road was raised, and a second road was built to replace the first, which was thus transformed into a street intra muros. The construction of the first fortification wall coincided with the execution of works in the sacred place on the summit of the peninsula, which functioned as an acropolis.

Let us look at some relevant examples. Argos The chaotic picture of the said findspots, which represent burials and house remains on and around the rugged heights of the Larisa and Aspis, and the Deiras col (fig. 16), lends itself to three conflicting evaluations of the nature of the Argive Geometric settlement: 1. Whereas the finds from the Protogeometric period48 are distributed in two areas, the centre of the modern city and the southwest quarter, the distribution of habitation finds from the Geometric period49 is not at two points but extends over one 135

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17. Corinth, the settlement between 1100 and 600 BC (after C.K. Williams II and K. Dickey, plan from K. Dickey, Corinthian Burial Customs, 1992).

The hollow starts in the west, from the modern museum, and leads eastwards to the Sacred Spring, the Peirene Fountain and the road to Lechaion (Lechaeum). The other indicator of the site, the hill on which the Archaic temple stands, dominating the area, strangely bears no traces of a dense ProtogeometricGeometric habitation. Given this general picture, we can group the relevant opinions on the urban-planning picture of Corinth into three categories:54

16. Argos, distribution of Geometric finds (after R. Hägg, Die Gräber der Argolis, 1974, 31, fig. 6). W marks the residential areas, H the sanctuaries, solid triangle the burials.

1. According to the first category, the coexistence in the central settlement of dwellings and graves in proximity, until the end of the Geometric period, emphasizes the absence of any new urban-planning spirit grounded in the creation of an urban-planning centre.55 There are no remains suggesting the existence of an early agora.56 The use of the North Cemetery towards the end of the Middle Geometric period signifies the start of an early urban planning of sorts. The construction of a wall around the Corinthian Potters’ Quarter, towards the end of the Archaic period, characterizes its final phase.57

large area, a strip of land commencing at the foot of the Larisa hill, from Deiras, and continuing as far as the south cemetery. 2. Geometric Argos was a fragmented settlement without organic cohesion.50 3. Protogeometric, Early Geometric and Geometric Argos corresponds to the picture of a densely populated settlement,51 while in the Archaic period, by contrast, it strangely but clearly displays indications of urban-planning shrinkage.52

2. According to the second,58 with the picture of the distribution of wells on the landscape as principal evidential criterion, the concentration of habitation in a specific area in the Upper Lechaion Road Valley is confirmed. This habitation is surrounded by clusters of graves, which are too dense to be family graves interspersed among dwellings and in fact constitute regular cemeteries. Moreover, the graves identified among the dwellings of the Late Geometric period show that during this period the settlement was suffocatingly constricted within the confines of its original area and expanded over the earlier cemeteries.

Corinth Here (fig. 17) let us first review the general picture we have acquired and which is more or less commonly accepted. The settlement model for the wider area of Corinth consists of scattered villages, sparsely spaced and possibly interconnected by a network of footpaths.53 The terrain slopes down from south to north, from high to low ground. Torrents flow through stepped terraces of conglomerate rocks, creating these natural pathways on either side of their beds. At the same time, the clay substratum under the pervious limestone layer of the stepped terraces retains and conserves the water. The inhabitants selected their desired places of settlement at the edges of the terraces, securing visual control of the surrounding area, easy access to the fields and, of course, a water source. In times of dire need, they sought refuge on the Acrocorinth. The centripetal importance of the natural depression that is covered today by the paving of the Roman Forum and bounded on the south by the South Stoa, is apparent. It is here that the Geometric settlement of Corinth developed.

3. According to the third category, which is a refined version of the first,59 whereas during the Protogeometric period we have clusters of graves close to inhabited areas, during the Geometric and Archaic period there were burials adjacent to and outside the inhabited areas, and indeed along the roads leading to them. From the early eighth century BC, the official cemeteries already existed extra muros, as in the North Cemetery and probably the one at Anaploga. 136

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19. Athens, distribution of cemeteries (solid dot) and habitation (marked with an S) during the Late Geometric II period (a), the Protoattic and Transitional period (b), the period of black-figure vases (c) and the period of early red-figure vases (d) (after I. Morris, Burial and Ancient Society, 1987, 66, fig. 18). The wall drawn as a topographical indicator is of the 5th century BC.

18. Thebes, showing findspots from the Geometric-Orientalizing period (from S. Symeonoglou, The Topography of Thebes, 1985, 92, fig. 3.4).

during this period and by extension during the Geometric are rejected. It is thought that during this period it functioned as a fortification of an uninhabited acropolis. Hypothebai was not the sole settlement below the acropolis. As the plural form of its name reveals, Hypothebai – like Mycenae and Athens – was a group of towns outside the acropolis, which manifested a decentralized urban-planning model that is known from elsewhere in Greece during the Protogeometric-Geometric period.

Thebes We note two views on Thebes (fig. 18): 1. According to the first,60 based on the principle underpinning the spatial organization of Protogeometric-Geometric burials (“where there are burials – child burials excluded – there are no dwellings”), it is concluded that Mycenaean Kadmeia was abandoned for a few centuries. The new settlement of the Protogeometric period, named Hypothebai, seems to have been single and restricted to the area north of the citadel, outside the Mycenaean fortification wall, following one of the lower countours of the hill to the north. To the south it probably covered part of the north section of the Mycenaean wall, which had survived or had been rebuilt. This area is estimated at about four hectares and accommodated as many as 1,200 inhabitants. On the basis of the aforementioned criterioncanon, Kadmeia was repopulated after 800 BC, as Hypothebai probably expanded to the south and the cemeteries were dispersed to north and west.

Athens The urban-planning example of Athens (fig. 19 may be sketched from the distribution of Late Geometric and Archaic burials on the landscape.62 The succession of pictures is quite eloquent, particularly when these also represent the distribution of habitation and cemeteries throughout the Archaic period. By 700 BC there were no graves and wells in the area of the Classical Agora, from which it is concluded that this was already the political and commercial centre of the city. On the other hand, the relocation of the vast majority of cemeteries outside the zone of the subsequent Classical walls clearly indicates both the consolidation of residential space within the asty and the abandonment of the old settlement model of clusters of dwellings with free spaces between them.

2. According to the second view,61 in relation to the urbanplanning situation in Hypothebai during the Submycenaean and Protogeometric periods, the principle of incompatible coexistence of cemetery and dwellings is challenged. It is pointed out that in this particular case two graves – one Submycenaean and one Protogeometric – are not sufficient to draw the conclusion that the centre of Kadmeia was used for burials during these periods. In relation to the corresponding situation in Geometric times, on inspecting one by one the sites that might indicate the existence of a house on the Kadmeia in the Classical period, assumptions about habitation

Eretria Recently research has acquired a picture of urban planning from Geometric Eretria63 (fig. 20). This picture, although 137

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20. Geometric Eretria, architectural remains and findspots (after A. Mazarakis Ainian, “Geometric Eretria”, Antike Kunst (AntK) 1987, 19, fig. 12).

a.

vague, is of clusters of dwellings, free-standing in plan, with a marked density in the coastal sectors and a thinner scattering to the northwest. What dominates, of course, is the separation of sacred from secular space at about the centre of the settlement. The beginnings of some separation of functions can be distinguished. However, this is not sufficiently evident to be recorded in the colonies in Italy, with the exception of Pithekoussai. Thus, a representative picture of a metropolitan Geometric city is still missing, to the extent that research seeks its urbanplanning picture in the corresponding pictures of its offspring, that is the colonies, especially when archaeological data that could be utilized for speculating on urban planning have not been recorded for the metropolis (as in the case of Chalkis and Corinth). Insular Greece, with the settlements at Zagora on Andros (fig. 21 a and b) and at Vroulia on Rhodes (fig. 22), provides two important yet peculiar examples of urbanplanning conception. Predominant in their respective plans, but in a different location in each case (in the middle of the urban-planning formation at Zagora, at its northeast edge at Vroulia), are two long walls, which organize almost the total of individual building units. According to some scholars, the architectural function of the walls, subject to the needs of the urban-planning organization of the entire settlement, presupposes a community spirit and common action. They represent most explicitly the unity that at state level constitutes a polis. Despite the fact that Zagora and Vroulia are from a depictive viewpoint two of the fullest urban-planning ensembles known to date, they should not be regarded as representative of their period, since the questions concerning their function are so serious as to cast doubt on their character as settlements (Zagora: necropolis, Vroulia: military camp). At the very

b.

21. Zagora, Andros, a. General plan of the Geometric settlement (after J.J. Coulton, A. Cambitoglou et alii, Zagora 2, vol. 2, Athens 1988, plan 1. b. Reconstruction (after J.J. Coulton, from A. Cambitoglou, Archaeological Museum of Andros: Guide, Athens 1991, 25, fig. 5 (in Greek)).

opposite pole of these compact urban-planning ensembles is Archaic Emporio on Chios (fig. 23), with a walled acropolis with a temple and a ruler’s residence inside, and dispersed houses outside, which permits a more comprehensible reading of urban-planning space. Consideration of the dispersed settlement web at Emporio, in parallel with the identification 138

City-Polis in the Late Geometric and the Archaic Period of spaces described in the epics, led to the recognition of this settlement as the paradigm of settlement that Homer had in mind when he was composing the epics.

The Late Geometric-Archaic city–polis in protohistoric times Given these quantitative and qualitative data, the following question arises: Is it possible, through the review of Late Geometric-Archaic urban planning as a setting for the history of the period, to trace historical phenomena or even events, such as the first clashes between poleis, the second colonization, the tyranny, as well as intellectual activities? It is worth classing in the last urban-planning activities, such as the preconceived urban plan, in other words urban-planning design.

22. Vroulia, Rhodes, plan of the settlement (after H. Drerup, Griechische Baukunst in geometrische Zeit, 1969, 52. Redrawn from K.F. Kinch, Vroulia, 1914, inserted plan).

23. Emporio, Chios, plan of the settlement on Profitis Ilias (after M.G.F. Ventris, from J. Boardman, “Excavations in Chios 1952–1955: Greek Emporio”, BSA 6, 1967, Suppl., inserted fig. 4).

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Notes

The expressions of military conflicts are usually sought in the walls,64 but the architectural and urban-planning achievements at the paramount sites of conflicts recorded in history or legend during the Late Geometric and Archaic periods (War of Lelantine Plain, First Sacred War, First and Second Messenian War, wars between Argos and Sparta), do not include the building of walls. On the other hand, in the city-colonies of Asia Minor the insecure living conditions in the midst of alien populations gave grounds for the development of an early art of fortifications. Similarly, the Late Geometric and Archaic walls in the Cyclades were apparently due to a kindred cause: fear of pirates.

For a bibliography of bibliographies on the period see B. Eder, Staat, Herrschaft, Gesellschaft in frühgriechischer Zeit: Eine Bibliographie 1978– 1991/92 (Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschafften), Vienna 1994. 2 A reference work on the Late Geometric-Archaic city and urban planning is F. Lang, Archaische Siedlungen in Griechenland: Struktur und Entwicklung (Akademie Verlag), Berlin 1996. 3 A fundamental work on the city-state, with a collection of mainly literary documentation is M.B. Sakellariou, The Polis-State: Definition and Origin (CGRA-NHRF), Athens 1989. The relevant bibliography is kept up to date in the publications of conference proceedings edited by M.H. Hansen, in the series Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre (henceforth ActsCPC, publication of the Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab Copenhagen), on the following subjects: The Ancient Greek City-State, 1993, Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State, 1995, Introduction to an Inventory of Poleis, 1996, The Polis as an Urban Centre and as a Political Community, 1997, and Polis and City-State: An Ancient Concept and its Modern Equivalent, 1998. See also D. Whitehead (ed.), From Political Architecture to Stephanus Byzantius: Sources for the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia, Einzelschriften 87), Stuttgart 1994, as well as M.H. Hansen and K. Rauflaub (eds), Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia, Einzelschriften 95), Stuttgart 1995, and More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia, Einzelschriften 108), Stuttgart 1996. Th.H. Nielsen (ed.), Yet More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia, Einzelschriften 117), Stuttgart 1997, idem, Even More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia, Einzelschriften 162), Stuttgart 2002, idem, Once Again: Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia, Einzelschriften 180), Stuttgart 2004, P. Flensted-Jensen (ed.), Further Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia, Einzelschriften 138), Stuttgart 2000. 4 A.M. Snodgrass, Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State: An Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1977, 10–16. 5 For commentary on the curves, on the basis of data from more recent studies see D.W. Tandy, Warriors into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece (University of California Press), Berkeley 1997, 46–53. 6 For a review of research on the relationship between archaeology and the emergence of the city-state see J.P. Crielaard, Homeric Questions ( J.C. Gieben), Amsterdam 1995, 201–288. 7 The subject is negotiated by Snodgrass, Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State, op. cit., 10–20, 30–33. Especially for pottery and the birth of the Greek city-state see J. Whitley, Style and Society in Dark Age Greece: The Changing Face of Pre-Literate Society 1100–700 BC (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1991. 8 A reference work on Protogeometric-Geometric architecture is A. Mazarakis Ainian, From Ruler’s Dwellings to Temples: Architecture, Religion and Society in Early Iron Age Greece (1100–700 B.C.) (Paul Åström), Jonserend 1997. Earlier works: H. Drerup, Griechische Baukunst in geometrische Zeit (Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht), Göttingen 1969, and K. Fagerström, Greek Iron Age Architecture: Developments through Changing Times (Paul Åström), Göteborg 1988. 9 For a review of architectural material and bibliography see L. Marangou, “Walled settlements of Geometric times (9th-8th c. BC)”, Proceedings of the Academy of Athens 63, 1988, 80–82 (in Greek). 10 F. Kolb, Agora und Theater: Volks- und Festversammlung (Mann), Berlin 1981, 15–19; especially on the Archaic Agora of Athens, 20–26. 11 B. Bergquist, “The archaic temenos in Western Greece: A survey and two inquiries”, in A. Schachter (ed.), Le sanctuaire grec (Fondation Hard), Geneva 1992, 109–152. 12 Specifically for funerary architecture and the birth of the city-state see I. Morris, Burial in Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1987. 13 Mazarakis Ainian, From Ruler’s Dwellings to Temples, op. cit. 14 A. Mazarakis Ainian, “Cult meals in ruler’s dwellings in Protogeometric and Geometric times”, in The Homeric House (Proceedings of the V Congress on the Odyssey, Centre of Odyssean Studies), Ithaka 1990, 177–198 (in Greek). See also P. Schmitt-Pantel, “Sacrificial meal and symposion: Two models of civic institutions in the Archaic city?”, and B. Bergquist, “Sympotic space: A functional aspect of Greek dining-rooms”, in O. Murray (ed.), Sympotica: A Symposium on the Symposion (Oxford University Press), Oxford 1990, 14–33 and 37–75 respectively. 15 Catalogued in C.M. Antonaccio, An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece (Rowman and Littlefield), Lanham 1995. 16 A work of synthesis with archaeological and literary documentation is F. de Polignac, La naissance de la cité grecque: Cultes, espace et société, VIIIe-VIIe siècles avant J.-C. (La Découverte), Paris 1984 (2nd edn revised and updated: 1

Colonial space,65 more than its metropolitan counterpart, illustrates the parameters governing the evolution of the colonial phenomenon in the domain of urban planning. These were: the preconceived planning of urban space, the foresight to secure free tracts of land for the future expansion of the settlement and, of course, most important of all, the operation of the sanctuaries outside the cities as means for state appropriation of land from neighbours (pre-existing populations or cities). The policy of the tyrants in the domain of urban planning66 was no more than the extension of their activity in the domain of architecture. They produced major constructions on an urbanplanning scale, public utility works. The main characteristic of these activities was the ideological utilization of them in specific strata of the population. It is obvious that the interpretations of the development of Archaic urban-planning forms are influenced by assessments in parallel, both of one of the urban-planning systems of the subsequent periods, the fully elaborated Hippodamian system, and of certain intellectual starting points67 which inspired the passage from the chaotic ground plans of Late Geometric settlements to the visible absolute urban planning of the Archaic period. Nevertheless, this evolution towards a totally distinctive urban-planning scheme cannot be considered as an interpretational one-way street. However, the variety of Late Geometric urban-planning types, the by no means self-evident evolution of these into the clearly intelligible and rationalized city forms of the Late Archaic period, the survivals of early urban-planning arrangements and the discontinuities within the urban tissues by no means lend themselves to unilateral interpretative approaches. All these distance the researcher from interpreting an urban-planning form on the basis of the one that followed it chronologically and had the fortune of surviving in a better condition; they prevent him/her from explaining away the same urban-planning form on the basis of the one that preceded and paradoxically offers more evidence. Finally, if we exclude cases of colonial cities that emerged from nothing, interpretations of the urban-planning evolution of cities in metropolitan Greece and Asia Minor are tied to the histories of each polis and especially to the chapter referring to the geophysical parameters of their surroundings.

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City-Polis in the Late Geometric and the Archaic Period Paris 1995; English translation by J. Lloyd, Cults, Territory and the Origins of the Greek City-State (University of Chicage Press), Chicago-London 1995). 17 F. de Polignac, “Mediation, competition and sovereignty: The evolution of rural sanctuaries in Geometric Greece”, in S. Alcock and R. Osborne (eds), Placing the Gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece (Oxford University Press), Oxford 1994, 3–18. 18 C. Morgan, “The archaeology of sanctuaries in Early Iron Age and Archaic ethne: A preliminary view”, in L.G. Mitchell and R.J. Rhodes (eds), The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece (Routledge), London-New York 1997, 168–198. 19 A reference study is C. Morgan, Athletes and Oracles: The Transformation of Olympia and Delphi in the Eighth Century BC (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1990 (2nd edn 1992). 20 I. Malkin, Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece (E.J. Brill), Leiden 1987, and I.E.M. Edlund, The Gods and the Place: Location and Function of Sanctuaries in the Countryside of Etruria and Magna Graecia (700–400 B.C.) (distribution Paul Åström), Stockholm 1987. 21 Standard bibliographical references on the subject are: F. Bourriot, Recherches sur la nature du génos: Études d’histoire sociale athénienne – Périodes archaïque et classique (Champion), Paris 1976, and D. Roussel, Tribu et cité: Étude sur les groupes sociaux dans les cités grecques aux époques archaïques et classiques (Les Belles Lettres), Paris 1976. 22 C.T. Syriopoulos, The Prehistoric Habitation of Greece and the Genesis of the Greek Nation (The Archaeological Society at Athens), Athens 1994–1995, 1,493 (in Greek). 23 Lang, Archaische Siedlungen in Griechenland, op. cit., 14–15. This catalogue does not include the settlement-geographical space of the second colonization (South Italy, Sicily). 24 Mazarakis Ainian, From Ruler’s Dwellings to Temples, op. cit., map 3. The number of settlements or places where only architectural remains of all uses are recorded, of the Protogeometric-Geometric period, is 121 in this particular study. 25 A.M. Snodgrass, “The historical significance of fortification in Archaic Greece”, in P. Leriche and H. Tréziny (eds), La fortification dans l’histoire du monde grec (CNRS), Paris 1986, 125–131. 26 W. Wells, “Apollo at Asine”, Peloponnesiaka 13, 1987–1988, Suppl., 350. 27 E. Baziotopoulou and P. Valavanis (eds), “Deux acropoles antiques sur les montagnes de Galaxidi”, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique (BCH) 117, 1993, 189–209, and E. Baziotopoulou and P. Valavanis, “Two ancient acropoleis in the mountains of Galaxidi”, Phokian Chronicles 4, 1992, 157–177 (in Greek). 28 H. Lauter, Lathuresa: Beiträge zur Architecktur und Siedlungsgeschichte in spätgeometrisches Zeit (Philipp von Zabern), Mainz 1985. Data and conclusions from this publication are re-evaluated in a series of publications by A. Mazarakis Ainian – see Mazarakis Ainian, From Ruler’s Dwellings to Temples, op. cit., 116, n. 719. 29 Lang, Archaische Siedlungen in Griechenland, op. cit., 58–63. The first two types were proposed earlier by W.-D. Heilmeyer, Frühgriechische Kunst: Kunst und Siedlung in geometrischen Griechenland (Mann), Berlin 1982, 85–100. 30 A. Acovitsioti-Hameau, “Organisation et caractère de l’habitat en Grèce à l’époque géométrique (Xe-VIIIe siècles)”, in Le monde rural dans l’aire mediterranéene (Actes du Congrès franco-hellénique, HCSR-CNR/NHRF), Athens 1988, 86–98. 31 For extensive descriptions and bibliography of primary publications see Lang, Archaische Siedlungen in Griechenland, op. cit., 195–222. 32 See A. di Vita, “Town planning in the Greek colonies of Sicily from the time of their foundations to the Punic wars”, in J.-P. Descoeudres (ed.), Greek Colonists and Native Populations (Oxford University Press), Oxford 1990, 343–363, and G.P.R. Métraux, Western Greek Land-Use and City-Planning in the Archaic Period (Garland), New York-London 1978. 33 This picture is described eloquently by A. di Vita, “Urban planning of ancient Sicily”, in G. Pugliese Carratelli (ed.), The Western Greeks (Bompiani), Milan 1996, 263. 34 For relevant comment see T. Fischer-Hansen, “The earliest town-planning of the Western Greek colonies”, ActsCPC 3, 1996, 268. 35 Argumentation developed in di Vita, “Urban planning of ancient Sicily”, op. cit., 268. 36 Bibliography in D. Mertens and E. Greco, “Urban planning in Magna Grecia”, in Pugliese Carratelli (ed.), The Western Greeks, op. cit., 243–262; especially for the Late Geometric-Archaic period see 243–256. 37 Bibliography in di Vita, “Urban planning of ancient Sicily”, op. cit., 268. 38 Dates of founding taken from A.J. Graham, “The colonial expansion of Greece”, in The Cambridge Ancient History 2, vol. III, part 3 (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1982 (2nd edn), 160–162.

Exceptions: the wall of Siris of the 8th century BC and scant ruins of Kyme, Kaulonia and Taras – see Fischer-Hansen, “The earliest town-planning”, op. cit., 360, n. 120. 40 See, however, also Fischer-Hansen, “The earliest town-planning”, op. cit., 360, n. 120. 41 An introductory reference publication is D. Ridgway, L’alba della Magna Grecia (Longanesi & C.), Milan 1984. 42 A preliminary publication is A. Mazarakis Ainian, “Skala Oropou”, in V.Ch. Petrakos (ed.), Ergon 1997, Athens 1998, 24–34 (in Greek). 43 E. Greco, “Pithekoussai: Emporion o apoikia?”, Annali di Archeologia e Storia Antica n.s. 1, 1994, 11–18, and B. d’Agostino, “Pitecusa: Una apoikia di typo particolare”, Annali Arch.St.Ant. n.s. 1, 1994, 19–28. 44 For bibliography see A. Avram, “Les cités grecques de la côte Ouest du Pont-Euxin”, ActsCPC 3, 1996, 288–315, and G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Greek penetration of the Black Sea”, in G.R. Tsetskhladze and F. de Angelis (eds), The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation: Essays dedicated to Sir John Boardman (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology), Oxford 1994, 111–135 (see especially 127, n. 4). 45 One of the most recent reviews is J. Boardman, “Settlement for trade and land in North Africa: Problems of Identity”, in Tsetskhladze and Angelis (eds), The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation, op. cit., 137–149. 46 J.G. Vinogradov and S.D. Kryzickij, Olbia: Eine altgriechische Stadt im nordwestlichischen Schwarzmeerraum (E.J. Brill), Leiden 1995 (especially on urban planning and architecture of the early period, 28–33). 47 For bibliography see M. Coja, “Greek colonists and native populations in Dobruja (Moesia Inferior): The archaeological evidence”, in Descoeudres (ed.), Greek Colonists, op. cit., 160–162. 48 R. Hägg, Die Gräber der Argolis im submykenischer, protogeometrischer und geometrischer Zeit (Boreas 7:1), Uppsala 1974, 44. 49 Hägg, Die Gräber der Argolis, op. cit., 45. 50 P. Aupert, “Argos aux VIIIe-VIIe siècles: Bourgade ou métropole?”, Annuario della Scuola Archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni Italiane in Oriente (ASAtene) 60, n.s. 44, 1982, 21–31. 51 E. Protonotariou-Deilaki, “From Argos in the 8th and the 7th century BC,” ASAtene 60, n.s. 44, 1982, 33–48 (in Greek). 52 A. Foley, The Argolide 800–600 B.C.: An Archaeological Survey (Paul Åström), Göteborg 1988, 27. 53 C. Roebuck, “Some aspects of urbanization in Corinth”, Hesperia 41, 1972, 96. 54 For a summary of the dialogue see K. Dickey, Corinthian Burial Customs ca. 1100 to 550 BC (UMI), Ann Arbor 1992, 121–132. 55 Roebuck, “Some aspects of urbanization in Corinth”, op. cit., 103, and C.K. Williams II and J.E. Fischer, “Corinth, 1972: Forum area”, Hesperia 42, 1973, 4. According to C.K. Williams II, “The early urbanization of Corinth”, ASAtene 60, n.s. 44, 1982, 12, the houses of Geometric Corinth developed along streets of all kinds, since there was very little free space between the wells. This, as it were, natural growth of the settlement obviated any need of a preconceived plan. 56 Roebuck, “Some aspects of urbanization in Corinth”, op. cit., 102. According to the excavator C.K. Williams II, “Corinth, 1969: Forum area”, Hesperia 39, 1970, 35, the Classical and Hellenistic agora of Corinth should be sought to the north of the hill with the Archaic temple, close to the main street in the settlement, which runs E-W, where the most important early sanctuaries are also located. 57 Williams, “The early urbanization of Corinth”, op. cit., 11, 18–19. 58 J.B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth. A History of the City to 339 B.C. (Oxford University Press), Oxford 1984, 75–80. 59 Dickey, Corinthian Burial Customs, op. cit., 132. 60 S. Symeonoglou, The Topography of Thebes from the Bronze Age to Modern Times (Princeton University Press), Princeton 1985, 91. 61 N. Faraklas, Thebes: Monumental Topography of the Ancient City, part I: Fortifications, Athens 1988, 96–108 (in Greek). 62 Morris, Burial and Ancient Society, op. cit., 65–68. 63 A. Mazarakis Ainian, “Geometric Eretria”, Antike Kunst (AntK) 30, 1987, 3–24. 64 Discussion of the subject in Snodgrass, “The historical significance of fortification”, op. cit., 125–131. 65 Development of the relevant view in R. Martin, “L’espace civique, religieux et profane dans les cités grecques de l’archaïsme à l’époque hellénistique”, in Architecture et société de l’archaïsme grec à la fin de la république romaine (Actes du Colloque International organisé par le Centre National de Recherche Scientifique et l’École Française de Rome), Paris-Rome 1983, 9–41. 66 For discussion, bibliography and sources see K. Mieth, “Bauten der Tyrannen in archaischer Zeit”, in W. Hoepfner and G. Zimmer (eds), Die 39

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Alexandros Gounaris griechische Polis: Architektur und Politik (Ernst Wasmuth), Tübingen 1993, 33–45, and J. Kiegeland, “Wie wohnen die Tyrannen?”, ibidem, 46–57. 67 A classic text on this is J.-P. Vernant, “Espace et organisation politique en Grèce ancienne”, in idem, Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs, vol. 1 (Maspero), Paris 1974, 207–229.

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CHAPTER 13

The City in the Greek Colonial World Gocha R. Tsetskhladze Centre for Classics and Archaeology University of Melbourne

The Greek colonies: some general remarks*

into details in this chapter, where I am concerned more with the physical aspect and the architecture of the Greek colonial city, it is sufficient to note that I shall use the term polis in the sense of the city together with its rural territory (chora). I am not concerned with the polis as a political community, but as a physical entity.

The history of the Greek city in the colonial world has never received academic attention as a separate phenomenon until recent times.1 Rather, it is usually treated as part of the general study of the history of ancient Greek urbanization and in particular of architecture.2 At the same time, many regional studies have been undertaken, which concentrate mainly on Italy and Sicily.3 This is not surprising. Firstly, it is impossible to write a comprehensive history of the Greek city, and in particular its architecture, when so much depends on the extent of the preservation, archaeological research and publication of a given colony. Secondly, the Greek cities in Italy and Sicily are the ones that have been studied most fully in the colonial world. For the present, it is not possible to write a general history of the Greek colonial city.4 Before this can be accomplished, regional histories must be written.

In the writings of the Copenhagen Polis Centre much attention is paid to the identification, description and understanding of the physical remains of the Greek city: the agora, temenos, palaces, prytaneion, bouleuterion, ekklesiasterion, gymnasium, law court, stoa, theatre, etc.11 Of course, the poor preservation of architectural remains can preclude the possibility of identifying them with any degree of certainty. Quite often inscriptions and ancient authors mention the existence of specific buildings, which have yet to be found in the course of excavation (see below). The history of the colonies is of far broader importance than just for the region in which they were situated. There is a lack of strong evidence to support the generally accepted view that the creation of the polis preceded colonization (mid-eighth century BC).12 Nowadays, we should consider reversing this position: urbanization and the political institutions of the polis may have developed in the colonies before they prevailed in mainland Greece.13 The clearest example of this is Achaia, in the northern Peloponnese, which was very active in colonization during the eighth century BC but did not develop poleis itself until much later, in the sixth century BC.14

Furthermore, it is difficult to reconstruct any general pattern of development. Each city had its own original features and appearance, which depended on various individual factors, such as landscape, local demographic conditions, availability of building materials, the purpose the colony was intended to serve, and so on. This is especially the case in the Archaic period, which is when colonization took place. The most widespread approach to the phenomenon is to compare colonies with their mother cities (metropolises). Although some general characteristics can sometimes be identified (“Hippodamian system”), as for instance in Sicily and South Italy, there is no common pattern of town planning* in the metropolises of these colonies.5 Only from the Classical period can some general pattern in town planning be discerned in Greece and in the colonial world.6

It is nothing new to say that the colonies kept quite strong links with their mother cities.15 We might suppose that a colony would copy the way of life, including physical appearance and architecture, of its metropolis. This is not the orthodox view. Quite often the colonies were much larger than the cities that founded them, and had grander monumental buildings. Once again, the best examples are from Sicily and South Italy. Syracuse enjoyed the reputation of being the largest and most beautiful of Greek cities (Cicero, Orationes, “Actionis in C. Verrum Secundae”, lib. 4, 52). Akragas (Agrigentum) in the fifth century BC had a population of 80,000. Taras (Tarentum) covered an area of over 7 km.2.16 Sybaris had a population of between 100,000 (Pseudo-Skymnos 341) and 300,000, and “filled a circuit of fifty stadia” (i.e. 9.35 km.2) (Strabo VI, 1, 13; Diodorus Siculus X, 23). The Western Greeks, most

A few methodological issues should be mentioned. The terminology ancient authors use to describe Greek cities and how to understand it have preoccupied scholars for a long time. Much research has been done on these issues, but the creation of the Copenhagen Polis Centre7 and its publications have made the most significant contribution.8 We now have a more or less clear picture of what is meant by the terms polis, emporion and so on, how many types of polis there were, etc.,9 although modern conceptions still dominate.10 Without going * At the author’s request, in this chapter the term town planning is used instead of urban planning.

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1. Map of the Black Sea with the principal Greek colonies and the local populations (after G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonization”, 1998, 23, fig. 1).

2. Plan of Panticapaeum (after V.P. Tolstikov, “Descriptions of fortifications”, 1997, 217, fig. 14). I: The upper terrace of the acropolis, II: The west plateau of the acropolis, III: The “rock projection”. IV: The “second armchair of Mithridates”. V: Round tower. VI: Section of the city wall. VII: Church of St John the Baptist. 1: The northwest corner tower of the acropolis. 2: Palace complex. 3: Citadel. 4: Section of the acropolis wall. 5: Defensive wall separating the upper plateau from the west plateau. Key: 1. Well-excavated sections of the fortification system. 2: Reconstructed sections of the walls. 3: Modern city. 4: The presumed boundaries of the ancient city.

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The City in the Greek Colonial World cities, including Teos and possibly Clazomenae, founded far fewer colonies. Evidence permits us to suppose that Samos, Chios, Rhodes, Ephesos and possibly Smyrna participated as co-colonizers with Miletos.25 Heraclea Pontica, on the south shore of the Euxine Pontus, was a Dorian foundation; it in turn founded Chersonesos in the Tauris (Crimea) and Kallatis on the west seaboard of the Euxine. Messambria was founded by Chalkedon and Megara. Colonial activity in the Euxine Pontus took place in several stages. First of all, a few Greek colonies appeared in the last quarter of the seventh century BC, followed by a few dozen more in the first half of the sixth; the vast majority date from the mid-sixth century BC, with several founded in the Late Archaic period (fig. 1).26

of who were Peloponnesian in origin, built temples in the Doric order but with Ionian decorative influences (temple of Athena at Paestum, late sixth century BC). Although these temples may have been inferior in details to those of mainland Greece, they were conceived on an ambitious scale and were frequently larger. In Sicily, painted terracotta revetments were used, based on Corinthian models but elaborated in a manner not encountered in mainland Greece and presumably wholly Sicilian in development (e.g. Temple C at Selinous, circa 550– 525 BC).17 In studying the architectural history and town planning of the Greek city, be it on the mainland or a colony, particular attention is paid to the regular layout, which is called Hippodamian. It should be stressed that not all cities had a regular layout.18 Much depended on the landscape. The Hippodamian concept and system were developed in the fifth century BC, which is after the colonies were founded. Some regular planning is apparent in the Early Archaic period, although we know very little about town planning in the Archaic period, in either metropolises or colonies.19 Regular planning cannot be used as an obligatory feature for identifying the Greekness of a city. This is particularly important from the region of the Euxine Pontus (Black Sea), where the main colonizer was Miletos. We still lack information about the town planning of Archaic Miletos, except for scant remains.20 Miletos may have been planned according to the Hippodamian system in the Classical period, but the bulk of our evidence is from the Hellenistic period21 and is thus no guide to what went on in the Archaic period.

From the beginning, the history of the colonies was inseparable from that of the local populations. Many ethnic groups lived around the Euxine Pontus, the most prominent among which were the Thracians, Getai, Scythians, Tauri, Maiotians, Colchians, Mariandyni and Chalybes.27 Not much is known about the relations between Greeks and local peoples in the Archaic period, although they were most probably peaceful until the late sixth-early fifth century BC. Thereafter, local kingdoms grew up, such as the Thracian (Odrysian), Colchian and Scythian.28 Relations between these local kingdoms and the Greek colonies were sometimes amicable and other times hostile. Around 480 BC, a phenomenon unique in the entire Greek world in the Classical period took place: in order to withstand Scythian pressure, the Greek cities on the Kerch and Taman peninsulas united into a single state, known as the Bosporan Kingdom. Its capital was Panticapaeum29 and it was ruled by tyrants. The state was finally consolidated by the midfourth century BC. In character it was akin to the kingdoms that mushroomed in the Hellenistic period.

In the colonial world, particularly in the Pontic region, in view of the local population and demographic situation, not everything looks particularly Greek in the Archaic period. (Another issue that cannot be discussed here what is meant by “Greek”.) The local population formed a part of the Greek colonies from the outset.22 Colonisation was never a dogmatic movement, although sometimes an official (other times a private) act of the metropolis.23 Very often, colonists were acting in response to local conditions. This may be seen clearly in the physical appearance of the colonies. In the Euxine region it is frequently difficult to distinguish between what is Greek and what local.

The region that has been studied best archaeologically is the northern Black Sea. Nearly all the colonies in the other areas of the Black Sea, except Histria, lie beneath modern cities.30 In the eastern Black Sea (Colchis), where only three colonies were established, two have not been firmly located archaeologically and the third, Dioscuria, is partly submerged and partly covered by the modern city of Sukhumi (see below). All Pontic Greek cities were founded in places with good natural harbours or on peninsulas.31

It is impossible to present in one chapter the history of the Greek city throughout the colonial world. My aim is to outline the development of poleis in the region of the Euxine Pontus (chiefly in the Archaic and Classical periods), which is still relatively unknown to Western scholarship. What is observed here is similar to other colonial regions, and I shall make comparisons where pertinent.

Physical appearance General considerations Not much is known about Archaic town planning. The first colonies were small. In the sixth century BC, the area of Panticapaeum (fig. 2) was about 7.5 ha. and its population no more than 2,000–3,000.32 In the first half of the same century, the territory of Olbia (fig. 3) was 6 ha., and in the second half 16.5 ha.33 In the mid-sixth century BC, Phanagoria was built on a hill and covered 20–22.5 ha.34 Streets were irregular, although some regularity can be discerned in the construction of buildings adjacent to each other along both sides of the streets, which were between 1.5 and 3 m. wide. Only Phanagoria shows some proper planning and regular streets. Until the last quarter of the sixth century BC there is, so far, no evidence of the formation of an agora or a temenos as a distinct part of the cities. Sanctuaries, such as the sanctuary of Demeter at

The colonial city: a case study from the Euxine Pontus region Introductory notes Greek penetration of this region commenced in the second half of the seventh century BC and is linked with the activities of Miletos, which is estimated to have possessed some 75–90 colonies (Strabo XIV, 1, 6).24 Miletos was the principal colonizer down to about 560 BC. Other Ionian 145

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4. Nymphaeum, the Archaic sanctuary of Demeter (after S.D. Kryžičkij, Arkhitektura, 1993, 48, fig. 21).

3. Plan of Olbia. The numbers indicate the excavated areas (after S.D. Kryžičkij, “The landscape of the north Pontic city-states”, 1997, 103, fig. 2).

5. Olbia, pit houses. 1–2: Reconstruction drawings. 3–6: Plans (after S.D. Kryžičkij, Arkhitektura, 1993, 44, fig. 17.).

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The City in the Greek Colonial World Nymphaeum (fig. 4), had quite primitive architecture and were not distinguished from dwellings (at Olbia, for example).35 The domestic architecture of the turn of the seventh-last quarter of the sixth century BC has very distinctive features. What we know is mainly from the northern Black Sea, where the Archaic levels have been partially investigated and studied (after over a century of excavation).36 So far no stone dwellings above ground are known; instead, so-called dugouts or semidugouts predominate (fig. 5). The interpretation of these pits is hotly debated in the literature: some researchers think they were dwellings of locals,37 others argue that they were lived in by Greeks,38 while another group believes them to have been basements and not dwellings at all.39 Since this type of architecture is considered a distinctive feature of the northern Black Sea region, I shall discuss it in more detail. It is an issue of vital importance, because entire quarters of these pits have been found in many Greek cities: at Olbia, for example, there is a street with pit dwellings laid out regularly down one side and with a few on the opposite side (fig. 6).40 The following descriptions and definitions have been given for such pits: 1. Semi-dugout: a construction dug more than 0.30 m. into the ground, the supporting walls of which project above the level of the surrounding ground and were formed by the sides of the foundation trench and a groundlevel construction. The ground parts of the wall can be made of any kind of material. The roof cornice is above the level of the ground but is not high enough for the construction of a normal ground-floor doorway. 2. Dugout: a construction dug into the ground as deep as its supporting walls, which are the sides of the foundation trench. The walls may be faced with wood, wattle and daub or stone (which is not a bearing construction). The roof cornice (if present) is usually at the level of the ground surface or a little higher. Two types of pit houses are distinguished: circular and rectangular-trapezoidal (fig. 6), the former having a conical roof with a central support column fixed in the floor of the pit and the latter having a simple shed or gabled roof. The roofs were light, probably of thatch and clay, and had a slope of 400–500.41

6. Olbia, quarter with pit houses: plans and reconstruction drawings (after J.G. Vinogradov and S.D. Kryzhitskii, Olbia, 1995, figs 8 and 9).

features, especially when the local population made up part of their settlement. It is now known that these types of dwellings were not exclusive to the northern Euxine Pontus; such pit houses are known in Asia Minor (whence the colonists who came to the Pontus originated),46 and even in the Metaponto area and other colonial sites in South Italy.47 Furthermore, in Magna Graecia the first generation of colonists sometimes used the simple construction methods of the local population. Their houses were partly buried in soft mud or marl-clay. The first Greek settlers near Sybaris used to construct buildings of Greek design but using local techniques.48

Without examining the details of the arguments put forward by the various parties,42 I wish to emphasize a few points from a practical and logical perspective. There are no architectural remains of dwellings other than the so-called dugouts and semi-dugouts. This surely means that they are associated with domestic architecture. At Berezan for example, more than 200 dugout constructions have been excavated and they are the sole architectural feature of the site from the late seventh or the very early sixth century BC until the last quarter-end of the sixth.43 They must have been dwellings for Greeks – otherwise Berezan and other sites would have to be local settlements, not Greek ones. It is possible, of course, that some of the dugouts belonged to the local population. Their size at Berezan ranged from 3 to 14 m.2 and at Olbia from 6 to 14 m.2.44 It is very hard to imagine that anyone could live in a space of less than 6–7 m.2, so the smallest may very well have been storage or household pits. These kinds of pit houses are well known from local settlements in the Lower Bug and elsewhere.45

From the last quarter-end of the sixth century BC a completely new period of the history of Greek cities in the Euxine Pontus commences. If previously the colonies were not very Greek in aspect (for reasons that are uncertain and about which we can only speculate), from the Late Archaic period onward the physical appearance of these cities became typically Greek, exhibiting the characteristic features known from mainland Greece and other regions of Greek colonization.49 Major cities had specially designated areas, such as an agora, a temenos, etc. All houses were built of stone or mud-brick. House no. 41 at Berezan can be considered most probably as “transitional” from the pit house construction, which is underground, to the house built above ground. It has features of both types (fig. 7). From the late sixth century BC onward, all aboveground houses had tiled roofs, basements or semi-basements and were rectangular in plan (figs 8 and 9); some were two-storeyed and all followed the rules of Greek domestic architecture.50

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8. Berezan, Late Archaic house no. 2: plan and reconstruction drawing (after S.L. Solovyov, Ancient Berezan, 1999, 69, fig. 52).

7. Berezan, Late Archaic house no. 41: plan and reconstruction drawing (after S.L. Solovyov, Ancient Berezan, 1999, 60, fig. 43 and 62, fig. 46).

Most of the wealthy houses were built using the formal orders and had men’s quarters, etc.; some were revetted with stucco. Small houses were between 80 and 200 m.2 in area, large ones between 200 and 600 m.2. The number of rooms ranged from 3 to 14. The courtyard covered between 11% and 27% of the area of the house (figs 10, 11 and 12). Streets were paved with stones, pebbles and potsherds. By the fourth century BC the street networks of the cities were formed. The width of the main streets in the various cities ranged from 6 to 11 m.; of the side streets from 4 to 5 m.; of alleys and passageways 1 to 1.5 m. In Olbia and Panticapaeum, for example, flights of stone-paved steps linked the terraces. Under the streets ran stone drains and sewers. There were also stone-lined wells and fountains. Again at Olbia, clay pipes or small stone channels carried water into individual houses from the main conduit bringing drinking water into the city.51 In major cities, stone temples, usually rich in architectural decoration, were erected in the temenos. There was widespread use of the Ionic order (few temples are in the Doric order) in the region of the Euxine Pontus (figs 13: a, b and 14: a, b).52 In Olbia the agora and the temenos adjoined (fig. 15). The agora, occupying 2,000 m.2, was paved with potsherds, stones and pebbles. Town planning underwent significant changes too.

9. Late Archaic and Early Classical houses, plans and restoration drawings (after S.D. Kryžičkij, Arkhitektura, 1993, 45, fig. 18). 1–2: Berezan. 3: Olbia. 4–6: Panticapaeum. 7–8: Nymphaeum. 9–10. Bosporan house.

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10. Bosporan houses (after S.D. Kryzhitskii, Arkhitektura, 1993, 164, fig. 117). 1–2: Tyritake. 3: Myrmekion.

11. Kerkinitis, Classical houses (after V.A. Kutaisov, Antichnyi gorod Kerkinitida, 1990, 82, fig. 41).

13. Panticapaeum (after I.R. Pichikyan, Malaya Asiya, 1984, 160–161, fig. 56 and 176, fig. 66). A: Restoration drawing of the temple of Apollo (Ionic order). B: Reconstruction drawing of the temple in the acropolis-temenos, fourth century BC (Doric order).

12. Kerkinitis, Hellenistic houses (after V.A. Kutaisov, Antichnyi gorod Kerkinitida, 1990, 111, fig. 57).

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14. Chersonesos, reconstruction drawings of temples. A: Doric order (after M.I. Zolotarev and A.V. Bujskikh, “The temenos”, 1995, 138, no. 6). B: Ionic order (temple of Aphrodite) (after I.R. Pichikyan, Malaya Asiya, 1984, 251, fig. 95).

15. Olbia, plan and reconstruction drawing of the agora and temenos (after Y.G. Vinogradov and S.D. Kryzhitskii, Olbia, 1995, figs 24 and 25).

16. Plan of Late Archaic Berezan (after S.L. Solovyov, Ancient Berezan, 1999, 78, fig. 58).

17. Plan of Heraclea Pontica (after W. Hoepfner and E.L. Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt, 1986, fig. 2).

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18. Plan of Chersonesos (after G.A. Koshelenko, I.T. Krulikova and V.S. Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, 1984, fig. XVII).

19. Porthmeus. A: Reconstruction drawing of the northwest corner tower (after V.P. Tolstikov, “Descriptions”, 1997, 226, fig. 23). B: Plan of the city (after G.A. Koshelenko, I.T. Krulikova and V.S. Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, 1984, 131, fig. XXXIII. 1).

in the northern Black Sea region in the late sixth-early fifth century BC and were destroyed and rebuilt in various cities between the fourth and second centuries BC.55

The main cities After these general comments, it seems appropriate to present summarized histories of some of the principal Pontic cities.56 This will give an idea of the individual aspects of each of them (for the eastern Black Sea, see below).57

20. Myrmekion, plan of the city and plan of the trench “I” (after G.A. Koshelenko, I.T. Krulikova and V.S. Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, 1984, 128, fig. XXX).

Apollonia Pontica (Bulgaria). Founded by Miletos, probably with Rhodian participation, circa 610 BC. It has not been wellstudied archaeologically because it lies underneath modern Sozopol. The cemetery of the Classical and Hellenistic periods has been studied systematically and published.58 There is textual testimony of the existence of a sanctuary of Apollo Ietros and a statue of Apollo, work of the sculptor Kalamis (Strabo VII, 6, 1; Pliny, NH IV, 13). The sanctuary probably existed as early as the beginning of the sixth century BC. The city walls of the mid-fourth century BC are mentioned by Aeneas Tacticus (XX, 4). An inscription refers to the Classical megaron.59 A sixth-century BC graffito attests to the cult of Artemis Pytheia, of Milesian origin.60

Three types can be distinguished: cities with a Hippodamian plan (Late Archaic Berezan (fig. 16), Heraclea Pontica (fig. 17), Chersonesos in the Crimea (fig. 18), Porthmeus (fig. 19: a and b) and possibly Phanagoria and Gorgippia); cities without a systematic street plan but with regular planning of several individual quarters (commonest case); and cities that were completely irregular, without any plan (Tyritake, Myrmekion (fig. 20) and Nymphaeum).53 The earliest fortification system is known from Histria, which was built about 575 BC, destroyed at the end of the sixth century BC and rebuilt in the Early Classical period.54 The first fortification systems appeared 151

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21. General plan of Histria (after Istros, 1996, 24–25).

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23. Olbia, plan and reconstruction drawing of the temple of Apollo Ietros in the west temenos (after S.D. Kryzhitskii, “The temple”, 1997, 25, fig 3 and 33, fig. 18).

22. Plan of the temenos of Histria (after Istros, 1996, 36).

Histria (Romania). Founded by Miletos in the last quarter of the seventh century BC. The early city walls enclosed an area of 60 ha. (fig. 21). It had an acropolis and a temenos from the second half of the sixth century BC (fig. 22). Temples and inscriptions attesting to the cults of Apollo Ietros, Zeus, Aphrodite, Artemis and Leto have been brought to light. A Hellenistic inscription mentions the existence of a theatre. The city of the Roman period has been very well studied archaeologically, because impressive aboveground remains survive. It is very difficult to reach the Greek levels.61

trading centre of Olbia and lost its independence.63 Olbia (Ukraine). Located 38 km. from Berezan, at the confluence of the rivers Bug (anc. Hypanis) and Dnieper (anc. Borysthenes). Founded by Miletos in the early sixth century BC. Topographically, Olbia consists of three parts: the Upper City, the Lower City and the Terrace City (fig. 3). It reached its greatest extent, about 55 ha., in the Classical period, when it had an estimated population of 30,00–40,000. About 20 ha. of the Lower City is now submerged. The rural population at its peak is estimated as 30,000–40,000 and the area of arable land as 70,000 ha. From the last quarter of the sixth century BC Olbia had an agora. From circa 530 BC it had two temene, separated by a street running north-south (fig. 15). The sacred space covered 16.5 ha. The central (or east) temenos included the main altar and temple in antis of Apollo Delphinios. There were probably temples dedicated to Athena and to Zeus, as well as a treasury and other minor buildings. The west temenos included more altars, a temple of Apollo Ietros (fig. 23) and probably temples of Hermes, Aphrodite and Cybele.

Berezan (Ukraine). Located on an island (470 x 860 m.), which was a peninsula in Antiquity. Founded by Milesians in the last quarter of the seventh century BC (figs 7, 8 and 16). Its ancient name is disputed: possibly called Borysthenes. The physical appearance of Berezan changed completely in the late sixth century BC. The dugouts and semi-dugouts were replaced everywhere by typical Greek stone-built houses above ground and arranged in blocks. The urban plan was conceived on the basis of an orthogonal network of streets. The excavations of 1997 revealed remains of a temenos, which consisted of a temple (probably dedicated to Aphrodite) and an altar, both walled.62 The archaeological material found there dates to the end of the sixth and the fifth century BC. The temple of Aphrodite is of in antis type. A causeway paved with potsherds led to the altar. The most popular deity in the city was Achilles. The history of Classical Berezan is a matter of debate. It most likely became a

In the agora, which adjoined the temenos, a stoa, gymnasium and fountain house have been excavated. From the Hellenistic period, the city had many more temples. Inscriptions attest to the following monumental public buildings: ekklesiasterion, dikasterion, hestiatorion and theatre. The earliest walls, towers and gates are mentioned by Herodotus (V, 78–79). Archaeological excavation has revealed only Hellenistic 153

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24. Olbia, reconstruction drawing of the west gate (after S.D. Kryzhitskii, Arkhitektura, 1993, 104, fig. 66).

fortifications and the west gate (fig. 24). Other deities known to have been worshipped at Olbia are Demeter, Hekate, the Kabeiroi and others. Achilles, whose sanctuary was on the island of Leuke and was protected by Olbia, also deserves special mention.64

the Hellenistic period there was no central water supply; each house had a well and water was also collected in cisterns. There were several monumental public buildings, and temples in the Doric and Ionic orders (fig. 14). Archaeological excavation has uncovered a mint house. In the mid-third century BC a theatre was built, part of which has been excavated (fig. 26); it ceased to exist in the second half of the fourth century AD.65

Chersonesos (Crimea). Founded by Heraclea Pontica in 422/1 BC. A small settlement founded by Ionians in the late sixth century BC previously existed at this location. The early city covered an area of approximately 12 ha. and was fortified. It is thought that the first colonists lived in semi-dugouts cut into the rock. By the Early Hellenistic period, the area of Chersonesos had reached 24–26 ha. The fortification walls have been excavated. There was regular town planning on a gid pattern (fig. 18). The main street was 900 m. long and 6 m. wide, and its northeast end led into a large square paved with flagstones. The street was paved and beneath it ran drains that terminated outside the fortification walls. There were eight main streets and 20 cross streets; the former about 4 m. wide and paved with stones, pebbles and potsherds. The building blocks measured 52 x 26 m., a few were 27 x 24 m. Generally they consisted of four houses, occasionally two. Smaller houses were 13 x 13 m.; the largest 22 x 23 m. (fig. 25). A few houses of the second century BC had mosaics. In

Panticapaeum (Crimea). Founded by Milesians on the site of an earlier local settlement, at the turn of the first and second quarters of the sixth century BC. The city occupied the summit and slopes of Mount Mithridates and a lower terrace, beside the sea, in modern Kerch (fig. 2). In the Late Hellenistic period the city covered 100–120 ha. The city walls were erected in the early fifth century BC. The fortification walls of the acropolis date from the late fifth-first half of the fourth century BC. The first Greeks lived in dugouts. The beginning of stone architecture dates from the third quarter of the sixth century BC and the appearance of streets, monumental buildings and town planning from the last quarter of the same century. The building of the tholos is dated to this period too. It is thought that the temenos of the city was created on the upper plateau of Mount Mithridates in the last third of the sixth century BC. The dugouts appear again in the late sixth-early fifth century 154

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25. Chersonesos, plans of houses (after S.D. Kryzhitskii, Arkhitektura, 1993, 163, fig. 116).

BC, possibly in connection with the difficult political situation (Scythian pressure) in the Cimmerian Bosporos. From the mid-fifth century BC a period in which monumental stone architecture was the sole type of construction commences. In the mid-fifth century BC a huge temple to Apollo was erected in the temenos-acropolis of the city (fig. 3a). The fourth century BC was a period of prosperity, during which many grand public buildings (some with mosaic floors: the so-called “andron” with pebble mosaic of the late fifthearly fourth century BC) and temples were constructed (fig. 13b), and the acropolis (the western part of whose fortification system was built in the early fourth century BC) was enlarged. When Panticapaeum was capital of the Bosporan Kingdom, in the very late fourth-early third century BC, the royal palace was built there (fig. 27). Finds of architectural members, sculptures, etc. show that the buildings were richly decorated. Epigraphic testimonia and dedicatory inscriptions indicate that from about 540 BC there was a temple dedicated to Ephesian Artemis, on the upper terrace of Mount Mithridates. From at least the early fourth century BC there were temples, altars and sanctuaries in the acropolis temenos, dedicated to Apollo Prostates, Artemis, Zeus, Aphrodite and Demeter.66

26. Chersonesos. Plan of the theatre (after S.D. Kryzhitskii, Arkhitektura, 1993, 144, fig. 99).

Nymphaeum (Crimea). Close to Panticapaeum. Founded by 155

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27. Panticapaeum, reconstruction drawing of the acropolis-temenos and the palatial complex (after V.P. Tolstikov, “Descriptions”, 1997, 224, fig. 20).

sanctuary was destroyed by fire in the late sixth century BC. In the fifth and fourth centuries BC, monumental constructions (some in the Ionic order) appeared in the city: an acropolis, streets and a new temple to Demeter and Aphrodite. In the fourth century BC the city was destroyed, but was soon rebuilt with a new fortification system and monumental, richly decorated buildings. As study of the necropolis of Nymphaeum has shown, the population of the city had close connections with the Scythians, whose aristocracy probably participated in the life of Nymphaeum. A wall of one of the buildings of the third century BC was coated with stucco, on which was a painted image of an Egyptian ship (fig. 28).67 Myrmekion (Crimea). Close to Panticapaeum. Founded by either Miletos or Panticapaeum in 580–560 BC. The city had a walled acropolis from the late sixth century BC (fig. 20). City walls were erected in the early fourth century BC. The first inhabitants lived in dugouts. Stone architecture dates from the late sixth-early fifth century BC, after the city was attacked by Scythians. The north fortification wall with tower was put up in the early fourth century BC. Apollo Ietros was the patron diety. Other public cults included those of Heracles, Aphrodite and Zeus. In the fifth and the early fourth century BC, a sanctuary of Aphrodite and an ash-mound existed on the acropolis.68

28. Nymphaeum, painted image of an Egyptian ship and its reconstruction (after O. Höckmann, “Naval and other graffiti”, 1999, 306, fig. 1).

Miletos in the 560s BC. The city walls were probably erected in the early fifth century BC and the acropolis was fortified in the late fifth and the early fourth. The first colonists lived in pit houses. After the mid-sixth century BC, stone and mudbrick buildings appeared. Soon after the founding of the city, a sanctuary dedicated to Demeter was established (fig. 4). By the mid-sixth century BC the city already possessed a temenos, whose walled area reached 60 m.2 in the fifth century BC. The

Porthmeus (Crimea). Close to Panticapaeum, at a strategic point on the northwest coast of the Kerch Strait. Founded by Panticapaeum as an outpost (teichos), in the mid-sixth century 156

The City in the Greek Colonial World BC (fig. 19a). The first walls were erected in the late sixth century BC. The west wall, a tower and new gates were built in the early third century BC. Stone and mud-brick buildings date from the late sixth century BC. The city had a regular urban plan in twelve blocks separated by streets orientated according to the cardinal points. Blocks were 42 m. long by 11 m. wide, except for two central ones in the east half, which were 63.5 m. long.69 Phanagoria (South Russia). Founded by Teos, circa 542 BC. The city was situated on two plateaux on the coast of the Gulf of Taman, on the Taman Peninsula. At its maximum it covered about 75 ha. About 25 ha. of the site is now underwater. Phanagoria is surrounded by hills, on which three large cemeteries lie. Twelve houses built of wattle and mud brick were found, dating from the 530s and 520s to 500–480 BC. The remains also include houses built of mud bricks, without any stone foundation, and streets. In the late sixth century BC, houses on the Upper Plateau were destroyed. In the same period, there was a wooden shrine in the city, which was destroyed by fire in the early fifth century BC. The south edge of Phanagoria began to be extended in the early fifth century BC. In that period a large amount of construction work was undertaken. The remains of the city gates were found in the southwest part of the city. The houses were of mud brick and were built either on stone foundations or directly on the ground. The first walls were put up in the late fifth century BC. During the fifth century BC the city spread onto a number of terraces, which filled the area between the Upper and Lower Plateaux. The architectural remains show that monumental buildings existed too.

29. Colchian settlement (after G.I. Lezhava, Antikyri khanis, 1979, fig. XLII).

in Antiquity, may provide a remarkable example of how the Greeks adapted their way of life to local conditions.72 According to ancient authors (Hippocrates, Airs, Waters, Places, XV) and modern geomorphological investigation, the coast of Colchis was wet and marshy. In this terrain, the local people used to build fortifications and dwellings of wood. This is documented in the archaeological record as well as by the literary sources (Vitruvius, De architectura, I, 4). The Colchians used to construct artificial hills surrounded by water and erect their buildings upon them (fig. 29).73 The Milesians founded three Greek cities here in the mid-sixth century BC: Phasis, Gyenos and Dioscuria.74 The area is still marshy and the chances of locating these settlements are very slim, while the Black Sea coastline has changed many times, with the fluctuations in sea level.75

In the fourth century BC the city expanded eastwards. The old fortification walls were destroyed in the early fourth century, as a result of a siege. Afterwards, large-scale (re)construction works began: the houses were built of limestone and other stones, rather than mud brick. New city walls were erected in the third century BC. The house walls were coated with stucco, which was then painted – usually red. The city had several sanctuaries and temples. In a sanctuary not far from Phanagoria, terracotta figurines of Demeter, Artemis and Aphrodite were unearthed. According to the inscriptions found in the city, there were temples dedicated to Aphrodite Urania (Apatouron), Apollo and Heracles, in the agora or nearby. The sanctuary of Aphrodite Urania was located on a hill not far from the city.70

Thus, our knowledge of these cities is very incomplete and comes from secondary sources. It is natural to suppose that in these local conditions Greek cities were also built on manmade hills and had fortifications, temples and dwellings of wood. In Phasis, there was a temple dedicated to Apollo Hegemon.76 If the site of Gyenos has been identified correctly – and there are doubts about this –, the city was indeed situated on three hills and both the local and the Greek population lived, at least initially, in wooden dwellings of semi-dugout type. Dioscuria, not far from the Caucasus Mountains, was much better situated, on dryer land and with building stone to hand. Rescue excavation of the city, much of which is beneath a modern town, has shown that from at least the fourth century BC there were some monumental stone buildings.77 The settlement at Eshera, located inland and forming part of the chora of Dioscuria, revealed stone buildings and fortification walls of the Hellenistic period.78

Sindike, Sindik Harbour, Gorgippia (South Russia). Beneath the modern city of Anapa, in the northeast corner of the Black Sea. Founded probably by Ionian Greeks, in the sixth century BC, as a trading centre in the territory of the local population, the Sindi. The first settlers lived in dugouts and semi-dugouts. Excavation has yielded the remains of stone buildings, fortification walls and towers, streets etc., dating from the fourth century BC, the period when the city was renamed Gorgippia after a member of the ruling dynasty of the Bosporan Kingdom. Aphrodite, Heracles and Demeter were the main deities worshipped here. The architectural fragments of monumental buildings may indicate the existence of temples dedicated to these and to other gods and goddesses.71

The city as a craft and trade centre Every Greek city, soon after its founding, if not from the outset, became a centre of craft production.79 Pottery kilns dating from

The eastern littoral of the Euxine Pontus, known as Colchis 157

Gocha R. Tsetskhladze Trade was one of the principal economic activities of Greek cities85 and was usually conducted in the agora. Agronomoi were special state officials in charge of trade and the control of weights and measures. This is attested by the discovery of special measuring vessels and weights carrying the stamp of the agronomoi.86 From Berezan and Colchis there are interesting finds of clay vases with the inscription ΜΕΤΡΟΝΔΙΚΑ (μήτρον δίκα[ιον]), which can be translated as “statutory measure”.87 It is known that at Olbia, for example, temples had their own workshops and trading places.88 The main sources for studying trading relations are pottery and particularly amphorae.89 In the seventh and the early sixth century BC, pottery from southern Ionia was common throughout the region of the Euxine Pontus; later it was displaced by pottery from northern Ionia. Goods transported in amphorae came from Chios, Lesbos and Clazomenae. The small quantities of merchandise from Corinth and Naukratis were probably brought by Ionian merchants, who were responsible, together with the Aeginetans, for the appearance of the first Archaic Athenian pottery in the region. According to the evidence from the northern Pontic cities, Athenian pottery predominated in the Classical period.

30. Panticapaeum, reconstruction drawing of the Late Archaic metalworkers’ quarter (after M.Y. Treister, “Bronzoliteinoe”, 1992, 68, fig. 1).

the mid-sixth century BC were found at Histria and Nymphaeum, and from the end of the century at Panticapaeum. Kilns of the fifth to the second century BC have been found at Chersonesos, Gorgippia, Histria, Phanagoria and Sinope. These were used to fire such objects as terracotta figurines, lamps, loom-weights and tableware; in Heraclea Pontica, Sinope and Chersonesos, amphorae were made as well. Through the migration of Sinopean potters, the Greek cities of Colchis began to produce their own amphorae from the second half of the fourth century BC. In the third century BC Dioscuria was stamping its own amphorae with an abbreviation of the city’s name in Greek, while several fragments of pottery found in Phanagoria bear that city’s stamp. Tiles and architectural terracottas were produced in Apollonia Pontica, Chersonesos, Olbia, Tyritake and the Bosporan cities from the fourth century BC. The Bosporan cities and Histria produced simple painted pottery which imitated the shapes of East Greek and Attic pottery. From the Hellenistic period, the production of tiles in the Bosporan Kingdom and Colchis came under the control of the ruling families, a practice well known from Macedonia and Pergamon. This is demonstrated by the discovery of tiles stamped in Greek, ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ.80

The question of trade relations between the Pontic Greek cities and the local peoples is an extremely important yet complex one. All discussion is based on the finds of Greek pottery in local settlements, some as far as 500–600 km. inland from the Black Sea.90 Overall, about 10% of the known and excavated local sites, particularly for the Classical period, yield Greek painted pottery, but the samples are usually few (e.g. no more than ten in the case of both the Thracian and Colchian hinterlands). At the same time, local élite tombs each provide several pieces of Athenian painted pottery. However, the assumption that there was a close trading relationship between Greeks and locals is no longer tenable on the basis of these data.

In nearly every Greek city there are traces of metalworking and other craft activities. At Panticapaeum, for example, metalworking workshops were found in two areas of the city: on the northern slope of Mount Mithridates (workshops of the 6th and 5th centuries BC concentrated in three houses alongside a narrow street) (fig. 30) and on the western terrace (location of the earliest pit houses of the first settlers). The workshops, which manufactured iron, bronze and lead objects, including weapons, contained numerous moulds, iron ore and slag, the remains of furnaces, etc.81 In Phanagoria, pottery and metal workshops were situated on the outskirts of the city. One of these was a foundry for casting life-size bronze statues.82

First of all, it does not seem methodologically sound to rely on pottery to prove close links: there are other ways in which pottery could have reached the local settlements. Furthermore, the quantity is not great, and quite insufficient to support the view that the more the pottery the closer and stronger the links. Painted pottery from élite tombs cannot be explained only from the perspective of trading relationships: we do not know how the locals interpreted the scenes depicted on the vases, which could have been gifts from the Greeks and not trade goods. Moreover, the tombs also contained jewellery and metal vessels, on which the local élite was much keener, in far greater quantities than the pottery. Without going into further detail, I would like to underline that although some kind of trading relationship existed, its scale and mechanics are as yet unknown to us.

Metalworking in the Pontic Greek cities was based mainly on the use of ingots produced specially for them, for example, on the wooded steppe of Scythia for the northern Pontic cities. The same situation most probably obtained in the other parts of the Black Sea.83 Naturally, as the Pontic cities were largely founded by Ionians, the craftsmen tended to come from Asia Minor. But evidence shows that there were some craftsmen from other parts of the Hellenic world, such as Eleutherna in Crete and Helike in the Peloponnese.84

Naturally, anyone investigating trade is concerned with the

There were several local settlements deep in the hinterland, which were probably distribution centres for goods. These settlements were usually large and served as political and economic centres for local ethnic entities. Study of the settlements (see last section) shows that Greeks used to live there and the examples of Greek pottery recovered from them run into thousands (e.g. over 10,000 sherds of Greek pottery were discovered at Belsk in Scythia).91

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1.

3. 2. 32. Fortified farmhouses in the northwest Crimea, so-called far chora of Chersonesos (after G.A. Koshelenko, I.T. Krulikova and V.S. Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, 1984, 122, fig. XXIV). 1–2: Tower in the Belyaus settlement. 3: “Chaika” settlement.

settlement, established by Berezan, is a case in point, where excavations have revealed a production complex, workshops for bronze-working and glassmaking, five iron furnaces, and so on.95

31. Chora of Chersonesos, plans and reconstruction drawings of farmhouses (after G.A. Koshelenko, I.T. Krulikova and V.S. Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, 1984, 123, fig. XXV). 1–2: Second half of fourth century BC. 3–4: Third century BC. 5–6: Second century BC. 7: First century BC.

In the Archaic period all dwellings found in the chorai were of the dugout or semi-dugout type. Local people also lived in these rural settlements, which were connected to each other by a system of roads. Pit houses are characteristic not just of the northern Euxine Pontus: they are found in the chora of Histria on its west coast.96 From the late sixth-early fifth century BC the architectural aspect of the rural settlements changed, as did that of the cities. All farmhouses were built of stone, sometimes with the use of mud brick too. Two main types of farmhouse can be distinguished: the first, characterized by the functional differentiation of the rooms, had one or two courtyards and the living quarters in the northern part of the complex; the second, common mainly in the fourth-third centuries BC, had one large courtyard with rooms arranged around the perimeter, one or two rows deep. It is very rare to find the Greek architectural orders in rural settlements. In the Hellenistic period there were both fortified and unfortified farmhouses. In Chersonesos (figs 31 and 32) and the Bosporan Kingdom (fig. 33) there were farmhouses with fortified towers, as well as others with fortified perimeter walls.97 Recent excavation has revealed rural sanctuaries (fig. 34) in the chorai of Olbia98 and the Taman Peninsula.99

commodities involved. Much has been written on this.92 Here I would like to emphasize two points: first, the composition of imports and exports changed over time, and second, the concentration on the Black Sea as a major grain source for Athens is an obsession of modern scholars, unsupported by the evidence. The grain trade did not start until the end of the fifth century BC and its scale has been hugely exaggerated, not only by Demosthenes but also by modern writers.93 The answer to this is given by Polybius (IV, 38, 4–6): “… as regards necessities, it is an undisputed fact that the most plentiful supplies and best qualities of cattle and slaves reach us from the countries lying around the Pontus, while among luxuries, the same countries furnish us with an abundance of honey, wax and preserved fish; from the surplus of our countries they take olive oil and every kind of wine. As for grain, there is give and take – with them sometimes supplying us when we require it and sometimes importing it from us.”

Physical appearance of the rural settlements

The well-preserved chora of Chersonesos in the Crimea is unique, as is Metaponto.100 Chersonesos was situated on the Heraclean Peninsula, approximately 11,000 ha. of which was divided in about 350 BC into 400 lots, each with six subdivisions, to make 2,400 small allotments used mainly for viticulture and growing fruit trees (fig. 35). Some Chersonesites settled in the upper Quarantine Valley before the full exploitation of the Heraclean Peninsula. About 4,000 ha. along the north coast were the basis of the earliest allotments.101

The territory of the chorai of the Greek cities varied over time. Initially, it was small, but with the appearance of new colonists and the expansion of the cities, the rural territories were enlarged as well. In the fourth century BC the chorai of Olbia, of Chersonesos and of the cities of the Bosporan Kingdom each covered an area of about 150,000 ha. and contained several hundred settlements.94 There were several settlements specializing entirely in craft production. The Yagorlytsk 159

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33. Farmhouses in the chora of the Bosporan Kingdom (after S.D. Kryzhitskii, Arkhitektura, 1993, 134, fig. 94 and 167, fig. 120). 34. Chora of Olbia. 1–4: Farmhouses (after S.D. Kryzhitskii, Arkhitektura, 1993, 165, fig. 118). 5: Sanctuary (after M.B. Golovacheva, K.K. Marchenko and E.Y. Rogov, “Unikal’nye sooruzheniya”, 1998, 104, fig. 4.3).

36. Settlement at Vetren, plan of the excavated area of the settlement and the fortress gate (after J. Bouzek, M. Domaradzki and Z.H. Archibald (eds), Pistiros I, 1996, 24, fig. 1:10 and 36, fig. 2.1).

35. Land divisions at Chersonesos (Heraclea Peninsula), so-called near chora (after M. Jameson, “Private space”, 1990, 174, fig. 14).

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The influence of Greek urbanization and architecture on local settlements The presence of Greeks and their many cities in the multiethnic region surrounding the Euxine Pontus resulted in the local peoples adopting some Greek urban features. This was not unique to the Pontus; the same happened in Etruria, Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula.102 Evidence shows that local rulers in the Pontic region used Greek craftsmen, particularly architects, to build their residences and even their tombs.103 The earliest evidence comes from Thrace. The excavation of the settlement at Vetren, deep in the Thracian heartland, merits special attention. The direct involvement of the Greeks in this settlement is shown by its fortification system, layout, gate and architecture (fig. 36). Examination of the fortification system indicates that the architects came from Thasos. On both sides of the main street leading into the settlement from the east, excavation has so far revealed quarters dating from the fourth and third centuries BC, one of them domestic. Three phases in the history of the settlement have been identified by studying the architectural remains. The first phase (middle-third quarter of the fifth century BC), which witnessed the founding of the settlement and the constructing of its fortification system, is represented by a street, a drain, a house, stone foundations of a building and pits; the next (beginning in the first two decades of the fourth century BC) saw the reconstruction of the east gate, new buildings in the area close to it and an extension of the settlement to the north. The final phase is linked with a destructive fire in the early third century BC, after which (it is thought) a new settlement appeared near the east gate and another in the western part of the site. The site was abandoned in the first century BC, after a natural disaster.104 This site shows that Greek craftsmen were employed by local rulers from the mid-fifth century BC.

37. Semibratnoe settlement, reconstruction drawing of the defensive wall of the fourth century BC (after V.P. Tolstikov, “Descriptions:, 1997, 213, fig. 13b).

houses here were built of stone in the Greek manner and the settlement itself was fortified against the rest of the city, which was inhabited by the local population.106 The Scythian city-site at Kamenskoe on the Dnieper, far into the hinterland, is another site of importance. The political and economic centre of this part of Scythia, it covered some 1,200 ha. There is very strong evidence that Greeks lived in the acropolis from the fourth century BC: it had a stone fortification system constructed using Greek techniques, stone-built dwellings of Greek type and stone-paved streets. Not far from the acropolis there was a harbour.107

A further settlement that should be mentioned is at Vasil Levsky in the Thracian hinterland, not far from Vetren, where the remains of monumental stone buildings and painted Corinthian roof tiles were found. This settlement, founded in the fifth century BC, did not survive beyond the early fourth century BC. Unfortunately, it has not been well studied archaeologically.105

Further examples come from the settlements at Semibratnoe108 and Raevskoe.109 Unfortunately, neither has been very well studied and the archaeological investigations, such as they were, have not been published in detail. The first site, situated not far from Gorgippia, yielded very impressive Greek-type stone architecture and a fortification system (fig. 37). The second dates mainly from the Hellenistic period and has Greek-type domestic and public architecture.

There is much more evidence in the northern Black Sea and the Ukranian steppe. This region demonstrates that Greeks were not only involved in building local settlements but also lived in them permanently, establishing their own quarters. On the Don, at a meeting point of three cultural zones – Scythian, Maiotian and Sarmatian – is the settlement at Elizavetovskoe, in existence from the late sixth-early fifth century BC. For the present chapter, the important feature there is the presence, from the second half of the fourth century BC, of a quarter populated by Bosporan Greeks. It was in this period that the acropolis was strengthened with stone towers and walls, and a stone-built fortification system replaced what had existed previously. Detailed investigation has shown that the Greek quarter was the settlement’s “trading area”, inhabited by Greeks from the Bosporan Kingdom. This quarter ceased to exist at some point at the very beginning of the third century BC. It was replaced by a new settlement, a Bosporan trading centre (emporion) which existed until about 275/270 BC. The

Turning to the eastern Black Sea (Colchis), there is one settlement of interest, at Sakanchia, in the hinterland not far from Vani on the River Rioni (anc. Phasis). It existed from the end of the third through the second century BC. Excavation has uncovered stone architecture and a Greek domestic altar consisting of flat tiles. The latter gives grounds for supposing that there was a settlement of Greek craftsmen here.110 Further examples come from the so-called royal cities. The town planning and architecture of Seuthopolis in the Thracian hinterland, as well as its fortifications, are examples of Greek 161

Gocha R. Tsetskhladze

38. Plan of Seuthopolis (D.P. Dimitrov and M. Čičikova, The Thracian City, 1978, fig. 3).

39. Plans of the architectural remains at Vani (G.A. Koshelenko, (ed.), Antichnye gosudarstva, 1985, 136, fig. XXII). I: City gates. II-VI: Buildings.

40. Scythian Neapolis (after A.I. Melyukova (ed.), Stepi evropeiskoi chasti SSSR v skifo-sarmatskoe vremya (Steppes of the European Part of the USSR in the Scytho-Sarmatian Period), Moscow 1989, 355, fig. 50 [in Russian]). 1: Reconstruction drawing. 2: Plan of a dwelling. 3–6: Plans of public buildings.

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The City in the Greek Colonial World craftsmanship and masonry (fig. 38). The city, on a readily defensible spur of land on a bend in the River Tundja, was selected by Seuthes III for his capital. The typically Greek layout was adapted to local circumstances: the site was surrounded on three sides by the river, so the only gateways were in the northwest and southwest walls. The roads through these gates intersected at a small paved agora in the centre of the city. The city was divided up into rectangular insulae, except for the palace area in the northwest, which was separated from the rest of the city by a wall. Most streets were paved and had drains running under them. Although a capital, Seuthopolis was neither grandiose nor elaborate. Not surprisingly, its buildings, houses and facilities reflect Greek influences and tastes; it was built entirely by Greek craftsmen for a semiHellenized Thracian monarch.111

metropolis.114 This conclusion is true not only for Megara, Megara Hyblaia and Selinous, but for the whole colonial world, including that of the Euxine Pontus. By the end of the Archaic period, colonization had largely been completed. Its end coincides with the period when the Classical type of polis was formed in mainland Greece. Indeed, this would not have happened without the experience of colonization.115

Notes The present chapter was written in late 1999 for the Greek-language version of the book. I have taken the opportunity afforded by this edition in English to make a few minor corrections to the text and to add some of the most relevant recent works to the bibliography. The most comprehensive information of Greek cities throughout the Mediterranean in the Archaic and Classical periods is to be found in M.H. Hansen and T.H. Nielsen (eds), An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis. An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation, Oxford 2004. A few recent trends in Anglo-Saxon scholarship need to be mentioned. The first is a debate over the use of the term “colonization” in connection with ancient Greece; another is the attempt to interpret ancient “colonization” in terms of modern European colonization; the third is to eschew Greek “colonization” as a distinct phenomenon and attempt to incorporate the establishment of overseas settlements into the broad canvas of Archaic Greek history. This last might be welcomed were it not for the fact that the canvas is stretched only as far as settlements in Italy and Sicily; those in Spain, the south of France, the Black Sea and elsewhere are hardly considered. For the latest, see S. Owen, “Analogy, archaeology and Archaic Greek colonisation”, G. Shepherd, “The advance of the Greek: Greece, Great Britain and archaeological empires”, and A. Snodgrass, “‘Lesser Breeds’: The history of a false analogy”, all in H. Hurst and S. Owen (eds), Ancient Colonisation: Analogy, Similarity and Difference, London 2005, 5–58; G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Revisiting ancient Greek colonisation”, in G.R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 1, Leiden-Boston 2006, xxv-xxviii; G. Tsetskhladze and J. Hargrave, “Colonisation ancient and modern: Some observations”, in T. Jackson, I. Konovalova and G. Tsetskhladze (eds), Gaudeamus Igitur. Studies in honour of Alexander Podossinov, Moscow, forthcoming. 2 See, for example, R.E. Wycherley, How the Greeks Built Cities, New YorkLondon 1962; J.J. Coulton, Ancient Greek Architects at Work: Problems of Structure and Design, Ithaca-New York 1977; A.W. Lawrence, Greek Architecture, London 1983 (revised edition with additions by R.A. Tomlinson), 139–159, 315–360; W. Hoepfner and E.L. Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland, Munich 1986; etc. 3 G. Vallet, Le monde grec colonial d’Italie du sud et de Sicile (Collection de l’École Française de Rome 218), Rome 1996, 3–85, 437–516; J.B. WardPerkins, Cities of Ancient Greece and Italy: Planning in Classical Antiquity, London 1974; A. di Vita, “Town planning in the Greek colonies of Sicily from their foundations to the Punic Wars”, and D. Mertens, “Some principal features of West Greek colonial architecture”, both in J.P. Descœudres (ed.), Greek Colonists and Native Populations, Canberra-Oxford 1990, 343–364 and 373–384 respectively; T. Fischer-Hansen (ed.), Ancient Sicily (Acta Hyperborea 6), Copenhagen 1995, and “The earliest town-planning of the Western Greek colonies, with special regard to Sicily”, in M.H. Hansen (ed.), Introduction to an Inventory of Poleis (Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 3), Copenhagen 1996, 317–373; E. Greco, D.M.-E. Greco, A. di Vita, L. Bacchielli, D. Mertens, H. Tréziny, M.B. Bagnasco and J.C. Carter, all in G.P. Carratelli (ed.), The Western Greeks: Classical Civilization in the Western Mediterranean, London 1996, 233–368; H.D. Anderson, H.W. Horsnaes, S. Houby-Nielsen and A. Rathje (eds), Urbanization in the Mediterranean in the 9th to 6th Centuries B.C. (Acta Hyperborea 7), Copenhagen 1997. See now F. De Angelis, Megara Hyblaia and Selinous: The Development of Two Greek City-States in Archaic Sicily, Oxford 2003; M. Gras, H. Tréziny and H. Broise, Mégara Hyblaea 5. La ville archaique: l’ éspace urbain d’ une cite greque de Sicile orientale, Rome 2004; L. Cerchiai, L. Jannelli and F. Longo, The Greek Cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily, Los Angeles 2004; E. Greco, “Greek colonisation in southern Italy: A Methodological Essay”, B. d’Agostino, “The first Greeks in Italy”, and A.J. Domínguez, “Greeks in Sicily”, all in Tsetskhladze (ed.), Greek Colonisation: An Account, vol. 1, op. cit., 169, 201–238, 253–357. 4 There is reference in the literary sources to about 1,500 cities in Greece 1

Royal cities are also known from other parts of the Black Sea. In the eastern Black Sea, Vani had a characteristic Greektype fortification system, city gate, paved street and grand stone buildings (fig. 39), as well as architectural decorations and sculptural compositions. Furthermore, the building technique was typically Greek, but the plans were local.112 Another example is Scythian Neapolis in the Crimea, capital of Hellenistic Scythia. Like Vani and the Thracian royal cities, it had Greek-type fortifications, public buildings (fig. 40) and sculptural decorations.113

Conclusions Colonial cities formed part of an organic whole with mainland Greece and the islands. Very often, we are able to understand the mainland Greek city through its colonies. It seems that the process of the development of the polis as a political and physical entity began after colonization commenced. Not infrequently, the grandeur of the colonies outstripped that of their mother cities. The colonies passed through a much more complex pattern of development than the cities of the Greek Mainland. Those situated in the lands of the local population had to deal with these people, often responding flexibly to changes in local political and other circumstances. These locals formed a part of the Greek cities from the outset, as was the case in the Euxine Pontus. However, the physical appearance of the Greek colonies in their initial stages demonstrates that many things were taken from the locals and their traditions, When we compare the colonies and their colonies with the metropolises, particularly in their town planning, only a few similarities may be discerned, usually limited to the location of certain sanctuaries and temples. Mainland settlements were growing continuously and consisted of groups of houses of irregular layout; a colony was a blank canvas which allowed the whole site to be planned from the outset. P. Danner, who has studied the relationship between the town planning of a metropolis, a colony and a sub-colony in the Archaic period, has concluded that this depended on several factors: the number of mother cities for a given colony; the state of urban development of the mother city at the time of the colony’s founding; the geographical location and topography of the colony; the character and purpose of the colony; and the social, economic and cultural situation. Despite some parallels, the physical appearance of a colony is not the same as that of its 163

Gocha R. Tsetskhladze en Méditerranée occidentale (Collection de l’École Française de Rome 251), Rome 1999, 195–208. 19 See now G. Shipley, “Little Boxes on the Hillside: Greek Town Planning, Hippodamos, and Polis Ideology”, in M.H. Hansen (ed.), The Imaginary Polis (Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 7), Copenhagen 2005, 335–403. 20 E.J. Owens, The City in the Greek and Roman World, London-New York 1991, 34. On Ionia in general, and Miletos in particular, see now J. Cobet, V. von Graeve, W.-D. Niemeier and K. Zimmermann (eds.), Frühes Ionien. Eine Bestandsaufnahme: Panionion-Symposion Güzelcamli, 26. September - 1. Oktober 1999 (Milesische Forschungen 5), Mainz 2007. 21 See chapter 14 by W. Hoepfener in the present volume, fig. 1. 22 G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Greek colonisation of the Black Sea area: Stages, models and native population”, in G.R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), The Greek Colonisaton of the Black Sea Area: Historical Interpretation of Archaeology (Historia, Einzelschrift 121), Stuttgart 1998, 4–50. 23 Graham, Colony, op. cit., 7–8. 24 N. Ehrhardt, Milet und seine Kolonien, Frankfurt am Main 1988, 49–96; G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Greek Penetration of the Black Sea”, in G.R. Tsetskhladze and F. De Angelis (eds), The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation: Essays Dedicated to Sir John Boardman, Oxford 1994, 111–136. The number 75 is given by Seneca (Helv. 7, 2); that of 90 is given by Pliny (NH V, 112). These numbers include secondary colonies and Hellenistic and later foundations. Only about 15 were major primary colonies. 25 On Miletos, Clazomenae and other Ionian cities, see now A. Moustaka, E. Skarlatidou, M.-C. Tzannes and Y. Ersoy (eds), Klazomenai, Teos and Abdera: Metropoleis and Colony. Proceedings of the International Symposium held at the Archaeological Museum of Abdera, Abdera, 20–21 October 2001, Thessaloniki 2004, 17–234; W. Radt (ed.), Stadtgrabungen und Stadtforschung im westlichen Kleinasien: Geplantes und Erreichtes. Internationales Symposion 6/7 August 2004 in Bergama (Türkei), Istanbul 2006, 73–100, 241–262, 303–314, 373, 382. 26 Tsetskhladze, “Greek Penetration”, op. cit., 115–123, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 15–43, and “The Black Sea area”, in K. Raflaub and H. van Wees (eds), A Companion to Archaic Greece, Oxford 2009, 330–346. For the Classical period, see S.M. Burstein, “The Greek cities of the Black Sea”, in K.H. Kinzl (ed.), A Companion to the Classical Greek World, Oxford 2006, 137–152. 27 Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 44–50. 28 Z.H. Archibald, The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace: Orpheus Unmasked, Oxford 1998, 93–176; T. Sulimirski and T. Taylor, “The Scythians”, CAH, vol. III.2, 1991 (2nd edn), 547–590; O.D. Lordkipanidze, Drevnayaya Kolkhida [Ancient Colchis], Tbilisi 1979, 48–74 (in Russian). 29 V.F. Gajdukevič, Das Bosporanische Reich, Berlin 1971, 32–110; J. Hind, “The Bosporan Kingdom”, CAH, vol. VI, 1994 (2nd edn), 476–511; G.R. Tsetskhladze, “A survey of the major urban settlements in the Kimmerian Bosporos (with a discussion of their status as poleis)”, in Nielsen (ed.), Yet More Studies, op. cit., 77–80. Recent re-evaluation of all available evidence about the establishment of the Bosporan Kingdom has cast doubt on the hitherto universally accepted date of 480 BC. I am in the process of preparing an article about this. 30 Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 18–19. 31 Tsetskhladze, “Greek Penetration”, op. cit., 117–120. Many publications on the Black Sea have appeared since the original chapter was written. Here I list several in western European languages. O. Lordkipanidzé and P. Lévêque (eds), La Mer Noire: Zone de Contacts (Actes du VIIe Symposium de Vani (Colchide) – 26–30 IX 1994), Besançon 1999; G.R. Tsetskhladze and J.G. de Boer (eds), The Black Sea Region in the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Periods (Talanta XXXII-XXXIII, 2000–2001), Amsterdam 2002; G.R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), North Pontic Archaeology: Recent Discoveries and Studies (Colloquia Pontica 6), Leiden-Boston-Cologne 2001; J. Boardman, S.L. Solovyov and G.R. Tsetzkhladze (eds), Northern Pontic Antiquities in the State Hermitage Museum (Colloquia Pontica 7), Leiden-Boston-Cologne 2001; G.R. Tsetskhladze and A.M. Snodgrass (eds), Greek Settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea (BAR International Series 1062), Oxford 2002; J. Fornasier and B. Böttger (eds), Das Bosporanische Reich: der Nordosten des Schwarzen Meeres in der Antike, Mainz 2002; Greek Archaeology Without Frontiers, Athens 2002, 129–172; P.G. Bilde, J.M. Højte and V.F. Stolba (eds), The Cauldron of Ariantas. Studies presented to A.N. Ščeglov on the occasion of his 70th birthday (Black Sea Studies 1), Aarhus 2003; O.P. Doonan, Sinope Landscapes: Exploring Connection in a Black Sea Hinterland, Philadelphia 2004; C.J. Tuplin (ed.), Pontus and the Outside World: Studies in Black Sea History, Historiography and Archaeology (Colloquia Pontica 9), Leiden-Boston 2004; C. Morgan, Attic Fine Pottery of the Archaic to Hellenistic Periods in Phanagoria (Colloquia Pontica 10) Leiden-Boston 2004; V. Stolba and L. Hannestad (eds), Chronologies of the Black Sea Area in the Period c. 400–100 BC (Black

and the colonial world. Of these, 800–1,000 are considered to be more or less poleis in the political sense. Only 10% of the total have been studied and these to varying degrees (C. Morgan and J.J. Coulton, “The polis as a physical entity”, in M.H. Hansen (ed.), The Polis as an Urban Centre and as a Political Community (Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 4), Copenhagen 1997, 87). 5 See chapter 12 by A. Gounaris in the present volume. 6 See chapter 14 by W. Hoepfner in the present volume. 7 M.H. Hansen, “Poleis and city-states, 600–323 B.C.: A comprehensive research programme”, in D. Whitehead (ed.), From Political Architecture to Stephanus Byzantius: Sources for the Ancient Greek Polis (Papers from the Copenhagen Polis Centre 1) (Historia, Einzelschrift 87), Stuttgart 1994, 9–18, and “The Copenhagen inventory of poleis and the Lex Hafniensis de Civitate”, in L.G. Mitchell and P.J. Rhodes (eds), The Development of the Polis in Archaic Greece, London-New York 1997, 9–23. See now Hansen and Nielsen (eds), An Inventory, op. cit., 3–156. 8 See M.H. Hansen (ed.), The Ancient Greek City-State (Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 1), Copenhagen 1993; Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State (Acts … 2), Copenhagen 1995; Introduction (Acts … 3), op. cit.; The Polis (Acts … 4), op. cit.; Polis and City-State: An Ancient Concept and its Modern Equivalent (Acts … 5), Copenhagen 1998. See also Whitehead (ed.), From Political Architecture, op. cit.; M.H. Hansen and K. Raaflaub (eds), Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Papers of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 2) (Historia, Einzelschrift 95), Stuttgart 1995, and More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Papers … 3), (Historia, Einzelschrift 108), Stuttgart 1996; as well as T.H. Nielsen (ed.), Yet More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Papers … 4) (Historia, Einzelschrift 117), Stuttgart 1997; etc. 9 M.H. Hansen, “The polis as an urban centre: The literary and epigraphical evidence”, in Hansen (ed.), The Polis, op. cit., 9–86, as well as “A typology of dependent poleis” and “Emporion: A study of the use and meaning of the term in the Archaic and Classical periods”, in Nielsen (ed.), Yet More Studies, op. cit., 29–83 and 83–106 respectively. See also J.K. Davies, “The origins of the Greek polis: Where should we be looking?”, in Mitchell and Rhodes (eds), The Development of the Polis, op. cit., 24–38. 10 J.P. Wilson, “The nature of Greek overseas settlements in the Archaic period: Emporion or apoikia?”, in Mitchell and Rhodes (eds), The Development of the Polis, op. cit., 199–207; R. Osborne, “Early Greek colonization? The nature of Greek settlement in the West”, in N. Fisher and H. van Wees (eds), Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence, London 1998, 251–269; Tsetskhladze, “Revisiting ancient Greek colonisation”, op. cit., xxiii-xxx, xxxviii-xlii. 11 See M.H. Hansen and T. Fischer-Hansen, “Monumental political architecture in Archaic and Classical Greek poleis: Evidence and historical significance”, in Whitehead (ed.), From Political Architecture, op. cit., 23–90; S.G. Miller, “Architecture as evidence for the identity of the early polis”, in Sources, op. cit., 201–244; Morgan and Coulton, The Polis, op. cit., 87–144; A. Snodgrass, “The rise of the polis: The archaeological evidence”, in Hansen (ed.), The Ancient Greek City-State, op. cit., 30–40. See also A. Snodgrass, “Archaeology and study of the Greek city”, in J. Rich and A. Wallace-Hadrill (eds), City and Country in the Ancient World, London-New York 1991, 1–24. 12 A.J. Graham, “The colonial expansion of Greece”, Cambridge Ancient History (CAH), vol. III.3, 1982, 159. 13 I. Malkin, Religion and Colonisation in Ancient Greece, Leiden 1987, 12, and “Inside and outside: Colonisation and the formation of the mother city”, in B. d’Agostino and D. Ridgway (eds), Apoikia: Scritti in onore di Giorgio Buchner, Naples 1994, 1–10; Hansen, “Poleis and city-states”, op. cit., 15–16. 14 C. Morgan and J. Hall, “Achaia poleis and Achaian colonization”, in Hansen (ed.), Introduction, op. cit., 164–232. “Urbanization was slow and limited in early Greece and if we wanted to separate the stage of the creation of the ‘city’ from the previous stage of the ‘non-city’, the dividing line would probably lie in the late 6th century BC. The rise of the ‘polis’ was anything but synonymous with the rise of the city” (I. Morris, “The early polis as city and state”, in Rich and Wallace-Hadrill (eds), City and Country, op. cit., 4). 15 A.J. Graham, Colony and Mother City in Ancient Greece, Chicago 1983 (2nd edn), 71–165. 16 T.J. Dunabin, The Western Greeks, Oxford 1948, 87. 17 J. Boardman, The Greeks Overseas, London 1999 (4th edn), 19. For more examples, see G. Shepherd, “The Advance of the Greeks: Greece, Great Britain and Archaeological Empires”, in Hurst and Owen (eds), Ancient Colonisation, op. cit., 37–40. 18 A. Wasowicz, “L’aménagement spatial des colonies grecques et le problème d’Hippodamos de Milet”, in L.B. Pulci Roria (ed.), L’incidenza dell’antico: Studi in memoria di Ettore Lepore, vol. 2, Naples 1966, 203–218, and “Problèmes du plan régulier dans les colonies de la Mer Noire”, in La colonisation grecque

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The City in the Greek Colonial World Sea Studies 3), Aarhus 2005; D. Kacharava, M. Faudot and É Geny (eds), Pont-Euxin et Polis: Polis Hellenis et Polis Barbaron (Actes du Xe Symposium de Vani – 23–26 septembre 2002), Besançon 2005; F. Fless and M. Treister (eds), Bilder und Objekte als Träger kultereller Identität und interkultureller Kommunikation im Schwarzmeergebeit. Kolloquium in Zschorau/Sachsen vom 13.2–15.2.2003, Rahden 2005; P.G. Bilde and V.F. Stolba (eds), Surveying the Greek Chora. Black Sea Region in a Comparative Perspective (Black Sea Studies 4), Aarhus 2006; A. Bresson, A. Ivantchik and J.-L. Ferrary (eds), Une koinè pontique: cités grecques, sociétés indigènes et empires mondiaux sur le littoral nord de la mer Noire (VIIe s. a.C.-IIIe s. p.C.) (Collection Mémoires 18), Bordeaux 2007; V. Gabrielsen and J. Lund (eds), The Black Sea in Antiquity. Regional and Interregional Economic Exchanges (Black Sea Studies 6), Aarhus 2007; P.G. Bilde and J.H. Petersen (eds), Meetings of Cultures: Between Conflicts and Coexistence (Black Sea Studies 8), Aarhus 2008; etc. 32 V.D. Blavatskii, Pantikapei [Panticapaeum], Moscow 1964, 25 (in Russian). 33 J.G. Vinogradov and S.D. Kryzhitskii, Olbia, Leiden 1995, 28. 34 V.S. Dolgorukov, “Nekotorye voprosy rannei istorii i topografii Fanagorii’ [“Some issues of the history and topography of early Phanagoria”], Kratkie Soobshcheniya Instituta Arkeologii (KSIA), 197, 1990, 30–37 (in Russian). 35 G.A. Koshelenko, I.T. Kruglikova and V.S. Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva Severnogo Prichernomor’ya [Ancient States on the Coasts of the Northern Black Sea], Moscow 1984, 198 (in Russian). 36 S.D. Kryzhitskii, Zhilye doma antichnykh gorodov Sevemogo Prichemomor’ya (VI v. do n.e.-IV v. n.e.) [Houses in Ancient States of the Coasts of the Northern Black Sea (6th c. BC-4th c. BC)], Kiev 1982, 10–15 (in Russian), and Arkhitektura antichnykh gosydarstv Sevemogo Prichernomor’ya [The Architecture of the Ancient States of the Coasts of the Northern Black Sea], Kiev 1993, 32–54 (in Russian). 37 S.L. Solovyov, Ancient Berezan: The Architecture, History, Culture of the First Greek Colony in the Northern Black Sea (Colloquia Pontica 4), LeidenBoston-Cologne 1999, 127–130. 38 Kryzhitskii, Zhilye doma, op. cit., 11–12. 39 V.D. Kuznetsov, “Early types of Greek dwelling houses in the North Black Sea”, in G.R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Ancient Greeks West and East, Leiden-BostonCologne 1999, 531–565. See also Boardman, The Greeks Overseas, op. cit. 282. 40 Kryzhitskii, Ol’viya [Olbia], Kiev 1985, 59–60. 41 Kryzhitskii, Zhilye doma, op. cit., 12, and Solovyov, Ancient Berezan, op. cit., 33. 42 On subterranean and other kinds of architecture, see now G.R. Tsetskhladze, “On the Earliest Greek Colonial Architecture in the Pontus”, in Tuplin (ed.), Pontus, op. cit., 225–278. 43 Solovyov, Ancient Berezan, op. cit., 34. 44 Kryzhitskii, Zhilye doma, op. cit., 1, and Solovyov, Ancient Berezan, op.cit., 33. 45 The earliest dugout that has close parallels with the dugouts of the Greek colonies is from the Scythian site-city at Belsk. It was dated on the basis of the imported Greek pottery found in the course of its excavation to the early sixth century BC. This pit house covers 63 m.2 and is believed to have accommodated a family of 6–7 members (B.A. Shramko, Bel’skoe gorodishche skifskoi epokhi (gorod Gelon) [City-Site at Belskoe of the Scythian Period (City of Gelon)], Kiev 1987, 38–42 (in Russian). On the Taman Peninsula, where there are no stones for building material, the Greeks usually lived in houses of wattle and mud brick, a type of dwelling known from the settlement at Maiotis in the Kuban region, which is not far from the Taman Peninsula (Tsetskhladze, “A survey”, op. cit., 59). 46 M.H. Gates, “Archaeology in Turkey”, American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) 101, 1997, 272–273. See now Tsetskhladze, “On the Earliest Greek Colonial Architecture”, op. cit., 266–272. 47 Personal information from Joseph Carter. See now J.C. Carter, Discovering the Greek Countryside at Metaponto, Ann Arbor 2006, 58–73. 48 Mertens, “Some principal features”, op. cit., 375 and fig. 40.3. 49 Kryzhitskii, Zhikye doma, op. cit., 14–30, and Arkhitektura, op. cit., 45–86; as well as Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 198–210. 50 L.C. Nevett, House and Society in the Ancient World, Cambridge 1999, 53–153. 51 Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 200–201. 52 Kryzhitskii, Arkhitektura, op. cit., 32–54; I.R. Pichikyan, Malaya Asiya–Sevemoe Prichemomor’e [Asia Minor–The Coasts of the Northern Black Sea], Moscow 1984, 151–186 (in Russian); A.V. Buiskikh, “O kul’tovoi arkhitekture antichnykh gorodov Severnogo Prichernomor’ya VI-V v. do n.e.”

[“On the cultic architecture of the ancient states of the 6th-5th century BC on the coasts of the northern Black Sea”], Khersonesskij Sbornik (KhSb) VIII, 1997, 23–39 (in Russian); P. Alexandrescu, “Histria in archaischer Zeit” and M. Märgineany-Carstoiu, “Ionische Normalkapitelle der griechischen Epoche in Histria”, in P. Alexandrescu and W. Schuller (eds), Histria, Konstanz 1990, 50–62 and 103–154 respectively; as well as M. Märgineany-Carstoiu, “An archaic corona piece at Histria”, Dacia XXXV, 1991, 93–101, and “Archaische architekturbruchstück aus Histria”, Dacia XXXVII, 1993, 39–58. 53 Hoepfner and Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt, op. cit., fig. 2; Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 199–200. 54 Alexandrescu, “Histria”, op. cit., 51–52. A recent re-evaluation of the evidence shows that this wall cannot be of such an early date. It was most probably constructed in the Late Archaic or even the Classical period. I am most grateful to A. Avram for this information. 55 V.P. Tolstikov, “Descriptions of fortifications of the classical cities in the region to the north of the Black Sea”, Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia (ACSS) 4, 1997, 187–231. 56 On the major Greek cities around the Black Sea, see now A. Avram, J. Hind and G. Tsetskhladze, “The Black Sea Area”, in Hansen and Nielsen (eds), An Inventory, op. cit., 924–973, with exhaustive bibliography. See also D.V. Grammenos and E.K. Petropoulos (eds), Ancient Greek Colonies in the Black Sea 1, 2 vols., Thessaloniki 2003, and Ancient Greek Colonies in the Black Sea 2, 2 vols. (BAR International Series 1675), Oxford 2007. One should be aware that most contributions to these last-mentioned volumes make difficult reading for want of adequate editing. 57 We know little of anything about the physical appearance of Greek colonies along the southern Black Sea coast because they all lie under modern cities or other modern developments. See G.R. Tstetskhladze, “Greeks and locals in the southern Black Sea littoral: A re-examination”, in G. Herman and I. Shatzman (eds), Greeks between East and West. Essays in Greek Literature and History in Memory of David Asheri, Jerusalem 2007, 160–195. 58 For Apollonia Pontica, see I. Venedikov (ed.), Apoloniya [Apollonia], Sofia 1963 (in Bulgarian); B. Isaac, The Greek Settlements in Thrace until the Macedonian Conquest, Leiden 1986, 241–247; K. Panayotova, “Apollonia Pontica: Recent discoveries in the necropolis”, in Tsetskhladze (ed.), The Greek Colonisation, op. cit., 97–114. 59 Inscriptiones graecae in Bulgaria repertae, vol. 1 (2nd edn), 398 60 Supplementum epigraphicum graecum, vol. 3, 557. 61 For Histria, see Histria, vols 1–13, Bucharest-Paris 1954–2007; Alexandrescu and Schuller (eds), Histria, op. cit.; M. Coja, “Greek colonists and native populations in Dobruja (Moesia Inferior): The archaeological evidence”, in Descœudres (ed.), Greek Colonists, op. cit., 157–168, and Istros: Les Grecs au pays des Gètes, Château des Allymes 1996. See now P. Alexandrescu, Histria VII: La zone sacrée d’ époque greques ( fouilles 1915–1989), Bucharest 2005. 62 V.V. Nazarov and V.M. Otreshko, “Otkrytie temenosa Bezeranskogo poseleniya” [“The discovery of the temenos of the settlement at Berezan”], in Arkheologichni Doslidzhennya 1997 [Archaeological Discoveries 1997], Kiev 1998, 37–38 (in Russian). 63 For Berezan, see Vinogradov and Kryzhitskii, Olbia, op. cit., 62–67; V.V. Nazarov, “The ancient landscape of Berezan island”, in J. Chapman and P. Dolukhanov (eds), Landscapes in Flux: Central and Eastern Europe in Antiquity (Colloquia Pontica 3), Oxford 1997, 131–136; S.L. Solovyov, “Archaic Berezan: Historical-archaeological essay”, in Tsetskhladze (ed.), The Greek Colonisation, op. cit., 205–226; Solovyov, Ancient Berezan, op. cit. 64 For Olbia, see Inscriptiones Olbiae, Leningrad 1968; A. Wasowicz, Olbia Pontique et son territoire, Besançon 1975; Kryzhitskii, Olbia, op. cit., and “The landscape of North Pontic city-states: A case study from Olbia”, in Chapman and Dulkhanov (eds), Landscapes in Flux, op. cit., 101–114; Vinogradov and Kryzhitskii, Olbia, op. cit.; Kryzhitskii, “The temple of Apollo Ietros on the Western Temenos at Olbia, ACSS 4, 1997, 15–34; as well as A.S. Rusyaeva, “Investigations of the Western Temenos from Olbia”, ACSS 1, 1994, 80–102, and Religiya i kul’ty antichnoi Ol’vii [Religion and Cults of Ancient Olbia], Kiev 1992 (in Russian). On the temenos of Olbia, see now Drevneishi temenos Ol’vii Pontiiskoi [The ancient temenos of Olbia Pontica], Simferopol 2006 (in Russian). For Leuke, see S.B. Okhotnikov and A.S. Ostroverkhov, Svuatilishche Akhilla na ostrove Levke [The Sanctuary of Achilles on the Island of Leuke], Kiev 1993 (in Russian). On the cult of Achilles in the northern Black Sea, see now J. Hupe (ed.), Der Achilleus-Kult in nördlichen Schwarzmeeraum vom Beginn der griechischen Kolonisation bis in die römische Kaiserzeit Beiträge zur Akkulturationsforschung, Rahden 2006. 65 For Chersonesos, see A. Chtcheglov, Polis et chora, Besançon 1992, 23–66; S. Saprykin, Heracleia Pontica and Tauric Chersonesus before Roman Domination (VI-I Centuries B.C.), Amsterdam 1997, and “The foundation

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Gocha R. Tsetskhladze of Tauric Chersonesus”, in Tsetskhladze (ed.), The Greek Colonisation, op. cit., 227–248; M.I. Zolotarev, “Rannie etapy gorodostritel’stva v Khersonese Tavricheskom” [“Early stages of urban planning in Tauric Chersonesos”, KhSb IX, 1998, 26–35 (in Russian); M.I. Zolotarev and A.V. Bujskikh, “The temenos of ancient Chersonesos: An attempt at an architectural reconstruction”, ACSS 2, 1995, 125–156. On Chersonesos, see now Khersones Tavricheskii v tret’ei chetverti VI-seredine I vv. do n.e. Ocherki istorii i kul’tury [Tauric Chersonesos in the Third Quarter of the 6th-Middle of the 1st Century BC. Essays on History and Culture], Kiev 2005 (in Russian). For Kerkinitis, see V.A. Kutaisov, Antichnyi gorod Kerkinitida [The Ancient City of Kerkinitis], Kiev 1990 (in Russian). 66 For Panticapaeum, see Blavatskij, Pantikapei, op. cit.; Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 59–3; V.P. Tolstikov, “Pantikapei: Stolitsa Bospora” [“Panticapaeum: Capital of the Bosporos”], in G.A. Koshelenko (ed.), Ocherki arkheologii i istorii Bospora [Essays on the Archaeology and History of the Bosporos], Moscow 1992, 45–99 (in Russian); M. Triester and Y. Vinogradov, “Archaeology on the northern coast of the Black Sea”, AJA 97, 1993, 544–546; Corpus inscriptionum regni bosporiani (CIRB), Moscow-Leningrad 1965, nos 1–867. See now M.Y. Treister, “Excavations at Pantikapaion, capital of the kingdom of the Bosporus. Old finds, recent results and some new observations”, in Greek Archaeology Without Frontiers (“Open Science” Lecture Series), Athens 2002, 151–74. 67 For Nymphaeum, see Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 63–65; Treister and Vinogradov, “Archaeology”, op. cit., 546–547; Y. Vinogradov, “Der Staatsvesuch det ‘Isis’ im Bosporos”, ACSS 5, 1999, 271–302; O. Höckmann, “Naval and other graffiti from Nymphaion”, ACSS 5, 1999, 303–356; CIRB, op. cit., nos 911–940. 68 For Myrmekion, see V.F. Gaidukevich, Antichnye goroda Bospora: Mirmekii [Ancient Cities of the Bosporos: Myrmekion], Leningrad 1987 (in Russian); Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 665–667; Y.A. Vinogradov, “Myrmekii” [“Myrmekion”], in Koshelenko (ed.), Ocherki [Essays], op. cit., 99–120; CIRB, op. cit., nos 868–888. 69 For Porthmeus, see Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 69–70; CIRB, op. cit., no. 896. 70 For Phanagoria, see M.M. Kobylina, Fanagoriya [Phanagoria], Moscow 1956 (in Russian), and “Stranitsy rannei istorii Fanagorii” [“Pages from the early history of Phanagoria”], Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 2, 1983, 51–61 (in Russian); Dolgorukov, “Nekotorye voprosy”, op. cit.; Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 77–81; Treister and Vinogradov, “Archaeology”, op. cit., 556–558; G.R. Tsetskhladze, “The artistic taste in Phanagoria”, Apollo, July 1997, 7–9; G.R. Tsetskhladze and V.D. Kuznetsov, “Phanagoria: 1800 years of history on the Black Sea”, Minerva, September-October 1997, 21–27; CIRB, op. cit., nos 971–1011. See now G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Phanagoria: Metropolis of the Asiatic Bosporus”, in Greek Archaeology, op. cit., 129–150; C. Brandon and G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Notes on the survey of the submerged remains of Phanagoria in the Taman Peninsula, 1998”, Ancient West & East 1.1, 2002, 178–188. Further updated information on the cities and rural settlements of the Asiatic Bosporus, including Phanagoria and Gorgippia, can be found in G.R. Tsetskhladze, “The Ionian colonies and their territories in the Taman Peninsula in the Archaic period”, in Cobet et al. (eds), Frühes Ionien, op. cit., 551–565. 71 For Gorgippia, see Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 82–84; Treister and Vinogradov, “Archaeology”, op. cit., 560–562; A.M. Alekseeva, Antichnyi gorod Gorgipiiya [The Ancient City of Gorgippia], Moscow 1997 (in Russian); CIRB, op. cit., nos 1149– 1219. 72 G.R. Tsetskhladze, “How Greek colonists adapted their way of life to the conditions in Colchis”, in J.M. Fossey (ed.), Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Archaeology and History of the Black Sea, McGill University, 22–24 November 1994, Amsterdam 1997, 121–136. 73 G.I. Lezhava, Antikuri khanis sakartvelos arkitekturuli dzeglebi [Architectural Monuments of Ancient Georgia], Tbilisi 1979, 8–9 (in Georgian); and G.A. Koshelenko (ed.), Drevneishe gosudarstva Kavkaza i Srednei Asii [Ancient State in the Caucasus and Central Asia], Moscow 1985, 14–15 (in Russian). 74 G.R. Tsetskhladze, Die Griechen in der Kolchis (historisch-archäologishcher Abriss), Amsterdam 1998, 5–70. 75 K.K. Shilik, “Oscillations of the Black Sea and ancient landscapes”, in Chapman and Dolukhanov (eds), Landscapes in Flux, op. cit., 115–130. 76 G.R. Tsetskhladze, “The silver phiale mesomphalos from Kuban (Northern Caucasus)”, Oxford Journal of Archaeology (OJA) 13, 1994, 199–215. 77 Tsetskhladze, Die Griechen, op. cit., 12–25. 78 G.K. Shamba, Esherskoe gorodishche [Eshera City-Sitet], Tbilisi 1980, 10–16 (in Russian); G.R. Tsetskhladze, “More finds of early Greek pottery in the Pontic hinterland”, in E. Herring, I. Lemos, F. Lo Schiavo, L. Vagnetti, R. Whitehouse and J. Wilkins (eds), Across Frontiers: Etruscans, Greeks,

Phoenicians and Cypriots. Studies in honour of David Ridgway and Francesca Romana Serra Ridgway, London 2006, 105–110. 79 This subject is examined in detail (with full bibliography) in Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 42–43. 80 G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Die kolkischen Stempel”, Klio 73(2), 1991, 361–381. 81 M.Y. Triester, “Bronzoliteinoe remeslo Bospora” [“Bronzesmith of the Bosporos”], Soobeshcheniya Gosudarstvennogo Muzeya Izobrazitel’nykh Isskustv im. A.S. Pushkina 10, 1992, 66–110 (in Russian). On metalworking, see now M.Y. Treister, Hammering Techniques in Greek and Roman Jewellery and Toreutics (Colloquia Pontica 8), Leiden-Boston-Cologne 2001. 82 Tsetskhladze, “The artistic taste”, op. cit., 8, and Tsetskhladze and Kuznetsov, “Phanagoria”, op. cit., 24. 83 Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 66–67. 84 M. Triester and F. Shelov-Kovedyaev, “An inscribed conical object from Hermonassa”, Hesperia 58, 1989, 289–296; A.I. Boltunova, “Nadpisy iz Gorgippii” [“Inscriptions from Gorgippia”], Vestnik Drevnei Istorii 1, 1986, 60–61 (in Russian). 85 This subject is discussed in detail (with full bibliography) in Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 51–67. 86 Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 176. 87 Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 35; Y.G. Vinogradov, Politicheskaya istoriya Ol’viiskogo polisa [Political History of the City of Olbia], Moscow 1989, 63 (in Russian). 88 A.S. Rusyaeva, “Vneshnetogovye svyazi Ol’vii v VI-II do n.e. (po dannym zapadnogo temenosa)” [“Trading ties of Olbia in the 6th-2nd centuries BC (finds from the west temenos)”], in Torgovlya i torgovets v antichnom mire [Trade and Traders in the Ancient World], Moscow 1997, 107–108 (in Russian). 89 This subject is analysed in detail (with full bibliography) in Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 51–67. 90 The interpretation of Greek pottery found in local settlements and graves has caused difficulties. For the latest, see G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Pots and pandemonium: The earliest East Greek pottery from North Pontic native settlements”, Pontica XL, 2007, 37–70. 91 Shramko, Bel’skoe, op. cit., 121–126, 174–179. 92 The most recent is G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Trade on the Black Sea in the Archaic and Classical periods: Some observations”, in H. Parkins and C. Smith (eds), Trade, Traders and the Ancient City, London-New York 1998, 52–74, and “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 65–67. See now G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Black Sea trade: Some further general observations”, Jahrbuch für Kleinasiatische Forschung XIX/1, Istanbul University, forthcoming, and “Pontic slaves in Athens: Orthodoxy and reality”, in P. Mauritsch, W. Petermandl, R. Rollinger and C. Ulf (eds), Antike Lebenswelten. Konstanz-Wandel-Wirkungsmacht. Festschrift für Ingomar Weiler zum 70. Geburtstag (Philippika 25), Wiesbaden 2008, 309–319. 93 See Tsetskhladze, “Trade on the Black Sea”, op. cit., 54–63. See now G.R. Tsetskhladze, “‘Grain for Athens’. The View from the Black Sea”, in R. Alston and O. van Nijf (eds), Feeding the Ancient Greek City, Leuven-Paris-Dudley, MA 2008, 47–62. 94 Tsetskhladze, “Greek Colonisation”, op. cit., 36–42. 95 S.D. Kryzhitskii (ed.), Sel’skaya territoriya Ol’vii [The Rural Territories of Olbia], Kiev 1989, 79 (in Russian). 96 S.A. Krebs, “Greek colonization and agriculture in Dobruja”, in Fossey (ed.), Proceedings, op. cit., 53–54. 97 Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 206; A.N. Shcheglov, Severo-sapadnyi Krym v antichnyu epokhu [The North-West Crimea During Antiquity], Leningrad 1978, 75–85 (in Russian); Kryzhitskii (ed.), Sel’skaya territoriya, op. cit.; A.A. Maslennikov, Elleniskaya khora na krayu Oikumeny: Sel’skaya territoriya evropeiskogo Bospora v antichnuyu epokhu [The Greek Chora at the Ends of the World: The Rural Periphery of the European Bosporos in Antiquity], Moscow 1998, 26–180 (in Russian); A. Wasowicz, “Urbanisation et organisation de la chora coloniale grecque autour de la mer Noire”, in Modes de contacts et processus de transformation dans les sociétés anciennes (Collection de l’École Française de Rome 67), Rome 1983, 911–936. See also Vallet, Le monde grec, op. cit., 477–495. 98 N.B. Golovacheva, K.K. Marchenko and E.Y. Rogov, “Unikal’nye sooruzheniya severnogo raiona Ol’viiskoi khory” [“Unique construction in the north part of the Olbian chora”], Rossiiskaya Arkheologiya 3, 1998, 99–110 (in Russian). 99 1999 excavations conducted by the Institute of Archaeology, Russia Academy of Sciences, Moscow. I wish to thank S.L. Solovyov for this information. 100 J.C. Carter, “Metapontum-land: Wealth and population”, in Descœudres (ed.), Greek Colonists, op. cit., 405–441.

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The City in the Greek Colonial World “Megaroni Neapol’ya skifskogo” [“Megara of Scythian Neapolis”], Arkheologiya 1, 1995, 88–100 (in Russian). See now Y.P. Zaytsev, The Scythian Neapolis (2nd century BC to 3rd century AD). Investigations into the Graeco-Barbarian City on the Northern Black Sea Coast (BAR International Series 1219), Oxford 2004. 114 P. Danner, “Megara, Megara Hyblaia and Selinus: The relationship between the town planning of a mother city, a colony and a sub-colony in the Archaic period”, in Andersen et al. (eds), Urbanization in the Mediterranean, op. cit., 161. For the latest on urbanization, see R. Osborne and B. Cunliffe (eds), Mediterranean Urbanization 800–600 B.C., Oxford 2005. 115 The number of colonies speaks for itself. The Copenhagen Polis Centre’s inventory (Hansen and Nielsen (eds), An Inventory, op. cit.) contains 279 colonies, 50 of them situated in Hellas. Different publications have suggested a variety of numbers: A.J. Graham listed 139 founded between 800 and 500 BC (“The colonial expansion of Greece”, op. cit., 160–162), R. Osborne 146 from the beginning of the Dark Ages to the end of the Archaic Period (R. Osborne, Greece in the Making, 1200–479 B.C., London 1996, 121–125), and G.R. Tsetskhladze 149, all from the Archaic period (Tsetskhladze, “Revisiting ancient Greek colonisation”, op. cit., lxvii-lxxiii). T. Figueira lists 25 Athenian Classical colonies, 7 Athenian cleruchies, and 47 cases of Athenian recolonisation (T. Figueira, “Colonisation in the Classical period”, in Tsetskhladze, Greek Colonisation: An Account, vol. 2., op. cit., 508–515, tables 1–2).

S.F. Strzheletskii, Klery Khersonesa Tavricheskogo [Lots in the Tauric Peninsula], Simferopol 1961 (in Russian); M. Dufkova and J. Pečirka, “Excavations of farms and farm houses in the chora of Chersonesos in the Crimea”, Eirene VIII, 1970, 123–174; M. Jameson, “Private space and the Greek city”, in O. Murray and S. Price (eds), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander, Oxford 1990, 173–174; S. Saprykin, Ancient Farms and Land-Plots on the Khora of Khersonesos Taurike: Research in the Herakleian Peninsula 1974–1990, Amsterdam 1994, 83–87, 121–147 (Appendix 1 by E.N. Zerebetsoff ); J. Carter, “Khora Metaponta v Lukanii i Khersonesa v Tavrike (opyt sravnitel’nogo analiza)” [“Chorai of Metaponto in Lucania and of Chersonesus in Taurica (an attempt at a comparative study)”], in S.D. Kryzhitskii (ed.), Antichnye polisy i mestnoe naselenie Prichemomor’ya [Ancient Cities of the Black Sea Coast and the Local Population], Sevastopol 1995, 167– 175 (in Russian). See now Carter, Discovering the Greek Countryside, op. cit., 92–160. 102 J. Boardman, The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity, London 1994, 49–74, 225–291; Carratelli (ed.), The Western Greeks, op. cit., 523–626; and A.J. Domínguez, “Hellenization in Iberia?: The reception of Greek products and influences by the Iberians”, in Tsetskhladze (ed.), Ancient Greeks, op. cit., 301–330. 103 G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Who built the Scythian and Thracian royal and élite tombs?”, OJA 17, 1998, 55–92. 104 J. Bouzek, M. Domaradzki and S.H. Archibald (eds), Pistiros I: Excavations and Studies, Prague 1996, 13–45; J. Bouzek, L. Domaradzka and Z.H. Archibald (eds), Pistiros II-III: Excavations and Studies, Prague 2002, 2007; Archibald, The Odrysian Kingdom, op. cit., 141; and Z.H. Archibald, “Thracian cult: From practice to belief ”, in Tsetskhladze (ed.), Ancient Greeks, op. cit., 439–466. The identification of Vetren with the Emporion Pistiros mentioned in an inscription found nearby is still questionable. See G.R. Tsetskhladze, “Pistiros in the system of Pontic emporia (Greek trading and craft settlements in the hinterland of the northern and eastern Black Sea and elsewhere)”, in L. Domaradzka et al. (eds), Structures économiques dans la péninsule Balkanique VIIe-IIe siècle avant J.-C., Opole 2000, 235–246  ; M. Tiverios, “Greek colonisation of the northern Aegean”, in G.R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonisation and Other Settlements Overseas, vol. 2, Leiden-Boston 2008, 87–89. 105 Archibald, The Odrysian Kingdom, op. cit., 141; J. Bouzek, “The first Thracian urban and rural dwellings, and stonecutting techniques”, in Tsetskhladze and de Boer (eds), The Black Sea Region, op. cit., 243–252. See now K. Kisov, Trakiiskata kultura v regiona na Plovdiv i techenieto na r. Stryama prez vtorata polovina na I khil.pr.khr.[Thracian Culture in the Plovdiv Region and the Valley of the River Stryama in the Second Half of the 1st Millennium BC], Sofia 2004 (in Bulgarian with summary in English); J. Bouzek, “Urbanisation in Thrace”, in J. Bouzek and L. Domaradzka (eds), The Culture of the Thracians and their Neighbours. Proceedings of the International Symposium in Memory of Prof. Mieczyslaw Domaradzki, with a Round Table “Archaeological Map of Bulgaria” (BAR International Series 1350), Oxford 2005, 1–7. 106 K.K. Marchenko, “Bosporskoe poselenie na Elizavetovskom gorodishche” [“Settlement on the Bosporos at the city-site at Elizavetovskoe”], in Koshelenko (ed.), Ocherki, op. cit., 174–186 (in Russian); as well as I.B. Brasinskij and K.K. Marchenko, Elisavetevskoje: Skythische Stadt im Don-Delta, Munich 1984. See now K.K. Marčenko, V.G. Žitnikov and V.P. Kopylov, Die Siedlung Elizavetovka am Don, Moscow 2000 (parallel text in Russian and German). 107 B.N. Grakov, Kamenskoe gorodishche na Dnepre [The City-site at Kamenskoe on the Dnieper], Moscow 1954, 63 (in Russian); and A.G. Pleshivenko, “Torgovye svyazi Kamenskogo gorodishcha” [“Trading ties of the city-site at Kamenskoe”], Drevnosti Stepnogo Prichernomor’ya i Kryma III, 1992, 167– 172 (in Russian). 108 Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 87–88. The name of this settlement was Labrys, as mentioned in the inscription found here (for the latest discussion, see A.J. Graham, “Thasos and the Bosporan Kingdom”, Ancient West & East 1.1, 2002, 87–101). 109 Koshelenko, Kruglikova and Dolgorukov (eds), Antichnye gosudarstva, op. cit., 92; A.L. Aleksandrovskii et al., “Raevskoe gorodishche i ego okrestnosti” [“The city-site at Raevskoe and its environs”], Drevnosti Bospora 2, 1999, 7–29 (in Russian). 110 Tsetskhladze, Die Griechen, op. cit., 38–44. 111 D.P. Dimitrov and M. Čičikova, The Thracian City of Seuthopolis, Oxford 1978, 6–14; Owens, The City, op. cit., 77–78. 112 O.D. Lordkipanidze, “Vani: An ancient city of Colchis”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 32(2), 1991, 151–195; A. Wasowicz, “Vani en Géorgie: Urbanisme grec et traditions colchidiennes”, Archeologia XLIII, 1992, 15–33. 113 T.N. Vysotskaya, Neapol’: Stolitsa gosudearstva pozdnykh skifov [Neapolis: The Capital of the Late Scythians], Kiev 1979, 35–72 (in Russian); Y.P. Zaitsev, 101

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CHAPTER 14

Urban Planning in the Classical Period Wolfram Hoepfner Professor at the Institute of Classical Archaeology Freie Universität Berlin

Miletos

The Greek city-states of the Archaic and Classical periods were relatively limited in area, in contrast to the states of the East where cities extended over immense areas, just as in the kingdoms of Hellenistic times. The area of a city influences the way in which its inhabitants coexist. During the Classical period there were no huge metropolises inhabited by people of different ethnic origins, but units of limited size where usually everyone knew each other.

Following the victorious conclusion of the Persian Wars, the main concern of people was to rebuild and to reorganize the ruined cities. The inhabitants of the old and wealthy city of Miletos had been expelled by the Persians. When they returned, fifteen years later, they found their city in ruins and decided to rebuild it on the basis of a new plan. They chose as their model the numerous colonies in the Mediterranean and the Euxine Pontus (Black Sea) region, about 70 of which were colonies of Miletos itself.

The great philosophers Aristotle and Plato, as well as Hippodamos of Miletos who lived two generations earlier, were thinkers preoccupied with the state and their theories were not without an effect on architecture. Each city-state had its own laws and was de facto autonomous. During the sixth century BC, and while noble families and tyrants ruled, the people were acquiring greater power. Two events brought about significant political and social changes. The first was the fall of the tyranny in Athens and the assumption of control by Kleisthenes, who accelerated the transition to self-government by the society of citizens, which was late named democracy (“government by the people”) and was adopted by most Greek cities. The second was the Greek victories over the Persians, which seemed nothing short of a miracle and bolstered the selfconfidence of the cities that participated in this achievement.

In accordance with the prevailing custom in the colonies, land was distributed in equal parts to the inhabitants of Miletos. The equality of citizens was founded on the system of drawing lots for allocation of the plots of land. There are no historical references to this procedure, but from the ruins of the city uncovered by excavation the layout of the plots is revealed.1 Thus Miletos (fig. 1) was the first Greek city-metropolis that was built according to an urban plan. The building blocks in the north and south were of the same size and were formed by equal plots of 260 m.2 each. This rule, which still applies for “detached houses in a row”, was definitive for the entire Classical period. Unfortunately, only one house from this period has been found at Miletos, near the temple of Athena.2 It has a courtyard with various adjacent rooms, among them an andron with an antechamber.

New ways of running the city by the citizens had to be found, and it is remarkable how, within just a few years of their application, these managed to create models of administrative centres and building complexes. The ekklesia of the demos, the prytaneion, the theatre for popular assemblies and the law courts required space in the centre of the city and therefore changed its structure. Public space gained greater importance in Classical times than in any other period. The degree to which citizens identified with their city-state seems unbelievable to us today. Characteristic are the extensive public areas within cities, the peculiar phenomenon of the “standardization of houses” in newly-founded cities and the cultural significance of the andron (men’s apartment), which from the Classical period onward existed in almost every house as the venue for symposia. Since matters of public interest were discussed in these spaces, it is no exaggeration to consider the andron as a public space within the private house.

From the late seventh century BC a change took place in the bosom of Greek society. The institution of the andron and of the symposium (from which women were excluded), acquired increasingly greater importance. We can take it that the andron played a catalytic role in the planning of private houses in Miletos. The new Miletos differed from its colonies in that an enormous area – as big as a small town – at the centre of the city was destined for public needs. This innovation was applied thanks to the experiences of the colonies and on account of the limited space in the old city of Miletos. Another significant fact was that the citizens’ interest in public affairs was growing steadily. The extensive city centre as an arena of public life, which was not confined to the agora, became the norm for all cities founded in the Classical period. Three large streets enclosed the area of over 400 m.2,, forming an H. This fundamental 169

Wolfram Hoepfner Athens, the Piraeus, was of major importance for the evolution of Greek urban planning. Only after investigations in recent years has it become possible to reconstruct the plan of the city and to evaluate the work of the architect and philosopher Hippodamos.3 The numerous rescue excavations carried out by the Archaeological Service in this city, now dominated by high-rise buildings, have brought to light 16 ancient streets and 12 houses, some better preserved than others. In addition, two theatres have been revealed (one very recently), investigated and documented, as well as the temple of Artemis on Mounichia Hill and the three harbours with shipsheds (neosoikoi) and gates (fig. 2). An important event was the discovery, a few years ago, of the famous skeuotheke, known from literary sources and inscriptions, which had been built in the fourth century BC by the architect Philon as an architectural model. It is a hall 130 m. long, in which the ships’ rigging and equipment were stored. The special feature of this building is that it had doors on both of its narrow sides. When ships had to be made ready in a hurry, crowding was avoided because the sailors did not all hasten in one direction to collect the tackle for their ships. From the streets uncovered it has been possible to reconstruct the grid of building blocks in its entirety. It has been shown that the Piraeus had a very dense street network and, like Miletos, three wide avenues. Two large squares defined the city centre. One of these must have been the Hippodamian agora, which is known from inscriptions. The skeuotheke, according to its inscription, stood beside the gateway of the agora. A large area for public buildings and the agora must have been situated directly behind this oblong building.

1. Miletos, ground plan of the city, as this was designed after the Persian Wars.

form is encountered in cities until the Hellenistic period. The planning of central streets was primarily of functional importance, as it connected the centre, via wide avenues, with harbours, theatres and sectors of the city.

As an expression of their esteem for the architect of the Piraeus, the Athenians awarded Hippodamos the right of citizenship. According to some confused information, Hippodamos was supposed to have lived in a house in the Piraeus, presented to him by the city. Only after in-depth analysis of the houses revealed in the excavations was this enigma solved. It was ascertained that all the houses were same and that the Piraeus in the seventh decade of the fifth century BC resembled a modern neighbourhood with “terraced” houses (figs 3 and 4). Eight identical houses of 250 m.2 comprised one building block. The nucleus of each long, narrow house-plot was a courtyard with two rooms to the south and two large rooms to the north, each with its own antechamber. The type of double-space houses which is known from Ancient Smyrna is easily discerned. Except that here all residences are uniform. This applies chiefly to the andron, which was designed to hold exactly seven couches. It is probable that the main space where the hearth burned permanently had a very high ceiling and there may have been an upper storey, with the thalamos or bedchamber above the adjoining space. The inhabitants of the Piraeus were apparently well pleased with their houses and they therefore presented Hippodamos with the model house he had built on the edge of the agora, before he embarked on building the city.

In the new plan of Miletos two slightly differing sectors can be distinguished. Both have a system of perfectly regular streets, intersecting at right angle. There is no doubt that Hippodamos himself designed the plan of his native city. This is the first instance of a tightly-knit street network. The 30 m.-wide avenues must have imparted an unprecedented air of grandeur by Greek standards, in marked contrast to the narrow alleys of earlier times. In ancient Babylon there was a street magnificently adorned with polychrome glazed tiles, of standard width for its entire length, which was used for religious processions. The Eureia Hodos (Wide Way), which ran through Miletos from north to south and was decorated on festival days, served the same purpose. Starting from the sanctuary of Apollo, the socalled Delphinion, it crossed the agora and ended at the south gate, from where it continued as a 6 m.-wide stone-paved road for many kilometres, as far as the great sanctuary and oracleshrine of Apollo at Didyma. In all Greek cities, both new ones based on the Hippodamian system and old ones that had developed slowly, there were similar magnificent streets for festive occasions. The Panathenaia festival in Athens, which is familiar to us from many representations, gives us an idea of the splendour of these processions.

The fact that the houses in the Piraeus were identical means that the port’s wealthy inhabitants did not aspire to more luxurious homes than the rest of the population. Excavation finds show that there were no deviations from the uniform or standardized dwelling, however difficult this may be for us to

The Piraeus In addition to Miletos, the construction of the new port of 170

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2. The Piraeus, plan of the city designed by Hippodamos (c. 480 BC).

Athens

imagine. Although this phenomenon has been observed in many newly-founded cities from then onward, historians reject any association with ideologies of socialist type, aimed at the egalitarianism of citizens at all levels, on the grounds that there are no indications of any such phenomenon at the time. This is cetainly true, and we must look elsewhere for the reason. As the importance of the citizens grew, a political process that was obviously not restricted to Athens, the rules that had been imposed by the aristocracy lost their authority. Community now meant a society of citizens and this is what individuals invoked at every opportunity. The decisive criterion for every action was its benefit to the city-state. The general weal of the city was the basis for decisions taken in the ekklesia of the demos. Citizens gathered every evening in the andrones of private houses, to deliberate primarily on issues concerning the polis. The institution of the andron strengthened the tendency to assess the worthiness of a citizen by his contribution to public life. The family and the world of women were unimportant. Equality, which was often defined as isonomy, became a keyword for the benefit of the state. The uniformity of dwellings was considered a means to consolidate the social body. Already since Archaic times the citizens of Sparta gathered every evening at communal suppers, attendance at which was strictly observed.

Athens had also been devastated during the Persian Wars. The enemy had set fire to everything, determined to leave only ruins in their wake. In 479 BC Themistocles took measures to erect a new circuit wall, which had to be completed within one year, so as not to incur the displeasure of the Spartans (fig. 5). After this he ordered the extension of the walls to the Piraeus, a project in which he had shown interest in the past. There was intensive building activity in Athens and the smaller cities, where rebuilding and repairing the houses were the chief concern. The new perimeter of the walls enlarged the city, mainly to the north and northeast. The new Athens, together with its port the Piraeus, had become the largest Greek city. Its population is estimated to have reached 50,000 by the end of the century. Thanks to the perspicacity of Themistocles, Athens continued to develop for many more centuries within the framework that he had defined. Unfortunately, the new northern and northeastern quarters have not yet been explored. We would very much like to know if the houses there were built according to a predetermined plan. As this was essentially a process of founding new sectors of a city and the streets had to be constructed at once, we may assume that uniform building blocks existed. There was only partial parcelling of land anew in the old quarters, but on this opportunity some very tangled up areas were tidied up. Essentially, however, house plots and therefore terms 171

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4. The Piraeus, restoration model of houses.

of ownership remained unchanged. Here the Athenians differentiated themselves from the Milesians. By common agreement with other cities, the Athenians decided not to rebuild the ancient sanctuaries, so that these would serve as eternal reminders of the destruction caused by the Persians. However, about thirty years later, on the initiative of Pericles, a plan to build new temples was implemented. It used to be thought that the centre of Athens had simply been rebuilt on the basis of the old city, but recent excavations have shown that radical changes were made in the area north of the Acropolis. What is still obscure is the date of these changes: were they

3. The Piraeus, houses and parts of houses, which are so similar that we can speak of standardized dwellings.

5. Athens during the Classical period. North of the Acropolis is a broad strip for public buildings, which begins south of the old agora.

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Urban Planning in the Classical Period building measures taken by Kleisthenes as founder of a new era, or was the destruction of Athens in 479 BC a pretext for remodelling public space? The old agora, which has only recently been located to the northeast of the Acropolis, was replaced by a much larger new agora further to the west (fig. 5).4 It was in this Agora, well known as a result of the thorough excavations, that the major public buildings were erected, at the foot of the hill of Agoraios Kolonos. Among them are the stoa of the Archon Basileus, the bouleuterion for 500 bouleutai and, a little later, the prytaneion, which was a building of circular plan, a tholos. The construction of two stoas, the Poikile (Painted) and that of the Herms, in the new Agora is associated with Kimon’s rise to power after 475 BC. Nonetheless, this same leader built the new sanctuary of Theseus, the legendary founder of the state, not in the new but in the old agora. This indicates that both squares were of political importance and that the area of 500 m.2 between them was destined exclusively for public buildings. This was where the old commercial agora, perhaps the largest of its kind in Greece, was located, where, as in oriental bazaars, merchandise was grouped and sold according to like kind. The space between the agoras, where large stoas and the gymnasium of Ptolemy were built during the Hellenistic period, must have been impressive indeed for Athenians and visitors alike. If we include the Dipylon and the Pompeion in this zone, then this majestic Athenian street was 1,000 metres in length. It terminated east of the old agora, in the Street of the Tripods, which was thus named after the choregic monuments set up there by the winners in the drama contests at the Dionysia festival. The monuments, including that of Lysikrates, which survives to this day, stood next to each other, imposing in their grandeur.

6. Athens, two houses of the Classical period in the artisans’ quarter, indicative of the simplicity of dwellings at that time.

the lower city. The choice of location of public buildings is striking. Its purpose was to create a particular perspective, seen by those entering through the gateway. The most brilliant example was the Nike temple on the Athenian Acropolis, because it shows that in such a “staging” even the size and site of the building could be determined by aesthetic canons.5 As the observer walked past the southwest stoa of the Propylaia, he beheld the perfect vision of the small temple in side view, which fitted exactly into the frame created by the west opening of the stoa. It has been established that houses in Athens, before and after the Persian Wars, were simple and modest, and this applied to those of wealthy citizens too. Excavation has shown that house plots were approximately 200 m.2 in area (fig. 6).6 Four or five small rooms were ranged around a courtyard. In contrast to the Piraeus, there were no impressive columned antechambers; it should be noted that architecture with columns was absent and rooms were by no means spacious. Even the oikos, the main living room, was small. The andron usually accommodated no more than three couches. Since the sources often mention more than one storey, the houses should be graphically restored accordingly.

Outside the walls were the large gymnasia, which were not only venues of teaching and physical exercise but also places for relaxation and recreation. In general, the cities of the Classical period were not as plain and colourless as they are often described. This can be seen mainly in the public places, which, in contrast to the neighbourhoods with unpretentious private residences, were splendidly adorned. We have already mentioned the streets where festivals took place. On the sides of these and in the public squares there were fountain houses, monuments and statues. This is especially true of the agoras, on whose verges stood stoas, the bouleuterion, the prytaneion, the law courts, the mint and sanctuaries. Athens, like Miletos and the Piraeus, is testimony to the basic urban-planning rule of the time, which dictated the provision of a large zone crossing the city from end to end for the construction of monuments and public edifices. In cities that had developed without a plan, older buildings were demolished for this purpose.

In the Athens of Pericles display of private luxury was frowned upon. And the large monumental buildings on the Acropolis were part of this logic of contrasts. Opulence and perfection were exclusive privileges of the demos as a body. During the protracted Peloponnesian War the population suffered deprivations and a mentality of passive waiting developed. When the general Nikias achieved a peace treaty in 421 BC, people were overwhelmed with relief but it was no longer possible for them to return to the “simple life”. The new attitude to life is reflected both in the brilliant personage of Alcibiades, who quickly led Athens into a new adventure, and in the art of the period, which has rightly been characterized as the “rich style”. Unfortunately, only one house of the Late Classical period has been found in Athens (fig. 7).7 The most important innovation in private residences was the peristyle, a courtyard surrounded by colonnades. Columns and architraves, which had hitherto only ornamented public buildings, gave new prestige to the private dwelling. The new catchword was “ostentation”. Thus, the small andron was replaced by a suite of at least four rooms for symposia, around the peristyle court. It was clearly a regular wing for showing off, destined to accommodate many guests and to host large receptions.

As the Parthenon in Athens, the temple of Artemis in the Piraeus or the temple of Athena in Priene show, temples were erected preferably on hills or rocky headlands, so as to be seen from a distance. Xenophon mentions in the Memorabilia (III, 8, 10) that temples and altars should be located on hills, so as to be difficult of access but visible to all, becauseit is pleasant for one to view a temple from afar and to address a prayer. All the new buildings on the Acropolis, constructed in accordance with Pheidias’ new overall plan, were visible from 173

Wolfram Hoepfner Doric moulding, have been found. The larger ones belonged to the ground-floor loggia and the smaller ones show that the main part of the dwelling was two-storeyed. A broad step in the courtyard was the bottom tread of a staircase leading to the portico of the upper storey. The columns of the pastas formed a kind of façade and gave the private houses an air of ostentation that was unknown in contemporary Athens. Over one hundred houses have come to light in the excavations at Olynthos. Most were built during the first phase of founding the city and look so much alike that we can speak not just of a local type but of standardization (fig. 10). This suggests that the inhabitants of Olynthos did not build identical houses instinctively, because they shared the same environment and way of life, but that there were specifications for buildings, stipulating the same orientation and size. These specifications were based on a common decision of the assemblies of the demos. The houses of Olynthos (fig. 11) are characterized by a unity of the oikos proper and a convenient hearth with chimney. This was where the residents cooked and the smoke escaped up the chimney. Nonetheless, many houses featured a second, stonebuilt hearth in the day room. There the sacred flame, which was never allowed to extinguish, burned in the open hestia. Whereas in earlier times this room had to be two storeys high, for the smoke to escape through the opaion, an opening in the roof, now the partly open fireplace in the oikos allowed smoke to escape even with the lower ceiling. One more room could now be built above the oikos.

7. Athens, a large house with rooms for social events, on the Areopagos. Dated to the 4th c. BC.

Olynthos The Macedonian city of Olynthos was founded in 432 BC with the assistance of King Perdikkas. It enjoyed rapid growth, only to be razed to the ground just three generations later by another Macedonian monarch, Philip II. Its inhabitants suffered a cruel fate – they were sold into slavery. For archaeology, however, excavations in Olynthos have been particularly fruitful, for they have brought to light in its ruins a city that had been built in the Classical period.8 It was a “strip city”, as known from the colonies (fig. 8). The old city, Archaic Olynthos, which had grown up without a plan, was built irregularly on a hill. The new city spread over a flat hill adjoining the old city to the north, and its maximum area was 1,000 m.2. Its circuit wall had been demolished after the catastrophe and the remains removed.

On one side of the courtyard, near the entrance, was the andron, with seven couches and an antechamber. This wing was the same size as its counterpart in the Piraeus houses, but its new location shows that the houses of Late Classical Olynthos had more rooms and were therefore more comfortable. These factors are indicative of the commodious living conditions and the greater wealth of the residents. Study of the finds has shown that after Olynthos was founded in 432 BC, two additional groups of people came to live there. The first group was given the strip of land alongside the inside of the wall, which had remained unoccupied for defensive reasons. The same familiar uniform plan was repeated in these new dwellings, which were built thirty years later. The second group failed to find space in the by now densely-populated city. But since every extra person was indispensable for defence, and not wishing to deprive the city of the protection of the walls, it was decided to expand it. This new eastern suburb has been investigated only cursorily. As a rule, it was built like the older part of the new city, but had not acquired its own wall by the time Olynthos was destroyed.

In this simple urban-planning system the building blocks were of varying lengths and consisted of two rows of equal-sized house plots. The rows of houses were separated by a narrow passageway, which allowed light to reach the spaces behind and channelled away rainwater from the roofs. The agora, in the form of a large square, was located between the old and the new city. On one of its sides was a main street, which started from the old city, crossed the entire length of the new and led outside it through the east gate. The street network was much less rigid than that of the Piraeus and we cannot therefore speak of a Hippodamian system in this case. On the hill west of the new city the ruins of public buildings and a fountain were found. It seems that the main sanctuary was situated here.

The trend towards costly houses with peristyles is observed more clearly at Olynthos than at Athens. The houses in the eastern suburb, as well as the older ones that had undergone subsequent alterations, had a peristyle court instead of the plain internal courtyard. In response to social needs, the wealthy inhabitants decorated their homes with grandiose colonnades.

As far as the houses are concerned, here too the plots were of equal size but much larger than those of Miletos. Could this be indicative of the wealth of the Macedonian farmers? The typical house in Olynthos had a pastas* (fig. 9), a kind of loggia occupying the nearly square house plot for a considerable width, with rooms to the north. At the side, in front of the pastas, were other spaces and in the middle it opened onto the courtyard with two supports. Almost all the houses had wooden columns with stone capitals. Many such capitals, with

Rhodes In 408 BC, the three existing cities on Rhodes united to form a single state and founded on the island’s nothernmost type 174

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8. Olynthos. The Macedonian city was founded in 432 BC as a “strip city”.

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9. Olynthos, restoration drawing of a house with pastas.

10. Olynthos, restoration model of houses.

11. Olynthos, ground plans of houses from the time of founding and of houses with pastas from the 4th c. BC.

the largest city that had been built up to that time (figs 12 and 13).9 Rhodes was destined to become a model city and acquired the densest street network and the largest house plots. Five harbours, in natural bays of the island’s indented coastline, surrounded the city, an indication of the importance attached to trade and the fleet.

the ancient city. Funerary monuments, occasionally carved in the rock, like the so-called tomb of the Ptolemies, were located beside the roads. In the city grove were created sanctuaries of the nymphs, resembling grottoes, a sizeable temenos for the cult of Apollo, a sanctuary of Zeus and the largest gymnasium in the city. The last included the stadium, a lecture hall and a library.

The terrain rises to the west to a height of 100 metres. There, on the acropolis, expanses of greenery, reminiscent of those we see today, were created and extended south to the area of the cemeteries, a considerable way outside the city. The modern Rhodini Park, with its colourful flora and fauna, is but one remnant of the earlier green belt to the west and southwest of

As a result of numerous careful excavations by the Archaeological Service, it has been possible to reconstruct the elaborate street network of Rhodes. Streets 5 m. wide surrounded the building insulae. Every fourth street in an east-west direction and every sixth in a north-south direction were twice as wide and constituted an arterial road. Even wider streets near the city 176

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12. Rhodes, plan of the city that was founded at the north tip of the island in 408 BC.

limits must have served to relieve the congestion in the city centre, evidently necessary since this exceeded 3 km. in width. The large free space at the centre, which is encountered also at Miletos and the Piraeus, in Rhodes took the form of a zone 70 m. wide, crossing the city from east to west. Right in the middle was the agora, and further off on a knoll stood a Doric peripteral temple, column drums from which have survived. Public buildings and monuments were erected in this zone, one after another, such as a small sanctuary of Helios, other sanctuaries and a victory monument in the form of a cairn of slingstones. However, the main temple of the patron god Helios was close to the sea. According to an inscription, it stood above the naval harbour basin, on the site now occupied by the palace of the Hospitaller Knights of St John of Jerusalem.

northeast sectors was initially excluded from habitation. It is quite probable that there were gardens in this area, since no traces of earlier buildings or tombs have come to light. One hundred years after the city was founded, when the State of Rhodes had become an important power, houses were built in this reserved sector too.

Orrhaon The remains of the best-preserved houses of the Classical period are in the village of Orrhaon (mod. Ammotopos), close to the ancient city of Ambrakia (mod. Arta). The village was built in the mid-fourth century BC and has a regular ground plan (fig. 14).10 Zones of single house plots were separated by streets just 3 m. wide. A wall girt the oval village of approximately 100 houses. The public space, with a capacious cistern and a small administrative building, was in the northern sector, near

A megalopolis such as Rhodes could not be filled with inhabitants and densely built up, and for this reason its 177

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13. Rhodes, image of the city in the Hellenistic period (drawing by I. Arvanitis).

14. Orrhaon, plan of the village that was built c. 360 BC, near Ambrakia (mod. Arta).

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15. Orrhaon, “House 1” in which walls are preserved in places up to the base of the roof.

a courtyard gate. There was no theatre or gymnasium, for such facilities only existed in cities. Nonetheless, there must have been a sanctuary intra muros, most probably on a hill to the southeast.

The houses at Orrhaon, which have a symposium room and a bathroom, bedrooms and service rooms, are no exception. Equally spacious farmhouses with similar facilities have also been excavated in Attica.11

The farmers of Orrhaon were by no means poor. Their houses covered a surface area of 270 m.2 and show that living conditions in the village were in no way inferior to those in cities. In “House 1” (fig. 15) the outside walls are preserved up to the bottom of the roof and built of limestone blocks laid obliquely, without plaster. The windows were no more than slits to admit a little light. Only the andron had larger windows with shutters. The entrance gate led through a short passage into the small courtyard (fig. 16). The main living room (oikos) opened onto the courtyard, forming a frontage with a twostorey colonnade. It was provided with a large central hearth (fig. 17). From the sockets in the walls, for the beams, it is clear that this space was of substantial height and that a staircase led to an open corridor leading to two small bedrooms with balcony. Below these bedrooms there was a bathroom and a weaving shed. In addition, the farmhouse was provided with a workspace, in which agricultural implements were found, and a stable for the horses, opposite the entrance. Above this was a loft, which was probably to house slaves. It is estimated that about 10 persons lived in such a residence.

Priene The founding of Priene is associated with the name of a famous architect, Pytheas, who having participated in erecting the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos, in 360 BC, went on to build the temple of Athena at Priene. The fact that this renowned marble temple with its corner columns is incorporated perfectly in the system of streets and building blocks shows not only that they were built contemporaneously but also that Pytheas most probably designed the plan of the entire city.12 In the Mykale mountains, near the coast of Ionia in Asia Minor, atop a marble peak, is the crag of the acropolis (fig. 18), while to the south, almost in the middle, is a plateau suitable for building a city, even though the ascent from the fields to the walled city must have taxed its inhabitants. At Priene and in other Late Classical cities, a preference for south-facing house fronts is observed. The main street ran from east to west but there was no gateway at the east end, because of the precipitous terrain. The east gateway was situated higher, to the north, and 179

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16. Orrhaon, ground plan of a house.

17. Orrhaon, interior of the living room of “House 1”.

18. Priene, site of the city on a slope of Mt Mykale.

20. Priene, plan of the city that was founded c. 360 BC. It was most probably designed by the architect Pytheas.

could be reached via a sharp turn of the main street. The reason for the meridional orientation of the houses is explained clearly by Xenophon: rooms facing south are pleasantly warmed by the low winter sun, while in summer, when the sun is high, a

19. Priene, the houses in the city are orientated southwards, to exploit solar energy effectively.

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21. Priene. Restoration drawing of the city, with identical houses, the agora at the centre and the temple of Athena on an elevated podium (drawing by J. Wendel).

continued southwards, passing through the gymnasium, which was intra muros. The bouleuterion, prytaneion and sanctuary of Zeus, next to the agora, followed suit. The temple of Zeus, like the theatre, which was discovered during the excavations, was built later, in the second century BC, and this area seems to have been kept free, just like the corresponding one in Rhodes, to be built in gradually as necessary. The temple of Athena stands on an elevated podium in a prominent position above the agora (fig. 21). This perfectly balanced peripteral temple, with an inscription by Alexander the Great, was, together with the Mausoleum, considered to be a model of the later Ionic order. The use of beams and coffers of the same size in order to achieve the same proportions expresses the notion of a uniform grid and of isonomy, as encountered in the residential quarters. The demos of Priene was composed of citizens of equal rank incorporated into a unity, having equal house plots and houses, and forming a city of equal components. The philosophy of the Pythagoreans, which is founded on numbers and ratios, has been applied at various points of this city, which is considered to be a work of art. Thus, the ratio of the basic rectangle of the temple of Athena is 2:1, the respective ratio of the agora, to north and south of the main street, is 3:2, and the ratio of length to width in the insulae is 4:3 (fig. 22). Moreover, the tetraktys, the sacred symbol of the Pythagoreans, was chosen for the most important sectors of the city, for the sanctuaries, public and private space. This symbol, which consists of ten points, reveals the way in which Music, Geometry and Architecture were interwoven in the Classical period.

22. Priene. The most important components of the city correspond to the ratios of the tetraktys, sacred symbol of the Pythagoreans.

cool shadowed area is formed (fig. 19). Priene was built according to the Hippodamian system, with almost square insulae consisting of two rows with four narrow house plots in each (figs 20 and 21). The streets were very narrow at the edge of the city and became wider towards the centre in order to cope with the traffic there. The main street linking the eastern and western sectors of the city was particularly wide, as were the two streets at right angle to these, at the edge of the agora. Like Miletos, the Piraeus and Rhodes, the city had an H-shaped ground plan, integrated into which was the agora. As in other cities, there was a zone for public buildings, comprising a series of insulae which started at the theatre in the northern sector and 181

Wolfram Hoepfner *Pastas = “porch or portico in front of a house, in the form of a columned

prostoon, Homer’s aithousa” (A. Orlandos and J. Travlos, Lexicon of Ancient Architectural Terms (in Greek)).

Notes W. Hoepfner (ed.), Geschichte des Whonens, vol. 1. Vorgeschichte, Frühgeschichte, Antike, von 5000 v. Chr. Bis 500 n. Chr. (Deutsche Verlagsantalt), Stuttgart 1999, 207–212, and W. Hoepfner and E. Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland (Deutsche Kunstverlag), Munich 1994 (2nd edn), 17–21. 2 W. Held, “Heiligtum und Wohnhaus”, Instanbuler Mitteilungen 33, 1993, 371–380. 3 Hoepfner and Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt, op. cit., 22–49 (in collaboration with G. Steinhauer and I. Kraounaki). 4 G. Dontas, “The true Aglaurion”, Hesperia 52, 1983, 48–63. M. Korres noticed that two very wide stoas that begin next to the Tower of the Winds and extend eastwards were built in the Hellenistic period. See in P. Tournikiotis (ed.), The Parthenon and its Impact on Modern Times (Melissa), Athens 1994, 143–144. See also T.L. Shear, “The agora and the democracy”, in W.D.E. Coulson (ed.), The Archaeology of Athens and Attica under the Democracy (Oxbow Books), Oxford 1994, 225–148, and S. Miller, “Architecture as evidence for the identity of the early polis”, in M.H. Hansen (ed.), Sources for the Ancient Greek City-State (Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters), Copenhagen 1995. 5 W. Hoepfner, “Propyläen und Nike-Tempel”, in W. Hoepfner (ed.), Kult und Kultbauten auf der Akropolis (Wasmuth), Berlin 1997, 160–177. 6 R.S. Young, “An industrial quarter of ancient Athens”, Hesperia 20, 1951, 135–288. Summarily for the houses see J. Travlos, Bildlexicon zur Topographie des antiken Athen (Wasmuth), Tübingen 1971, 392–401, and J.E. Jones, “Town and country house of Attica in Classical times”, in H. Mussche et alii (eds), Thorikos and the Lavrion in Archaic and Classical Times (Colloquium Ghent 1973, MIGRS 1), Ghent 1975, 63–140. 7 See Hesperia 1973 (146–156). 8 S.M. Robinson and J.W. Graham, Olynthus VIII (The Johns Hopkins Press), Baltimore 1938; D.M. Robinson, Olynthus XII (The Johns Hopkins Press), Baltimore 1946; and Hoepfner and Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt, op. cit., 51–113. 9 G. Konstantinopoulos, Ancient Rhodes (National Bank Cultural Foundation), Athens 1986 (in Greek). 10 S. Dakaris, “Orrhaon”, Archaiologike Ephemeris 1986, 108–146 (in Greek), and Hoepfner, Geschichte des Wohnens, op. cit., 384–411. 11 J.E. Jones, “Town and country houses of Attica in Classical times”, in Miscellanea Graeca 1 (University College of North Wales), Bangor, Gwynedd, 1973, 63–140. 12 T. Wiegand and H. Schrader, Priene (Georg Reimer), Berlin 1904; Hoepfner and Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt, op. cit., 188–225; Hoepfner, Geschichte des Wohnens, op. cit., 338–351. 1

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CHAPTER 15

The Hellenistic City Edwin J. Owens Senior Lecturer, Department of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology University of Wales, Swansea

The conquests of Alexander the Great and the emergence of the successor kingdoms transformed the Greek and Asiatic worlds (fig. 1). The changed political, social and economic conditions that resulted from the defeat of Persia and the establishment of the Hellenistic kingdoms spread Greek culture and the Greek concept of urban life throughout the former Persian Empire and as far as Afghanistan.1 They also profoundly affected the Greek city.

ways. Existing cities were renovated and embellished, and new cities were established. In parts of Greece and the coastal regions of Asia Minor Greek cities had a long history. Nevertheless, even in regions where Greek urban life already existed the opportunity to establish new cities was not totally lacking. Usually in this case the establishment of new cities was achieved by the synoecism of surrounding existing communities into larger urban centres. When King Kassander founded Thessaloniki, named after his wife, the sister of Alexander, in 316 BC, he brought together no less than twentysix communities. The strategic and economic importance of Thessaloniki is evidenced by the fact that it is now a bustling modern city, which still covers much of the site of the ancient one. Demetrias, on the other hand, now abandoned, offers the opportunity to understand the processes that stimulated the Macedonian kings to create new cities in areas where urban life already existed, and the impact they had on the surrounding district from which they drew their population.5

Alexander himself founded many cities and for the most part his successors, following his example, continued the policy of founding new cities and reorganizing existing ones.2 The reasons for this policy were numerous. They included the need to maintain control over the newly conquered areas and to exploit the new commercial opportunities that the changed world offered. However, the Greek city was also used as a basic method of Hellenization and the instrument through which the Greek way of life was to be spread to the Asiatic peoples of the former Persian Empire. Furthermore, the Hellenistic dynasts also found the city the ideal means for self-promotion and self-aggrandisement.3 By means of an extensive programme of urban building and city construction the Hellenistic kings proclaimed the greatness of their power and the glory of their reigns. Newly-founded cities often took the name of a member of the immediate family; grandiose building schemes were undertaken.

Demetrias and the Hippodamian system Demetrios Poliorketes succeeded to the throne of Macedon in 394 BC, and the following year in order to commemorate his accession and to create a place of residence for himself, he founded Demetrias on the Gulf of Pagasai in Magnesia, Thessaly (fig. 2). The new city was built adjoining the existing community of Pagasai and was populated by the synoecism of at least twelve of the existing local communities.6 But the founding of the city did not merely pander to the egotistical tendencies of Demetrios, after whom it was named. It involved important strategic and commercial considerations too. Demetrias commanded the mountains Pelion and Ossa, and the strategically important passes into central Greece via Tempe. Indeed, the geographer of the Roman period, Strabo, records that as one of several important cities through which the kings of Macedon dominated the Greek city-states, Demetrias was called “the shackles”.7 The situation of Demetrias on the Gulf of Pagasai, with access to the Aegean Sea, further meant that it also developed as an important naval base and commercial city, producing, among other commodities, purple dye.

The cities of the Hellenized world were greatly affected by the dominance of the Macedonian kings. The overriding military and political power of the dynasts had to be reconciled with the long-established traditions of independence and autonomy that had become synonymous with the Greek city prior to the victory of Philip II at Chaironeia in Boeotia, in 338 BC. The new political realities of the age effectively meant that while the rival kings might promise freedom and espouse the cause of democracy, existing Greek cities lost full political independence and total freedom of action.4 In addition, few were exempt from the financial obligations and exactions which the kings imposed. But the cities benefited in other ways. Many profited from the gifts and benefactions they received from the kings and from the new economic and commercial opportunities that the Hellenistic world offered.

Regular grid planning remained the quickest and most convenient method of establishing new cities. Hippodamos, the fifth-century BC urban-planner and political theorist,

These new conditions influenced the Greek city in numerous 183

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1. Map of the Hellenistic world: trade routes (after P. Green, Alexander to Actium (Thames and Hudson), London 1990, 364, fig. 21).

2:1, and all the buildings conformed to the size of the insula or multiples of it. Demetrias fits this pattern. The strong city walls, about 7 kms in circuit, enclose both the rocky promontory of Pefkakia, which protrudes into the Gulf of Pagasai, and, inland, a low hill, which acted as the city’s acropolis. The area inside the walls is divided by a series of parallel and perpendicular streets into insulae of uniform 2:1 proportions. While little is known of the internal arrangement of the house blocks at Demetrias, Kassope, north of the Gulf of Arta in western Greece and founded a generation before, gives an idea of the arrangements of the residential insulae (fig. 3).9 Each insula was subdivided longitudinally into two uniform rows of houses of equal area. Such a simple mathematical approach to urban planning allowed the incoming population to be settled quickly. At the same time the barrack-like uniformity of the internal arrangements of the houses and dwellings within the insulae emphasized the notion of equality, which the kings could impose upon the new inhabitants of these cities. Soon after the founding of Demetrias, several important public buildings were added. They included a theatre, a large agora with a temple to Artemis Iolkia and, as the city was the seat of the king, a palace. Although the Hellenistic kings supported democratic constitutions within the cities, political reality was often different. This is clear at Demetrias, where the proximity of Demetrios’ palace to the agora, once the physical sign of political independence, illustrates the new political relationship which existed between the Hellenistic kings and the cities.

2. Demetrias, (in “Chronique des fouilles en 1971”, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 96, 1972, fig. 317).

had perfected and monumentalized the art of regular urban planning.8 In contrast to Hippodamos’ achievements, however, Hellenistic grid planning remained essentially functional. The newly-founded cities were laid out as series of repetitive building units, termed insulae. The dimensions of the individual insula were usually reduced to simple mathematical proportions of 184

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3. Housing block, Kassope (W. Hoepfner and E.-L. Schwandner(eds), Haus und Polis im klassischen Griechenland, 1986, 113, fig. 110). A- Andron; H- Atrium; N- Auxiliary space; B-Bath; O- Dwelling area; W- Trading areas.

4. Antioch-on-the-Orontes (G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria, 1961).

The location of Demetrias, its layout, and the provision of public buildings illustrate the purpose for which these new cities were created, and the impact they had on the surrounding area. Named after its founder, Demetrios, it fully exploited the strategic and commercial potential of the site. In its layout and internal arrangements it conformed to the new political realities that governed relations between the polis and the central authority of the king, who could organize and direct its development. Demetrias, however, also brought a new and increased level of urbanization to the region. The city became the chief urban centre of the region, and those communities in which occupation continued after the synoecism were relegated to dependent towns and villages (komai). Moreover, its dominance continued long after the power of Macedon had been destroyed. Strabo maintained that, although by his day its power had been greatly reduced, the city continued to be the most important urban centre of the region and to dominate the surrounding communities.10

domination of the Greeks over the indigenous population. Although the cities of Seleucid Syria varied in importance and size, they often conformed to a standard pattern. Most had an independently fortified acropolis, which was situated at the edge of and overlooked the city. Here the king’s representative often resided, who exercised the powers of the king at a local level and commanded the garrison. Ostensibly the garrison was established to protect the city either from local disturbances or against the attacks of other rival Hellenistic kings. But the garrison must also have been a constant reminder to the Greek population that its independence was compromised. As at Demetrias the city plans were standardized. Often, a reduced number of main streets ran parallel in one direction and these were intersected by numerous perpendicular streets to produce uniform housing blocks. Most of the Seleucid foundations conformed to this layout, which is exemplified at Antioch-on-the-Orontes (fig. 4). The site, chosen by Seleucus I to be his capital in 300 BC and named after his son, Antiochus, lay fifteen miles inland from the coast on the plain between Mount Silpios and the River Orontes.12 At least five major avenues ran across the site from northeast to southwest, the central one of which was further widened and aggrandized with colonnades in the Roman period. The avenues were intersected at right angle by over twenty crossstreets. The resulting housing blocks, measuring 112×58 m., conformed approximately to the ratio of 2:1, which became standard in many new foundations. Seleucus I recruited up to 5,300 settlers to populate his new city. These were drawn from Athenians, Macedonians, his own retired soldiers, Cretans, Cypriots and Argeians, as well as existing Greek inhabitants on the site and settlers from Antigonia.13 The diverse origins

The urban planning of the Seleucids: Antioch-onthe-Orontes The Seleucid kings of Syria were prolific builders of cities. In all, they founded over sixty cities in the region extending from western Turkey to Iran. A few were in reality existing communities, which had been renamed after the founder and given a new Greek-type constitution; many were completely new foundations, which brought Greek urban life to areas of the East where previously cities had scarcely existed.11 The purpose of these cities was to maintain the political and military supremacy of the Seleucids and the cultural 185

Edwin J. Owens One of the most important urban buildings, through which the superiority and exclusivity of Greek over native culture was maintained, was the gymnasium. The gymnasium was both an educational establishment, which aimed at the physical and intellectual development of its members, and a social club, often aimed primarily at the offspring of the élite. Membership was usually strictly controlled, and certain groups and individuals, such as slaves and ex-slaves, vulgar professions and foreigners, were excluded. Thus, for a native to gain entry, he would not only have to assume a totally Greek lifestyle, but also, as Greek custom required, he would have to exercise naked, a practice which many Orientals would find loathsome. Originally an open area for exercise, training and relaxation, from the fourth century BC onwards the gymnasium became increasingly embellished architecturally. It consisted of a central, colonnaded exercise yard surrounded by rooms, lecture theatres, sometimes a library, fountains, temples and other specialized educational facilities.17 At one time to be found in the suburbs of a city, the increasing importance of the gymnasium is seen by its inclusion within the walls of the city and often close to the agora in newly-founded cities. The comments of Emperor Trajan emphasize both the architectural and the institutional importance of gymnasia amongst the Greeks. When, as governor of the province of Pontus-Bithynia, Pliny the Younger forwarded a request to the emperor from the citizens of Nikaia (Nicaea) that they be allowed to build a gymnasium to replace one which had burned down, Trajan observed that these “Graeculi” liked their gymnasia, and sanctioned their request, on condition that the building met their needs and not their aspirations.19

5. The Stoa of Attalos, Athens (H.A. Thompson and R.E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora XIV, 1972).

of the settlers at Antioch reinforced the reasons for the use of a simplified, military-style urban planning. Such arrangements allowed the rapid settlement of a large incoming population, and at the same time emphasized the equality of all the new citizens, wherever and whatever their origins. The population also included a group of native Syrians, although they lived in a separate quarter from the Greeks and did not share their political rights. From the time of its foundation the city flourished and expanded. It undoubtedly became the second most important city, after Alexandria, in the Hellenistic world and, under Roman control, one of the four most important cities of the empire. Antioch’s success is explained in part by the fact that it was strategically placed close to the end of the long distance trade routes that brought commodities and luxury goods from the East. However, the city also became famous through the increasing importance and reputation of the sanctuary of Apollo. The temple was situated in fine parkland in the suburb of Daphne and, because of its prostitutes, gained a reputation as a place of pleasure.

If the gymnasium was the symbol of Greek educational and cultural superiority, the stoa was the building which represented the exceptional achievement of the Greeks in the field of public architecture and urban planning in the Hellenistic period.20 The simplicity of its plan allowed infinite adaptability to all uses, conditions and locations. In its simpler form, the stoa was long and narrow, included columns and was open on one of its long sides, but its variations were numerous. Rows of rooms were added onto one of its sides. Multi-storey stoas were constructed and Γ- and Π-shaped buildings were developed. The Stoa of Attalos, which was rebuilt by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, is a magnificent example (fig. 5).21 A long, narrow, two-storey building (116×19.40 m.) situated on the east side of the Agora, it has two colonnades, on the ground and the first floor, which led to corresponding rows of 21 rooms.

Gymnasia and stoas Despite the inclusion of elements of the local native population, many of these cities tried to maintain their exclusivity as enclaves of Greek culture in a barbarian world. Their institutions, type of government and titles of officials were founded on traditional Greek models, and the cities maintained their Greek identity, sometimes to the total exclusion of any native influence. Thus, for instance, at Seleucia-on-the-Eulaos, three centuries after its founding, all the recorded names of citizens and their patronymics were exclusively Greek,14 while the great historian of the Roman imperial period, Tacitus, could still remark of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris, that in AD 36 it remained a powerful, walled city which, faithful to its founder, Seleucus, had not decayed into barbarism.15 When individuals were accepted or oriental customs were admitted, total Hellenization was required. It is clear from an inscription recording the introduction of the cult of the Egyptian deity Serapis on Delos that, although its founder claimed to be Egyptian, both he and his whole family, from which the priests were drawn, bore Greek names, and the form of the cult itself was totally Hellenized.16

Although the origin of the building type of the stoa can be traced to the late seventh century BC,22 it was during the Hellenistic period that it acquired its greatest influence. It became the architectural symbol of Greek urban life, wherever new cities were founded. But it was in the Greek cities of Asia Minor, in particular, that the stoa made the greatest influence on and contribution to the evolution of architecture and urban planning. Stoas were used as independent public buildings to delimit agoras and other public spaces, and to link various public buildings. The south agora of Miletos provides an example of the use of stoas and the ease with which they were incorporated in 186

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7. Priene and its agora (Coulton, The Architectural Development …, op cit., 278, fig. 103).

Hellenistic period progressed, native artistic and architectural traditions were increasingly combined with traditional Greek practice. Typically oriental buildings were found within the city, in particular temples to local, native deities. The amalgamation of Greek buildings with Eastern elements took place. For example, Greek temples were placed on high podia in Eastern fashion, buildings were embellished with local architectural details, and intrusive and indigenous styles were merged. Occasionally, the coalescence, or at least co-existence, of Greek and Asiatic cultures went much further.26

Dura-Europus Dura-Europus was founded as a Greek outpost on the River Euphrates.27 Established circa 300 BC by Seleucus I and colonized by Macedonian settlers, its primary purpose was to protect the eastern frontier of the Seleucid Empire and the longdistance trade route which led from the Euphrates across the southern edge of the Fertile Crescent via Palmyra to Damascus and thence to the great entrepôts of the Levant. Its location, on a steep-sided plateau overlooking the Euphrates, was obviously chosen for military requirements and its defensive qualities, and the barrack-like regularity of its internal arrangement reflects its primary military purpose. As in other Seleucid foundations, the city was dominated by a citadel on the northeast side of the site and was enclosed by strong walls (fig. 8).

6. The south agora of Miletos ( J.J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa, 1976, 260, fig. 86).

the Hippodamian grid system.23 The south agora developed between the first quarter of the third century and the second century BC, and covers an area equivalent to 15 insulae (fig. 6). Its east side is marked by a stoa with a simple colonnade, probably a gift of King Antiochus, which led to a row of double rooms. A second row of rooms, which were in contact with the rear wall of the previous rooms and were accessible only from the street, ran along the east side of the building. The other sides of the agora were surrounded by two Γ-shaped stoas, which were separated from the east stoa by a street, and were not quite symmetrical. The north Γ-shaped stoa consisted of a double colonnade, while the south building had a row of rooms along the length of its south wall.

The city was developed intra muros as a repetitive series of rectangular house blocks, separated by a series of parallel and perpendicular streets. Here, however, the simple arithmetical formula, which conditioned the planning of the cities, was even applied to the streets. All the streets of the city were 6.35 m. in width, with the exception of the central avenue, which was exactly double, and the fourth and the eighth cross-streets, which were half as wide as the standard street. A space in the centre of the city, adjoining the main avenue and originally covering an area equal to eight insulae, was reserved for the agora. Although recognizably a Greek city, Dura-Europus did not maintain its Greek exclusivity. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that the city was captured by the Parthians in 114 BC and subsequently became a Roman colony. However, the city’s commercial importance is crucial for understanding its cosmopolitan development. As a key staging post on the River Euphrates, Dura-Europus was pivotal in the long-distance

The agora of the small city of Priene was surrounded on three sides by a Π-shaped stoa, although the east wing was extended at right angle to run alongside the north wall of the temple of Zeus (fig. 7).24 In the typical fashion of agoras with a regular layout, the independent stoa that marks the north side of the agora was separated from other buildings by a street. Priene was built on steeply sloping ground, but not even the topography could restrict the growth and construction of stoas. The commercial Γ-shaped agora, on the northwest side of the agora of Aigai, was a three-storey building, two of its storeys lying below the level of the agora because of the slope of the terrain.25 Although Hellenic culture dominated and the Greek populations of the cities emphasized their exclusivity, as the 187

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9. The agora of Assos (Coulton, The Architectural Development …, op. cit., 192, fig. 18).

was complemented by the provision of a range of other public amenities and facilities. Free distributions of grain, money and olive oil were made, bequests and legacies were established to pay for doctors, education, games, entertainments and artistic and cultural pursuits.28 Such displays of generosity were central to the success of the Hellenistic city and transformed life within it. Unfortunately not all cities benefited equally. Some, like Athens, because of its history and reputation, easily attracted benefactions, such as the imposing Stoa of Attalos, which the Pergamene king erected on the east side of the Athenian agora. Others neither had the resources themselves nor could attract the necessary interest of rich benefactors, like Panopeus in Phocis, which, according to the Greek traveller Pausanias, had none of the typical civic or public buildings and none of the amenities or facilities that richer cities provided.29

8. Dura-Europus (M. Rostovtzeff, Dura-Europus and its Art, 1938).

trade that brought luxury goods up the Euphrates, before they crossed the desert to Palmyra. It played a similar role in distributing Graeco-Roman goods eastwards. Like Delos in the Aegean and the caravan cities of Palmyra, Petra and Gerasa, such a commercially important city was bound to attract traders, entrepreneurs and businessmen of all nationalities. The result was an extraordinary mixture of Hellenic, Parthian, Semitic and Roman cultures. The temples, public buildings, paintings and inscriptions found reflect the international nature of the city’s inhabitants. Temples were dedicated to Greek, Parthian, Syrian and later Roman deities. The Jewish community erected a synagogue, and eventually Christian buildings appeared too. The original Greek agora never attained its full extent and was progressively transformed into an eastern style bazaar by the addition of shops and booths, and a large caravanserai was strategically located on the main avenue close to the agora. Providing accommodation for passing trade, such a building is indicative of the commercial importance of the city.

The provision of a varied range of urban facilities transformed life in the city, while large-scale landscaping and experiments in the composition of monumental buildings created some of the most visually spectacular sites of the ancient world. The agora of the city of Assos is symptomatic of these experiments (fig. 9). It is flanked longitudinally by two large stoas, while the chief administrative building, the bouleuterion, lies at one end and a temple at the other. Because of the steepness of the terrain the whole complex is terraced into the slope for remarkable visual effect. Pergamon, probably the most perfectly preserved capital city of the Hellenistic dynasties, represents the culmination of Hellenistic urban achievement (fig. 10). Under King Eumenes II, in particular, and his successors, Pergamon became one of the most spectacular cities in Asia Minor and one of the most important centres of literature, science, art and culture in the ancient world. Its sculptors, furthermore, influenced the development of Hellenistic sculpture throughout western Asia Minor.

Pergamon and the new monumental Greek urban planning If new cities were being developed throughout the former empire of Alexander, established cities were also undergoing radical changes, as a result of the benefactions of the kings and the feeling of civic pride and local patriotism which was engendered within the élite, who found the city the ideal mechanism for displays of public generosity. Theatres were provided for entertainment, new market buildings, symptomatic of the fact that the commercial opportunities of the age were not confined to a few strategically located cities, were built, and everywhere the all-purpose stoa building was erected. The commissioning of grandiose public buildings

Situated on a high ridge between two tributaries of the River Kaikos, the natural features of the terrain were employed to spectacular effect by means of extensive and complex terracing. A road, only 5 m. wide, led from the gate of Eumenes to the citadel. This road formed the essential link between all the major terraces of the site. On the lowest terrace there was a large and imposing market building, conveniently situated for commercial activity, close to the imposing south gate. The building was an open courtyard surrounded by a double 188

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11. The gymnasium of Pergamon (after Hansen, The Attalids …, op. cit., 248).

10. Pergamon (E.V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon, 1971).

colonnade and, because of the sloping ground, also had a basement level on the south and east sides. Beyond this, on the terrace above, there was a gymnasium complex (fig. 11). Associated with the complex were a semi-circular lecture hall and other rooms, statues and dedications, and adjoining it was a temple to Demeter. The most spectacular part of the city, however, is the citadel, situated on the summit of the mountain. The focal point of the citadel complex was the theatre (fig. 12). Supported by a massive terrace wall, the theatre was situated on the steeply sloping west side of the site and gave commanding views across the kingdom. The buildings here included another agora, several temples, the great altar to Zeus, a barracks and arsenal, and the royal palace. Like the shape of the theatre itself, the public buildings on the acropolis were arranged fanlike around the top of the theatre. Little expense was spared to provide for the material well-being of Pergamon’s citizens. Water was even supplied to the summit of an adjoining mountain (pres. Aghios Georgios), by means of an impressive pressurized water system. From here water was distributed throughout the city.

12. The theatre of Pergamon (P. Levi, Atlas, 1980, 180)

contained 200,000 volumes, although the present building is only sufficiently large to house 17,000 books.

The Attalids’ interest in and commitment to education and learning are witnessed by their patronage of teachers, educational establishments and philosophical schools in several cities. The kings themselves were avid collectors of books and manuscripts, and in order to establish Pergamon as a centre of learning and as a rival to the library of Alexandria, Eumenes built an impressive library in the upper city. Reputedly, it

The city of Pergamon undoubtedly, represents the pinnacle of Hellenistic planning. Not only did it offer its citizens a remarkable degree of comfort, but the design and splendour of its public buildings is indicative of the achievements of the Greek city in the Hellenistic age. The achievements of the Greek city in the Hellenistic 189

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Notes

period are often underestimated in comparison to those of the Classical period. Whilst the overall involvement of the city in international affairs was curtailed, it still fostered a vibrant political life. Economically, many cities prospered from the new conditions. Through the city the Greek language and Greek civilization were spread throughout Asia. Furthermore, it also engendered a civic pride and local patriotism amongst its leading citizens, which was expressed in their desire to contribute materially to the well-being of their fellow inhabitants. This generosity, together with the gifts of the Hellenistic kings, produced some of the most visually spectacular urban landscapes to be found in Europe and Asia, and brought a high level of material comfort and prosperity to the inhabitants of cities throughout the Greek world.

E.g., Ai Chanoum on the River Oxus was a Greek city, which had been founded either by Alexander or by Seleucus I: see P. Levi, Atlas of the Greek World (Phaidon), Oxford 1980, 190–191, and P. Colledge, “Greek and nonGreek interaction in art and architecture”, in A. Kuhrt and S. Sherwin-White (eds), Hellenism in the East (Duckworth), London 1987, 140–141, 144–145. 2 The Ptolemies of Egypt were the only ones who did not make any great or coordinated efforts to establish cities (see A.H.M. Jones, The Greek City: From Alexander to Justinian (Oxford University Press), London 1940, 18–19). 3 See E.J. Owens, The City in the Greek and Roman World (Routledge), London 1991, chap. 5. 4 The political domination of the cities by the kings was often purposefully concealed as a mark of respect for their former independent tradition: see Jones, The Greek City, op. cit., chap. 5. 5 See R. Stillwell (ed.), The Princeton Encyclopaedia of Classical Sites (Princeton University Press), Princeton 1976, 267–268. 6 Strabo IX 5, 15 (436), mentions seven, and an inscription from the site mentions another five: see Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 1957 (3rd edn). 7 Strabo IX 4, 15 (428); Corinth was one more of the “shackles” of Greece. 8 It is erroneously thought that Hippodamos of Miletos was the inventor of the systematic chessboard layout. This is obviously incorrect. Many Greek colonies before Hippodamos had this layout: see J.M. McCredie, “Hippodamus of Miletos”, in D.G. Mitten, J.G. Pedley and J.A. Scott (eds), Studies Presented to G.M.A. Hanfmann, Mainz 1971, 95–100, and Owens, The City, op. cit., 54–61. 9 See W. Hoepfner and E.-L. Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland (Deutscher Kunstverlag), München 1986, chap. 3. 10 See note 6 above. 11 Although cities had once flourished in Syria, at the time Seleucus I founded the Seleucid dynasty, Syria had been de-urbanized for more than a century: see J.D. Grainger, The Cities of Seleucid Syria (Oxford University Press), Oxford 1990, 7–30. 12 G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest (Princeton University Press), Princeton 1961, 67–86, and J.J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1986, 277–279. 13 Downey, A History of Antioch, op. cit., 79–80. 14 S. Price, “The history of the Hellenistic period”, in J. Boardman, J. Griffin and D. Murray (eds), A History of the Classical World (Oxford University Press), Oxford 1986, 322. 15 Tacitus, Annals, VI 42. 16 See M.M. Austin, The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest (Cambridge University Press), Cambridge 1981, 226–227, n. 131. 17 See below, the gymnasium of Pergamon. 18 R. Martin, L’urbanisme dans la Grèce antique (A. et J. Picard), Paris 1974 (2nd edn), 278–279. 19 Pliny, Letters, X 40. 20 J.J. Coulton, The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa, (Oxford University Press), Oxford 1976, 55. 21 H.A. Thompson and R.E. Wycherley, The Athenian Agora XIV: The Agora of Athens, (American School of Classical Studies), Princeton 1972, 103–108 and Coulton, The Architectural Development, op. cit., 219, n. 20. 22 See Coulton, The Architectural Development, op. cit., 12–25. 23 See Coulton, The Architectural Development, op. cit., 260–261. 24 T. Wiegand and H. Schrader, Priene (Georg Reimer), Berlin 1904, 189–192, 21–26, and Coulton, The Architectural Development, op. cit., 278–279. 25 See Coulton, The Architectural Development, op. cit., 213. 26 W. Tarn and G.T. Griffiths, Hellenistic Civilisation (Methuen), London 1952 (3rd edn), 159, note that citizens of certain city-states in the eastern confines of the Hellenized world had local names only. 27 M. Rostovtzeff, Dura-Europus and its Art (Oxford University Press), Oxford 1938, chap. 2, and Hoepfner and Schwandner (eds), Haus und Stadt, op. cit., chap. 7. 28 A.R. Hands, Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (Thames and Hudson), London 1971, chap. 7, 8 and 9. 29 Pausanias, X 4, 1. 30 E.V. Hansen, The Attalids of Pergamon (Cornell University Press), Ithaca 1971, chap. 7. 1

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CHAPTER 16

The Religious and Political Symbolism of the City in Ancient Greece Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos Professor of Urban Planning Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Man’s next protective “shell”, after his clothing, is his dwelling, which is followed in turn by the wider built and organized space, that is, the man-made space of the settlement. There is no doubt that these successive “sheaths” of man and his activities have practical functions, such as protection from natural environmental conditions. Furthermore, in the case of dwellings, they receive activities of the elemental unit of society, that is the nuclear or the extended family, and in the case of settlements, they participate in wider social, economic and political processes. In pre-capitalist societies, however, what is practical is far from being isolated from what is symbolic. Rather, the practical is incorporated in the symbolic and, moreover, obeys it in accordance with the ideology of the society’s members.

not constitute an exception as far as the primacy of mythical models is concerned. In ancient Greece, we find alongside these models, that is, the official metaphysical discourse, the more simplistic world of superstitions and the irrational.3

Founding the settlement and slaying the dragon We do not have satisfactory evidence to document the relationship between settlement and myth during the Neolithic Age in Greece. Nonetheless, it is possible to posit a relevant hypothesis with respect to the citadel of Dimini in the classical Dimini period (4800–4500 BC) and the later citadel of Sesklo. The first is surrounded by six concentric walls grouped in pairs; each internal wall is higher than the neighbouring external one, while the construction of the walls follows the relief of the ground (fig. 1 clearly shows the six walls but is not as updated as the ground plan given by Georgios Ch. Chourmouziadis in chapter 5 of the present volume). The citadel at Sesklo, which was initially located inside two walls, has a similar plan. We find the same concentric wall layout, admittedly much later, in the seventh century BC, at Median Ecbatana. According to Herodotus (I, 98), the settlement had seven circular and concentric walls with stepped layout. The battlements were of different colours and so the walls corresponded symbolically to the seven planets, to seven minerals and to the seven days of the week (fig. 2).

In the view of Mircea Eliade, the member of a pre-capitalist society is homo religiosus and his life, secular or religious, is governed by mythical and sacred models. Eliade contends that it is very possible that city walls and ditches were meant mainly to repel demons and the souls of the dead, and then to secure defences against an enemy in this world.1 Ancient Greek society is historically the first in which, within the context of the “archaic” thinking characteristic of precapitalist societies, a new form of thought emerged, namely philosophy. Jean-Pierre Vernant considers this event as the conclusion of a process that began with a new mercantile and monetary economy, in which objects acquired, together with their utilitarian value, an exchange value. This form of economy led, between the eighth and the sixth century BC, to the rationalization of social life. Concurrently, political thought gained relative emancipation from religion. These factors led, in turn, to the relative emancipation of cosmology from religion and the “de-sanctification” of knowledge of nature, which are the foundations of rational thought. These two principal characteristics of thought, pragmatism and abstraction, gave rise to philosophy.2 The new abstract thought presupposed a departure from the pre-capitalist thought about tangible objects and was a consequence of the monetary economy, which transforms tangible and heterogeneous things into comparable objects through their reduction to a common monetary unit. However, although ancient Greek thought, which is marked by rationalism and politics, deviated from the archaism of pre-capitalist thought, it did not, in the end, manage to escape from the orbit of this thought and did

This must have been the typical form of the fortified Median settlement in the late eighth as well as the seventh century BC, because the inner city of the Kisesim settlement must also have had the same layout of walls, as can be inferred from a relief from the palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad (fig. 3). The resemblance of this settlement form to one of the variants of the Iranian image of the earth and of the universe is striking (fig. 4), while the stepped layout of the walls seems to equate the settlement with Kharaberezaïti, the mythical mountainaxis of the universe, which is in the central region of the earth and connects heaven and earth.4 The above particulars suggest a possible analogy between the symbolism of Dimini and the Median settlement, which, even if it actually exists, does not of course suffice to elucidate the specific cosmological content of the first. So, this hypothesis about the symbolism of Dimini should be taken not so much 191

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos

2. Schematic representation of Ecbatana, plan and elevation.

1. Dimini (after Ch. Tsountas, from P. Lavedan and J. Hugueney, Histoire de l’urbanisme, 1966, 111, fig. 67).

4. One of the Iranian images of the earth and the universe.

as an achievement of but as an incentive for research. At any rate, these comparative traits lead us to the hypothesis that the form of the Neolithic settlement in Greece may not have corresponded solely to practical needs, but may have alluded concurrently to a symbolic, connotative level (in the terminology of semiotics), and specifically to cosmology. The fact that this association, as we shall see below, set its seal on the subsequent history of the settlement in Greece strengthens this hypothesis.

3. Kisesim, relief from the palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad (from P. Lampl, Cities and Planning in the Ancient Near East (Studio Vista), London n.d., fig. 9).

The evidence we have on the subject of spatial symbolism in the Minoan settlement is just as meagre. Nonetheless, there are some indications that raise the issue of the settlement’s symbolic dimensions and more specifically its relation to cosmology. The dual possibility of identifying the “palace” of Knossos with the mythical labyrinth and of identifying the labyrinth with an image of the universe constitutes one such indication. Another indication is the well-known “horns of consecration”, which crowned shrines and “palaces”, including the “palace” of Knossos. Alongside their interpretation as bull’s horns, they have been associated with the cardinal points and by extension

5. Curving labyrinth on a coin of Knossos, 2nd-1st c. BC (from J. Rykwert, The Idea of a Town, 1976, 149, fig. 125).

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The Religious and Political Symbolism of the City in Ancient Greece with the earth, as well as with a mountain. If they were indeed associated with the earth, it would be reasonable to suppose that they were in harmony with the respective symbolic properties of the constructions they crowned. If, again, they were associated with a mountain, they could have stood for the twin-peaked cosmic mountain, known from Mesopotamia and later from Rome. It is possible that the same mountain reappears in relation to the orientation of the Minoan palaces. Specifically, Vincent Scully posits the hypothesis that the North-South axis of the Minoan palaces is orientated after 2000 BC towards a twin-peaked mountain.5 Moreover, the very tendency of the palaces to be orientated towards the cardinal points may correspond to a desire to harmonize them with the universe.

and dance were essential elements in founding settlements. This was a creative magical rite, to which a destructive rite was opposed. The latter was enacted twice around Troy: first when Achilles dragged the body of Hector thrice round its walls, and second, ironically, by the Trojans themselves, when they transported the Wooden Horse and performed movements which Triphiodoros compares to the geranos (= crane) dance. The purpose of these negative rites was to destroy the defensive capability of the walls of Troy. Dance, which is linked inviolably with the metaphysical quintessence of Troy, was associated closely with another of its characteristics, the labyrinth, an initiation plan, a cosmic and apotropaic symbol, and a means of rejuvenation and salvation (fig. 5).6 The above data show that in the Mycenaean period the founding of a city was not a simple practical procedure, but an act closely interwoven with the sacred, the metaphysical, myth and magic, and the same obtained for the city itself.

Mythical elements surround the founding of Mycenaean settlements. According to the earliest version of the foundation myth of Kadmeia, the palatial settlement of the fifteenth century BC at Thebes, after the settlement site was revealed by a cow – a reincarnation of Europa, sister of the founder Kadmos – , and in order for this cow to be sacrificed, Kadmos sent his companions to draw water from a spring. His companions were devoured by the dragon guarding the spring. Kadmos slew the dragon, with the help of Athena, and, following her advice, sowed its teeth in the earth. From them sprang the Spartoi. Kadmos cast a stone in their midst, thus stirring up conflict between them which resulted in them slaying each other. Only five of them escaped the carnage and these became the founders of the aristocratic lineages of Thebes. The cow is also associated with other foundation myths of Mycenaean settlements: the daughter of the founder of Tiryns imagined herself to be a cow. The same animal is associated with the (re)founding of Troy, apparently in its Indo-European phase: Apollodorus mentions that Ilos, the eponymous hero of Ilion, followed a cow in order to determine the site for founding the settlement.

The first myth about the founding of Kadmeia is particularly revealing: before founding the settlement, the hero slays a dragon. As Jürgen Trumpf demonstrates, this victory of the hero is a victory over chaos and marks the beginnings of the creation of the universe.7 Thus, the settlement that follows the victory is identified with the order of the universe, which springs from chaos. It is probable that the choice of hills for Mycenaean foundations served not only fortification needs, but also the symbolic intention to associate the settlements with the cosmic mountain, which is the image of the cosmos and stands at its centre. As mentioned above, the Median settlements were viewed as such a mountain; the same possibly applied to Dimini and the same conception accompanied Mount Olympus, whose summit was identified with heaven and which, with its divine inhabitants, is reminiscent of the dwellings of the Mycenaean kings. In the case of Thebe, it was not only Kadmeia that symbolized the cosmos. Thebe is mentioned as having seven gates, while its founder Amphion invented the lyre with seven strings and sired seven daughters. The number seven appears on numerous other occasions with respect to the settlement. Its symbolism is clarified with the help of Callimachus, who recounts that when Apollo, the sun-god of the arts, was born, the swans of Maionia rotated seven times around Delos: these seven rotations correspond to the seven planets. Thebe incorporated the planets through its gates and was thus transformed into an image of the cosmos.

According to another version of the foundation myth of Kadmeia, snake-men arose from the earth before the sacrifice and performed a sword dance, during which they exterminated each other. The sacred marriage of Kadmos followed, and he himself turned into a snake, as chthonic as the dragon. Another chthonic figure was Kekrops, founder of Kekropia, that is, Mycenaean Athens, on the hill of the Acropolis, who is represented as half human and half snake or dragon. The palatial settlement of Kadmeia was later enclosed by the wall ascribed to the brothers Zethos and Amphion. This new settlement was named “Thebe”. The two brothers “who first established the seat of seven-gated Thebe” (Homer, Odyssey xi, 263), “built the walls of Thebes by playing on the lyre” (Hesiod, The catalogues of women and eoiae, 96). Pausanias (IX, Boeotia V,7) mentions that Amphion added three more strings to the lyre, which had only four until then.

We come across the Mycenaean type of the victory over the dragon again, at the beginning of the Classical period. In 470 BC, Hieron I, Tyrant of Syracuse, celebrated the founding of Aetna (Catania), a city at the foot of Mount Aetna. Hieron commissioned Pindar, Aeschylus and Bacchylides to compose works for the religious festivities to mark the founding. Pindar writes in his first Pythian Ode that “Typhon with his hundred heads” lay in Tartaros and was trussed up by Zeus; on his chest lay the mountains of Kyme and Sicily with snow-capped Aetna, the heavenly column: “and the column that soareth to heaven crusheth him”. So the new settlement was founded, on a cosmic axis (axis mundi), with Zeus at the summit and Tartaros at its base. This axis joined the three regions of the universe and allowed communication between them.

The walls of Troy (those attributed to the Indo-European phase) were also built to the sound of music, as Callimachus recounts, and indeed music from Apollo’s lyre (Hymn to Apollo). In the view of Gertrude Rachel Levy, dancing accompanied this music. The walls of Megara are also associated with music: striking them created a melodic sound, due to the lyre of Hermes, who had participated in their construction. Music 193

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6. The omphalos of Delphi (after B. Petrakos, Delphi (Clio), Athens 1977).

7. Graphic representation of the “Pinax”, Anaximander’s map of the earth (from Great Greek Encyclopaedia, vol. 24, ‘Cartography’ (in Greek)).

Thus Pindar, evidently transferring the nucleus of the city’s symbolism, which must have been widely known in his day, closely associates the founding of the city with the struggle against and the victory over the dragon, as well as with the central cosmic symbols. As we have seen, this complex was transmitted to Classical Greece from the Mycenaean period. If we define the cognitive orientation towards a specific aspect of reality as a code, in accordance with semiotic theory, then the code that governs this complex is the religious one, with emphasis on the cosmogonical and the cosmological sub-code. We referred at the beginning of this chapter to the changes caused by the new form of the economy, which were marked by the relative emancipation of politics from religion and the emergence of the political phenomenon of the city-state. This reality set its seal equally on Greek ideology, with the eminent position enjoyed by political thought. The latter also infiltrated the symbolic nucleus of the founding of the city: the traditional cosmological nucleus was now accompanied by a new political code, as is apparent from Pindar’s poem on Aetna, in which the legislation of the ideal state is interwoven with cosmology.

of the sea”. The omphalos of the earth and the universe was the sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma, not far from Miletos, another omphalos-centre. Other such omphaloi were Delos, centre of the planetary rotations of the swans of Maionia, Paphos, Klaros, Gryneio, Patara, Ionia and possibly Mount Lykaion in Arcadia. The parallel existence of many centres seems odd to modern thought, for which each spatial unit has only one geometric centre. For the traditional branch of ancient Greek thought, however, and for archaic pre-capitalist thought more generally, the centre was not primarily a quantitative concept but a qualitative one, and space was structured by qualitative elements. In this way qualitative symbolism of the cosmic centre can be projected on different points of space, even neighbouring ones. This notion of the centre of the cosmos and its relevant cosmic meanings was not only projected into and onto relatively limited geographical spaces but also provided the reference point for large-scale cartography. This can be seen clearly from the representation of Anaximander’s “Pinax”, which is a circular map of the earth, following its mythical shape, surrounded by the (cosmic) ocean and with Delphi and Greece generally at its centre (fig. 7).

Polis and omphalos

The goddess Hestia was closely associated with the concept of the omphalos. Vernant shows that Hestia and Hermes constitute an antithetical couple. The connotations of Hermes are “male”, “light”, “motion”, “change of state”, “transition”, “dynamic state of cosmic regions”, “external space”; by contrast, those of Hestia are “female”, “shadow”, “immobility”, “permanence”, “concentration of space around a central point”, “earth”, “internal space”. The square corresponds to Hermes, the circle to Hestia. Hestia holds the central position in the universe and is interwoven with the cosmic axis.8 Her altar is found in the central atrium of the dwelling, showing the identification of the latter with the cosmos. Here again we come across the qualitative nature of the cosmic centre, since each dwelling incorporated such a centre. At the same time,

The cosmic axis, both in Greek cosmology and others, has one more basic property: it passes through the centre of the cosmos. The centre of the cosmos is identified as an omphalos (navel, umbilicus), which points to an anthropomorphism of the universe. Thus, the oracle shrine at Delphi had a cosmic centrality, combined with its position on the cosmic axis. This was the “Pythian axis” (Πύθιος άξων), the “omphalos axis” (άξων ομφήσεις or ομφαίος), the “mid-omphalos axis” (μεσόμφαλος άξων). The omphalos of Delphi had the same property (fig. 6). A short distance from Knossos we find the Omphalion, where myth has it that the umbilical cord of Zeus had fallen and which was surrounded by the “Omphalion field”. Homer (Odyssey, i, 50) mentions an island located where is “the navel 194

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8. The Acropolis and Agora of Athens in the early 5th century BC. 1: Altar of the Twelve Gods (after I. Travlos, Urban Evolution of Athens, 1960 [in Greek]).

there existed a hierarchy of cosmic centres, whose apex was the par excellence centre of the city. We shall follow the evolution of the urban cosmic centre in the case of Athens.

According to Thucydides, Theseus erected in his agora the prytaneion, “where the hearth of the city and its undying flame were located”. The par excellence cosmic centre was thus moved from the Acropolis to the prytaneion, because the latter included the hearth-cosmic centre. The same location of the hearth-fire complex, this time at the centre of the cosmos, characterizes the cosmology of the Pythagoreans, for whom the cosmos was spherical and the sky perpetually revolving, while at their centre was a hearth with fire, the “hearth of all” (εστία του παντός), the “unit” (μονάς), the “tower of Zeus” (Ζανός πύργος).

In the second century AD, Julius Pollux (Onomasticon, VIII, ch. IX, 109–111) relates that Kekrops divided the Athenians into four tribes, each tribe into three trittyes (phratriai, ethne) and each trittys into 30 gene (clans). In the tenth century, Souda (s.v. “Γεννήται”) correlates these numbers with the four seasons, the 12 (4×3) months and the 360 (4×3×30) days of the year. These references were certainly based on numerology subsequent to the Mycenaean period, since the division of the year into twelve lunar months of 29 and 30 days cannot be older than the first half of the seventh century BC, and may be due to Platonist influence. What they show is an intention to project cosmic time onto social organization and, through this, to achieve a “cosmification” of space. Although this intention could have arisen after the Mycenaean period, we should not exclude the possibility of its Mycenaean origin, because it is in accord with the other cosmic elements surrounding the Mycenaean settlement. Kekropia probably evolved around a cosmic centre, its omphalos, which Svoronos locates close to the geometric centre of the Acropolis.

The agora of Solon in the Athenian Kerameikos (6th century BC) was, in a way, an extension of the agora of Theseus. A particular construction in this agora was the altar of the Twelve Gods, built in 521/20 BC by a grandson of Peisistratos (fig. 8). In the view of John Travlos, this altar was near the Panathenaic Way, at the junction of the major road arteries to the wider region, and was used as a starting point for measuring distances.9 The same role was probably attributed to the omphalos at Phlious, which was considered to be “the centre of all the Peloponnesus” (Pausanias II, Corinth, XIII 7), just as a stele of Augustus in the centre of Rome. The altar 195

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos defined point zero of space, which is the principal trait of the centre of the cosmos. That the altar of the Twelve Gods was definitely identified with the latter seems to be confirmed by Pindar’s dithyramb for Athens (Fragmenta, 75, 1–5), in which he mentions the presence of an omphalos in the city’s agora:

city in the centre of its territory, and again its namesake in the centre of the city.” Apart from its close relation to the cosmology of Anaximander, this passage associates the cosmic regional organization with the plan of a shield, which should not surprise us, for the shield is also an image of the cosmos. The whole cosmos is captured on the shield of Achilles, as described by Homer (Iliad, XVIII, 478–608), who also calls the central section of the shield omphalos, in certain parts of the Iliad.

Come to the chorus, Olympians, and send over it glorious grace, you gods who are coming to the city’s crowded, incense-rich navel in holy Athens and to the glorious, richly-adorned agora. The supreme cosmic centre of Athens thus moved over the centuries, following the urban development of the city. We have just mentioned another dimension of the cosmic centre, namely that it was used as a reference point for measuring distances. This property associated it with the convergence of roads. Such points had, from most ancient times, the connotative meaning of the centre of the universe. Road junctions, in the form of the meeting of two or three roads or a crossroad, were dedicated to Hekate the “three-headed” (τρίκρανος, τρισοκάρηνος) or “of the three roads” (τριοδίτις), who for Hesiod was sovereign of the three cosmic regions and in Orphic cosmogony occupied the centre of the cosmos.

Polis and symmetria In the second half of the sixth century BC, Kleisthenes transferred the combined model of cosmology and political isonomy to geographical space, through a tripartite and concentric social organization. The tripartite social space must have had the connotations of “wholeness”, “earth” and “cosmos”. Together with the number 3, the numbers 5, 10 and 102 form the foundation of Kleisthenes’ reform.10 Both the number 10 and the principle of isonomy can be understood in their essence through recourse to the philosophy of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. For Pythagorean philosophy everything begins with numbers, which are considered to be real substances. Relations between things, as well as the cosmos as a whole, are governed by proportion, that is, by relations between numbers. On account of this principle and the ensuing harmony, the universe is a cosmos, an ornamented, ordered, harmoniously structured whole. Pythagorean philosophy is based on an elaborated numerology, in which a particular place is reserved for the number 10, the most perfect number, the tetraktys, as the sum of the first four numbers. The basic intervals of the harmonic series in music arise from the relations of these numbers, which also recur in the heavenly sphere. As the myths of Mycenaean settlement foundations show, the concept of cosmic music was a traditional wisdom that was bequeathed to the Pythagoreans.

The conceptual centre of a city could be identified with different spatial forms and scales. The omphalos of Antioch-on-theOrontes, for example, was an area at its centre and not an altar. Athens, in addition to its omphalos-altar of the Twelve Gods, also had a much wider omphalos, its Agora. That the agora as a whole, both of Athens and of other cities, was also a cosmic centre is deduced from the semiotic political model of the citystate as early as the Archaic period, which, according to Vernant, was a circle with a centre, the agora; all citizens are equidistant from this centre, on account of the principle of isonomy, which entails reciprocity and equilibrium. This political model, then, refers to the new cosmological views, whose structure continues the earlier cosmology. The new cosmological centre is to be found in the philosophy of Anaximander, for whom the earth is a stone cylinder, with a ratio of height to diameter of base equal to 1:3, located at the centre of the cosmos, which is a “perfect sphere”, and for this reason is in equilibrium. The Mediterranean Sea and Greece are situated at its centre. Moving around the earth in concentric orbits are, in turn, the stars, the moon and the sun, and the relationship between the radii of these orbits corresponds to the ratios 9:18:27.

For Pythagorean philosophy every thing consists of a specific number of molecules, a concept we find again in Demokritos, around the mid-fifth century BC, less than a century after Pythagoras. Demokritos and Empedokles claimed, as did the Pythagoreans earlier and Plato and Aristotle later, that everything in the universe derives from four fundamental elements: fire, air, earth and water. For Empedokles, although these elements are in principle equivalent, they are opposed to each other in groups, in accordance with three structures (fig. 9). In the first structure, fire as the dominant element lies at the centre of the cosmos and is opposed to the three other elements. In the second structure, which is also dualist, two groups with homogeneous internal elements oppose each other; on the one hand fire and air, and on the other earth and water; the first group is associated with light, the second with darkness. Finally, the third structure is triadic and includes two major opposite poles, fire (light) and water (darkness), which develop around an intermediate group, air and earth. The four elements combine through their molecules in different proportions, and these combinations produce all things in the cosmos, which are mixtures governed by harmony and equilibrium.

The relationship between cosmology, politics and urban planning leads to the hypothesis that the spatial model given by Vernant could be extended, and that the Greeks were conceptually structuring space as a series of concentric circles which develop around the centre of the cosmos. This hypothesis is reinforced by Aristides in his Panathenaikos, 16: “The city occupies the same position in its territory [Attica] as the land does in Greece; for it lies in the very centre of a central land, … And as a third centrality, there rises clear aloft through the midst of the city, what was the old city and is now the present Acropolis, like a mountain peak, … For as on a shield, where circular layers of hide have been put in succession to one another, the Acropolis is the fifth at the boss, the fairest of all, which concludes the whole sequence: if Greece is in the centre of the whole earth, and Attic in the centre of Greece, and the

The above illustrates the ancient Greek view of the order of the 196

The Religious and Political Symbolism of the City in Ancient Greece light fire

air white

light

darkness earth yellow

red

intermediary gradations

water black night

9. The three structures of the fundamental elements, according to Empedokles.

9. The three structures of the fundamental elements, according to Empedokles. Chapter 16, page 199 of your draft

cosmos. Correspondent to the philosophical concept of cosmic order was the (semi-)aesthetic concept of symmetria (aesthetics and art had not become autonomous in ancient Greece). Symmetria is commensurability, the proportions of the parts of a work of “art” to each other and to the whole. This concept is central to the understanding of “artistic” creation and spatial conceptions in ancient Greece. It forms the nucleus of a set of concepts, such as “harmony”, “median” (perhaps the ideal equilibrium), “perfect number” (the ideal number governing symmetria), “truth” (the true mathematical form incorporated in a work), “precision” (4th century BC, refers to the strict application of mathematical and geometrical details).11 The notion of symmetria is closely associated with that of isonomy, whose political meaning of reciprocity and equilibrium we mentioned earlier. Already in the time of Kleisthenes, the word carried an additional meaning, referring to health: it meant the correct proportions and the equilibrium of the opposite elements in the body. The polysemy of isonomy permits a deeper understanding of Kleisthenes’ social reform and spatial model. Here space obeys the commensurable order of the cosmos, an order that articulates, together with the cosmic code, the philosophical (order), the political (isonomy), the “aesthetic” (symmetria) and an anthropomorphic (the city as body, isonomy) code as well. This ideological complex forms the nucleus, the deep structure of ideology and culture in Greek Antiquity, and is projected on all cultural systems. Thus, in sculpture the lost Kanon by Polykleitos (second half of 5th century BC) was a treatise on proportions capable of leading to perfect sculptural works. Polykleitos was a Pythagorean, and at the same time his views contributed to the formation of Pythagorean philosophy; he expressed these views in his statue the Doryphoros (Spearbearer) (fig. 10). It is possible that the idea of using proportions for works of sculpture may have already existed in the Archaic kouroi, which follow a set type, and this possibility leads to the hypothesis that the association of order with proportion was inherited by Pythagoras from an earlier period, which should be linked with the new monetary economy.

10. The Doryphoros (Spear-bearer) by Polykleitos (from B. Maiuri, Museo Nazionale di Napoli (Istituto Geografico de Agostini, Novara), Italy 1957).

with colours. According to Bruno, black in reality suggests dark blue, which references from Homer seem to confirm. In this case, Empedokles refers precisely to the four primary colours from which all the gradations that a painter might need can be produced.12 So, as far as painting is concerned, symmetria not only governs the pictorial product but also the process of its production. Symmetria also governs architecture, as can be seen from the architectural orders, which are based on the existence of set elements and proportions. As in the possible case of the kouroi, its use antedates Pythagoras, since the earliest examples of the Doric order date back to the mid-seventh century BC. Variety is acceptable in architecture, but within the canonical limits of symmetria. Symmetria is the bridge between cosmology and architecture; the same is obviously true of the multi-level tripartite organization of the Ionic order.

The strictness of these laws of sculpture is found again in the principles of the four-colour school of painting, which Vincent J. Bruno attributes to Polygnotos (500–440 BC), but J.J. Pollitt to the Late Classical-Early Hellenistic period (fig. 11). The cornerstone of the school is the use of only four basic colours, which are combined in such a way as to produce an unlimited number of secondary colour gradations. Bruno concludes that this system can be traced back to Demokritos and perhaps Empedokles, and that the four colours corresponded to the four elements, the four seasons and the four cardinal points. As can be seen in fig. 9, Empedokles certainly associated the elements

If we move from the orders, the zenith of architecture, to the major urban-planning achievement of Greek Antiquity, we must pause at the so-called Hippodamian plan, named after the “meteorologist” – as Aristotle calls him – Hippodamos (5th century BC). It appears that Hippodamos proposed the organization of urban space with a street network composed of a grid of parallel and perpendicular arteries. He was certainly not the inventor of this plan, since it is encountered earlier in the Greek colonies of Italy (fig. 12) and earlier still in Asia Minor 197

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos

11. Central part of the representation of the Battle of Issos, on a mosaic from Pompeii. The work belongs to the four-colour school of painting and its original is dated in the late 4th or the early 3rd century BC (from Maiuri, Museo Nazionale di Napoli, op. cit.).

and Egypt, as well as in the Middle East and Pakistan. There is not doubt that this plan profits from the practical advantages of speedy application and easy distribution of land plots. For Hippodamos, however, it had symbolic ramifications as well. His urban conception is linked inextricably with the numbers 3 and 10.

in 436 BC, the city was called, according to Herodotus, “Nine Roads” (Ennea Hodoi) because it had been built at the point of convergence of nine roads. The tetraktys marks the founding of Thurii too, since the colonizing expedition consisted of ten ships and was accompanied by ten diviners who played a significant role; in the end, ten tribes of Greece and of Asia inhabited the city. As to its role for ancient Greek urban planning, in this case for the very geometry of the city, we should cite Wolfram Hoepfner’s hypothesis that the different proportions of the three most important elements of Priene, namely the temple of Athena, the agora and the building blocks, conform to basic musical intervals, arising from the numbers of the tetraktys.14

The number 3 organizes what in social anthropology is called a “classification system”, that is a sum of codes whose elements conform to the same logical subdivision. This system is directly associated with the tripartite Greek cosmology and must be of very early Indo-European origin, because as Georges Dumézil, the historian of religions, has shown, in the Indo-European cultures (which extend geographically from the Celts to the Indians) social organization and the organization of the religious pantheon were perceived on the basis of three ranked functions. Thus, Hippodamos divides the citizens of the ideal democracy into soldiers, artisans and farmers; he divides the area of the city into three types of lots, one for the gods, one for the state and one for the citizens; he believes that the laws foresee the prevention of three types of offences, the judges reach three types of rulings and the governors have three kinds of responsibilities.13

Space may be differentiated and ranked in Hippodamos’ city, but its purpose is unity, a unity governed by number and harmony. When looking at the overall phenomenon of the Hippodamian city in ancient Greece, we realise that an essential element of unity is repetition, that is the use of one unit repeated in space and endowing it with uniformity. Three types of such units are employed: the house, the building block and the street axis. We must undoubtedly agree with Hoepfner that the standardized house, apart from its practical appearance, is an application of the principle of isonomy, and the same applies to the building blocks and to the street network. Although Hoepfner emphasizes the political aspect of this urban-planning logic, we ought, nonetheless, to bring to the fore the two concepts from which isonomy cannot be separated, namely symmetria and cosmic order. These charge urban space with an “aesthetic” and a cosmic code, beyond the political one. Within the framework of the “aesthetic”

On the other hand, the Pythagorean tetraktys defined the number of citizens in Hippodamos’ ideal city as 10,000. Aetna too appears as a myriandros city, since it is reported to have been settled by 5,000 Syracusans and as many Peloponnesians. In this respect, Thucydides recounts that the expedition to found Amphipolis in Macedonia numbered 10,000 individuals; it should be noted that prior to its settlement by the Athenians 198

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13. The ideal city of Plato. D1-D12: Ideal division of the city and its region into twelve sectors. D’1-D’12: Sectors deriving from a possible realistic sub-division into twelve sectors. V1-V12: Villages. A: Agora. T: Temples. C: Walled acropolis. L: Officials and law courts. R: Artisans. H: Outer wall formed by houses. G: Garrison. F: Farmers.

12. Hippodamian plan prior to Hippodamos: the Greek colony of Neapolis, 6th century BC (from Lavedan and Hugueney, Histoire de l’urbanisme, op. cit., 152, fig. 107).

code, the city as a whole is composed on the basis of equal unitary parts. Of particular interest is Hoepfner’s observation concerning the temple of Athena at Priene, that the uniformity of its coffers – which as in every temple form a chessboard design – expresses the principle of isonomy,15 or better still, of symmetria. This view certainly brings into focus the circulation of the same ideological complex between building and city, architecture and urban planning. It is possible that the Greek Hippodamian plan is associated with cosmology through its orientation as well, if, as some scholars claim,16 the latter was related to the cardinal points, indicating a conscious connection with cosmic space. If, again, orientation associated the Hippodamian plan with the cosmos, the form of the plan itself must have been initially a consequence (not necessarily exclusive) of this association. The same logic also operates at the basis of Plato’s ideal polis, as he describes it in his Laws. The legislator should place the city “as nearly as possible in the centre of the country”. He must divide the land, both of this city, which has the property of centrality, and of the chora (countryside), into twelve sectors, starting from a central sacred acropolis with a circular wall, which should include the temples of Hestia, Zeus and Athena around a central agora. Directly outside the acropolis, the houses of the officials must be laid out, as well as the law courts, which are sacred sites. There follows one of the thirteen groups into which the artisans are divided, which is allotted in accordance with the twelve sectors of the city. Each of the remaining twelve artisan groups is located in one of the twelve villages surrounding the city, which must be located in the middle of the twelve sectors. The socio-geographical organization of the villages is similar to that of the city: the central agora is surrounded by the temples of the same gods, plus the temple of the patron deity of the respective sector, the temples are surrounded by the buildings of the garrison, and we may assume that the artisans and farmers followed in turn, always concentrically (fig. 13).

14. Plato’s Atlantis (according to R.G. Bury, Plato, The Loeb Clasical Library). Centre: Temple of Poseidon and Kleito. A: Central island – acropolis. A2, B2, C2: Rings of sea. B. C: Rings of land. D: Outer city.

The legislator also divides all citizens, who must number 5,040, into twelve tribes. The twelve geographical sectors constitute lots of the twelve gods, and the sector offered to each god is named by the respective tribe as well, and through this naming it is sanctified. Plato mentions a series of properties of the number 5,040, such as that it is divisible by 12, giving the number of tribes, and that this 1/12th is again divisible by 12. Each “moira”, the social twelfth, must be seen “as a sacred gift of god, conformed to the months and to the revolution of the universe” (for the above see Laws V, 745, B-E; VI, 77, A-C and 778, C-D; VIII, 848, C-E). Therefore, the twelve-part social – and geographical – division corresponds to the division of time and refers to the rotation of the universe, with the result that the ideal Platonic city is a cosmic city. 199

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos The geometry and numerology of the Laws are closely related to Platonic cosmogony and the cosmology of the Timaeus, as well as to the description of Atlantis in the Critias. We learn that when the earth was distributed to the gods, Poseidon was allocated Atlantis, which was sacred and was situated “beneath the sun”, which, assuming the expression refers to the sun at its zenith, places it on the cosmic axis and at the centre of the cosmos. Poseidon wedded Kleito and protected the mountain on which she dwelt, which was at the centre of an islandacropolis five stades in diameter, forming five alternating concentric rings of sea and land, of width, from the inside outwards, equal to 1, 2, 2, 3 and 3 stades respectively (fig. 14). At a distance of 50 stades from the peripheral ring, a circular wall surrounded the external city.

Notes M. Eliade, Le sacré et profane (NRF/Gallimard), Paris 1965, 45. J.-P. Vernant, Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs: Études de psychologie historique (Maspero), Paris 1974, vol. I, 38,99, 173, 177–179, and vol. II, 37–39, 43, 95, 102–107, 114–118, 123. 3 See E.R. Dodds, Les Grecs et l’irrationel (Aubier-Montaigne), Paris 1965. 4 A.Ph. Lagopoulos, “Mode de production asiatique et modèles sémiotiques urbains. Analyse socio-sémiotique d’agglomérations antiques du Moyen Orient”, Semiotica 53 (1–3), 1985, 61, 65–66. 5 V. Scully, The Earth, the Temple and the God:. Greek Sacred Architecture (Yale University Press), New Haven 1962, 11–18, 24. For the possible religious significance of the orientation of the angles of Early Bronze Age Minoan buildings to the four cardinal points, see Chapter 8 by C. Palyvou, in the present volume. 6 G.R. Levy, The Gate of Horn: A Study of the Religious Conceptions of the Stone Age and their Influence upon European Thought (Faber and Faber), London 1963 (1948), 248–251; W.F. Jackson Knight, Cumaean Gates: A Reference of the Sixth Aeneid to the Initiation Pattern, Oxford 1936, 106; J. Rykwert, The Idea of a Town: The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World (Princeton University Press), Princeton NJ 1976, 129, 145–152. 7 J. Trumpf, “Stadtgründung und Drachenkampf ”, Hermes 86, 1958, 129– 157. 8 Vernant, Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs, vol. I, op. cit.,. 124–170, 183. 9 J. Travlos, Urban Evolution of Athens, Athens 1960, 36. 10 P. Lévêque and P. Vidal-Naquet, Clisthène l’Athénien: Essai sur la représentation de l’espace et du temps dans la pensée politique grecque de la fin du Vie siècle à la mort de Platon (Les Belles Lettres), Paris 1964, 10–15, 83, 91–93, 99–100, 107, 123, 128, 132. 11 See J.J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History and Terminology (Yale University Press, student edition), New Haven-London 1974, 14–23, 26, 88, 126, 162, 167–169, 182, 187. 12 V.J. Bruno, Form and Colour in Greek Painting (W.W. Norton), New York 1977, 56–58, 63–64, 83, 96, and Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art, op. cit., 23, 111, 244. 13 P. Lavedan and J. Hugueney, Histoire de l’urbanism: Antiquité (Henri Laurens), Paris 1966, 99. 14 For this hypothesis by Hoepfner see Chapter 14 in the present volume. 15 For Hoepfner’s views cited, see again Chapter 14. 16 See Lavedan and Hugueney, Histoire de l’urbanisme, op. cit., 95–97. 17 See H. Herter, “Die Rundform in Platons Atlantis und ihre Nachwirkung in der Villa Hadriani”, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 96, 1953, 1–16. 1 2

At the centre of the internal city, a temple to the couple was erected and this was enclosed by a wall of gold. The acropolis wall was clad externally with bronze “which sparkled like fire”, the next wall with tin and the outermost one with copper, a description reminiscent of the one given by Herodotus for Ecbatana, which Plato clearly knew. Next, five sets of male twins were born and the god made each one of them responsible for the government of the ten sectors into which he divided Atlantis (for the above see Critias, 112B-114A, 115B-116C). Atlantis is, then, politically perfect because administrative organization is based on the tetraktys. The city is geometrically perfect because it is based on the circle. Plato’s thought is marked by the circle and by numbers and their relations, which he considers to be the quintessence of the structure of the cosmos.17 We may conclude that the conception of space, architectural, urban, regional, even of the earth in its entirety, was based on cosmological notions in Helladic and Hellenic Antiquity. This ideological practice has a most ancient origin in the history of humanity and we find probable traces of it in Greece as early as the fifth millennium BC. The study of views on space shows interesting continuities between the Mycenaean and the Classical period, and between the Archaic period and the Classical. It the practice of projecting the cosmos on the settlement is a striking factor of continuity, despite the historical differences among the civilizations that developed in Greece, socio-economic conditions nevertheless seriously influence the ideological framework of the cosmic code, as can be seen from the new political code, which was already ripe in the Archaic period.

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III.b The Transformation of the Greek City

CHAPTER 17

The Transformation of the Classical City in Greece during the Roman Age Constantine Mantas Ph.D. Ancient History University of Bristol

The decline and Latinization of the cities

In addition to its private dwellings, each city included a series of public spaces and buildings: the agora, the locus of commerce and centre of political life in democratic cities, the bouleuterion (council-house), where the representatives of the citizens assembled, and the prytaneion (city-hall), which served multiple functions (centre of cultural and religious life, social welfare organization, reception area for embassies and dining hall for distinguished citizens).1

During the Classical period, the polis was the basic civic cell of the Greek world. Numerous cities flourished in mainland Greece, the Aegean islands and the shores of Asia Minor and the Euxine Pontus (Black Sea) (fig. 1). As political formations, the Greek cities functioned autonomously. Each one was a kind of separate state, even though quite a few belonged to loose federations, such as the amphictyonies of religious character. Of course, true independence was unattainable, as can be seen from the example of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, which were under Persian domination and later under Athenian hegemony (5th century BC).

The city also included the gymnasium, place of exercise for future citizens, as well as (in Athens at least) a cultural centre, the theatre, place of entertainment (in the ancient Greek sense of the term), the balnea (public bathhouses), and of course the temples, dedicated to the deities of the public cult.

The Greek city was intended to secure a better life for its inhabitants. It comprised the city proper (asty) and its rural territory (chora). The cities had different regimes; they were democracies or oligarchies, but this did not alter their essential nature as advanced socio-political formations.

All these public spaces and buildings served the needs, material and cultural, religious and political, of the inhabitants of the asty and its chora. Classical cities were usually surrounded by walls, which not only secured their defence but also functioned

1. Map showing the expansion and dynamic of urban space in Greece and Asia Minor during the Early Imperial Roman period (drawn by the author).

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Constantine Mantas ideologically, symbolizing, that is, the distinctive position of the city.2

flourished in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, owing to the nearby quarries of variegated marble – this is deduced from the expansion of the city area in Roman times, and the erection of public buildings and temples.9

This is, of course, a theoretical model appertaining to Athens in the fifth century BC, a city apart, which as the leader of Ionian Hellenism against the Persian threat exploited its position economically to carry out a magnificent public building programme. Smaller cities were unable to erect comparable public buildings; Sparta, in fact, did not have any walls until the mid-second century BC.3

Although the insistence on a Roman Greece with ravaged or declining cities is exaggerated, on the other hand, mainland Greece cannot be compared with Asia Minor in terms of the number and wealth of its cities. On the western shores of modern Turkey, Greek “urban” civilization continued to flourish economically and culturally: Ephesos, Pergamon, Smyrna remained important economic centres, where the phenomenon of benefaction thrived. Wealthy landowners, members of the class of bouleutai (representatives) in cities where timocratic regimes were established from the Late Hellenistic period, used part of their fortunes to maintain or augment the public buildings of their homeland. The closeness of the fertile hinterland of Asia Minor to Mesopotamia and of its harbours to Egypt, led to the flourishing of trade in the peaceful conditions secured by the pax romana.

The socio-political system was in similar harmony: the autonomy of the cities was based on the active participation of their citizens in political and military life. The city, very simply, was the sum of its citizens, that is of the male autochthonous population. Metics, slaves and women moved on the fringes of the society of citizens, even though they had their own place in religious and economic life. From the Hellenistic period, however, the position of the city in Greece changed. Cities lost their autonomy and came under the occupation or influence of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The incessant wars of the time brought the destruction of cities, a decline in their economic activities and the gradual transfer of political power into the hands of the wealthy.4

By contrast, agriculturally poor mainland Greece was unable to develop vigorous economic activity. The old cities failed to recover their vitality and relied on the good will of certain benefactors for the upkeep of public places or the revival of ceremonies: citizen Theodosia of Arkesine, a city on Amorgos, was honoured as a “guardian” in a decree voted by the citizens, because she repaired the agora which had been in ruins for years.10 Epameinondas, from Boeotian Akraiphia, constructed drainage works in Lake Kopais and revived the Ptoia, a religious festival which had not been celebrated for thirty years, due to the lack of funds.11

The wars of the Roman conquest of Greece, and the civil wars of the Roman generals which followed, had disastrous consequences for the Greek cities. Corinth is a case in point. It was totally destroyed by Mummius in 146 BC, its citizens were put to death, and the women, children and slaves were taken captive and sold into bondage. Other cities of the Achaean Confederacy and Boeotia had a similar fate.5 As a consequence, Greece was faced with serious problems, demographic and economic.

Cities also suffered from heavy taxation imposed by the Roman State. Only cities which were founded or re-founded as coloniae by the Romans escaped the general climate of decline in Greece, together with the two former great powers, Athens and Sparta, which were destined to function as museum cities and tourist venues for cultured Romans. To the first category belong Nikopolis in Epirus, which was founded by Augustus to commemorate his victory over Mark Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium (31 BC), as well as Patrai and Corinth in the Peloponnese, cities in key locations for communications with Italy. Roman coloniae enjoyed the legal and political regime of Latin cities and were inhabited by Roman citizens. These new “Roman cities” in Greece were endowed with enforced population movements from neighbouring cities, with the annexation of lands belonging to neighbouring cities, or even with the transfer of sacred objects to them.12 It is obvious that the intention of the central Roman power was to create in the province of Achaea, as mainland Greece was called (excluding Macedonia and Epirus), new urban centres with a Latin population and an orientation toward the Italian Peninsula.

Literary testimonies of writers of the Early Imperial period (1st-2nd century AD) describe in bleak terms the condition of mainland Greece. The geographer Strabo comments on the desolation of many historical cities, such as Megalopolis.6 The orator Dion Chrysostom, in the second century AD, also refers to the devastation of Greece. His Seventh or Euboean oration has been used particularly as proof of the decline of the Greek city at this time. In it, a nameless Euboean city (most probably Carystus) is described as having fallen into utter decline: two-thirds of its agricultural hinterland had been ravaged and remained uncultivated because of lack of manpower and indifference. The main public areas of the city suffered an analogous fate: the gymnasium had been turned into a ploughed field, the agora into pasturage.7 This devastation suggests political decline as well. However, for a correct historical analysis information from literary sources is not sufficient, especially from authors who, like Dion Chrysostom, belonged to the circle of the Second Sophistic, a literary movement of the Imperial Roman period, which imitated the ancients and employed archaizing literary forms.8 They need to be cross-examined with what the AngloSaxons call “hard evidence”, namely the conclusions drawn from the study of contemporary epigraphical and archaeological evidence. In the case of Carystus, archaeological investigations give a different picture from the one described by Dion Chrysostom in his Euboean oration: the economy of the city

Corinth Corinth has bequeathed us important archaeological and epigraphical material, which has been brought to light in the course of systematic excavations in the area of ancient Corinth from the 1920s to the present day. D. Engels utilized all this material in his notable monograph on the history of Roman Corinth.13 The decision to found a Roman colony at the eastern 204

The Transformation of the Classical City in Greece during the Roman Age but left the financing of these to private funds.22 Additional public utilities later completed the picture of Corinth as a Roman megalopolis: a 100 km.-long aqueduct, supplying the city with water from Lake Stymphalia, was financed by Emperor Hadrian. As S. Alcock observes, an aqueduct of such dimensions would have been inconceivable in the Classical period, when autonomous cities were often at war with each other and therefore the flow of water through enemy territory would have been impossible.23 The financing of a public work of such dimensions by an emperor was not fortuitous. Aqueducts, like public baths, were usually funded by wealthy citizens, who were thus proclaimed benefactors: Phile, who was crowned with a wreath by the city of Priene, built the city’s water tank and aqueduct at her own expense (one of the earliest examples, 1st century BC).24 Another wealthy lady, Ammia daughter of Pierion, donated, together with her sons Claudius, Pierion and Amyntas, water from her estates to the city of Beroea, as well as an aqueduct (2nd/3rd century AD).25

end of the Corinthian Gulf, on the ruins of the Greek city of Corinth, was taken by Julius Caesar and, after his assassination in 44 BC, was implemented by Octavian, who pushed the relevant legislation through the Senate.14 Rome evidently realized the need for the Isthmus to be settled by a population that would exploit the ager publicus and sustain maritime trade, the hallmark of the region. Unlike other Roman colonies, Corinth was not re-founded to serve the rehabilitation of veteran legionaries, indeed it appears that the majority of its first settlers were liberti (manumitted slaves). In this way, the aristocratic families of Rome could employ their freedmenagents to control trade between East and West. Furthermore, from the archaeological and demographic data that Engels processed, he concluded that Corinth was a city which could not be sustained by its agricultural hinterland alone.15 The commercial nature of Colonia Laus Julia Corinthiensis (official name of Roman Corinth) is also confirmed by literary and epigraphic testimonies: Plutarch mentions that there were many moneylenders in Patrai, Athens and Corinth. He also mentions the presence of commercial representatives (negotiatores) as a particular feature of Corinth.16 Of special interest for the social and political dimension of the city’s mercantile character is the inscription with the “dossier” of Junia Theodora, a citizen of Corinth, who operated as an unofficial consul of the Lycian Federation (early 1st century AD).17 She most probably belonged to the negotiatores, a body of Roman merchants living in Corinth, and must have been a freedwoman or the descendant of freedmen, as is clear from her cognomen ( Junia).18

One more element which bolstered the economy of Corinth in the Roman period, was the return of the Isthmian Games, athletics events in the context of a religious festival, to the city from Sikyon, where they had been moved following the destruction of Corinth by Mummius. The games were now incorporated within the framework of the new imperial propaganda of Octavian-Augustus, at the end of the first century BC.26 Athens and Sparta Whereas Corinth and Patrai represented the new type of Roman city, which benefited from Roman intervention in the Greek urban landscape, Athens and Sparta lived on as mere shadows of their past. Athens suffered greatly from the depredations of Sulla’s troops in 86 BC, when they conquered the city after a year-long siege, in order to punish her for siding with Mithridates. Many Athenians were slain in the assault, although the monuments were unharmed, with the exception of the Odeion of Pericles, which burnt down; the Piraeus, on the other hand, was razed to the ground.27 Thereafter Athens sank into political oblivion, while the trend towards the concentration of property in the hands of a few families, which had begun in the Hellenistic period, was completed in the Early Imperial period. The wealthy landowners were usually holders of Roman citizenship, as testified by an Athenian inscription, which records the properties of fifty-two Athenians (twentyone women among them), in various demes of Attica.28

The substantial assistance she gave to Lycian exiles, by accommodating them in her home and interceding on their behalf with the city authorities, should be explained by her close personal ties with Lycia. She was probably a holder of “multiple citizenship” (that is she was a citizen not only of Corinth, but also of Lycian cities), a common phenomenon in the Roman world of this period, which allowed her to own property in regions of Lycia as well as in Corinth.19 These inscriptions also testify to the existence of a network of social relations among the wealthy classes of the Roman Empire, a network which included cities often very far apart. Female participation in this social network is of particular significance: women of the Graeco-Roman élite were encumbered with public offices and their wealth was exploited by their father’s city (an heiress owed summa honoraria from the paternal fortune), and then by their husband’s, if they married a man from another city.20 Thus, a Greek woman with Roman citizenship, Claudia Metrodora, is reported as holding political and religious offices and as a benefactress of her homeland, Chios, but later continued her benefactions at Ephesos, together with her husband.21

Initially, Rome’s treatment of Athens was not particularly positive, even though Emperor Domitian expressed his special devotion to the goddess Athena and accepted his appointment as archon of the city in AD 93.29 This attitude changed when Emperor Hadrian ascended the throne (AD 117–138). He transformed the urban planning and the architectural aspect of the city. According to many archaeologists and historians, the construction of a host of impressive buildings, named after the “philhellene” emperor (e.g. library, public baths (fig. 3), aqueduct), led to the creation of a “new” Athens, whose boundary with the old, Classical city, was Hadrian’s Arch.30 This view appears to be exaggerated, since a few splendid buildings could not revive a city that had suffered

The pronounced commercial character of Corinth is also apparent from the dominant position of the forum (marketplace), and of buildings associated functionally with it, in the urban space (fig. 2). According to C.K. Williams, neighbouring markets, storerooms and offices for handling local products were built as part of the urban tissue of the city, so as to sustain the life of the colony; the architects of the initial plan of Corinth had made provision for constructing a meat market and a fish market with a good drainage system, 205

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A

B

2. Aerial photograph of central Corinth (after the J. Wilson Myers couple, from C.K. Williams II, “Roman Corinth”, 1993, 35, fig. 3). A/B: Agora. B: Semicircle, C: Temple of Apollo. D: Central shops (east). E: West shops.

terrible material and human losses, had been deprived of its most substantial economic resources, as well as its political autonomy and the democratic regime that had brought it to the forefront of history a few centuries earlier. Hadrian, at any rate, proceeded with more practical measures to strengthen the Athenian economy: he assigned the economic exploitation of Cephallenia to the Athenian treasury and laid down trade regulations for olive oil. He too was honoured with the office of eponymous archon of the city.31 The unique super-benefactor in mainland Greece, the multimillionaire Herodes Atticus, was active during the same period. It is not fortuitous that the Athenian Croesus built a semi-circular nymphaeum near the Metroon, the temple of the Mother of the Gods, hinting at dynastic claims: the honours it received were addressed both to the family of Marcus Aurelius and to his own. As was usual, Herodes Atticus’ family kept ties with other regions of Greece, particularly Olympia, where the Athenian magnate had donated another nymphaeum.32

centre until Late Antiquity, while the frequent visits of rich Romans for studies or “cultural tourism” strengthened its weak economy (fig. 4). Despite the temporary disfavour the city had suffered during the reign of Septimius Severus (the Athenians had supported another claimant to the throne, Pescennius Nigro), it did not fall into utter decline until the late third century AD, when the incursions of the Goths and Heruls destroyed the major part of it, as well as other Greek urban centres. Even then, Emperor Gallicus had shown his goodwill towards Athenian traditions, by being initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries and accepting Athenian citizenship as well as the office of eponymous archon.33 The heroic resistance of the historian Dexippus, who raised an army of Athenians and retook the city, is seen as a last glimmer of Athenian grandeur, though unfortunately, very few extracts of his work survive, mainly in the texts of Byzantine historians. Historical sources for the “dark” third century AD are few, fragmentary and of dubious quality.

In the end, Athens maintained its brilliance as a cultural

Sparta too was a centre of “cultural tourism” for wealthy 206

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4. Ground plan of the Roman Agora of Athens and its monuments (after J. Travlos, from A. Choremis, “Roman Agora: The first commercial centre of Athens”, in Archaeology of the City of Athens (Municipality of Athens, Cultural Centre, Athens, 1997, 125 [in Greek]).

3. Athens, ground plan of Hadrian’s baths (2nd century AD) (from S. Alcock, Graecia Capta, 127).

Romans. The closing years of the Hellenistic period and the time of the civil wars between the powerful men of Rome (44–31 BC), caused destruction and great social upheaval in Sparta.34 The victory of Octavian, who became the first Roman emperor with the title of Augustus, was favourable to Sparta, which openly supported him. The government of the city passed into the hands of the local strong man, Eurykles, who also received the island of Kythera as a gift. Eurykles was greatly assisted by his personal patron (patronus) Livia, Augustus’ powerful wife, who took special care of her eastern “clientele”.35

Economy, society and the decline of democracy Economic life in most cities of Roman Greece was based on the exploitation of their agricultural hinterland, although there was no lack of other forms of wealth creation: Pausanias notes that at Patrai the ratio of women to men was 2:1, due to the employment of female labour in the flax-processing industry.38 Medium-size cities, such as Aedepsus in Euboea, combined the exploitation of their harbour with tourist attractions,in this case the therapeutic baths.

It is unfortunate for the historical researcher that the archaeological and epigraphical evidence on Roman Sparta is limited and does not permit the mapping of it completely. As in most cities of the time, its “urban” nucleus was the agora, the political and religious centre, which was adorned with votive statues and other monuments. There were also the city’s theatres, only scant traces of which have survived. The gymnasium appears to have been linked with a baths complex, in the Roman fashion, which put more weight on its leisure role.36 Even though Roman Sparta was no match for the architectural wealth of Athens or Corinth, it was not without the basic buildings (gymnasium, agora, theatre, baths) that improved the quality of life of its inhabitants. During the second century AD, the city’s Romanized aristocracy attempted a “revival” of the social system of Archaic and Classical Sparta; the athletics games of boys and girls were incorporated in the cult of the imperial family.37 This “artificial”, “folkloric”, revival attracted a peculiar cultural tourism from the first to the fourth century AD (figs 5,6 and 7: a and b).

Social stratification had not changed radically since the Classical period. Inscriptions from Asia Minor record that the population received sums of money according to their social class. Thus, in the inscription of the benefactress Menodora (Sillyon, 3rd century AD), inhabitants are ranked as follows: a. bouleutais, b. senators, c. members of the ekklesia (assembly) of the demos, d. citizens, e. manumitted slaves, f. settlers and g. wives of bouleutai and senators.39 The social status of merchants/tradesmen remains a problem, as there is no unanimity among scholars. The inscriptions of the aristocratic lady Claudia Italica, are taken by some to denote her ownership of land property in the region, and by others her participation in commercial activities.40 A comparison of the cities of Asia Minor with those of mainland Greece, brings out the economic and demographic weakness of the Greek region: whereas a multitude of urban centres flourished on the western shores of Asia Minor (Ilium, Assos, Pergamon, Phokaia, Smyrna, Erythrai, Teos, Notio, Ephesos, 207

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5. View of the ancient theatre of Sparta, one of the few surviving monuments of the city. During Roman times, the theatre could accommodate 16,000 spectators. Inscriptions were found referring to the patronomoi, that is the archons who, in Roman times, replaced the ephoroi (after D. Koutoulas, Ancient Sparta: 1000 BC -396 AD (Dion) Thessaloniki 1999, 65 [in Greek]).

6. Part of the Roman stoa of Sparta, on the southeast side of the acropolis, close to the Late Roman wall. It consists of remains of shops, with tiled roof, which modern Spartans call an “oven” (after Koutoulas, Ancient Sparta, 76). There have been very few excavations at Sparta and hopes of uncovering substantial finds are limited, due to the terrible destruction the city suffered when it was taken by the Goths, in AD 396, as well as to the illicit antiquarian activity of Abbot Fourrmont, in the 18th century.

208

The Transformation of the Classical City in Greece during the Roman Age b.

a.

7. Mosaics from Roman villas in the eastern sector of Sparta, which, like the eastern sector of Athens - beyond Hadrian’s Arch – constituted the new Roman city (after Koutoulas, Ancient Sparta, 78–79). A. Head of Medusa, 5th century AD and B. The Abduction of Europe, early 4th century AD.

senate (αξιώθησαν του ιερωτάτου των γερεών συστήματος).43

Magnesia-on-the-Maeander, Priene, Miletos, Alabanda, Iasos, Mylasa, Tralleis, Halikarnassos), there were very few cities in central and southern Greece, some old, such as Athens, Delphi and Sparta, which lived by exploiting their historical past, and some new, Roman colonies (Patrai, Corinth). The situation was somewhat better in northern Greece, where significant urban centres existed, such as Thessaloniki, Beroea, Edessa, Thasos and Philippi (a Roman colony), but in this region too the inscriptions and the archaeological evidence can not be compared with the wealth of similar material in Asia Minor.

The changes in the architectural planning and function of the agora in the Roman period also reveal the shrinking of its vital role in the political life of the city, the asty. To begin with, there is a fundamental difference between the ancient Greek agora and its Roman equivalent, the forum. The agora was the most important part of the Greek city, the focus of political, religious and social life, an open space connected with the street network and accessible to all, except criminals; by contrast the forum was more of a commercial centre, while its monumental layout verged on the impressive, a typical expression of Roman architecture.44 Whereas the agoras in the fifth and fourth centuries BC were constructed according to the Hippodamian system, in the Roman period they were designed as a rectangle surrounded by stoas, which enclosed them and made them independent of the rest of the city.45

On the political level, what characterized the entire Greekspeaking Roman world was the total decline of democracy. As the aforementioned inscription of Menodora reveals, part of the citizens had lost their right to participate in the ekklesia of the deme, which had, in any case, been reduced to a “decorative” role, that of ratifying honorary decrees.

As public political debate became rare, the agora was restricted to its economic role. Some epigraphic and literary testimonies confirm the segregation of the agora into “male” and “female”, in Roman times: in the late Hellenistic period, a female religious society applied for permission to erect a statue in honour of the priestess Kleidike in the male agora, so that she could stand next to the statues of her father and brother, both well-known local politicians. The lexicographer Pollux defines the part of the agora where trading took place as “female”.46

The expression of new conditions in the spatial components of the city This political decline is confirmed by the de-politicization of public buildings, such as the gymnasium and the prytaneion. According to epigraphic evidence, in many cities the gymnasium had been merged with the baths and had been turned, by the addition of recreational areas (e.g. libraries), into a leisure centre, open even to ladies of the aristocracy, or as a venue for symposia.41

The theatre, both in its Greek form and as a Roman amphitheatre or stadium, was an indispensable element of the cityscape, because it housed the entertainment of the population. For functional reasons, theatres were often reconstructed on the outskirts of cities. With the decline of political life, the theatre lost the political-educational role it had in Classical Athens; although theatrical performances did not stop until Late Antiquity, spectacles of raw violence, intensely sadistic, such as combat with wild beasts and gladiatorial contests, predominated. Conservative men of letters, such as Apollonius Tyaneus, criticized the use of Classical theatres – in this particular case of the theatre of Dionysos in Athens – for such spectacles, which “soiled the sanctity of the place with blood”.47 Such censure, however, in no way diminished the popularity of the “hunts” (combat with wild beasts) and the gladiatorial duels, and even legacies, such as that of the Spanish lady Erennia from Thessaloniki, financed such spectacles (Thessaloniki, AD 141–142).48

As S.G. Miller observes, during the Roman period, the main function of the prytaneion was a religious one. This is abundantly clear in the case of Ephesos, where numerous inscriptions record the central site of the cult of Hestia in the prytaneion, as well as the officiating duties of the prytanis, who in Roman times was often a woman. This too is a differentiation from the Classical period, where women were banned from the prytaneion.42 The general relaxation of the abaton can also be seen in the presence – albeit very rarely – of certain female members of the élite in the senate. On an inscription from Sebaste of Asia Minor (2nd century AD), four women appear in the list of new members of the city’s senate: Romais, Julia Juliane, Julia Teuthrantis and Claudia Teuthrantis, while a benefactress who paid the per capita tax of the inhabitants of Herakleia Sebaste was honoured by her entry into the local 209

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8. Roman baths at Isthmia (Corinth). The Nereid mosaic (from F.K. Yegül, “The Roman baths at Isthmia in their Mediterranean context”, in T.E. Gregory (ed.), The Corinthia in the Roman Period, 1994, 99).

Benefactors also took care of the inhabitants’ basic, everyday needs. Running water was indispensable for a comfortable urban life, not only for the water supply, but for the functioning of the baths, which secured a level of public hygiene, effectively differentiating the Graeco-Roman city from the Medieval one (figs 8 and 9: a and b). The nymphaea and other ornamental edifices around public fountains were often of aesthetic value only.

(υδροφόρος), financed the construction of water pipes, fountains, wells and other water sources, mainly for the sanctuary of Artemis at Didyma.49 The baths were not used exclusively by male citizens, as was the case during the Classical period. Where there was only one public bathhouse, it was used at different times by men and women, as testified by a relevant inscription from Arkades in Crete.50 In other cities, the generosity of some benefactors, usually females, secured the operation of separate public baths, exclusively for women: an inscription of the first century AD from Chios, records that Claudia Metrodora built a balneum for women (βαλανείου διά τaς γυναιξίν), while the priestess

In certain cities, the associating of sacerdotal office with water was a means of financing public waterworks through private wealth. Thus, in Roman Miletos, the families of the young maidens assuming the priestly office of “waterbearer” 210

The Transformation of the Classical City in Greece during the Roman Age

a.

b. 9. The Thermae of Caracalla, Rome (3rd century AD): a. Restoration drawing (after P. Steven) and b. Photograph of part of the complex (from T.R. Reid, “The power and the glory of the Roman empire”, Γαιόραμα-Experiment 30, 1999, 27 (in Greek)).

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Constantine Mantas (Lucia?) daughter of Myron, was honoured for building a luxurious public bathhouse for women.51

C.K. Williams II, “Roman Corinth as a commercial center”, in T.E. Gregory (ed.), The Corinthia in the Roman Period, Journal of Roman Archaeology, Supplementary Series 8, 1993, 31. 15 Engels, Roman Corinth, op. cit., 33–39. 16 Plutarch, Ethics, 831a. 17 D. Pallas et al., “Inscriptions lyciennes trouvées à Solomos près de Corinthe”, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique (BCH) 83, 1959, 495–508. 18 R.A. Kearsley, “Women in public life in the Roman East”, Ancient Society: Resources for the Teachers 15, 1985, 124–126. 19 There are abundant epigraphic testimonia of similar cases of holders of multiple citizenships in the eastern part of the Roman Empire: e.g., Tiberius Claudius Aggripina was a citizen of at least three cities of Lycia, as well as of Rome – see M. Balland, Fouilles de Xanthos VII: Inscriptions d’époque impériale du Létôon, Paris 1981, no. 65. 20 See C. Mantas, Civic Decline and Female Power: Women’s New Position in Greece under Roman Rule (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Bristol), 1995. 21 See Kearsley, “Women in public life”, op. cit., 128. 22 Williams II, “Roman Corinth”, op. cit., 45. 23 Alcock, Graecia Capta, op. cit., 124–125. 24 H.W. Pleket, Epigraphica II, Leiden 1969, no. 5. 25 D. Kanatsoulis, Macedonian Prosopography, Thessaloniki 1955, no. 100 (in Greek). 26 J.H. Kent, Corinth: The Inscriptions 1926–1950, Princeton 1966. 27 Plutarch, Parallel Lives, “Sulla”, 13. 28 See J. Day, An Economic History of Athens under Roman Domination, New York 1942, 232–235. 29 W. Miller, The Romans in Greece (Eleftheri Skepsi), Athens 1993 (reprint of 1903 article), 22 (in Greek). 30 Alcock, Graecia Capta, op. cit., 93. 31 See Miller, The Romans in Greece, op. cit. 24, and J.H. Oliver, The Civic Tradition and Roman Athens, Baltimore 1983, 104. 32 Alcock, Graecia Capta, op. cit., 125, 190. 33 Miller, The Romans in Greece, op. cit., 31, 32. 34 Cartledge and Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta, op. cit. 35 Cartledge and Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta, op. cit., 93–97. 36 Cartledge and Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta, op. cit., 126– 129. 37 C. Mantas, “Women and athletics in the Roman East”, Nikephoros 8, 1995, 125–144. 38 Pausanias, Description of Greece, “Achaia”, 21, 14. 39 Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes (R. Cagnet), Paris 1903, nos 800–802. 40 See H.W. Plecket, “City elites and economic activities in the Greek part of the Roman Empire: some preliminary remarks” in Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Greek and Latin Inscriptions, vol. II, Athens 1984, 135–136 (Proceedings in Greek). 41 F. Yegül, Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity, New York 1992. 42 Miller, The Prytaneion, op. cit. 22–25. 43 L. and J. Robert, La Carie II: Le plateau de Tabai et ses environs, Paris 1954, 219–220, no. 67, and 172. 44 See E.J. Owens, The City in the Greek and Roman World, London-New York 1992, 153–155. 45 R.E. Wycherley, How the Greeks Built Cities, London 1962. 46 Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (A. Boeckhius), Berlin 1828, no. 3657, and Pollux, Onomasticon, Χ, 18. 47 Philostratus, Life of Apollonius Tyaneus, 4, 5. 48 Kanatsoulis, Macedonian Prosopography, op. cit., no. 471. 49 R. van Bremen, The Limits of Participation, Amsterdam 1966, 95–97. 50 D. Tsougarakis, Roman Crete (1st century BC -5th century AD), Crete 1990, 39 (in Greek). 51 D. Evangelidis, “Inscriptions from Chios”, Archaeological Bulletin 11, appendix, 1927–28, pp. 25–26, and H. Hipdieg, “Die Arbeiten zu Pergamon”, in Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung, 35, 1910, 475. 52 Die Inschriften von Ephesos, vol. II, (R. Habeli), Bonn 1979, no. 455 (2nd century AD). 53 Owens, The City in the Greek and Roman World, op. cit., 141. 54 G.M. Rogers, “The constructions of women at Ephesos”, Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik 90, 1992, 215–223. 14

Some rare epigraphic testimonies referring to sewers, public conveniences and brothels also exist. Popillius [Cinintilius] Varius, together with his wife and his daughter Varille, rebuilt a public convenience and the brothel (παιδισκείον) adjoining it - the connection of the two buildings indicates the common service of bodily needs.52 Even those buildings that served basic human needs were distinguished by a pompous overburdened ornamental style, typical of the Roman tendency to level the particular architectural style of each region and impose a common, cosmopolitan style everywhere, from Britain to North Africa and Asia Minor, in the context of cultural and political homogenization. This policy was easily put into practice through the benefactions both of members of the imperial family and of local benefactors, especially Romans. Thus, Empress Faustina financed the construction at Miletos of a luxurious complex of baths, bearing her name.53 Ephesos in the second and the early third century AD was literally transformed architecturally from a Greek-Hellenistic city into a Roman one, as both male and female members of élite Roman families competed in constructing buildings of Roman character (especially basilicas).54 This Roman type of transformation was vigorous in the cities of mainland Greece as well, not only in those created or recreated as Roman colonies (Corinth, Patrai, Nikopolis, Philippi), but also in Athens and Sparta. The next stage was the transformation of the city into a Byzantine one, with particular emphasis on fortifications and with the conversion of pagan temples (those that were not razed) into Christian churches.

Notes On the multiple functions of the prytaneia and their transformation during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, see S.G. Miller, The Prytaneion, BerkeleyLondon 1978. 2 On the ideological, but also the practical significance of city walls (as demarcation limits of the city from nature and a means of defence and tax control, see D. Perring, “Spatial organisation and social change in Roman towns”, in J. Rich and A. Wallace-Hadrieds (eds), City and Country in the Ancient World (Routledge), London 1992, 282–284. 3 The “tyrant” Nabes completed the erection of a fortification wall around Sparta in 188 BC, (see P. Cartledge and A. Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities, London 1992, 71). 4 P. Veyne, Bread and Circuses, London 1990, and M. Sarire, “Athens: Power in the hands of the wealthy”, Istoria 239, 1995, 26–33 (in Greek). 5 S.E. Alcock, Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece, Cambridge 1993, 8–17. 6 Strabo VIII, 8, 1. 7 Dion Chrysostom, Euboean, 33, 25 and 34–36, 38–40. 8 Literary topoi are thematic motifs repeated through time in literature, from the Archaic to the Roman period (e.g. of the married woman with a younger lover, of the child abandoned in the country, etc.). On the movement of the Second Sophistic, see G.W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire, Oxford 1969. 9 Alcock, Graecia Capta, op. cit., 101. 10 Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) (Willamowitz-Melledorf ), Berlin, 1902, XII, nos 7 to 49 (end of 1st century BC). 11 IG, VII, no. 2712 (1st century AD). 12 Alcock, Graecia Capta, op. cit., 132–139. 13 D. Engels, Roman Corinth: An Alternative Model for the Classical City, Chicago 1990. 1

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CHAPTER 18

The Transformation of the Hellenistic City in the Roman East Edwin J. Owens Senior Lecturer, Department of Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology University of Wales, Swansea

Roman East and pax romana

the fact that St Paul specifically targeted the city on his first missionary journey.3 The original city had been founded by the Seleucid dynasty of Syria in the third century BC, with colonists from the western Greek coastal city of Magnesia-onthe-Maeander, and was strategically located in rich agricultural land at the point where several major strategic roads met. Over the next two centuries the city flourished and became one of the most important Seleucid centres in the region. Nevertheless,

The Romans brought political stability to the Greek East in a way that not even the Hellenistic kings, with their almost constant internecine struggles for supremacy, could achieve. As elsewhere throughout her empire, where appropriate, Rome tended to use established mechanisms for government and control. In the Greek East this meant overwhelmingly adapting and using the established cities. Even here, however, the Romans found opportunities to found new cities and restore existing ones. Thus Pompeius Magnus is said to have founded or restored many cities as part of his settlement and reorganization of the eastern half of the empire, after the defeat of Mithridates VI of Pontus.1 The settlement of veteran soldiers provided further opportunities. Besides any considerations of security, new colonies were established throughout the East as the first emperor, Augustus, struggled with the problem of demobilizing and settling the many thousands of soldiers who had become superfluous to the military needs of the empire after the defeat of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra.2 Demobilization and settlement remained a problem for successive emperors. Sometimes the veterans were settled in existing cities, sometimes new cities were created. Many cities of the Greek East had suffered disastrously as a result of the wars, both civil and foreign, that had plagued the final years of the Roman Republic. By contrast, the first two and a half centuries of the Christian era were a period of unparalleled peace and material prosperity. The pax romana became a reality, and the material benefits that peace brought offered the cities of the Greek East new opportunities to renovate, refurbish and reconstruct. The resulting transformation within the cities of the Greek world was no less remarkable and spectacular than the impact that the Hellenistic kings had previously had on the cities of this region.

Antioch in Pisidia Antioch in Pisidia was one of five colonies that Augustus created to control the mountainous and hostile interior of southwestern Asia Minor, when the province of Galatia was formed circa 25 BC (fig. 1). It became the most important colony in Asia Minor and the home of several important Roman public figures. Its strategic importance is witnessed by

1. Antioch in Pisidia. 1: West Gate. 2: Theatre. 3: Decumanus maximus. 4: Cardo maximus. 5: Colonnaded street. 6: Temple of Augustus and Platea Tiberia. 7: Baths. 8: Nymphaeum. R: The nearest water-tank of the aqueduct (after J. Burdy and M. Taslialan, “L’aqueduc d’Antioche de Pisidie”, Anatolia Antiqua 5, 1997, 135).

213

Edwin J. Owens changes, which Augustus introduced to the original Greek city of Antioch, were designed to create a fully Romanized city in place of the Greek original. Indeed, at Antioch the changes went much further. The documentary evidence reveals that parts of the city took the names of topographical features of Rome, and terms such as tribus and vici were employed in place of their Greek equivalents, in imitation of Rome. Such facts suggest that the first emperor was not content to Romanize Antioch, but wanted to create a little Rome on the borders of Phrygia and Pisidia.5

Urban competition and the growth of Greek cities

2. Antioch in Pisidia, aqueduct (Burdy and Taslialan, “L’aqueduc d’Antioche”, 150).

The total transformation of Antioch from a Greek to a Roman city was obviously politically motivated. Not only was it intended to reward and placate those soldiers from the fifth and sixth legions who were to be settled there, but also to assure future veterans that the emperor would look after their interests. In other cities and colonies throughout the Greek East the influence of Rome was less destructive of the existing urban environment.6 Its impact on the cities of the Greek world was, nonetheless, at times extensive. At the political level, aristocratic forms of government were encouraged in place of democratic forms, where they still existed.7

when it was decided to establish a colony at Antioch, Augustus completely transformed the original Greek city. Effectively he created a Roman city; few remains of the original Hellenistic foundation have been unearthed to date and all of the major surviving buildings are of the Roman period. The remodelling was thorough. The street plan of Antioch was converted to a typically Roman design with the construction of two main intersecting roads, commonly known as the decumanus maximus and the cardo maximus.4 These two axial thoroughfares conditioned the line of all the other streets and the orientation of the buildings. An imposing and spectacular temple to Augustus dominated the city. The temple itself was situated on a high podium and was surrounded by a semicircular, two-storey portico, the rear wall of which had been cut from the natural rock. The precinct was approached via a set of steps from a wide, limestone-paved platea through a triumphal arch. The arch was built to celebrate Augustus’ victories over the native Pisidian population. An imposing colonnaded street led up to the platea.

In architecture, new Roman urban building types became increasingly popular alongside existing buildings. Lavish decoration and height were used to impress. New planning ideas were introduced, and brick and concrete were more extensively used. Unlike Antioch, these changes were achieved through established mechanisms and through building on and adapting Greek architectural traditions. Change was achieved by means of encouragement rather than force. The result was an unprecedented level of material prosperity, diversity of urban forms, and an active and vibrant city life, while at the same time local identity, customs and traditions were maintained.

Other major public buildings included a theatre, a forum, and a large ornamental nymphaeum. The last was located on the north side of the city, immediately inside the walls, and was supplied by means of an impressive stone-built aqueduct (fig. 2). This brought water, in places using a pressurized siphon system, from springs 12–15 km. away. Several sections of its imposing arches can still be seen leading to the city. To the west of the nymphaeum there was a gymnasium and beyond this a large bathhouse. Both the aqueduct and nymphaeum are contemporary and date to the years immediately after the founding of the colony. The bathhouse was probably also contemporary with the construction of the nymphaeum and aqueduct, making it one of the earliest examples of this archetypal Roman urban building in Asia Minor.

In some respects the traditional rivalry and competition that had long-existed both between and within Greek cities throughout the East were the driving force behind these developments. Cities competed to gain the favour of the emperor and his representatives, and local benefactors willingly contributed to the embellishment and provision of amenities for their own citizens in rivalry to other cities. Prominent local public figures were expected to contribute to the well-being of their fellow citizens. In Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Byrrhaena, one of the eminent aristocratic female citizens of the Thessalian town of Hypata, boasts to the hero of the story, Lucius, of the amenities and facilities which Thessaly had to offer. They included baths, temples, and other public buildings, and generally facilities even to rival Rome.8

Subsequent developments included renovations to the theatre, which was enlarged in the third century AD, when the cavea was carried across the decumanus maximus on a vaulted substructure, the remodelling of other buildings, and the addition of several churches. At some time the road leading into the city through the west gate was embellished by means of the addition of a stepped, central water channel and a small public fountain.

Driven by civic pride and civic patriotism, rivalry and enmity were particularly intense amongst the cities of Asia Minor, as each strove to be recognized as the leading city in the region. In the mid-second century AD Ephesos had a long-running, acrimonious dispute with Smyrna over the title, “first and greatest city metropolis of Asia”, which Ephesos claimed, but which Smyrna desired.9 Eventually resolved by Emperor Antoninus Pius, the dispute broke out again later in the century

The creation of the colony at Antioch did not simply involve the settlement of veteran troops in the existing city. The extensive 214

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3. Ephesos (M.I. Finley, Atlas of Classical Antiquity, London 1977, 212).

4. Ephesos, Curetes Street ( J. Steele, Hellenistic Architecture in Asia Minor, London 1992, 101).

and was further complicated by the involvement of Pergamon. Similar disputes occurred in Bithynia-Pontus between Nicaea and Nikomedia.10 It was not only rivalry between cities that was the stimulus for the building activity. The desire of leading citizens to leave a permanent memorial of their name and their beneficence was another motivating factor. On one occasion Emperor Antoninus Pius had to rebuke the citizens of Ephesos for their ungracious attitude to one of their benefactors, because he had given a permanent benefaction by donating a building rather than the transitory gifts of games or corn distributions.11

They included temples, administrative buildings such as the prytaneion and bouleuterion, a large and imposing theatre, and gymnasia. Under Roman influence bathhouses, colonnaded streets, monumental and triumphal arches, and highly ornamental fountain-houses were also added. The impact of Roman influences on traditional Greek urban architecture is witnessed in the development of the theatre at Ephesos (fig. 5). The present theatre with its semi-circular shape is completely Roman in design and construction, although various elements of the Hellenistic skene building remain. Construction began in the reign of Emperor Claudius (AD 41–54) and was completed under Emperor Trajan at the beginning of the second century AD. Subsequently, other additions were made.

Ephesos In the Roman period, as in previous ones, existing buildings were renovated and embellished and new buildings were incorporated into the existing urban plan.12 In particular, building activity focused on the lavish embellishment of public buildings and the provision of urban amenities. These were intended to improve the quality of life and to offer intellectual stimulation, physical relaxation and entertainment to their citizens. Ephesos typifies these developments. An ancient foundation, it became under Roman rule the leading Ionian city along the west coast of Asia Minor and the administrative seat of the Roman governor of Asia. Its wealth was enormous and this is reflected in the character and grandeur of its public buildings and many of its private houses.

The trend, clearly apparent in the cities of the Greek East, was the amalgamation of traditional buildings with new Roman forms and decoration. At Ephesos the “state agora” was over 160 m. in length and was built almost totally in marble. It was enclosed on its south and west sides by two rows of marble benches. An impressive basilica, the nave of which was supported by highly decorated columns with Ionic capitals in the shape of bucrania enclosed its north side. Later, Corinthian columns were also added. Excavations below the chalkideion at the west end of the agora revealed that the basilica had partly replaced an earlier Hellenistic stoa. The amalgamation of Greek and Roman traditions is further witnessed by the bronze inscription on the basilica. The bilingual inscription, in both Greek and Latin, records that the basilica was dedicated to the goddess Artemis, the demos of Ephesos, and the emperors Augustus and Tiberius.

Around 290 BC, because of geological problems, Lysimachus moved the city from its original location to its present situation on the south side of the River Cayster, close to a good natural harbour. Here it flourished (fig. 3). It was laid out in typical Hippodamian grid pattern, with the exception of the “Curetes” street, which followed a sinuous course from the Magnesia Gate to the city centre (fig. 4). The city walls are the only major structures of the original Hellenistic city that survive today. The majority of the other buildings were totally refurbished or newly built during the Roman period, although again the remains of earlier Hellenistic structures have been found underneath. Ephesos had the usual collection of public buildings, which were common to most Greek cities.

As we observed above, the gymnasium became one of the most important buildings in the cities of the Hellenistic period, and Ephesos had several gymnasia. One of them lay immediately to the north of the road that entered the city through the east gate. This was a magnificent complex with exercise yards, halls and an adjoining palaestra, dedicated by a member of one of Ephesos’ leading philanthropic families. Again the fusion of Greek and Roman traditions can be seen in the amalgamation of the characteristically Greek gymnasium with the building 215

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5. Ephesos, theatre (Steele, Hellenistic Architecture, 99).

that came to symbolize Roman urban civilization – the bathhouse. The gymnasium of Vedius, constructed in the second century AD through the benefaction of one of Ephesos’ most illustrious citizens, Publius Vedius Antoninus, lay on the northern edges of the city beyond the stadium. It included baths, a gymnasium complex and a palaestra. A second gymnasium-bath complex, the so-called Great Baths, lay north and west of the theatre, immediately to the north of the finely decorated street called the “Arcadiane” at a location specifically reserved for the purpose in the original plans of Lysimachus’ city. This large complex included baths with a swimming pool, an exercise yard (palaestra), and various sports facilities. Immediately to the south lay the so-called marble hall, whilst to the east there was a large square with triple colonnades. This effectively consisted of two narrow, roofed structures separated by an uncovered passage, which is thought to have been a xystos used for running practice. If the gymnasia and bathhouses catered for the physical wellbeing of the citizens of Ephesos, the library of Celsus offered intellectual and scholastic stimulation (fig. 6). Adjoining the south side of the agora, the library of Celsus was an impressive public building. Dedicated by the consul of AD 110, C. Iulius Aquila, it took its name from his father, whose sarcophagus lay beneath the floor of the apse opposite the central entrance. Aquilla’s heirs completed the building work. The main building consisted of a large central chamber, constructed on massive vaulted substructures and surrounded by a passage, which was designed to prevent damp seeping into the main hall and affecting the manuscripts. The manuscripts themselves were stored in three superimposed rows of cupboard-niches and the whole of the interior walls and floor of the building was covered with variegated marble veneer. The entrance and façade of the building was no less imposing. A flight of nine marble steps, 21 m. in width, led up to the façade, richly decorated with paired columns and aediculae, the niches of which contained statues symbolizing the four cardinal virtues.

6. Ephesos, library of Celsus ( J.P. Ward-Perkins, Roman Imperial Architecture, Harmondsworth 1981, 291, fig. 189).

Two other types of monument at Ephesos further reflect the influences that developed in the Greek cities of the East in the first four centuries of the Christian era. First, the road, which ran from the harbour of Ephesos, now totally silted up, to the theatre, was transformed into an imposing monumental colonnaded street. Called the “Arcadiane” in honour of the emperor Arcadius, it was over 10.5 m. in width and was flanked by two long stoas. Unusually for ancient cities, it was provided with street lighting.13 The second typically Roman building was the nymphaeum. Greek cities had been provided, where appropriate, with public fountain-houses. However, in the Roman period, imposing, often ornately-decorated fountain-houses were built to supply running water by means of aqueducts. Two typical examples were constructed at 216

The Transformation of the Hellenistic City in the Roman East Ephesos. First there was the nymphaeum of Trajan. This was a two-storey building, decorated with composite columns on the ground floor and Corinthian columns above, which surrounded the large water basin. In the centre of it there stood a large statue of the emperor himself with a globe at its feet. A similar imposing fountain-house was erected in the southwest corner of the ‘state agora’. The latter, built circa AD. 80 and in plan resembling Trajan’s nymphaeum, was ornately decorated with seahorses, tritons and other water deities. The city of Ephesos, as a result of its political and administrative position, became the most important Greek city on the west coast of Asia Minor. It attracted great interest and support from both imperial and local dignitaries, and this is reflected in its buildings. Furthermore, throughout the centuries of Roman influence in the Greek world this interest continued. When St Paul visited the city in the 40s AD, the theatre and the “state agora” were undergoing major renovation. At the other end of the Roman period, the “Arcadiane” dates to the end of the fourth century AD. The intervening period saw constant new construction, rebuilding and refurbishment.

7. Pergamon, double-vaulted water channel (G.E. Bean, Aegean Turkey, 1966, pl. 11).

together with the theatre, dominate Miletos, but also they were not orientated with the rest of the city and its street system, which, according to tradition, was laid out by Miletos’ most famous urban planner, Hippodamos. Instead, the baths of Faustina take their orientation from the shape and direction of the theatre bay, adjacent to which they were placed.

Miletos The rise of Ephesos as the seat of government and administration in the Roman province of Asia eclipsed in importance many of the other major Classical and Hellenistic centres of the region. Nevertheless, many of the Greek cities of the region underwent similar changes and embellishment. Miletos has a long and illustrious history, and is unique among the Ionian cities of Asia Minor in that Homer specifically mentions it. Subsequently, it became one of the richest and most important cities of the colonization movement that spread Greek culture and the Greek way of life throughout the Mediterranean Sea and the Euxine Pontus.14 The material success of Miletos was matched by its intellectual achievements, as it produced or attracted some of the greatest writers, philosophers and scientists in the Greek world.

Pergamon The changes and development that are seen at Ephesos and Miletos are reflected throughout the cities of the Greek East. Furthermore, as a result of the peaceful conditions the Romans brought to the Greek world, city walls and urban defences became redundant. Cities increased in size and spread beyond their earlier confines. Pergamon, already expanding onto the plain below the acropolis in Hellenistic times, expanded further in the Roman period. Two structures of the lower city stand out. The first is the so-called red courtyard. Probably constructed in the second century AD, this was a sanctuary dedicated to a triad of Egyptian deities. The complex, over 300 m. in length and built of brick, consisted of a large courtyard, a basilica with two flanking circular towers and underground stoas, supported on pillars. The fact that the courtyard was built over the River Selinus, which flowed underneath it through a double vaulted tunnel, is an indication of the skills of the construction engineers (fig. 7).

As elsewhere, the general arrangement of Miletos had long been established and the changes in the Roman period reflect refurbishment, renovation and replacement of existing buildings. Thus the theatre at Miletos was renovated circa AD 100. The resulting structure is one of the best examples of the fusion of Greek and Roman architectural traditions.15 Other buildings of the Hellenistic period took on Roman characteristics. The great south agora was used for formal occasions and functions, and underwent numerous renovations. These included the construction of gateways to close off the former open-access roadways, characteristic of Greek agora design, leading into the south market.

The remains of a Roman amphitheatre stood between the acropolis and the famous sanctuary to the healing god Asklepios. It was built of brick and, like the Serapeion above, overlay a stream that flowed across the site. Amphitheatres were uniquely Roman in concept and use, and the amphitheatre at Pergamon is one of only a few such buildings that have been found in the Greek East. That such buildings were constructed is an indication of the tolerance, if not acceptance, of the more barbaric practices that the Romans introduced into the Greek world, corroborating the literary testimonies that Roman-style animal shows and gladiatorial contests became increasingly popular.

As for many of the cities of the Graeco-Roman world, the second century AD in particular was Miletos’ greatest period of prosperity. Much of the rebuilding and renovation dates to the reign of Emperor Trajan (AD 98–117) and, in the case of Miletos, especially, to the reign of Marcus Aurelius (AD 161– 180). The theatre was again remodelled to seat 15,000 people, and the large and imposing bathhouse was constructed. It was named in honour of the emperor’s wife, Faustina, who stayed in the city in AD 164 and donated a large sum of money towards its construction. Not only do the baths of Faustina, 217

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8. Perge, colonnaded street (G.E. Bean, Turkey’s Southern Shore, 1968, pl. 12).

From the stoa to the colonnaded street As observed above, Roman influences on the cities of the Greek East worked within established traditions, although, as the baths of Faustina at Miletos show, they were prepared to abandon traditional practices in the face of prevailing conditions. Roman influence also made a distinctive contribution to the architectural development of the cities of the Greek East. The use of concrete, which had already begun in Hellenistic times, and of brick allowed variety and innovation in construction and design, which traditional building methods found difficult to achieve. The widespread use of such materials freed buildings from their physical environment and allowed the development of more complicated buildings and building complexes.

9. Perge, water channel (Steele, Hellenistic Architecture, 199).

A similar water channel ran down the centre of the street that led through the west gate at Antioch in Pisidia. As the ground sloped towards the gateway the canal was again divided by cross walls. The canal arrived at the city gate about 2 m. above the street paving. It thus created a cascade of running water to greet visitors approaching the city via the west gate. The visual effect was stunning. Such canals, however, were not only an impressive water feature, but also cooled the atmosphere by evaporation.

One of the developments of Roman urban planning was the full monumentalization of urban streets. Hellenistic planners had realized that streets, apart from functioning as mere links between different areas of a city, could be exploited architecturally as part of the embellishment of the city. Thus the trend of Hellenistic cities to embellish urban streets was completed in the Roman period. Major roads became lavishly decorated with monuments and statuary. Propylaea and monumental arches were erected at key points and junctions along the street. In particular, colonnades and porticoes were added to important roads and thoroughfares. Thus the street itself became part of the architectural development of the city. At Antioch-on-theOrontes the central roadway of the Hellenistic city was increased in width to 27 m. and colonnaded in the Roman period.

Colonnaded streets were essentially the adaptation of the ubiquitous Greek stoa and its application to the street system. Their purpose was not only to offer protection from the elements, but also visually to direct the visitor’s line of sight towards a particular architectural feature and to hide the more unseemly parts of the city.

Water, baths and the nymphaeum

The city of Perge on the south coast of Asia Minor was divided into four unequal quarters by two intersecting colonnaded streets.16 The main north-south street begins at the earlier south gate of the Hellenistic period (fig. 8). A triple-arched gateway was built in the Roman period at the inner edge of the horseshoe-shaped courtyard of the gate. From this point the street runs northwards in the direction of the acropolis, although it deviates slightly from its straight line, presumably to avoid pre-existing structures. It was flanked on either side by two colonnades, at the rear of which were rows of shops. A wide water channel ran down the centre of the street, separating the two carriageways (fig. 9). A similar water channel ran along the intersecting east-west thoroughfare. The channel was divided by cross walls approximately every 20 m. The cross walls acted as dams to check the flow of water and to catch debris, and so facilitate cleaning and maintenance.

Water was essential for the continuation of urban life. Although Greek engineers had both the technology and the ability to channel water from great distances,17 cities were in general reluctant to rely exclusively on sources of water that were too remote. Aqueducts were potentially easy targets in the unstable political conditions that prevailed prior to the pax romana and the water supply from them could easily be interrupted.18 With the spread of peaceful conditions after the victories of the first emperor, Augustus, aqueducts supplying running water became a common and widespread feature of urban life, as cities exploited sources of water that previously they had been reluctant to do. Water was supplied for both essential and recreational needs, and the construction probably most associated with dissemination of Romanized urban life was the bathhouse.19 The importance of the bathhouse is witnessed by the fact that in many cities throughout the empire aqueducts 218

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11. Miletos, nymphaeum (Ward-Perkins, Roman Imperial Architecture, 298, fig, 192).

water, which poured through a total of nine niches, whilst in front of this there was a smaller dipping basin. Colonnades, two storeys in height, formed the projecting wings on either side of the rear basin. Besides supplying water, the nymphaeum at Miletos also acted as a distribution point, whence water was channelled to other key points throughout the city.

10. Miletos, baths of Faustina (F. Yegül, Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity, 1992, 292, pl. 374).

Roman planning in the Greek world combined the longestablished traditions of the Greek cities of the East with new ideas, new materials and occasionally new building forms. Planners relied heavily on the visual impact that they could make. Height was used to impress, some structures were erected merely for decorative or visual effect, and the decoration itself on buildings became increasingly more ornate and lavish. The nymphaea, whilst appearing to the eye to be buildings, were merely façades. They imparted a false sense of solidity and substance, yet their only purpose was as a highly ornate backdrop to the basin from which the water was drawn.

were built to feed bathhouses.20 Often a city was provided with several baths, as the Roman habit of bathing became increasingly popular and widespread. The baths of Faustina at Miletos, like many others in the Greek world, combined Greek and Roman traditions (fig. 10). The colonnaded palaestra connected with the existing stadium to the west, and the bath building in turn adjoined it to the east. A long portico further linked the baths to the stadium, which was also linked to the gymnasium of Eumenes. The result was a grand complex for entertainment, exercise and relaxation. The baths themselves are impressive. They consist of a long room, which was originally vaulted, with thirteen rooms along either side. These side chambers (2–3 m. wide) were also vaulted to a height of approximately. 4 m. Beyond this hall were the other rooms, heated to varying degrees, which are associated with the tradition of bathing, as well as a cold plunge bath.

Intense competition among cities and urban pride led to continuous renovations and reconstructions. There were, however, dangers in such competition. The letters Pliny wrote to Emperor Trajan as governor of Pontus-Bithynia abound with evidence of ill-conceived and uncompleted building projects. Sometimes the projects were too ambitious and ran out of funding; sometimes they were badly designed or constructed, and at times there was more than a hint of profiteering. Moreover, as these projects were also intended to stand as lasting monuments to the beneficence of the provider and his family, the building had to be appropriate. Consequently, not all services were adequately covered, as the case of Amastris in Pontus-Bithynia shows. Here, according to Pliny, an otherwise beautiful city was spoiled because a foul-smelling, open sewer ran along the main street.22

Free-standing, ornamental fountain-houses (nymphaea) were another widespread architectural feature of the cities of the Greek East. Whilst the style and extent of their decoration varied greatly, many had a fairly standard design. They consisted of a high, two-storey façade with projecting sidewalls. In front of the façade there was a water basin. Nymphaea were often lavishly decorated with statuary and sculpture, columns, niches and aediculae. Nymphaea usually consisted of a high, two- or three-storey building with projecting end walls, and a dipping basin for water in front.

The case of Panopeus in Central Greece, however, indicates that benefits were unfairly distributed among cities. The ability to attract resources was still the major factor in the development of these cities and even natural disasters or, later on, enemy incursions, which afforded opportunities for renewal, did not always produce immediate help. Nevertheless, overall the cities of the Greek East prospered greatly in the first four to five hundred years of the present era. Their success was based on a

The nymphaeum at Miletos was particularly lavish (fig. 11).21 The rear wall, resembling the façade of a theatre, was three storeys high and decorated with columns and niches, both semicircular and rectangular in shape, in which stood statues of gods and demigods. These were two water basins. The larger one to the rear acted as the receiving and settling basin for the 219

Edwin J. Owens combination of tradition and innovation. The result was that Greek cities in the East survived long after the Roman Empire in the West fell to the barbarian tribes from beyond the Rhine and the Danube.

Notes See A.H.M. Jones, The Greek City, Oxford 1940, 56–58; see also B. Isaac, Limits of Empire, Oxford 1990, 336–338. 2 See Isaac, Limits of Empire, op. cit., 311–332, who points out that, despite popular opinion, the military aspect of Roman colonization was not really successful. 3 Acts of the Apostles, 13:13–15, and S. Mitchell, M. Welkens, Pisidian Antioch, London 1998. 4 See J. B. Ward-Perkins, The Cities of Ancient Greece and Italy: Planning in Classical Antiquity, London 1974, 27–28. 5 B. Levick, Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor, Oxford 1967, 76–78. 6 E.g. see Antioch’s sister colony of Kremna. The colony was one of the five colonies established in Pisidia in 25 BC. Although contemporary with Antioch there was no remodelling or rebuilding at Kremna. Urban development there did not take place until reign of Emperor Hadrian, in the 2nd century AD – S. Mitchell, S. Cormack, R. Fursdon, E.J. Owens and J. Oztürk, Kremna in Pisidia, London 1995, 53–56. 7 This was achieved by the simple expediencies of introducing a property qualification for office and for town councillors, and making town councils a permanent body, see Jones, The Greek City, op. cit., 170–171. 8 Apuleius, Metamorphoses, ii, 19. 9 D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor, vol. I, Princeton 1950, 636–637. 10 Magie, Roman Rule, op. cit., 588–589. 11 See F.F. Abbott and A.C. Johnson, Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire, Princeton 1926, 423, no. 101. 12 E.J. Owens, The City in the Greek and Roman World, London 1992, ch. 7. 13 It is known that Antioch-on-the-Orontes had street lighting in the 4th century AD – see Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum gestarum, XIV, 1, 9, and. Jones, The Greek City, op. cit., 214. 14 See J. Boardman, The Greeks Overseas, London 1980 (3rd edn),. 28, 106– 107, 240–243. 15 G.E. Bean, Aegean Turkey, London 1966, 219–230, esp. 226–227. 16 G.E. Bean, Turkey’s Southern Shore, London 1968, 53–54. 17 E.g. the famous tunnel of Eupalinos at Samos, see Herodotus, History, iii, 60, 1–3. An underground aqueduct supplied the Classical city of Olynthos with water from springs approximately 11 kms away – see D.M. Robinson and J.W. Graham, Excavations at Olynthus, vol. VIII, Baltimore 1938, 307–311. 18 Owens, The City, op. cit. 158–160. External sources of water could easily be cut in times of war, e.g. at the siege of Syracuse, see Thucydides vi, 101. Even Hellenistic Pergamon, which had an impressive aqueduct system, required all its citizens to keep and maintain their private cisterns in case the aqueducts should be cut – see K.F.W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae, Leipzig 1903–1905, no. 483. 19 Although bathhouses became a mark of Roman urban life, baths were not exclusively a Roman concept. Baths were built in the Greek cities before Roman influence spread – see R. Ginouvès, Balaneutike: Recherches sur le bain dans l’antiquité grecque, Paris 1962, and F. Yegül, Baths and Bathing in Classical Antiquity, New York 1992, 250–313. 20 J.J. Coulton, “Roman aqueducts in Asia Minor”, in S. Macready and F.H. Thompson (eds), Roman Architecture in the Greek World, London 1987, 72–84, and E.J. Owens, “The Kremna aqueduct and water supply in Roman cities”, Greece and Rome 38, 1991, 41–58. At Alexandria Troas the great philanthropist Herodes Atticus donated seven million drachmai from his own resources to build an aqueduct, because the city did not have a bathhouse – see Philostratus, Lives of Philosophers, 56, 22–24. 21 See Bean, Aegean Turkey, op. cit., 225. 22 C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Epistularum, book X, 37–38, 39–40, 49– 50, 70–71, 98–99. 1

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CHAPTER 19

Major Early Christian Ecclesiastical Centres of Macedonia Blaga Aleksova Professor of Early Christian and Slavonic Archaeology Univerzitet Kiril i Metodi, Skopje

East Illyricum together with the region of Macedonia* was inhabited by powerful tribes, organized ethnically and politically so as to constitute a separate but interrelated whole. In 168 BC, or more precisely 146 BC, they came under Roman rule. In that period, Macedonia was divided into four provinces (merides).1

in Thessaloniki (Thessalonica), Beroea (Veroia) and other Macedonian cities, as well as in regions bordering Illyricum. In his sermons he claimed to have brought the Holy Gospel to the lands extending from Jerusalem to Illyricum.5 The free and peaceful spread of Christianity was interrupted suddenly in AD 64, the year when harsh and systematic persecutions commenced, which were to continue, with very few interruptions, until AD 313, when Constantine I proclaimed the toleration of the Christian faith.6

As part of the Roman Empire, Macedonia developed in line with the more general social trends. Despite strong resistance, the process of Romanization was carried out successfully and was imposed through Roman institutions and cultural achievements. This was a period of political and economic stabilization for Macedonia.2

During the period of persecutions, especially in the reign of Emperor Diocletian, many of the faithful and the preachers were executed in Constantinople and Rome, Illyricum and Macedonia. In the city of Lychnis, near Lake Ochrid, the Christian faith was preached by St Erasmus, one of the acknowledged martyrs,7 while at Tiberioupolis-Stromnitsa the missionary activities of the fifteen preachers from Tiberioupolis, who were all put to death during the reign of Julian the Apostate (361–363), delayed the persecutions to some extent.8 The martyrs were buried in a Late Antique cemetery outside the city. Their common grave, by the pediment of the west wall, contained their portraits, a collective Christian representation (imagines clipeatae), which was discovered in the central part of the church complex erected over the grave.9

From the second half of the second century AD, the Roman Empire and the urban centres were threatened by barbarian incursions from the North. The targets of those attacks were the capitals and cities of the empire. The restoration of cities and fortifications throughout Illyricum and Macedonia commenced, following their neglect in peacetime. Improving defences was the main concern of Roman policy and of rulers in the subsequent centuries. Thanks to its greater security, the city recovered its special place as a refuge for the population of the area.3 This affected the organization of towns and cities, which is known from lengthy researches in Balkan urban centres. There are indications of this at Stobi and in those parts that have been investigated of the episcopal cities of Bargala and Herakleia Lynkestis (Heraclea Lyncestis).

In Macedonia, as throughout the empire, numerous churches were erected over the graves of martyrs, who were later to be proclaimed patron saints of Christian communities and parishes.

In order to man the units guarding the forts on the Danube front, men were recruited from distant Eastern provinces. This contributed to the rapid growth of Eastern religious cults, the most widespread of which were Alexandrian and Syrian, and especially the Persian cult of Mithras. Ancient and Eastern religious cults and deities also led to the rise of Greek and Roman polytheism in Illyricum.4

Following the imposition of religious peace, Christianity began to express an external manifestation of power, which was wielded by the state itself. Having distinguished itself as an urban religion against idolatry, Christianity built up its sacred hierarchy alongside the secular hierarchy. In the cities, bishops had power equivalent to defender of the state (defensor civitatis). Each state or city had its own bishop, whose authority sometimes extended over two or even three other cities, so that he eventually became the most influential figure in the city. The city of Stobi had bishoprics in the cities of Bargala and Zappara, on the River Bregalnica.

Christianity started growing during a period of highly complex political and religious conditions for the entire Roman Empire and Macedonia. It appeared very early. According to literary sources, the missionary activity of the Apostle Paul reached the boundaries of Illyricum, in addition to many Mediterranean countries. After founding the first Christian community in Caesarea, Paul arrived in Macedonia, where the Christian community he founded in the city of Philippi is considered to be the first Christian Church on European soil. Paul preached

In the early years of Late Antiquity, Byzantium was extremely powerful in Illyricum and all administrative and ecclesiastical centres were under its control. According to literary sources, which have been corroborated recently by archaeological finds, 221

Blaga Aleksova the old, antiquated cities continued to exist at the time when Christianity was spreading rapidly in Macedonia and the vast expanses of Illyricum.10

other hand, whose name is carved on the capital of the tribelon in the episcopal basilica at Bargala, humbly called himself the “Servant of Christ” (δούλος του Χριστού). The inscribed names of the three bishops characterize them as “founders/donors” (κτήτορες) of these basilicas.

During the period between the consolidation of religious peace and the late sixth century, the de-urbanization of the ancient city was rapid. With the demise of the ancient demoi, cities lost their significance as community centres. Consequently, cities lost a large part of their grandeur and wealth, as they were denuded of theatres and other civic facilities and buildings, since the Church alone undertook the construction of public works.

Early Christian ecclesiastical centres in Macedonia Skupi The ancient city of Skupi stood on the left bank of the River Vardar, some five kilometres northwest of Skopje. Owing to its position on a very important route linking the Danube Valley with the Aegean, as well as the province of Thrace with the Adriatic, Skupi was of great strategic importance in Antiquity. Furthermore, it was a major administrative, economic, cultural and religious centre of the province of Dardania.

With the emperors’ support and protection, the Christian Church encouraged building activity, especially of churches. In many Macedonian cities of Late Antiquity, opulent public buildings of earlier periods were used for new functions. They were used most often as foundations for Christian churches. Luxurious bathing pools and nymphaea were used as baptisteries, necessitating the reorganization of sectors of the city and the creation of new spaces with structures and services dedicated to Christian worship.

The city was populated by Dardanians, but with the Roman conquest of this region in the early first century AD, the Romanization of the indigenous inhabitants and the settlement of veterans from various legions began. The city attained the height of prosperity in the late first century AD and enjoyed a second heyday during the fourth century. It became an episcopal see and was promoted to an archbishopric after 451. According to the reports of Comes Marcellinus, the city was devastated by an earthquake in 518. Although Skupi did not lose its population, it certainly lost its urban character, as most buildings after the catastrophe were architecturally very humble, and many were only inhabited temporarily.

Important changes were made extra muros. Initially, chapels and monuments were constructed over ancient cemeteries and Christian areas, and subsequently cemetery basilicas. Devotional churches were built over the graves of martyrs or next to their monuments. Several Early Christian episcopal sees have been discovered in the Macedonian region and numerous churches have been investigated, many of which were built on top of ancient edifices which had religious or secular functions in the past. Many churches subject to the jurisdiction of bishoprics were discovered outside urban episcopal sees.

Two large basilicas, dating from the fifth and sixth centuries, have been brought to light at Skupi, as well as a cemetery basilica built in the orchestra of an ancient theatre, which had been erected in an ancient necropolis in the late fourth century.13

Early Christian churches of basilica, triconch or multipleconch plan, or in the order of the fourth century, had austere interiors with architectural sculptures, mosaic floors and wall paintings. The old episcopal basilica of the city of Stobi is a good example.11

Herakleia Lynkestis According to the sources, the ancient city of Herakleia Lynkestis**, near Bitola (Monastir), was built by Philip II around the mid-fourth century BC, as a military fort on the northwest frontiers of Lynkestis, which was at the time mainly peopled by the Illyrian-Macedonian tribe of the Lynkesti. The city was built on the site of a Bronze Age settlement. The acropolis, constructed as a hilltop fortress, testifies to the Greek character of Herakleia during the second century BC. In the Roman period, the city developed into an important centre on the Via Egnatia, the main corridor connecting Dyrrachium with the Bosporos through Thessaloniki, and with Skupi in the north through Stybera and Stobi.

Around the end of the fourth and during the fifth century, renovated or newly-built churches were more richly ornamented, as in the case of basilicas at Stobi, Bargala, Herakleia Lynkestis and Lychnis. During the sixth century, churches were redecorated inside and out. They were, however, destroyed later, owing to mass migrations and the incursions of barbaric tribes from the North. Some bishops, primates of Macedonian episcopal sees, took part in major ecclesiastical councils. Apart from references to them in sources and council registers, names of bishops have been found carved on architectural sculptures and inscribed in floor mosaics.

Herakleia prospered under Roman domination, when, according to an early third-century inscription, it was called Septimia Aurelia Heraclea. It is mentioned in all the travel texts: Itinerarium Antonini, Itinerarium Burdigalensae, as well as by the Tabula Peutingeriani and the geographer of Ravenna.

The name of Bishop Philippos, in his capacity as builder of the new episcopal basilica, five meters above the old episcopal basilica of Stobi, can be seen on the marble lintel above the entrance to the church.12 An inscription on the mosaic floor of the basilica of the old bishopric at Stobi mentions that the renovation of the church was carried out in the time of Bishop Eustratios, in the late fourth century. Both Eustratios and Philippos held the most formal and authoritative title accorded a bishop, “Most Holy” (Αγιοτάτος). Bishop Hermias, on the

In the fourth century, Herakleia was an episcopal see and its bishops are mentioned in the documents of ecclesiastical councils. Bishop Euargios took part in the Synod of Serdice in 343, while Bishops Quintillius and Benignius are reported to have participated in the councils of Ephesus and Constantinople respectively. 222

Major Early Christian Ecclesiastical Centres in Macedonia between the late ninth and the early eleventh century, as the centre of Slavic culture from which Clement, Naum and their disciples preached the Christian faith and educated the Slavs, thus laying the foundations of south Slavonic literature. During the tenth and eleventh centuries, Ochrid together with Prespa were to become the political centres of Samuel’s realm. The city remained important throughout the Middle Ages and even after it fell to the Turks.15 Bargala The Synekdemos of Hierokles, of 527–528, notes that Macedonia Secunda was administered by a governor (hegemon). The names of the cities of Bargala, Kelenidin, Harmonia and Zappara, as well as of the capital Stobi, are also mentioned in texts or inscriptions. New Epirus, with its capital Lychnis, was administered by a consulario, while Dardania and its capital Skupi were administered by a governor. The city of Bargala is also known from the Acts of the Council of the Chalcedonian Church in 451, in which Bishop Dardanius took part. This is also corroborated by an inscription of 371, when the episcopal see was in Dacia.

1. Herakleia Lynkestis, small basilica.

An Early Christian building complex has been uncovered in the orchestra of an ancient theatre. Two magnificent basilicas dating from the fifth and sixth centuries have been excavated (fig. 1). Both have excellently preserved tessellated floors executed in opus vermiculatum (mosaics composed of very small tesserae) and opus sectile (marble inlay) techniques. A sixth-century cemetery basilica was discovered outside the city walls. Early Christian architecture partly covered the ancient buildings, or used them for its own purposes. The monuments discovered and investigated so far show clearly that Herakleia was a culturally advanced city in the Greek and Roman periods, as well as in Early Byzantine times.14

Excavations conducted since 1968 have revealed the city walls and the complex of the episcopal basilica, which includes the bishop’s residence and other quarters. The city’s cistern and water-supply system, its gate and several streets have also been uncovered. The city’s name is of Thracian origin. The urban way of life developed in this region in the Early Roman period. In the fourth and fifth centuries the city was an episcopal see and the administrative centre of the region east of the Vardar river. Its basilica, of the fourth to sixth century, is a typical example of Early Christian architecture, not only in plan but also in its rich interior decoration with architectural sculptures, mosaic floors and wall-paintings. The baptistery is of particular interest. Two well-preserved pools have been found, the earlier dating from the fourth century, while the later, which forms part of the extension, is thought to have been added in the fifth or sixth century. The city was destroyed in 585, following an invasion by Slavs and Avars.

Lychnis The city of Lychnis existed throughout Antiquity. It survived the demise of the ancient world and has survived to this day, under a different name. Nevertheless, the role it played in the Illyrians’ relations with the Macedonians, and later with the Romans, is still a mystery. Under Roman domination the city enjoyed the benefits of peace, and in Late Antiquity it is mentioned as an episcopal see. Quite a few Byzantine sources identify Lychnis with Ochrid. The scholiast of Ptolemy calls it “Lychnis or Ochrid”. Another source mentions the city of Ochrid close to the large Lake Lychnis, from which the city previously known as Dassaretis took the name Lychnis. According to travel texts, the city was situated on the Via Egnatia, the most ancient and most important road in the Balkans.

From a rather small settlement in Paeonia, Bargala grew into a well-organized and highly civilized city in Antiquity, and toward the end of the period it had become an important Early Christian episcopal see in the central Bregalnica valley.16 Zappara The city of Zappara is mentioned in the Synekdemos of Hierokles. The acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in 553, record that “Sabinianus, Bishop of the Zapparian State (Sabinianus Episcopus Zappareanae Civitatis), had refused to attend the council, in this way expressing his solidarity with Archbishop Benetatus of Prima Justiniana”. He was thus supporting imperial policy in East Illyricum. Both prelates were represented at the council by Phokas, Bishop of Stobi

The city grew out of an indigenous settlement and expanded gradually. The period between the fourth and the fifth century was marked by the intensive construction of basilicas and fortification walls. To date, twenty-three Early Christian basilicas have been discovered in the city and its immediate environs. A large number of partially investigated religious buildings dating from the early years of the region’s Christianization, can be added to the list. The basilicas are impressive for the ornamental wealth of their interiors, with mosaic floors and architectural sculptures. Most were erected upon Late Antique buildings. Publication of the finds from the complexes already investigated has not yet been completed.

The name of the city is also of Thracian origin. Attempts to locate Zappara in the wider area of Macedonia Secunda have been unsuccessful so far. It may lie close to Krupište, where the place names of Golem and Mal Kapar perhaps indicate some association with Zappa-Zappara. This remains to be confirmed by further archaeological research.17

Ochrid played a particularly significant role in the period 223

Blaga Aleksova Stobi The old city of Stobi was situated some 150 kilometres north of Thessaloniki, at the confluence of the rivers Erigon and Axios, today known as the Crna Reka, and the Vardar, (fig. 2). A very important strategic, military and commercial centre in Antiquity, the city spread over three wide terraces, which descend to the banks of the Crna Reka, and was circumvallated by double ramparts, with a gate on the west side. Stobi grew from a rather small Paeonian and later Macedonian settlement in the Hellenistic period into a large and prosperous deme in Early Roman times, and eventually became capital of the province of Macedonia Secunda Salutaris and an episcopal see in Late Antiquity. By the early fourth century, Stobi was a pre-eminently Christian city. It was abandoned in the sixth century, due to the Slav and Avar incursions, but was soon taken over by the Slavs, who inhabited both the city and its environs. Nine Early Christian basilicas, dating from the fourth to the sixth century (fig. 3), have been discovered and investigated to date. Of particular interest among these is a complex of episcopal basilicas built on top of a domus ecclesiae in the early years of the fourth century and renovated and redecorated at the end of the fifth. An episcopal basilica was erected on top of the complex in the fifth century. The old episcopal basilica has survived intact, with walls 4.20 m. high, wall-paintings, mosaic floors and architectural details in the presbytery (figs 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8:a and b). All the basilicas found so far were built on top of Late Antique constructions. The central basilica was erected on the site of

2. Geographical position of Stobi.

3. Stobi, general topography (after C. Salit, F. Hemans and E. Deull).

224

Major Early Christian Ecclesiastical Centres in Macedonia

4. Stobi, old episcopal basilica (interior) and basilica of Bishop Philippos.

5. Stobi, ground plan of the basilica of Bishop Philippos.

6. Stobi, reconstruction drawing of the baptistery of the old episcopal basilica in its final phase (after Dinsmoor Jr).

7. Stobi, perspective drawing of the baptistery in its final phase (from the northeast).

the old synagogue, with menorahs painted or incised on the walls.

name can be found in the list of cities that were later renamed. It is mentioned by Theophylaktos of Ochrid, as well as in episcopal reports, in inscriptions in the church of the Virgin Eleousa, in the village of Veljusa, which date from 1080, and in the deeds of Mount Athos of 1286. Some specialists, such as K. Jireček, claim that its name is of Phrygian origin.

In a similar manner, the majority of representative palaces, civic buildings and synagogues were turned into churches with Christian emblems and features. Among these were a chantry house, a bishop’s residence, a synagogue, an old episcopal basilica and a complex containing a secular basilica.

Archaeological research, both in the city and its environs, has revealed numerous Early Christian monuments dedicated to local martyrs and to great patron saints in other Greek provinces. A complex of churches dedicated to the Fifteen Martyrs of Tiberioupolis has been uncovered in the suburbs. In the central part of one church, a tomb with a pseudo-corbelled dome was discovered. On the west side of the pediment, the martyrs are depicted as imagines clipeatae.

The Balkan Peninsula and its cities suffered widespread destructions from the Hun invasions in 447 and the incursions of Germanic tribes during the reign of Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, in 479. Excavation has established that many Christian churches were badly damaged and that their wooden roofs were burnt down. These barbarian tribes were soon followed by Avars and Slavs, who swept through Macedonia and Thessaly, eventually reaching Thermopylae in 517.18

The churches had been built on top of a necropolis with vaulted tombs from Late Antiquity. The cult of the Fifteen Martyrs from Tiberioupolis was born in the city of Strumica, and was based on the Vitae of the saints by Archbishop Theophylaktos. The holy relics of the five patron saints of Stromnitsa were

Strumica The city of Strumica was one of the great Early Christian centres on the River Vardar and was called Tiberioupolis. Its 225

Blaga Aleksova

b.

a.

8a and 8b: Stobi, portraits from a wall-painting in the baptistery.

is referred to often as glorissima praefetura, in Amendment 11, was of great importance for the province of Illyricum. The archbishopric was united with the autonomous Churches of Justinian’s empire, and political and ecclesiastical power passed from Thessaloniki to the newly-founded city of Prima Justiniana, which was the first independent Church in the entire region between Constantinople and Rome. A large number of bishops came under the authority of the archbishopric in the regions of Illyricum and Macedonia. The establishment of a new administrative and ecclesiastical centre in the region of Illyricum can be explained by the great danger threatening the northern boundaries of the empire: the incursions of barbarian tribes. Most of the legions had been stationed there.

on display inside the church at Bregalnica, where a special martyrium was built. The church at Bregalnica is considered to be the first organized Christian church built by the Slavs, not just in Macedonia but in the wider Balkan region. Near the village of Bansko, a church dedicated to the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste was discovered, and at Vodoča and Veljusa churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary, all erected on top of early Christian buildings. During Late Antiquity, the city of Strumica was an important episcopal see, as well as a place of baptism and pilgrimage, perhaps the most important north of Thessaloniki. Under Slav rule it became an important episcopal eparchy.19 Prima Justiniana The Archbishopric of Prima Justiniana was founded by the Amendment of Emperor Justinian I in 535, at the emperor’s birthplace, the newly-built city of Tauriane. This legal document, with its first amendment, was issued in the name of Archbishop Catelianus. Ten years later, in 545, by Amendment 131, the emperor together with Pope Vigilius founded an autocephalous Church, the archiepiscopal see of which was at Prima Justiniana, covering the regions of Dacia Ripensis, Dacia Mediterranea, Prevalitana, Dardania, Mysia I and Pannonia II. Only Macedonia Secunda is missing from the list, and it is for this reason that E. Zaharie and R. Ljubinković believe that this province was the means that Justinian employed to secure papal consent.

According to historical sources, the city of Prima Justiniana was located in the Skopje Valley, in the province of Dardania. On the basis of archaeological sources, G. Mano-Zisi and V. Kondič believe that the city stood near Caričin grad. The question of its precise location remains open.20 It is well known that Justinian’s reign was characterized by building activities and reconstructions, such as the fortifications of Illyricum. Christian churches were also rebuilt throughout the empire, as well as in Illyricum and Macedonia. In Constantinople, Justinian’s projects great and small involved rebuilding Early Christian churches. Numerous churches that had been destroyed or damaged by barbarian attacks were renovated in all the episcopal sees of Macedonia. In most cases, reconstructions and interior decoration were carried out exceptionally well. Nevertheless, there were cases of poor craftsmanship, negligence and improvisation. Large basilicas were renovated and decorated in the same way as humble chapels. The churches of Sts Sergius and Bacchus and the Holy Wisdom of God (Hagia Sophia) at Constantinople are the best examples of the architectural standards of the period. Voussoirs and cupolas were used mostly in funerary architecture in the cities of the Aegean and Syria. The cruciform plan with dome, devised in the sixth century, derives traditionally from Roman times.

It should be noted here that Sabinianus Episcopus Zappareanae Civitatis, with the agreement and support of Archbishop Benetatus of Prima Justiniana, refused to take part in the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553. This may be taken as proof that the Bishopric of Zappara was under the authority of the Archbishop of Prima Justiniana at the time. Hierokles mentions the city as belonging to Macedonia Secunda, but this province was entirely part of Dacia Mediterranea, which also explains the omission of the province of Macedonia Secunda from Justinian’s Amendment 131 in 545. The founding of the Archbishopric of Prima Justiniana, which 226

Major Early Christian Ecclesiastical Centres in Macedonia In Macedonia, as throughout the Balkans, domed churches were mainly of cross-shaped plan. Two types, which originated in the fifth century, were used: the simple cruciform and the inscribed cruciform (or cross-in-square) with dome, such as Hosios David in Thessaloniki.

beleske iz J. Srbije” [“Archaeological Notes from S. Serbia”], Glasnik SND, 1929, 78–210; M. Garaš and D. Koračević, “Bazilika II vo Skupi” [“Basilica II at Skopje”], MAA 5, 31–46; B. Josifovska, Inscriptions de la Mésie Supérieure, vol. VI, Beograd 1982; and I. Mikulčić, Staro Skopje so okolnite tvrdini [The Old City of Skopje with Its Surrounding Forts], Skopje 1982. 14 Papazoglu, Makedonski gradovi, op. cit.; also in Herakleja Linkestidska, op. cit., 7–34, and Herakleja, vol. I, 1961; P. Mačkić and I. Mikulčić, “Katalog”, in Herakleja, vol. I, 45–46; G. Tomašević, Portik so pocesni i evotivni spomenici [Portico with Commemorations to Honour and Reminiscence], 9–35; M. Čanak Medic, Ansambl na bazilikata A [The Complex of Basilica A], in Herakleja, vol. II, 1965, 35–67; idem, “Ispituvanjata i konzervacija na mozaicite na bazilikata A” [“Studies and conservation of the mosaics of Basilica A”], in Herakleja, vol. II, 1965, 67–75; and G. Cvetković Tomašević, Herakleja Linkestis, 1973, and idem in Ranovizantiski podni mozaici [Early Byzantine Mosaic Floors], Beograd, 1978, in Herakleja, vol. III, 1967. 15 F. Papazoglu, Ohrid vo praistorijata i vo antickiot period [Ochrid in Prehistory and the Ancient Period], Ochrid 1985, 63–124; Bitrakova Grozdanova, “Topografijata i urbaniot razvoj na Lihnidos” [“The topography and urban development of Lychnis”], Istorija II, 1986, 249–265, and Starohristijanski spomenici vo Ohridsko [Early Christian Monuments of Ochrid], Ochrid 1975, 10–21; and V. Malenko, “Ranohristjanski objekti vo Ohrid i Ohridsko” [“Early Christian buildings in the city and the region of Ochrid”], Lihnid 7, 1989, 23. 16 B. Aleksova, “Bargala-Bregalnica”, Glasnik na Institutot za Nacionalna Istorija 3, 1967, 5–50, Pridones od istražuvanjata [Research Contributions], Sarajevo 1969, 105–114, “Episkopische Zentrum Bargala”, in Actes du IIième congrès international du sud-est européen, Athènes 1972, 349–353; “Ranohristijanskata bazilika vo Bargala” [“Early Christian basilica at Bargala”], in Zbornik AM, vols VI-VII, 1975, 21–32 (with earlier studies on Bargala), and Episkopijata na Bregalnica [The Bishopric of Bregalnitsa], 1989, 25–69; B. Aleksova and C. Mango, “Bargala: A preliminary report”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers(DOP) 25, 1971, 263–277; and. Papazoglu, Makedonski gradovi, op. cit., 245–246. 17 Honigmann (ed.), Le Synekdèmos d’Hiéroclès, Bruxelles, 1939, 461,6; Papazoglu, Makedonski gradovi, op. cit., 96, 243, 247–248; I. Venedikov, Bargala: Raskopki i proučvania [Bargala: Excavations and Studies], Sofia 1945, 84; and Aleksova, Episkopijata na Bregalnica, op. cit., 75–76. 18 B. Saria, in Narodna Enciklopedia Srpsko Hrvska Slovska, vol. 4, 1929, 489–491, and Realencyclopädie, 1932, 47–54; E. Kitzinger, “The Early Christian city of Stobi”, DOP 3, 1946, 81–161; and G. Mano-Zisi, “Stobi”, in Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, vol. 8, Zagreb 1971, 153–155. See also American Journal of Archaeology 76, 1972, 407–424, and 77, 1973, 391–403, and Journal of Field Archaeology 1, 1974, 117–148 and 3, 1976, 269–302, and 4, 1978, 321–429, as well as Studies on the Antiquities of Stobi, vol. I, 1973, vol. II, 1975, and vol. III, 1981. See finally B. Aleksova, “Episkopska bazilika u svetlosti novih arheoloških iskopavanja” [“The episcopal basilica in the light of new archaeological excavations”], in Gunjacin Zbornik, Zagreb, 1980, 67–76, “Episcopal basilica at Stobi”, in Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 32 (4), 1981, 481–490, “The Old Episcopal basilica”, 50–63, “Strata Episkopska bazilika, vo Stobi” [“Old episcopal basilica at Stobi”], in Zbornik na Filozofski ot Fakultet, Skopje 1985, 43–72, “The Early Christian basilicas at Stobi”, Corso XXXIII, 1986, 14–38; and “The Old Episcopal basilica at Stobi”, in Armos: Volume in Honour of Professor N.K. Moutsopoulos, (School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), vol. I, Thessaloniki 1991, 167–179 (in Greek), and C. Snively, The Early Christian Basilicas in Stobi, Austin 1979. 19 Papazoglu, Makedonski gradovi, op. cit., 254–255, nn. 117–123; K. Jireček, Das Christliche Element in der topografischen Nomenklatur der Balkanländer, Wien, 1897, 65–71; D. Koco and P. Miljković Pepek, “Rezultati od arheološkite iskopuvanja”, 83–96, and “Novootkrienata crkva na Sv. Četirieset” [“The recently discovered church of the Forty Saints”], Zbornik, Strumica 1989; P. Miljković Pepek, Vodoča, 1975; A. Cicimov, “Mermernata oltarna pregrada vo crkvata Sv. Četirieset Sevastiski mačenici vo Bansko” [The marble partition of the sanctuary in the church of the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebasteia at Bansko”], Zbornik, Strumica 1989, 101–115; and Grozdanov, Portreti na svetiteli, op. cit., 133. 20 B. Granić, “Osnivanje arhiepiskopije u gradu Justinijana Prima” [The founding of the archbishopric in the city of Prima Justiniana”], Glasnik SND, 1924, 1–20; G. Mano-Zisi, “Justinijana Prima (Caričin grad)” [“Prima Justiniana (Reigning city)”], in Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, Stuttgart 1976, 688–718; F. Barišić, Vizantiski izvori [Byzantine Sources], vol. I, Beograd, 1955, p. 55; and A. Šukareva, Justinijana Prima, Skopje 1991.

There is no mention of the newly-founded administrative centre and episcopal see of Prima Justiniana after 602. The city and its institutions were razed to the ground in the barbarian raids. The centre of political and ecclesiastical power was transferred back to Thessaloniki. The high-level and wellorganized ecclesiastical institution, which included a large number of episcopal sees in the region under its jurisdiction, formed the basis for the further autonomous development of ecclesiastical organizations in the Balkans.

Notes * The author focuses on the region called Macedonia Secunda or Illyricum during the Roman and Early Byzantine periods, and which is today part of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (ed. note). ** The region was called Lynkestis; the inhabitants Lynkesti (ed. note). 1 F. Papazoglu, Srednobalkanska u predrimsco doba [Central Balkan Tribes in the Pre-Roman Period], Sarajevo, 1961, and Makedonski gradovi u rimsco doba [Macedonian Cities in the Roman Period], Skopje, 1957, 58–63; G. Kacarov, Paeonija: Prinos kom starata etnografija i istorija na Makedonija [Paeonia: Contribution to the Early Ethnography and History of Macedonia], Sofia, 1921; and E. Petrova, “The Paeonian tribes and the Paeonian kingdom in the second and the first millennium BC”, Macedonia Acta Archaeologica (MAA) 12, 1991, 86–101, and “Cult and symbolism among the Paionian tribes compared to the Illyrian and Thracian ones”, MAA 13, 1992, 125–140. 2 Papazoglu, Makedonski gradovi u rimsko doba, op. cit., 58–63. 3 M. Suić, Antički grad na istočnom Jadranu [Ancient Cities on the East Coast of the Adriatic]. Zagreb 1976, 227–228. 4 Leclercq, Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie (DACL), vol. VII, 1926, Illyricum, 93–95. 5 Leclercq, DACL, op. cit., 95; S. Gerome, Epistulae, LIX, In omnibus locis versabatur…cum Paolo in Illyrico; P. Lemerle, Philippes et la Macédoine orientale à l’époque chrétienne et byzantine, Paris 1945, 1–68; and J. Popović, Opća crkvena istorija [General Ecclesiastical History], Sremski Karlovci 183, 188. 6 Popović, Opća crkvena istorija, op. cit., 240, 244, and Y. Duval, Loca sanctorum Africae: Le culte des martyres en Afrique du IV-VII s., vol. II (École Française de Rome), 1982, 315–322. 7 J.M. Vesely, “Sveti Erazmo od Formia” [“Saint Erasmus from Forma”], Lihnid 6, 1988, 53–68, and “Saint Erazmo: Patrono di Formia”, Deplaint 2, 1979; C. Grozdanov, Portreti na svetiteli od Makedonija od 9–18 vek [Portraits of the Enlighteners from Macedonia from the Ninth to the Eighteenth Century], Skopje 1983, 139; and D. Glumac, “Sveti Erazmo Ohridski” [“Saint Erasmus from Ochrid”], Vesnik MRS 3, 139. 8 Teofilakt, “Mčeničestvoto na svetite slavni XV sveštenomačenici postradali vo Tiveriopol” [“The testimony of the fifteen saints, famous holy martyrs, who were martyred at Tiberioupolis”], in Sbornik Blgarska Akademija na Naukite 27, Sofia 1931, 239–269. 9 D. Koco, P. Miljković Pepek and B. Aleksova, “Rezultati od arheološkite iskopuvanja ma lok. Sv. XV mačenici vo Strumica” [“Results of archaeological excavations at the site of the fifteen holy martyrs of Stromnitsa”], Likovna Umetnost I, 43–44; D. Koco and P. Miljković Pepek, “Rezultati od arheološkite iskopuvanja vo 1973 g.” [“Results of the archaeological exvavations in 1973”], in Zbornik Arheološki Muzej 8–9, Skopje 1978, 83–96; B. Aleksova, Loca Sanctorum Macedoniae, Skopje 1995, 37–42; and Grozdanov, Portreti na svetiteli, op. cit., 127–137. 10 Leclercq, DACL, op. cit., vol. VII, 90–179, and A. Sukarova, Justinijana Prima, Skopje 1991, 97–151. 11 B. Aleksova, “The Old Episcopal basilica at Stobi”, Archaeologia Jugoslavica 22–23, 1982, 50–62, and eadem Loca Sanctorum, op. cit., 83–84. 12 R. Egger, “Gradska crkva u Stobima” [“The city church at Stobi”], Glasnik Skopskog Naučnog Društva (Glasnik SND), 1925, 14–44. 13 N. Vulic, “Rimsko pozorište kod Skoplja” [“The Roman theatre at Skopje”], Srpska Akademija Nauka, Beograd, 1961, 4–23; C. Truhelka, “Arheološke

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PART IV THE CITY IN BYZANTIUM AND UNDER OTTOMAN RULE IV. a. The Byzantine City

CHAPTER 20

The Early and the Middle Byzantine City Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Professor Emeritus of Architecture Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Pausanias, in his Description of Greece (Χ, 4,1), specifies what a settlement, in order to be considered a city, ought to include: public buildings, gymnasium, theatre, fountains, agora: “if one can give the name of city to those who possess no government offices, no gymnasium, no theatre, no market-place, no water descending to a fountain...”.

however, by the pirate fleet of Leo of Tripolis, and all the inhabitants – estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000 in the sources – were taken prisoner and transported to the slave markets of Syria and Egypt. The surrender of Sirmium to the Avars was a catalytic event which terrorized the Roman, that is the Byzantine, populations of the Balkans. The threat facing the southern regions was now imminent.

In the present chapter we shall consider the remodelling of the ancient Greek and the Roman city into an Early Christian city, and then, following the turmoil of the barbarian incursions and installations (in Illyricum, Mysia, Thrace, Macedonia, the theme of Hellas and Achaia), its transformation into a Middle Byzantine city, on the same or on a new site. We shall also attempt, as far as is possible in such a short essay, to determine the process of transition from city (polis) to fortress (castro).

From the Hellenistic to the Roman and to the Early Byzantine city Let us begin by examining the ways in which ancient cities managed to survive. D. Zakythinos,1 classifies these as follows: 1. Survival of ancient cities with their ancient name and on their original site, with changes in layout, 2. survival of ancient cities with their ancient name but on a different site, and 3. survival of ancient cities on their original site, but with a different name.

Constantinople (fig. 1), Thessaloniki (fig. 2) and Sirmium (fig. 3) were basic centres around which these momentous transformations took place in the Balkan region. Events within this critical triangle not only changed the historical course of the European cities and settlements in the Eastern Roman State, but also altered the composition of its population. Following the invasions and the settling of the invaders, and the extensive demographic regroupings in large urban centres as well as in the countryside, Roman citizens, the Romani of Middle Byzantine times, were transformed in certain areas, particularly mountainous ones, into Armani or Vlachs. Moreover, in various geographical regions, the Slav populations intermingled with Bulgars eventually received the name of this dynamic minority. Elsewhere they remained Slavs, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, while north of the River Istros the Romanian nation, of Latin origin, came into being. Noteworthy is the fact that the Greek language never ceased to be spoken in the larger cities.

As already noted, the Slav incursions into the Balkans brought about significant changes. Prosperous Roman and Early Christian cities, Sirmium, Singidunum, Viminacium, changed name. Other cities, such as Augusta, Naissus, Dorostorum, kept their name, which was adapted to the phonetic usages of the invader. The same took place in Greece too; Edessa was renamed Vodena, Aigion Vostitsa, Lamia Zetouni, and Nikopolis in Epirus Preveza. Such changes can be observed from more ancient times, when pagan names were replaced by the names of saints (PhotikiAghios Donatos, in Epirus). Other changes took place in cities that were newly founded, or had been destroyed by raids and were rebuilt with imperial aid. Newly-rebuilt settlements were named after the emperor who provided for the reconstruction, such as Marcianoupolis, Anastasioupolis, Prima Justiniana (fig. 4), Diocletianoupolis, Theodosioupolis.

During the time of the Slav incursions, and at least until the end of the sixth century – sometimes earlier but rarely later –, all the cities of Thrace, Mysia, Dardania, Illyricum and Epirus fell to the invading Huns, Avars or Slavs, and were mostly destroyed. Constantinople and Thessaloniki were the only ones to resist and survive the successive waves of Slav invaders; Constantinople survived the Persian and Arab invaders too.

The process of general reconstruction usually presupposed a total or partial destruction of the settlement, its abandonment by the indigenous population, and its resettlement by other populations, often brought in from distant parts.

The Avars and Slavs, despite their unremitting sieges of Thessaloniki, by both land and sea, were successfully repulsed and, as literary tradition has it, the city was saved by the intervention of its patron saint, Demetrios. It was conquered,

Renaming was in many cases due to the relocation and the re-founding of the settlement under different circumstances: Nikopolis-Preveza (fig. 5), Demetrias-Volos, LacedaemonMystras, and so on. Arcadian refugees founded a settlement 231

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos

1. Constantinople, the area of the sacred palace. A: Hagia Sophia. B: Hippodrome. C: Imperial palace. D: Triconchon. E: Chrysotriklinos. F: The so-called house of Justinian.

4. Caričin Grad, topographical plan (after V. Kondić and V. Popović,

Caričin Grad, fig. 4).

2. Thessaloniki, the Roman and Early Christian city. Detail: the palace

complex (after N.K. Moutsopoulos).

5. Byzantine Nikopolis of Epirus (after T. Theophylaktos).

on the site of ancient Kyparissia and named it Arkadià, while another neighbouring Messenian settlement was named Mantìneia, by the inhabitants of the ancient Arcadian Mantineia (Gortzouli), which had been destroyed. Included among the cities with an uninterrupted life since Antiquity, in addition to Thessaloniki, Nicaea, Smyrna, Ankyra, Chalkedon, are the Greek mainland cities of Athens, Corinth and most probably Thebes.2

3. Sirmium (Sirmion), topograhical plan (after N. Duval, Sirmium, fig. 2).

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The Early and the Middle Byzantine City

8. Sardike, the central part of the city.

6. Serdica (Sardike, Sofia), topographical plan (R.F. Hoddinott, Bulgaria

in Antiquity, London 1975, 170, fig. 35).

9. Nicopolis ad Istrum (photo. N.K. Moutsopoulos)

and many other Greek cities which, following their initial conquest, suffered systematic adulteration of their Greek populations, until the few who remained in their ancestral homes were eventually eliminated on various pretexts, such as population exchanges or other methods. In addition to the Greek cities, a large number of which had existed in the Haemus Peninsula since Antiquity and survived until Early Byzantine times, mention should be made of certain Roman cities which were founded during the Roman period, some on the original nucleus of a Roman camp, such as Nikopolis in Epirus, and others on the ruins of an ancient Greek city, usually Hellenistic, such as Sardike (Medieval Triaditsa and later Sofia)(figs 6, 7 and 8), Plotinoupolis, opposite Didymoteichon, founded by Trajan, who named it after his wife Plotina, Nicopolis ad Istrum (pres. Nikup, near the River Iatros (pres. Jantra) (fig. 9), Trajanoupolis, near the River Hebrus (pres. Evros), and Hadrianoupolis (pres. Adrianople), founded by Hadrian.3 Among the settlements founded by the Romans in the Balkans were all the defences, fortifications and fortresses that secured the riverine Istros (pres. Danube) frontier (figs 10, 11, 12 and 13).

7. Sardike, building plots.

However, we must, be particularly cautious over the issue of whether the inhabitants of these cities were descendants of the ancient population. Thessaloniki is a case in point. After its fall to the Saracens in 904, the city was settled by a new population, selected and moved there by the Byzantines from various parts of their vast empire. The same caution applies to other cities, which – in the theme of Hellas at least – undoubtedly retained their Greek identity and Byzantine culture, but for which there is no evidence to support the continuity and purity of their populations. In no city were the inhabitants direct descendants of the original population. The Greeks have bitter experiences of this, in Constantinople, Smyrna, Philippoupolis, Stenimachos

In addition to these cities, mention should be made of the coloniae founded near or inside ancient cities, consequent upon decisions of the Roman Senate, such as at Photike, Pella, Kassandreia, Dion, Corinth, Cnossus (Knossos) and others.4 The external boundaries of a genuine Roman city formed 233

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos

11. Hissar, reconstruction of the main fortress gate in the 2nd century AD

(after Bojadziev).

10. Castro of Hissar (after Tzontchev)

13. Abritus (Hoddinot, Bulgaria in Antiquity, op. cit.).

towers, depending on the length of the sidewalls. In AD 268 the Goths destroyed a large number of cities in the Balkan heartland.7 The ravages continued with increasing violence in the closing years of the fourth century as well. The massive raids of the Visigoths (395–397) under Alaric caused extensive damage to cities in Epirus, Thessaly, Central Greece and the Peloponnese. It was then that Thebes, Eleusis, Megara, Corinth, Argos, Tegea, Sparta and Olympia were devastated.8 In the Balkan region urban life was disrupted by the incursions of the Huns led by Attila and later by the Ostrogoths under Theodoric.

12. Sadovets: Golemanovo Kale (Hoddinott, Bulgaria in Antiquity, op. cit.,

259, fig. 62).

a square or a rectangle, deeply influenced by the form of the Roman military camps, in contrast to the form of the Greek cities, which had irregular boundaries, influenced by and respectful of the geomorphology of the site.5 The main features of the strict division of the Roman city into four parts were the two axes of the main streets, the cardo maximus (N-S) and the decumanus maximus (E-W), which intersected at right angle.6 From the second century AD onward, the urban centres of the Balkans suffered barbarian incursions from the North. Attempts were made to fortify settlements for their defence and to protect the neighbouring populations, which sought refuge inside walled settlements, fleeing the invaders. The Danubian frontiers were systematically fortified.

Major inland cities were captured. Singidunum (Belgrade), Naissus (Niš), Sirmium (Sremska Mitovica)(fig. 3), Marcianoupolis, Sardike (figs 6–8), Scaba in Epirus (province of New Epirus).9 By AD 449 Naissus was deserted, and it was still in ruins when Justinian fortified it anew.10 In the same period Stobi and Herakleia Lynkestis were destroyed by the Ostrogoths (figs 14 and 15).

These border fortresses (castelli) were always rectangular with corner towers, often round, as well as other intermediate

Excavation evidence indicates that some of these destructions were gradually made good. At Stobi, in particular, there is 234

The Early and the Middle Byzantine City

14. Stobi, topographical plan (after I. Mikulčić, “Über die Grösse der spätantiken Städte in Makedonien”, Ziva Antika 24, 1974, fig. 1).

15. Herakleia Lynkestis, topographical plan (after I. Mikulčić, “Frühchristlicher Kirchenbau in der S.R. Macedonien”, CCRB XXXIII, 236, fig. 2).

235

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos squares now constituted the centre of the city. The episcopal residence was often quite close to the great basilica.

some evidence of building activity during the first half of the fifth century. But these revitalizing efforts were sporadic and circumstantial, and in no way contributed to a general economic recovery. Moreover, everything was plunged into turmoil a little later, during the incursions of the Avars and Slavs into the Balkans.

The Early Byzantine city was the unbroken continuation of the ancient one and was surrounded by ancient walls or walls built at the time of the invasions of the third or the fourth century. The system of the two intersecting avenues, the cardo and the decumanus, which terminated at the city gates and were often lined by colonnades, was still applied. The agora was situated where these streets crossed. However, the strict geometric character of the old Roman model was replaced progressively by a rather freer layout.16 The survival of the ancient Hippodamian system of urban planning is encountered in very few Byzantine cities, and of course in those which continued their historical life, founded on the ancient or Early Christian urban tissue, such as Demetrias and Christian Thebes in Thessaly, Nicaea (pres. Iznik), Thessaloniki17 and Rhodes.18 Basic elements of the infrastructure of Early Christian cities were aqueducts, cisterns (kinsternes), granaries (oreia) and bathhouses (balnea).19

Following these events, general insecurity reigned. There is evidence of desolation and decline in many small cities and towns of the empire. Even when repairs and additions to buildings were made, these were of inferior quality, obviously carried out to meet basic housing needs of the long-suffering inhabitants (old and new). Repairs to civic buildings were makeshift too.11 Already by the fourth century it was becoming very clear that what was being abandoned and downgraded was what in the Late Roman period gave, if not the impression, at least the illusion that the model of the ancient city was still alive. By this time, ancient civic buildings such as schools, educational institutions, theatres and palaestrae were being abandoned, and pagan temples abolished. A phenomenon that became general in the coming years commenced in this period, namely the robbing of stones and the careful selection of architectural members from ruined ancient buildings, as well as building materials, which were used in new, shoddier constructions to which these spolia lend a singular picturesqueness.

Justinian contributed effectively to the layout of the cities of his day, through his building projects. According to the Justinianic Code (Article I, 3,35), for an urban settlement to be designated as a city, it should: “... have its own bishop”. Justinian took care of the empire’s road network and ordered provincial governors to maintain roads, fortresses, existing aqueducts, bridges, floodprevention works and harbours, as well as to construct new technical works when necessary, particularly walls, and to take measures to defend the fortresses and to repair old churches or build new ones.20

In certain cases, the plundering of ancient ruins, which is particularly obvious in small cities and towns, was exacerbated by transporting ancient building material to neighbouring larger cities. Sometimes these spolia, including ornamental elements of the ancient architectural orders, were incorporated in the city walls. In the second half of the fourth century legislative measures were taken to restrict the use by both the private and the public sector, of materials originating from dilapidated buildings in deserted towns.12

The Synekdemos by Hierokles lists 935 cities (not including those in Italy or regions of North Africa). Cyril Mango estimates that during the reign of Justinian the total number of cities in the empire exceeded 1,500.21 Justinian I (527–565), in his Novella no. 38 (Schoell-Kroll edition, 246), defines the model of the ideal city of his time: “Those who of old constituted our city judged it to be necessary, in imitation of the Queen City, that they should assemble in each city those who were distinguished, and in each one to appoint a Council that should order all public matters according to the proper plan”. In most small and mediumsize cities, Justinian’s building activity, which was in any case limited to the repair of fortifications, water-supply works and sometimes to building granaries, meant constructions to strengthen the city’s defences on the one hand and the state’s military presence on the other. As Telemachos Loungis has remarked, through these architectural works Justinian “not only failed to restore cities to their former glory and splendour, as Procopius boasts on quite a few occasions in his treatise On buildings, but, on the contrary, his activity marked a definite stage in their downward path towards their transformation into fortresses, as is apparent from the nature of the works of the great Justinian, who could certainly not be blamed for the fact that Antiquity was defunct”.22

Many an ancient statue salvaged from the destructive frenzy of the first Christians in the early years of the spread of Christianity was carried off to Constantinople, where these antiquities were apparently treated with respect because of their artistic value. This was the time (late fourth-early fifth century) when ancient temples began to be converted into churches. In Athens, the Parthenon, the Erechtheion and the Hephaisteion (Theseion) were converted into churches only in the seventh century.13 Cemeteries remained outside the walls, since burials were forbidden inside the city. In time, however, we see that graveyards also intruded intra muros.14

The period of the barbarian incursions and the Early Byzantine city In certain regions of the empire, particularly Illyricum and Thrace, there is no evidence of building activity in the sixth century and there are no numismatic finds after the seventh.15 During this period the social centres of Late Antiquity lingered on only in certain metropolitan centres. In general, theatres, amphitheatres, athletics facilities and bouleuteria were deserted, as were all public buildings of the past, for the social life of cities had by now undergone a fundamental change. The churches, large and impressive, and their attendant small

Streets in Byzantine cities were mostly narrow, often labyrinthine and occasionally leading to cul de sacs, forms strongly reminiscent of Arab cities in the East.23 In very few cases, such as the centre of Thessaloniki, Serres or the Lower City of Monemvasia (fig. 16), can the Mese Hodos (Middle Street) be identified. In Athens the route of the Classical Panathenaic 236

The Early and the Middle Byzantine City

16. Monemvasia, topographical plan of the Byzantine fortress and settlement (after N. Lianos, from E. Karpodini-Dimitriadi, Castles of the Peloponnese, Athens 1990, fig. 98 (in Greek)).

17. The Middle Byzantine fortress of Mygdonian Redina (after N.K.

Way in the Agora has been preserved. In Lacedaemonia and the Kadmeia of Thebes streets leading to the castle gates have survived.24

entire city of shacks with commercial functions was formed temporarily in the sparsely inhabited area of Constantinople between the Constantinian and Theodosian walls”.28

In the new cities of the Middle Byzantine period, such as Mystras, Geraki, Mouchli and others, their location on steep hillsides prevented the rectilinear planning of the streets, owing to the abrupt slope of the ground. Access to dwellings was often by steps, which meant, like the winding course of the lanes, the exclusion of wheeled vehicles. A unique testimony for Constantinople mentions the lighting of streets at night.

In Byzantine times the older harbours which had been constructed in Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine period were utilized, such as the harbour of Thessaloniki, which had been built by Constantine the Great. Only one protective breakwater was added, which simultaneously functioned as a drain, channelling rainwater to the open sea (the tserebul). We know, furthermore, of the ports in Thessaly, Demetrias and Thessalian (Christian) Thebes (fig. 18), which also served Thessaloniki during the period of the Slav incursions (677/678). During the Middle Byzantine period there were harbours at Eion-Chrysoupolis29 (figs 19 and 20), Christoupolis-Kavala (fig. 21), Monemvasia and other coastal cities.

Moutsopoulos).

Ancient materials were reused during this period as well. As Charalambos Bouras has observed, in new buildings “these spolia were economical and easy to use”. In very few cases an impression of historical continuity or of new artistic creation25 may have been aimed at, such as the church of the Virgin Gorgoepekoos (Swift-hearing) in Athens,26 where material from earlier monuments, ancient and Byzantine, was used cleverly and with lofty artistic intentions.

At the time, the size (πόλεων σχήμα) and the commercial activities of the city were considered important features, which were deemed a necessary qualification for the status of city (πόλεως αξίωμα).30

We learn that in certain cases the Byzantines employed sailors of the Imperial Navy as builders, as in the case of the erection “of the church dedicated to our Saviour Jesus Christ and to the commanders in chief and to Helios Thesbites, which is being constructed by the royal court” at Constantinople.27

Let us look at the size of some cities in the Early Byzantine period. Antioch, which, after Constantinople and Alexandria (920 ha.), was the third largest city of Byzantium, covered an area of 650 ha., and Laodikeia in Syria extended over 220 ha.31 Information on the population of cities in this period is at best approximate, as no method has been devised for deducing population numbers from the area of a settlement because of the many imponderable factors, such as streets, squares, gardens, the types of inhabitants, etc. Nevertheless, it has been claimed that Antioch had about 200,000 inhabitants and Constantinople probably over 300,000. However, plagues and other historical events intervened during the unhappy years that followed, and in 747 Constantinople had reached the nadir in its Medieval history.32

The absence of systematic central planning was another characteristic parameter of Byzantine fortified settlements. Inside such settlements were free spaces, designated for the accommodation of people from the neighbouring countryside in the event of enemy incursions, as can be seen clearly in the case of the fortified settlement of Redina (in Macedonian Mygdonia) (fig. 17). In large cities, however, provision was made for free space between the walls and the settlement, for security reasons. Although the “citizens’ agora” of the ancient cities, had long vanished, as had the closed fora of Roman and Early Christian urban centres, the Byzantines continued to call the locus of commercial activities agora. In Byzantine cities shops developed on both sides of a central street, which was called a phoros, after the system at Constantinople. At Philippi, Rhodes and Corinth, a row of shops with porticoed frontage has been observed.

According to E. Stein, the population of the eastern provinces and the Balkans in the fourth century numbered 26,000,000. In the reign of Theodosius the Great (395), the population of the eastern provinces of the empire is estimated to have been 65,000,000. According to W.G. Holmes, the population of the empire under Anastasius was 56,000,000.33 In Justinian’s reign it reached 30,000,000. In the first half of the eleventh century, this number dropped to 20,000,000, under the Komnenoi it fell to 10–12,000,000 and in the reign of Michael VIII Palaiologos to 5,000,000.34

Commerce was also conducted outside the walls, as in Hadrianoupolis, Rhodes and elsewhere. We have too the important testimony of Michael Psellos, that “in 1042, an 237

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos

18. Christian Thebes (Nea Anchialos), topographical plan (after P.

19. Eion (Chrysoupolis), topographical plan (after A.W. Dunn, “The

Lazaridis, Praktika, 1964, 18, fig. 2 (in Greek)).

survey of Khrysoupolis”, 1982).

20. Eion (Chrysoupolis), on the Strymon Delta (aerial photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos).

According to A. Andreadis, the population of Constantinople from the fourth to the twelfth century ranged between 500,000–800,000 and 1,000,000.35 In 904, when Thessaloniki was conquered by Leo “from Tripolis” (in Syria), it had a population of 45,000, 15,000 of whom were taken captive.

The death toll reached 30,000. In the early tenth century, the estimated population was 100,000 inhabitants.36 By contrast, A.A. Vasiliev estimates that in the same period, the population of Thessaloniki exceeded 200,000.37 Regarding the nature of the Byzantine citizen, the definition 238

The Early and the Middle Byzantine City given by Zakythinos is characteristic: “Whatever the provenance of the Roman or Byzantine citizen, whether he carries the indolence of the Orontes and the Nile in his soul, or is accompanied by the coarseness of the Haemus and the Skardos, it suffices that he should accept this culture, adopt its spirit, for him to become a perfect citizen of the State”.38 Even though extensive excavations have been carried out in recent years at archaeological sites of Early Christian cities (of the Late Roman and the Early Christian period), such as Nikopolis in Epirus, Christian Thebes (fig. 18), Amphipolis, Philippi (fig. 22) and elsewhere, our knowledge of the dwellings is still very limited.39 The situation in the Balkan provinces on the eve of the Slav incursions is described in detail by Gilbert Dagron.40 According to the Synekdemos of Hierokles,41 at this time: 1. The province of Europe, under a consularius, included 12 cities, among which were Herakleia, Arcadioupolis, Bizye, Kallipolis, Apros. 2. The province of Rhodope, under a governor, included seven cities: Aenos, Maximianoupolis, Trajanoupolis, Maroneia, Topeiros, Nikopolis and Kereopyrgos. 3. The province of Thrace, under a consularius, included five cities among which Philippoupolis and Beroe (Stara Zagora). 4. The province of Haemimontos, under a governor, included five cities, among which Hadrianoupolis, Anchialos, Plotinoupolis (Didymoteichon). 5. The province of Mysia, under a governor, with seven cities, among which Marcianoupolis, Odessos (Varna), Dorostolos, Nikopolis (ad

21. Philippi, topographical plan (after G. Gounaris).

22. Kavala (Christoupolis), the fortress and the aqueduct (of later date) (photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos).

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Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos

24. Edessa, the ancient city at Longos. The main access road is visible

23. Edessa, the ancient wall (after A. Chrysostomou, “The wall of ancient

(photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos).

Edessa”, 1987–1988 (in Greek)).

of Old Epirus, under a governor, with 12 cities, among which Nikopolis, Dodone, Photike, Korkyra, Ithaka. 7. The province of New Epirus, under a consularius, with nine cities, among which Dyrrachion, Aulon. 8. The province of Mediterranean Dacia, under a consularius, with five cities: Sardike metropolis, Pautalia, Germae, Naissus, Remesiana. 9. The province of Dacia (tributary), under a consularius, with five cities, among which the castles Martis, Iskos. 10. The province of Dardania, under a governor, with 3 cities, among which the metropolis Skupi (Skopje), Ulpiana. 11. The province of Prevale, under a governor, with three cities, among which Skodra. 12. The province of Mysia, under a governor, with five cities, among which Viminacium, Singidunum. 13. The province of Pannonia, under a governor, with two cities: Sirmium and Basiana.43

25. Patrai, topographical plan of the Byzantine city (after N. Lianos, from

Karpodini-Dimitriadi, Castles of the Peloponnese, fig. 174).

Justinian took care to fortify these cities, as part of his vast building plan, which was extremely successful in its application. His interest extended to the minutest details in the most distant but crucial spots, such as difficult passes and defiles. And so he fortified defiles, from the Iron Gates on the Danube to Thermopylae and the Isthmus of Corinth, to protect the southern regions of the theme of Hellas. With his building programme, he tried to heal the wounds caused by the devastating earthquakes of 518, 522 and 551.44

Istrum), Nobae. 6. The province of Scythia, under a governor, with 15 cities. Illyricum comprised the following provinces and cities: 1. Macedonia, under a consularius, with 32 cities, among which Thessaloniki, Pella, Europos, Dion, Beroea, Eordea, Edessa (figs 23 and 24), Almopia, Herakleia of Lakkos (Lynkos), Idomene, Herakleia of Strymnos (Strymon, Herakleia Sindike) Serres, Philippi, Amphipolis, Apollonia and Neapolis (Kavala) (42). 2. The province of Macedonia II, under a governor, with eight cities, among which Stoloi, Argos, Pelagonia. 3. The province of Thessaly, under a governor, with 17 cities, among which Larisa, Demetrias, Thebes, Lamia. 4. The province of Greece, that is Achaia, under a proconsularius, with 79 cities, among which Elateia, Daulia, Chaironeia, Thebes, Athens, Corinth, Thelpousa, Mantineia, Lacedaemon metropolis of Laconia, formerly Sparta, Kyparissia, Patrai (fig. 25). 5. The province of Crete, under a consularius, with 22 cities. 6. The province

Nevertheless, the catalytic event, the breadth and depth of which we have yet to comprehend, was the Slav incursions, which desolated the land and devastated the settlements and urban centres in the Balkans. Procopius, the historian of Justinian, speaks of 200,000 people killed or captured on a yearly basis, during the great emperor’s reign.45 Let us take a closer look at the internal organization of Early Christian settlements. Their walls were constructed on the 240

The Early and the Middle Byzantine City whole according the building system of the time. This can be clearly seen in the east ramparts of Thessaloniki, which were of rubble masonry, reinforced at one-metre intervals by horizontal bands of bricks. They were also strengthened by semicircular, horseshoe-shaped, rectangular, triangular or pentagonal tower-bastions, at intervals along their length. A pair of towers usually guarded the gates. Inside the settlement there were granaries and cisterns. When settlements were built on naturally fortified, sometimes precipitous, sites, the walls protecting the precipices were of inferior quality, often built without mortar and without tower-bastions. This defensive system is found especially in fortifications in the form of refuges (refugia) or fortified villages (vici murati, pagi murati). At the end of Antiquity and in the Early Byzantine period, the defence of most fortresses (castra) was assigned to private individuals and in particular to professional soldiers, who had settled locally with their families.

26. Nicopolis ad Istrum (aerial photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos).

region of Macedonia, from as early as Late Roman and Early Byzantine times. In general, the vici investigated in the region of Macedonia II are estimated to number around 100. Over time they were fortified by strong walls and acquired the form of towns. Fortified vici murati covered an area of about 2–3 ha. and usually included an Early Christian basilica and a graveyard.46 According to the numismatic evidence, most of them date to the fourth and fifth centuries, and very few to the sixth century.

A new catastrophe was to be piled onto the other miseries afflicting isolated settlements, particularly in the frontier regions. In 518, a severe earthquake razed most of the fortresses and fortifications of Dardania; 24 fortified villages are reported as destroyed, with great population losses, causing a considerable weakening of the state defence system. In accordance with Justinian’s spirit, both the choice of location for fortresses and their military organization aimed to reinforce strategic locations and control the passes. The army was dispersed over a wide area and encamped in the fortresses. Justinian’s scheme was precisely to strengthen this defensive plan. However, judging by the result, this was far from satisfactory. This grand defensive system proved incapable of checking the aggressions of the barbarian invaders, and, already in the eighth and ninth decades of the sixth century they were laying siege to Thessaloniki and advancing as far as the Peloponnese. The methods employed by the barbarians are described by Procopius in his texts and were very characteristic, especially in the case of Topeiros, a well-fortified settlement on the lower course of the River Nestos.

In addition to the various vici, one more type of small, fortified settlement can be included in this category: the pagi murati. These were flat-topped hillocks with circumvallation, which served as refuges for local shepherds and peasants in times of incursions. Only small huts and other semi-permanent structures have been found inside them. Recent investigations estimate that there were 280 such settlements in this region, some of which were refugia.47 Numerous similar settlements existed in Greece, particularly in parts of Western Macedonia, such as the mountain settlement of Longas (on the ruins of a Roman and Early Byzantine settlement), near Siderochori, Kastoria. The fortified settlement of Redina (fig. 17) has the form of a small town or fortified settlement, an oppidum or oppidulum.

The last numismatic evidence recovered from the region of Macedonia II dates to the year 586, which is grosso modo the terminus ante quem of Late Antiquity in Macedonia and Thrace. In the early years of the seventh century, in Northern Macedonia, new fortified settlements emerged from among the devastated settlements, at crucial strategic points. These new fortifications, fortresses (castella), fortified towns (oppida), refuges (refugia), provided greater security for the harassed populations which survived the Avar, Slav and Slav-Bulgarian incursions. Owing to the pointed rock formations, some of these fortified towns had ground plans reminiscent of ships. The ultimate defensive position, the citadel, with cisterns and walls reinforced by towers, was located at the highest point. All these innovations, unknown in previous fortification works, appeared from the sixth century onward. The historical life of these new fortified settlements and fortresses was also sustained thanks to the interest shown by the Church in their revival and survival. Nonetheless, by this time they had lost any semblance of their former productive organization.

The old cities of Dardania and Illyricum, the civitates, weakened by the barbarian attacks of previous centuries, survived in many cases until the fifth and sixth centuries. These old civitates were replaced by small Byzantine cities (oppida) and towns (oppidula), which always had walls, towers and ramparts, and the citadel on the highest part. Oppida and oppidula covered an area of 2–6 ha. (e.g. Caesarea in Western Macedonia). The largest urban centres of Illyricum were Salona, in the western Balkan province of Pannonia, Thessaloniki, and the capital, Constantinople. Of the 15 cities in Macedonia II, five have been identified: Lychnis (Ochrid) (fig. 15), Herakleia Lynkestis (near Monastir), Stobi (fig. 14), Bargala and Skupi (Skopje). This was the time of the sharpest decline; cities degenerated into vici, with corresponding agricultural activities.48 Procopius calls the fortified sites “forts, small cities, towers, single towers, fortresses (castella)”.49 He lists 460 fortifications in Illyricum, more than those in Thrace. Procopius’ “single

Apart from the larger urban centres, urban complexes of varying scale have been identified throughout the wider 241

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos But we also have many composite place-names with the words Castellion and Castellon, the majority in Illyricum and Dardania.54 Most of these fortifications, whose sites are known under a wealth of toponyms and which are today in ruins, are referred to throughout the Balkans by the names Kales -edes (Turk. Kalé), the smaller ones by the names Koula, Kuli, and the larger ones, in northern Greece and northwards, by the name Gradište, and more rarely by the Turkish term Hissar and its composites Hissarlik, Assarlik; and finally as Varoš (Hung.), in Greek Varosi, which is found from Macedonia to Cyprus. In many parts of the Balkans, we come across fortifications under the name grad (gard) gradez, and Graz in Austria, quite often in compound form, and of course under the well-known form: Gradiste (Gradica) and Graiste.55 The word gard-grad is probably of Phrygian origin from *gordo = city (Rom. gorod) and the Hittite gurta = city (burg).65

27. Diocletianoupolis, topographical plan (after Th. Papazotos and N.K.

Moutsopoulos).

Byzantinists agree that all the Early Byzantine cities were replaced by fortresses (castra) from the seventh century onwards.57. Unfortunately, we do not know on what planning basis the fortresses of that period were founded. In a surviving founding “charter” of a city, the person in charge “... of settling and erecting a fortress...”, makes no mention of layout or urban planning.58 But, as we shall see at the end of the chapter, valuable relevant information exists in texts of Strategika. At any rate, these fortified settlements retained the name castron until the end.

towers” were small fortifications with a single donjon. Most of these are listed on the Danube: Pigoi, Kupi and Noves, near Viminacium, which Justinian turned into towns.50 The noun polis (city) is the second component of a number of toponyms in the Balkans, especially of settlements built by emperors who gave them their names: Theodosioupolis Marcianou-polis, Justinianou-polis, Theodorou-polis, Anastasiou-polis. In time, however, the word polis was reserved, in everyday parlance, for Constantinople.

We mentioned above the choice of naturally fortified sites of particular strategic importance for the construction of fortresses. Nevertheless, many Middle Byzantine fortified settlements were founded at the confluences of rivers, on islets in lakes or on rocky coasts. As examples we cite Tsar Samuel’s capital, Ochrid, on the island in Little Prespa lake, Chrysoupolis (figs 19–20), Christoupolis (Kavala, fig. 21), Velessa, Prosakos and others.59

If the Early Byzantine Empire was a sum of cities, the Middle Byzantine Empire can be characterized, according to Mango, as a sum of fortresses.51 This transition from city to fortress is particularly characteristic of Greece. Here are a few examples: Diocletianoupolis (fig. 27- pres. Argos Orestiko: Chroupitsa) → Kastoria, Arethoussa (Mygdonia) → Redina, Amphipolis → Chrysoupolis, Christoupolis → Kavala, Philippi → Castro (of Philippi), Maximianoupolis → Peritheorion, Demetrias (A) → Demetrias (B), Plotinoupolis → Didymoteichon, Herakleia Sindike → Siderokastron, Apollonia→ to the neighbouring dwindling small city of Justinian,52 Heracleus Stibus → Ardameri, Nikopolis → Preveza. The fortress usually provided refuge; it provided safety in times of invasion, but it was often too confined and inaccessible to evolve into a centre of urban life.

The rebirth of cities in the ninth century Many cities that had been destroyed were rebuilt and repopulated as early as the eighth century. In 755 Constantine V rebuilt and colonized small cities of Thrace. Empress Irene populated Anchialos and Beroe (Stara Zagora), which she renamed Eirenoupolis. Chrysoupolis was founded on the ruins of ancient Eion, the outport of Amphipolis.

Let us take the castle of Redina as a representative example, with its walls, tower-bastions, workshop quarter, dwellings, water-supply system, with a military commander (katepano), a bishopric, churches, organized cemeteries. Was it a city or a fortress? It would be more proper to classify it under an intermediate category, a schematic cell, arising from the settlement forms of the “dark age” and transformed into a city (in this particular case, at the neighbouring site of destroyed Arethousa), but on a smaller scale, as a castro or burg, which was not a castellum or a dynamari, but a fortified and integrated settlement on small scale53(fig. 17).

In the ninth century, many old cities regained their urban character and their economy was gradually regenerated. Concurrently, recently established cities developed either on the ruins of historical centres, or on other sites.60 Among the cities that had been abandoned and were subsequently resurrected were Patrai, whose inhabitants had taken refuge in Calabria, Lacedaemon, whose inhabitants had sought refuge in Monemvasia, Corinth, Stratos in Akarnania, and Arta, on the ruins of ancient Ambrakia.61 Leo V the Armenian built many new cities in Western Thrace: Polystylon on the site of Abdera, Peritheorion on the site of Anastasioupolis, Mosynoupolis on the site of Maximianoupolis. It was at this time that smaller commercial centres appeared in Macedonia, such as Philippi (fig. 22),

Apart from place-names which define fortified, strategic sites (Castro, Castelli, Vigla, Pyrgos and others), we find that as early as the time of Procopius the place-name Bourgon is mentioned, often in component form and mostly in the Danube region. 242

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28. Ochrid, topographical plan. The area of ancient Lychnidos is hatched

29. Servia, the citadel with the keep (aerial photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos).

(after I. Mikulčić, “Frühchristicher Kirchenbau”, fig. 7).

Kitros, Ochrid (fig. 28), Meleniko, Serres, Zichna, Drama,60 Veroia, Servia (figs 29 and 30), Kastoria (figs 31 and 32), and further north Skopje, Koritza, Prilapos and others. Important commercial centres took root in Thessaly: Almyros, Larisa (fig. 33), Demetrias and Thavmakos, and in Epirus: Dyrrachium and Ioannina (fig. 34). In Central Greece there were Thebes, where a substantial cottage industry in silk manufacturing developed, and Athens, seat of a metropolis from the early ninth century. When Arab piratical raids ceased, Euripos was rebuilt and in the Peloponnese, Corinth, Patrai, Methoni, Koroni and Nafplion.63 The renaissance of the ninth century followed the decline and depreciation of the urban centres caused by the upheavals of the seventh century in the Balkan Peninsula. The restoration of urban life was one of the most important phenomena of the ninth century; it was the beginning of the great heyday which reached its peak in the tenth and eleventh centuries.64 It is

30. The fortress of Servia, the fortifications of the citadel (aerial photo. by

N.K. Moutsopoulos).

31. Kastoria (aerial photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos).

243

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32. Kastoria, land fortifications (after P. Tsolakis, “Contribution to the topography of Byzantine Kastoria”, in Volume in honour of N.G.L. Hammond (Appendix of Macedonikon 27), Thessaloniki 1997, 458, fig. 4 (in Greek)).

33. Larisa, topographical plan, with the fortifications and the Byzantine

citadel.

Balkan Peninsula progressed apace.66 It was then that there is the first mention of the theme of Macedonia, in the region of the theme of Thrace, with Hadrianoupolis (Adrianople) as its capital (789 and 809), and of the themes of Thessaloniki (836), Serres, the Peloponnese (812), Nikopolis (899), Dyrrachium (842–843) and Dalmatia (899). After Basil II dissolved the Bulgar State in 1018, the lands annexed by the empire formed the theme of Bulgaria, with Skopje as its capital; the more northern administrative regions probably formed the theme of Serbia, with Sirmium as its capital and the Paristrion or Paradunavion (i.e. Danubian) theme, with Dristra (Dorystolon) as its capital. Concurrently, the Byzantine Empire proceeded systematically to reorganize the guilds, through the legislation of Leo the Wise (The Book of the Eparch: 911–912).67 According to Constantine VII Porphyrogennitos, Basil I founded “houses for the poor and restored hospices, and renovated many hospitals, old people’s homes and monasteries”.68 Romanos Lekapenos founded a hostel at Ta Maurianou and Constantine VII founded an old people’s home near Hagia Sophia; finally John Tzimiskes renovated the famous leper-house at Zotikon.69

34. Ioannina, the gate of the Byzantine fortress with the inscription by

Thomas Prealimpos, 1379 (photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos).

worth noting, however, that the new settlements had none of the monumental features of Late Antiquity. Houses and shops were meanly built and crowded into a maze of streets.65

Cities were now well fortified and operated primarily as administrative and religious centres and fortresses, while at the same time retaining their function as refuges for the rural population. Even the most important cities did not shed their agrarian character, since a large part of the population was directly involved in farming. Thus, centres such as Thessaloniki, Hadrianoupolis, Anchialos, Naissus, Sofia, Skopje, Meleniko, Raidestos, Zichna, Serres, Christoupolis, Chalkis, Thebes, Athens and others, promoted agricultural products, such as grapes, wine and especially grain, as well as stock-raising products. Even inside the cities there were substantial expanses of arable land, lush vineyards and gardens. Thessaloniki in particular attracted large numbers of transients, who contributed to market growth. Silks and woollen textiles

An essential causative factor in this revival was the reorganization of the themes (administrative divisions) in the Balkan Peninsula, which was linked directly to the empire’s struggle to curb the expansionist ambitions of the Bulgar State and, as Nikolaos Svoronos contends, “to subjugate the autonomous Slav political formations and assimilate their populations”. The emergence of the themes in the various regions of the peninsula “is indicative of the progress in re-conquering lost lands and reestablishing true Byzantine sovereignty over regions troubled by Slav invasions”. Among the first themes to be reorganized were those of Thrace (first mentioned 679/680) and of Hellas. In the eighth and ninth centuries territorial organization in the 244

The Early and the Middle Byzantine City

36. Mesembria, the land wall (photo. by N. Daskalov - Comité de Culture,

Institut National des Monuments Historiques no. 15.014–7).

35. Aerial photograph of Mesembria on the Black Sea.

38. Mesembria, the gate of the land wall.

Nikephoros Phokas (963–969) carried out various building works in the castro of Philippi (on the citadel).77 After Basil II visited Athens, new buildings started to go up and the city took on a new air; the same happened in Koroni, Argos, Nafplion, Patrai and Corinth. This was exactly when new cities (villae novae) appeared, emerging from the ruins of the old ones or on new sites, such as Monemvasia, Arkadia (Kyparissia), Zemena, Zetouni, Thavmakos (Domokos) and others78 The ending of the Saracen pirate raids, following the liberation of Crete, was undoubtedly a contributory factor to the flourishing of these new cities.79

37. Topographical plan of Mesembria on the Black Sea.

abounded, as well as raw materials for making glass, and metal ores of iron, copper, tin and lead.70 The presence of merchants from Monemvasia at Thessaloniki is attested in the mid-tenth century, while Veroia is mentioned at this time as “of great pride to its inhabitants”, and Demetrias in 924, when it was razed by the Saracens, was a flourishing city, like Thebes, Patrai and Sparta.

Cities and towns now had streets, passageways and blind alleys. The houses, although small, often with a single room (the triklinon), when facing a street had balconies (doxata) and architectural projections (tavlota, romanisia, etc.). Building materials were humble: ordinary stones and wood for the timber frames, roofed verandas (solaria) and covered balconies. The walling was usually of rubble masonry and mud, or more rarely mortar or plaster, or plaster mixed with potsherds or shells.80

During this period, the society that emerged in Greece following the “dark age” was characterized by large rural properties. The powerful landed aristocracy acquired a dominant position. We know of the vast property of the widow Danielida from Patrai, who was most helpful to the later Emperor Basil I in his first steps in public life.71 Commerce was flourishing and among the presents Danielida took to Constantinople were fancy sheets and linens.72 Textiles were processed and dyed at Sparta.73 In 921 there were at Corinth organized guilds of konchyleutai (producers of purple dye from murex),74 and chartopoioi (processors of parchment/vellum).75

Despite the wars with Bulgaria, there were flourishing cities on the Black Sea (Mesembria (pres. Nessembar, figs 35–38), Sozopolis, Philippoupolis, Hadrianoupolis, Tzouroulon. It was during this period that castra first appeared along the valleys of the Ardas and Rhodope. These were built by Byzantium to protect its northern frontiers: Tzepaina (Cepina), Petritzos, Vatkounion (Batkun), Kritzimos (Kricim), Aghia Justina (Ustina), Peristitza (Perustica), Stenimachos; and in the interior of Rhodope (Mora, Ochrido, Merope): Ephraim (Efrem), Beadnos (Beden), Perperakion (Gorna Krepost), Povisdos (Podvis), Oustra (Ustren) and others.81

By the tenth century reconstruction is evident in cities and fortresses throughout the empire.76 Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos (920–944) rebuilt some cities from the foundations and renovated others in Macedonia and Thrace during his reign. In 926, Basileios Kladon, strategos of the theme of Strymon, rebuilt the ruined walls of Christoupolis (Kavala). Emperor 245

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos

39. Moglena, the fortress of Chrysi (aerial photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos)

The following fortified urban centres are mentioned during the same period in Thrace: Didymoteichon, Pythion (Empythion), Trajanoupolis, Makre, Maroneia, Gratianou, Peritheorion, Anastasioupolis and Xantheia.82 To these should be added the cities of Macedonia, Drama, Serres, Zichna, Christoupolis, Redina, Veroia, Servia, Vodena (Edessa), the castra of Moglena (Chrysi)(fig. 39) and Enotia, Kastoria, and of course the large city of Thessaloniki.

The new settlements bore no resemblance to the monumental aspect of the cities of Late Antiquity. Buildings were of inferior construction and streets were irregular, discontinuous, daedalic, often leading to dead-ends. The houses of the Middle Byzantine period had basement or ground-floor cellars with large jars sunk in the floor, for storing farm produce, which confirm that life was still tied closely to the countryside.87 Another typical phenomenon of the eleventh century was the expansion of fortified settlements outside their walls, as in the characteristic example of the fortress of Redina,17 where the outer rampart was demolished in several places and new houses and workshops were built at various points, even on top of the wall and even utilizing materials from it. This phenomenon is also evident in the cities of Athens and Thebes,88 and at Monemvasia. At Thebes the settlement spread around the fortified Kadmeia, at Monemvasia the Lower City emerged and at Athens the city expanded over the site of the ancient Agora, the Kerameikos and the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus (Olympieion).89

In the most northerly regions occupied by Basil II, after his victory over the rebellious Tsar Samuel, were the fortresses of Petrai (Petersko, Soskos), Ostrovo, Constantion on the islet of Aghios Achilleios at Prespa, Ochrid, Divra (Debar), Deavolis (Devol, pres. Zvezde), Prilapos (Prilep), Mokra, Kitsevo (Kicevo), Rodovistion (Radovis), Morovizdon (Morozvizd and Morodvis), Skupi,83 Sosko, Molisko,84 Stromnitsa and the castra of Longas, Setaina, Aghios Elias and Kardia near Edessa, as well as the castles of Voossa (Vojuca on Mt Smolikas), Valia Kalda in the Pindos range, Platamon and Trikala (figs 40 and 41). At the time of the rebellion, Samuel did not build any fortresses, but used the existing Byzantine ones (Vodena, Servia, Veroia, Kastoria, Setina,85 Skopje, Ochrid and others). He made particular use of the passes to hinder the movements of the imperial army, which was usually led by the emperor in person.86

During the following years fortresses continued to develop, while new cities were created on naturally fortified sites, such as Mystras, following the abandonment of Lacedaemonia, Geraki,90 Mouchli, Angelokastro, the castra of Rogoi, Leontari, Arkadia (Kyparissia), Veligoste, Longanikos,91 and Araklovo. A rather interesting, if sentimental, description of a similar settlement is given by Ioannes Eugenikos (Κώμης έκφρασις),92 referring to the location and landscape of the village of Petrina in Laconia. Several descriptions of cities and towns during different periods exist. The most fascinating is Ioannes Kameniates’ account of Thessaloniki, before its fall in 904, which is almost as vivid as a fine painting, as this extract illustrates:93

Byzantine settlements in the tenth and eleventh centuries This spirit of revival continued and accelerated in the tenth century, reaching its peak in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 246

The Early and the Middle Byzantine City

40. The fortress of Platamon (aerial photo. by N.K. Moutsopoulos).

“So the city is, as I have said, both spacious and wide and well fortified with a castle and towers close to each other, and their solid construction brings security to its inhabitants. A wide bay opens up to the south, making it easy for merchant vessels arriving from everywhere to anchor safely. For the ground slopes gently in that direction, forming a wonderful harbour that offers a safe haven for mariners, as it is unaffected by tempests, thus providing a calm anchorage ... But the northern [part of the city] is irregular and difficult of access. Above the hills bows a mountain top which raises the level of the city, so that one section is a plain suited to the needs of its people, while the other rises as far as the hills and the mountain peaks. However, the city does not suffer from the presence of the mountain, which allows the enemy to charge from higher ground and attack the fortress... We have said that the city is large and spacious, and with its fortress it has enclosed much land inside. The part of the fortress facing inland is very solid and well fortified by the thickness of its wall, as the outworks surround it on all sides and it is reinforced by close-ranked towers and ramparts, and there is no reason for the inhabitants to have any fear. But the section facing south is completely flat and unprepared for war ... As a large public road (the Public Avenue) crosses our city from West to East, and travellers had to stay here in order to purchase whatever they need, we got from them all sorts of goods ...

41. The Byzantine fortress of Trikala, topographical plan (after N.K.

So, could our city, flourishing and wealthy, beautiful through its technical advancement and famous for its monumental buildings, appear inferior to others, on account of lawlessness

Moutsopoulos).

247

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos or a faulty civic system or on account of boasting about the art of rhetoric and science? Surely not. For education was considered of the highest importance and the citizens valued good government as highly as their own lives ...

because of the nature of the place, and also places on the sea or very large rivers that are on isthmuses or are partly joined to the land.” And the text continues with recommendations on the construction of wall foundations, particularly in the case of sea walls; it sets proper distances to safeguard the defenders from the danger of arrows; and provides instructions on settlement size, dimensions of building stones and wall thickness (“Walls should be no less than five cubits thick, and twenty cubits high”), ways of protecting walls from ramming, the forms and dimensions of towers and battlements, the building of outworks and bulwarks, and every type of construction detail and provision.

Huge and grandiose churches with all kinds of ornaments rise within the city like some public oratories for God, and first among them is the church of the Almighty and Divine Wisdom of the Sublime Word and the church of the Virgin Mary and Mother of God, but also of the gloriously triumphant martyr St Demetrios.” Interesting too is the description of the fortified settlement of Servia, by Ioannes Kantakouzenos (Bonnae, 4, 19): “This city stands on a projection above the mountain and it is right away directly apparent to a person approaching that it is higher. It terminates at this end of the mountain, divided by three cross-walls, so that from outside it appears to be three cities one upon the other. Around two of its sides are deep ravines. And every habitable spot from the city as far as the ravines has been filled with dwellings and men, and not just the common people but the leading citizens and the military, many of whom were local and good. And the city having its houses in successive points, because of its position appears to have few dwellings, which are multi-storeyed. And citizens live in both parts, whereas the third, which is high at the top, is intended for the ruler. It is inaccessible on every side and very difficult for attacking the walls.”

Notes D.A. Zakythinos, Byzance: État, société, économie, vol. VII, (Variorum Reprints), London 1973, 78. 2 Ch. Bouras, “Aspects of Byzantine cities from the 8th to the 15th century”, in Economic History of Byzantium (National Bank Cultural Foundation), Athens 1995, 5 (in Greek). 3 K. Amantos, Introduction to Byzantine History, Athens 1950 (2nd edn), 92 (in Greek). 4 J.M. Carrie, J.-L. Ferrary and J. Scheid, “Roman administration: Economic, fiscal and monetary”, in History of the Greek Nation, vol. VI: Greece-Rome, Athens 1976, 148–150 (in Greek). 5 R. Martin, L’urbanisme dans la Grèce antique, Paris 1956, 166, fig. 26 (Doura-Europos), 168, fig. 27 (Antioch), 172, fig. 29 (Damascus), 178, fig. 31 (Gerassa). 6 M.S. Kordossis, Historico-geographics of Early Byzantine and Early Christian times generally, Athens 1996, 219 (in Greek). 7 I. Mikulčić, “Über die Grösse der spätantiken Städte in Makedonien”, Živa Antika 24, 1974, 192. 8 D.A. Zakythinos, Byzantine Greece, Athens 1965, 23 (in Greek). 9 C. Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome, Athens, 1990 (2nd edition), 83. 10 Procopii Caesariensis, Opera omnia, vol. III, 2: On Buildings (Iacobus Haury), Lipsiae 1913, IV, 1, 31. 11 T. Loungis, “The evolution of the Byzantine city from the 4th to the 12th century”, Byzantiaka 16, 1996, 41 (in Greek). 12 Loungis, “The evolution of the Byzantine city”, op. cit., 43, 44. 13 Mango, Byzantium, op. cit., 78. 14 G. Dagron, “Le Christianisme dans la ville Byzantine”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31, 1977, 11ff. 15 Mango, Byzantium, op. cit., 83, 88. 16 G. Lavvas, “Christian Thebes of Thessaly: Urban organization and cityplanning characteristics”, in Armos: Volume in Honour of Professor N.K. Moutsopoulos, vol. II (School of Architecture, A.U.Th.), Thessaloniki 1991, 996 (in Greek). 17 H. Von Schoenebeck, “Die Stadtplanung des Romischen Thessalonike”, in VI. Internationale Kongress fur Archaologie, Berlin 1940, 478–482; M. Vickers, “Towards reconstruction of the city planning of Roman Thessaloniki”, in Ancient Macedonia, vol. I, Thessaloniki 1970, 239–251, and idem, “Hellenistic Thessaloniki”, Journal of Hellenic Studies XCIII, 1972, 156, fig. 1, and 157, fig. 2; N.K. Moutsopoulos, “Contribution à l’étude du plan de la ville de Thessalonique à l’époque romaine”, in Atti del XVI Congresso di Storia dell Architettura (Atene, 1969), Roma 1977, 187–263, figs I-X; and H. Torp, “Thessalonique paléochrétienne: Une esquisse”, in L. Rydeu and J.O. Rosenqvist (eds), Aspects of Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium (Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, Transaction, 4), Stockholm 1993, 114. 18 I. Kollias, The City of Rhodes and the Palace of the Grand Master, Athens 1988, 68–69. 19 Kordossis, Historico-geographics, op. cit., 228. 20 G. Kordatos, The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, Athens 1953, 80 (in Greek). 21 Mango, Byzantium, op. cit, 77. 22 Loungis, “The evolution of the Byzantine city”, op. cit., 38. 23 See Besim Selim Hakim, Arabic-Islamic Cities: Building and Planning 1

The Byzantine “tactical” texts94 supply us with answers to the questions concerning the founding of cities, and begin with the four basic preconditions that must be satisfied, in order to build a fortress:

On building a city “Whoever purposes to build a city must first study the locality, whether the wall that is to be built around it is difficult to besiege because of its position. Secondly, he should try the water to see whether it is safe to drink and sufficient to supply the city and all others who may take refuge in it in time of difficulty … And thirdly, whether it has stones that can be broken or are already broken, and which are not too far away and can be collected without great risk, and similarly whether timber is not too distant nor has to be carried from inaccessible places, so that they are unable to complete their buildings. And fourth, whether the countryside produces grain or can procure it from elsewhere.” After ensuring the existence of a suitable local quarry for stone and nearby forests for timber, the presence of an adequate supply of water and, fourthly, the existence of nearby arable land, the Strategika of Byzantium tackle the choice of a suitable site on grounds of the terrain.

Where to build a city: “Now suitable places for building a city, and especially if it is to be near mountains, are those that are on hills, and a circle of precipices blocks the ascent, and also those that are surrounded by large rivers or that can be surrounded by diverting them 248

The Early and the Middle Byzantine City Principles, London-New York 1986 (2nd edn). 24 Bouras, “Aspects of Byzantine cities”, op. cit. 9. 25 Bouras, “Aspects of Byzantine cities”, op. cit., 16. 26 C. Mango, “Ancient Spolia in the Great Palace of Constantinople”, in Byzantine East-Latin West: K. Weitzmann Festschrift, Princeton 1993, 645– 649. 27 Theophanes, Synechistai (Theophanes Continuatus) (Emm. Bekker), vol. V, Bonn 1838, I, 308: “...and lately, so that the crowd of sailors does not become unruly because it is idle, it is employed in erecting a church then being built next to the royal court”. 28 Bouras, “Aspects of Byzantine cities”, op. cit., 11–12. 29 Paulys Realencyclopädie, vol. 10, s.v. “Eion”; F. Papazoglou, “EionAmphipolis-Chrysopolis”, in Recueil des Travaux de l’Académie Serbe des Sciences XXXVI (Institut d’Études Byzantines 2), Beograd 1953, 23–24, and Makedonski gradovi u rimsko doba, Skopje 1957, 285ff.; and A.W. Dunn, “The survey of Khrysoupolis and Byzantine fortifications in the lower Strymon valley”, in XVI. Internationaler Byzantinisten Kongress, Wien 1981: Akten (Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik), part II, vol. 4, Wien 1982, 605– 614. 30 B. Bavant, “La ville dans le nord de l’Illyricum (Pannonie, Mésie I, Dacie et Dardanie)”, in Villes et peuplement dans l’Illyricum protobyzantin: Actes du colloque organisé par l’Ecole Française de Rome (Rome, 12–14 mai 1982) (Collection de l’Ecole Française de Rome 77), Rome 1984, 245. 31 Mango, Byzantium, op. cit., 78, and A. Guillou, La civilisation byzantine, Paris 1974, 270. 32 Mango, Byzantium, op. cit., 79, 98. 33 P. Charanis, “Observations on the demography of the Byzantine Empire”, in Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London 1967, 445. 34 E. Stein, “Introduction à l’histoire et aux institutions Byzantines”, Traditio VII, 1949–1951, 154. See Charanis, “Observations”, op. cit., 446, and Kordossis, Historico-geographics, op. cit., 203–204. 35 A. Andreades, “De la population de Constantinople sous les empereurs byzantins”, Metron I (2), 1920, 69–119. 36 Charanis, “Observations”, op. cit., 445. 37 A.A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, vol. II, 1, 168. 38 D. Zakythinos, Byzantium, Athens 1951, 27 (in Greek). 39 Th. Papazotos, “The urban Byzantine house”, Archaeologia 2, 1982, 38 (in Greek). 40 “Les villes dans l’Illyricum protobyzantin”, in Villes et peuplement dans l’Illyricum protobyzantin, 1–19. 41 Hieroclis Synecdemus et notitiae graecae episcopatuum, (G. Parthey), Amsterdam 1967, 631ff. 42 A. Chrysostomou, “The wall of ancient Edessa”, in Archaeological Work in Macedonia and Thrace 1, Thessaloniki 1987–1988, 161–172 (in Greek); N.K. Moutsopoulos, “Heracleia Sindike, in Φίλια Επη εις Γ.Ε. Μυλωνάν, vol. IV, Athens 1990, 135–207 (in Greek), and idem, “The site of Mygdonian Apollonia and the tracing of the lakeside (?) Via Egnatia ”, in Ancient Macedonia 2, Thessaloniki 1993, 999–1,110 (in Greek). 43 Cf. S. Kyriakides, “Byzantine Studies”, in A.U.Th. School of Philosophy Year Book, Vol III, Thessaloniki 1939, 370ff. (in Greek). 44 Zakythinos, Byzantine Greece, op. cit., 23. 45 P. Lemerle, “Conclusion”, in Villes et peuplement dans l’Illyricum Protobyzantin, op. cit., 502. 46 About 40 have been detected in the region of Macedonia II. See I. Mikulčić, “Spatantike Fortifikationen in der S.R. Makedonien”, CCRB, XXXIII, 275. 47 Mikulčić, “Über die Grösse der spätantiken Städte”, op. cit., 193. 48 Loungis, “The evolution of the Byzantine city”, op. cit., 39. See A. Dunn, “The transition from polis to kastron in the Balkans (III-VII c.c.): General and regional perspectives”, BMGS 18, 1994, 60–80. 49 See G. Dagron, “Les villes dans l’Illyricum protobyzantin”, in Villes et peuplement dans l’Illyricum protobyzantin, op. cit., 7. 50 Procopius, On Buildings IV, 5. See Kordossis, Historico-geographics, op. cit., 226, 272. 51 Mango, Byzantium, op. cit., 92. 52 Moutsopoulos, “The site of Mygdonian Apollonia”, op. cit., 1072–1083. 53 N.K. Moutsopoulos, “La section macédonienne de la via Egnatia: Le bourg de Redina”, Bulletin de l’Institut International des Chateaux Historiques 41, 1983, 91–95; idem, “Le bourg byzantin de Redina: Contribution à la topographie historique de Mygdonie”, Balkan Studies 24 (1), 1983, 15–18, figs 1–51; idem, “La vie quotidienne dans une agglomération Byzantine fortifiée en vertu des resultats des fouilles”, Byzantiaka 6, 1986, 35–46 ; idem, “Excavation of Redina”, Records of Proceedings of the Archaeological Society at Athens for the Year 1990, Athens 1990, 198–208 (in Greek). See Ch. Bouras, “City

and village: Urban design and architecture”, in Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 31(1), 1981, 631. 54 Kordossis, Historico-geographics, op. cit., 273. 55 T. Tomoski, “Entwurf einer Karte von Burgen in Makedonien”, Balkanoslavica 11–12, 1984–85, 34. 56 O. Haas, Die phrygischen Sprachdenkmäler, Sofia 1966, 162. 57 Cf. Dunn, “The transition from polis to kastron”, op. cit., 66–67, 73. 58 Bouras, “Aspects of Byzantine cities”, op. cit., 10. 59 Tomoski, “Entwurf einer Karte”, op. cit., 34. 60 D. Zakythinos, The Byzantine Empire, Athens 1969, 248 (in Greek). 61 A. Bon, Le Péloponnèse byzantin jusqu’en 1204, Paris 1951, 34; P. Lemerle, “La chronique improprement dite de Monemvasie”, Revue des Études Byzantines 21, 1963, 10; Bouras, “Aspects of Byzantine cities”, op. cit., 5; and Mango, Byzantium, op. cit., 101. 62 G. Velenis and K. Triantaphyllidis, “The Byzantine walls of Drama: Inscriptional evidence”, Byzantiaka 11, 1991, 99–116 (in Greek). 63 N. Svoronos, “The revival of Hellenism”, in History of the Greek Nation, vol. VIII, Athens 1979, 335–377 (in Greek). 64 Zakythinos, The Byzantine Empire, op. cit. 65 Mango, Byzantium, op. cit., 101. 66 Svoronos, “The revival of Hellenism”, op. cit., 335. 67 Zakythinos, The Byzantine Empire, op. cit., 250. 68 Cf. Theophanes, Συνεχισταί, 339. 69 Zakythinos, The Byzantine Empire, op. cit., 252. 70 Svoronos, “The revival of Hellenism”, op. cit., 338, 340. 71 Bon, Le Péloponnèse byzantin, op. Cit., 121ff. See Ioannes Skylitzis, Σύνοψις Ιστοριών, (I. Thurn), Berolini 1973, 122, 78. 72 Theophanes, Συνεχισταί, 318. 73 S.V. Kougeas, “Folklore news in the scholia of Arethas ”, Laographia 4, 1912–1913, 259ff. (in Greek). 74 Zakythinos, Byzantine Greece, op. cit., 69. 75 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, To My Son Romanus (De administrando imperio), (eds G. Moravcsik and R.J.H. Jenkins), (Dumbarton Oaks), Washington 1967, 52, 11 (256). 76 Bouras, “City and village”, op. cit., 616. 77 Svoronos, “The revival of Hellenism”, op. cit., 337. 78 D.A. Zakythinos, Le Despotat grec de Morée, vol. II, 147. 79 Zakythinos, Byzance, op. cit., 86. 80 N.K. Moutsopoulos, The Architectural Projection, the Sachnisi: Contribution to the Study of the Greek House, Thessaloniki 1988, 115, 261, 326, 328, 340, 343, 371 (in Greek). 81 Cf. C. Asdracha, La région des Rhodopes aux XIIIe et XIV siècles: Étude de géographie historique, Athènes 1976, 166ff. 82 Two important studies which contribute to our understanding and identification of the fortresses in these regions are S. Dragoumis, “Rectification of the diagram showing the first campaign from Nicaea of the Greek Emperor Theodore II”, Byzantis, 1911–1912, 201–215 (in Greek), and K. Gagova, “Bulgarian-Byzantine border in Thrace from the 7th to the 10th century (Bulgaria of the southern Haemus)”, Bulgarian Historical Review 14 (1), 1986, 66–77. 83 Tomoski, “Entwurf einer Karte”, op. cit., 36ff. 84 N.K. Moutsopoulos, “The fortress of Moliscos”, Byzantiaka 14, 1994, 161– 173, figs 1–5 (in Greek). 85 N.K. Moutsopoulos, “The fortress of Setina”, in Antiphonon: In honour of Professor N.V. Drandakis, Thessaloniki 1994, 171–182, figs 720–725 (in Greek). 86 M. Popovic, “Defensive systems in the eastern part of Yugoslavia in the Middle Ages”, Balkanoslavica 11–12, 1984–85, 12, and Mikulčić, “Spätantike Fortifikationen”, op. cit., 271–272. 87 Mango, Byzantium, op. cit., 101ff. 88 Ch. Bouras, “Architecture in Greece in the 12th century AD”, (Lectures at Moraitis School), Athens 1981, 94–101 (in Greek). 89 Bouras, “Aspects of Byzantine cities”, op. cit., 5–6. Cf. P. Tivcev, “Sur les cités byzantines aux XIe-XIIe siècles”, Byzantino-Bulgarica I, 1962, 145–182. 90 R. Traquair, “Laconia I: Medieval fortresses”, in Annual of the British School at Athens XII, 1905–1906, 262–270. 91 A. Orlandos, “Byzantine monuments on the slopes of Mount Taygetus”, Society for Byzantine Studies Yearbook 14, 1938, 461–485 (in Greek). 92 See S. Lambros, Palaiologan and Peloponnesian, vol. I, Athens 1912–1913, 49–55 (in Greek). 93 Ioannes Caminiatae, De Expugnatione Thessalonicae (Ιωάννου Κληρικού και Κουβυκλεισίου του Καμενιάτου, Εις την ’Αλωσιν της Θεσσαλονίκης), (Gertrudis Bohlig), Berolini 1973, 4ff. and Ioannes Caminiatae, At the Fall of Thessaloniki (904 AD) (translation in Modern Greek G. Tsaras), Thessaloniki 1987, 34ff.

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Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Tres tractatus byzantini: De re militari (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae), (Dumbarton Oaks), Washington 1985, chaps 8, 10, 11, 12. 94

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CHAPTER 21

The Late Byzantine City Tonia Kiousopoulou Assistant Professor of Byzantine History University of Crete

Social stratification

With the above in mind, I shall attempt to sketch in broad outline a picture of the Byzantine city during the Palaiologan period (1261–1453).

Byzantinists have long been interested in studying the Byzantine city, not only in investigating the urban phenomenon as such, but also in using it as a tool to gain an understanding of Byzantine society overall. The transfer of the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in the fourth century signified the political decision to transfer the centre of gravity to the East, where the urban tradition was already well established. Under these conditions the role of cities remained definitive and shaped certain of the structural characteristics of Byzantium.

After 1261, the empire was re-instated. It had, however, shrunk in terms of territory and it was losing ground steadily as it approached the Fall; by the end of the fourteenth century it comprised, in addition to the area around Constantinople, only parts of the Peloponnese, Macedonia and Thrace. Central power was weakened on an administrative and fiscal level, a development associated with the aristocracy’s standing as the ruling social class. There were tendencies for certain regions to seek autonomy, which, combined with the unfavourable war situation, left their imprint on space. As a result of the breakup of the unified political authority, new defensive sites were located. Many of them acquired urban features with time, but their function was mainly military.

It is well known that the Early Byzantine city was essentially a continuation of the Late Antique one, in terms of both its form and functions. The decline of this city and of ancient urban civilization after the sixth century was at once a factor and a result of the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Consequently, it was undoubtedly an event of major significance for the nature of Byzantine society. This fact surely explains why Early and Middle Byzantine cities (324–1081) have been studied systematically, with the assistance of the ever-increasing body of archaeological data.

It should be noted from the outset that the administrative segmentation of Byzantium during the Palaiologan era was based on the so-called katepanikia. The emperor appointed a person he trusted, a member of the local aristocracy, as katepanos or head of a katepanikio. Although the area of the katepanikia was not uniform, and the powers of the katepanos varied, a katepanikio usually comprised a city and its environs. If we accept this definition, it becomes immediately clear, that the city played an important role in the administrative conception of the empire. This is confirmed by the fact that in this period in particular the emperor granted a number of privileges to cities.1 For instance, in 1319 Andronicus II Palaiologos issued a chrysobull limiting the authority of the kephales (head) of Ioannina, whom he had personally appointed, and exempting citizens of Ioannina, the kastrenoi, as they are called in the document, from the “usual taxes” and the commercio.

By contrast, there are fewer studies on the Late Byzantine city, for reasons that can be associated with the inferior position that the late period holds generally in the study of Byzantium. Traditional historiography has identified the late period with the decline of the empire and has always treated it as the epilogue to the brilliant course of Byzantine history. Seen from the perspective of imperial glory and strong central authority, Byzantium was indeed but a shadow of its former self during the final centuries of its existence. Nevertheless, when viewed as a threshold between the Middle Ages and recent times, this period is interesting in many ways. One of its dimensions is, of course, the city, which needs to be examined in terms of both the position it held in the empire’s administrative system and the way in which urban space was organized.

The Palaiologi granted similar privileges to Monemvasia and justified their action as follows: “apart from other things the city is enhanced by its fair site, its precipitous location which renders it secure, the multitude of its inhabitants and the wealth and noble descent of its rulers, and the exercise of the trades and the sufficiency of the market in all goods, as well as being a commercial centre; and above all it is enhanced by its good and active attitude towards the emperor.”

The conventional chronological termini for the Late Byzantine period are 1081 and 1453. Even though the consolidation of the landed aristocracy was the main feature of Byzantine society throughout the period, two sub-periods can be distinguished: the first up to 1204 and the second after 1261. During the intermediate period, which coincides with the capture of the empire and the Latin Occupation, changes took place, mainly political, which also influenced the nature of the city. 251

Tonia Kiousopoulou

1. Mystras, engraving V (after Gonelli, Mémoires de la Morée, Amsterdam

2. View of Mystras with the fortress and the Pantanassa monastery (from

In the case of Monemvasia, the emphasis given to trade was justified. The city was the most important centre of transit trade in the Peloponnese and one of the major ports in the Eastern Mediterranean. Nevertheless, we note that in the above extract mention is made of the “nobility of the city”, which certainly refers us to the “nobility” of its leading citizens, and indeed to the three large and powerful families in the region: Mamon, Eudaimonoioannis and Sofianos.2

aristocracy and the “middle ones”, differentiated the Byzantine city from its contemporary Western European counterpart and, as was to be expected, decisively influenced the formation of urban space.

1686, from S. Runciman, Mystras, Athens 1986, cover).

M. Chatzidakis, Mystras, 1989, 122, fig. 79).

The city When speaking of cities in this period, the ones that spring to mind are Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Monemvasia, Hadrianoupolis (Adrianople), Didymoteichon, Serres, Mystras, and so on. We distinguish among them cities with multiple functions, “trading cities” and “fortress cities” or burgs.5

The privileges granted to cities did not result in their autonomy; they were essentially fiscal, as they exempted the inhabitants from taxes on land and on commercial transactions. From this standpoint it is worth asking for whom such types of privileges were intended. This question leads us to the social stratification within the cities. According to the literary sources, the cities were inhabited by the notables (archontes), “the middle ones” (mesoi) and the commonfolk (demos). The notables were those who held political and economic power, that is, members of the aristocracy. A feature of the Byzantine city is that the citizens with the most power were the landowners, who also exercised political authority.

In spite of their particular functions, all cities shared a common feature in the organization of their space: they were walled. The wall defined and delimited the urban space. Indeed, in certain cases there were two lines of walls, each one differentiating space according to the social strata that inhabited it. The bestknown example of a double-walled city is Mystras.6 Mystras was built on a hill and divided into three parts. The citadel was on the hilltop. From it the walls descended and together with another wall formed a triangle, within which stood the palace of the despot and the residences of the notables. Below this triangle lay the third part of the city, which was probably not walled. As in other cities, the marketplace was extra muros (figs 1, 2 and 3).

The “middle ones” were involved with commercial activities and by Late Byzantine times formed a distinct social stratum. Although they laid claim to power, “the middle ones” never managed to gain access to it. The only exception were the Zealots in Thessaloniki, about whom, however, we know only what their opponents tell us. In my view, the position held by the “middle ones” in Late Byzantine society is one of the most interesting aspects of Byzantine studies. These people, who are often referred to in the sources as the “third sector” – reflecting the position accorded them by this society – were wealthy and operated as middlemen for Italian merchants in the East.3 Indeed, after a certain point in the fourteenth century their presence became a threat to the established “order”.4 Certain texts, few in number, are remarkable for their references to the wonder of the establishment classes over the new economic mores the “middle ones” introduced.

Hadrianoupolis, in the Hebros (pres. Evros) Valley, had a similar plan.7 It was surrounded by three rivers and two sets of walls. Its fortress (castro) was located at the edge of city and was the residence of the authorities and the guards. The notables lived between the two sets of walls. The emporeion or emporion, that is the commercial quarter, was located outside the walls. It should be noted here that Hadrianoupolis was the meeting point of the land routes from central Europe to Constantinople and from there to the East. Hadrianoupolis was also the depot for merchandise reaching it from the maritime routes of the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara (Propontis) and the Aegean.

The coexistence of these two, sometimes opposing, classes, the 252

The Late Byzantine City

Social life If the city is considered, by definition, a place of communication, then this generates a basic question: Where did the Byzantines assemble within their cities, in order to communicate with each other? In particular: What opportunities did the organization of urban space offer the inhabitants to develop social relations which would determine life within the city? And, conversely: How did the Byzantines commune with the space they inhabited and what answers did they provide each time to the historical formation of their city, in order to meet their communication needs?10 The question acquires significance because it obliges us to discuss inter alia urban spatial organization in its historical dimensions, that is, as a historically determined phenomenon. There is no need to comment here on the difficulties the historian faces with the available sources. Certainly there are texts such as the so-called Ekphraseis describing the city, which are helpful but are not of themselves sufficient to supply satisfactory answers to similar questions. On the other hand, excavation data are extremely limited, for reasons which in my view are related to the broader directions of Byzantine archaeology. Nevertheless, it is interesting for the issue to be raised.

3. Restoration drawing of the Laskaris mansion at Mystras (Chatzidakis,

Mystras, op. cit., 121, fig. 78).

We may begin with a description of a wall-painting in the Vlacherna monastery at Arta which represents the litany of the icon of the Virgin of the Hodegoi (Hodegetria) (fig. 5). We know that this procession took place every Tuesday at Constantinople and was always combined with a fair. The wall-painting depicts men and women walking behind the icon, while some women, most probably of the upper classes, watch the procession from the balcony of a nearby two-storey building. At the left side of the representation, close to the devotees, small traders are shown selling their wares to men who are drinking and chatting together.11 It is obvious that two types of social gatherings are illustrated: people are assembled for a religious occasion, and at the same time, and on the same occasion, other people set up a market. If we consider as public the space where the inhabitants of a city gather for a specific purpose peculiar to urban functions, then the litany of the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria represents a typical social event that takes place in a public place.

The growth of the commercial quarter was commensurate with the commercial importance of the city. Study of cities, such as Mystras or Hadrianoupolis, shows that they do not follow a preconceived, systematic plan. This lack of planning is a basic feature of the Byzantine city, which derived from the conditions of its creation during the Middle Byzantine period (fig. 4: a and b).8 To return to the social stratification within cities and to interweave it with the spatial organization, it is noted that commercial activities on whatever scale usually developed extra muros. Constantinople is, of course, the most representative example. It is easy to understand why the city’s commercial activity grew up along the coast of the Golden Horn, as well as to understand why the wheat trade was particularly developed at the Pigi Gate in the land walls, where the road from Thrace terminated.9

b.

a.

4. The fortress of Servia, which Emperor John Kantakouzenos describes in detail in his History. a. Diagram (History of the Greek Nation, vol. VIII, Athens

1979, 241 (in Greek)). b. Latest excavation data (D. Evgenidou, Fortresses of Macedonia and Thrace: Byzantine Fortress Building, Athens 1997 (in Greek)).

253

Tonia Kiousopoulou front of the palace of the despot at Mystras. Although the lack of squares in provincial cities is at first sight to be explained by the haphazard building and the shortage of space, the case of Constantinople may be indicative of a more general tendency. We know that after the seventh century the great squares of Constantinople were turned into marketplaces, while the principal public space of the capital, the hippodrome, lost its significance.14 It could, therefore, be said that the precinct of a church or the open space in front of it, as in the case of the monastery of the Hodegoi, was a public space, which did not, nevertheless, display the features of a square, that is it was not planned as such. On the contrary, it acquired this function afterwards, being closely associated with the existence of the monastery. The role of devotional buildings, of churches mainly, was decisive for the transformation of the ancient city into a Christian one.15 Throughout the Byzantine Age churches were the reference points and foci of social life in the city. Contemporary literary sources designate churches not only as venues of social activities, but also of rudimentary political ones. The organization of neighbourhoods around a church, particularly in cities, is evidenced even in the Late Byzantine period, while the texts often mention church precincts where large crowds gathered to have fun or to trade. Indeed, concerning entertainment, ecclesiastical officials often condemned the impropriety. Patriarch Athanasios, for instance, protested vigorously when he found out that the emperor’s attendants visited Hagia Sophia, not to pray, but to “enjoy themselves”, turning the church into a “place of debauchery”. In another letter, Athanasios condemns the habit of aristocratic women attending church in extravagant and luxurious attire, in order to show off.16

5. The litany of the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria at Constantinople. Wall-painting in the Vlacherna monastery at Arta (from M. AcheimastouPotamianou, “The painting of Arta in the thirteenth century and the monastery of Vlacherna”, in Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Despotate of Epirus (Arta 27–31 May 1990), Arta 1992, 197, fig. 11 (in Greek)).

It may be useful for our topic to specify this space a little more precisely. The people are most probably gathered in the great “square”(mentioned by a foreign traveller) in front of the monastery of the Hodegoi. We do not know the size of this “square”, nor how large was the free space around the monastery. However, according to all the descriptions of the procession, the front space was large and could accommodate the assembled crowd. According to the testimony of the same traveller, the head of the litany, who carried the icon, had to process fifty times around the square.12 Legislation stipulated the existence of free space around every religious institution. Because the relevant ordinance was obviously broken, Patriarch Athanasios asked the emperor to ban the building of houses at a distance of less than 12 feet from the church, despite the shortage of space, the στεναχωρία, he noted. What this “shortage of space” amounted to is a matter for investigation, as there does not appear to have been a problem of space in Constantinople in those days. We know that Constantinople was sparsely inhabited from its founding, and more so during the period under examination, when a substantial population reduction and desolation of the city are reported. Thus, it is most probable that the observed “shortage of space” should be attributed to the lack of building sites in the city.13

The fact that the only free spaces attested – but outside the city – as places of entertainment were meant for the leading classes, is certainly related to the character of these classes. We know for example of the famous Tzykanesterio of Trebizond. By contrast, during the Late Byzantine period no spaces are mentioned where a city’s inhabitants gathered to enjoy themselves or to celebrate. The hippodrome, the theatres and the public bathhouse had already lost their character as leisure venues since the previous period,17 while it is only inferred indirectly that city streets performed similar functions. The Byzantines’ relationship with the public street is an interesting subject, which does not seem to have been investigated sufficiently to date. Litanies, pillorying and, of course, imperial processions were the chief public manifestations that took place in the streets of a city. The sporadic nature of these events indicates a public space of low intensity and explains the picture the texts provide of the capital’s streets; these were narrow, labyrinthine and permanently muddy, in which even the emperor was in danger of falling from his horse.18

At any rate it is reasonable to assume that the precinct of a church or monastery and the open space around it was a propitious space for the gathering of people, on the occasion, for instance, of celebrations in honour of the saint. It is worth noting, on the other hand, that there is no evidence of the existence of a square, that is, of a planned open space, in any of the great cities of the period, with the possible exception of the open space in

The urban marketplaces were mentioned earlier. Their economic role in the life of a city is obvious. Given what we have already described, their social role is obvious too. It is interesting that in the popular perception of the period the marketplace was the only clearly-defined and differentiated public space. In other words, it was not only the place for the movement of merchandise and people, but also represented 254

The Late Byzantine City the “outside world”, the non-private space, a fact of special importance.19 It should be emphasized, however, that the marketplace, this non-private space, developed as a rule extra muros, that is outside the city walls.

Paris 1985, 62. 15 G. Dagron, “Le christianisme dans la ville Byzantine, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31, 1977, 3–25. 16 The Correspondence of Athanasius I, Patriarch of Constantinople (A.M. Talbot) (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae VII), Washington 1975, 94, 100–101, 114. 17 C. Mango, “Daily life in Byzantium”, JÖB 31(1), 1981, 337–353. 18 Ph. Koukoules, “The streets and emboloi of Byzantine cities”, Yearbook of the Society of Byzantine Studies XVIII, 1948, 13–17 (in Greek). 19 Kioussopoulou, “Lieux de communication”, op. cit., 285, with commentary on the relevant passages from sources. 20 D. Papachryssanthou, “Maisons modestes à Thessalonique au XIVe siècle” in Ametos in Memory of Photis Apostolopoulos, Athens, 1984, 258–259 (volume in Greek).

As for the general picture we are trying to sketch here, it should be noted that opportunities for social life within the city were limited. Already from the Middle Byzantine period, the topography of the Byzantine city imprinted the individualistic character of Byzantine society. This character was imprinted also on the design of the houses. The best-preserved examples are the mansions at Mystras, which have been studied quite fully. Certain houses in Thessaloniki, which are described in monastic archives, are of interest too.20 These houses were enclosed by a courtyard which led into another courtyard. Their residents shared a common entrance-exit from and to the street. I consider that this common entrance-exit could symbolize the ambiguous relationship that Byzantine man developed with urban space. Within the walls of his city, which was for him his “redeeming ark”, Byzantine man felt safe and his life was individualistic-private in character. On the other hand, however, it was the city itself that denied him the opportunities to structure his own public space. And it denied him those opportunities because public space was not part of his life as a subject of the emperor.

Notes For the role of the city in the administrative system of the empire and privileges, see L. Maksimovic, “Charakter der sozial-wirtschaftlichen Struktur der spätbyzantinischen Stadt (13–15 Jh)”, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik (JÖB) 31(1), 1981, 149–188. 2 For Monemvasia in particular, see L. Maksimovic, “Monemvasia and the socio-economic features of the Byzantine town in the time of the Palaeologues”, in Byzantine Studies, vol. II, Athens 1990, 92–115. 3 For the “middle ones”, see N. Oikonomides, Hommes d’affaires grecs et latins à Constantinople (XIIIe-XVe siècles) Paris-Montreal 1979. 4 See e.g.: T. Kiousopoulou, “The attitude of the Church toward merchants in the Late Byzantine period (14th - 15th c.)”, Ta Historika 20, 1994, 19–44, with bibliography (in Greek). 5 A. Laiou, “Trade and cities”, in History of the Greek Nation, vol. VIII, Athens 1979, 237–243 (in Greek). 6 For Mystras, see M. Chatzidakis, Mystras: The Medieval City and the Fortress, Athens 1989 (in Greek). 7 For Hadrianoupolis, see C. Asdracha, La région des Rhodoppes aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles: Etude de géographie historique, Athènes 1976, 141–142. 8 Ch. Bouras, “City and village: Urban design and architecture”, JÖB, 31(1), 1981, 611–653; see also idem, “Dwellings and settlements in Byzantine Greece”, Architectural Issues (O.B. Doumanis and P. Oliver (eds), Settlements in Greece), 1974, 30–52 (in Greek). 9 For the central marketplace of Constantinople, see Oikonomides, Hommes d’affaires, op. cit., 97–100. 10 For an approach to these questions, see A. Kioussopoulou, “Lieux de communication et ville Byzantine tardive: Un essaie de typologie”, Byzantinoslavica 54(2), 1993, 279–287, with extensive commentary on the available sources and bibliography. 11 For the wall-painting, see Acheimastou-Potamianou, M., “The Byzantine wall paintings of Vlacherna monastery (region of Arta)”in Actes du XVe Congrès International d’Etudes Byzantines, vol. IIa, Athènes 1981, 1–14. 12 For a commentary on the procession in relation to space, see Kioussopoulou, “Lieux de communication”, op. cit., 280–282. 13 I. Djuric, “L’habitat constantinopolitain sous les Paléologues: Les palais et les baraques”, in Records of Proceedings of the First International Symposium “Everyday Life in Byzantium: Continuities and Discontinuities in the Hellenistic and Roman Traditions”, Athens 1989, 733–752. 14 C. Mango, Le développement urbain de Constantinople (IVe-VIIe siècles), 1

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CHAPTER 22

The Religious Symbolism of the Byzantine City Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos Professor of Urban Planning Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

In Chapter 16 I had the opportunity of discussing the symbolic and metaphysical dimension of the Greek city in Antiquity, a dimension which survived, and indeed vigorously, in spite of the sweeping advent of rationalism. For its part, Byzantium was a theocratic culture, with Christianity as the ruling ideology, and consequently no one would doubt the ideological primacy of metaphysics. The issues raised in this chapter are whether this metaphysics acquired spatial substance and, more particularly, influenced the formation of urban space, and if the answer is in the affirmative, by means of what conceptions and forms was the articulation of symbolism and space effected? This is a problem which is still far from being resolved.

The Byzantine church, the world and heavenly Jerusalem For reasons that will become clear in due course, the study of the symbolism of the Byzantine settlement is facilitated by the study of one building, the ideologically supreme building for the Byzantines: the church. The sixth-century Syriac hymn Suguitha, which was influenced by the Areopagitic texts,1 refers to the architecture of the metropolis church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) at Edessa, which was rebuilt by Justinian in the sixth century. The hymn compares the church, which it considers as God’s dwelling-place, with the world, and its dome with the ”heaven of heavens”, while a pedestal at the centre of the church is said to follow “the model of the upper storey of Zion”, and a column behind this pedestal is thought to have the form of Calvary.

1. The cosmogram of Cosmas Indicopleustes (from W. Wolska, La topographie chrétienne de Cosmas Indicopleustès, 1962).

church of the Holy Wisdom at Edessa is underlined by André Grabar, who reached the conclusion that the hymn identifies the church with the world. Cosmas also viewed the world as a cube and characterized the earth sometimes as “square” or rectangular, with a ratio of length to width of 2:1, and sometimes as oblong. The world of Cosmas is representative of Christian perceptions of his period, as substantiated by the fact, that many Syrian theologians perceive the universe as a house with dome. Thus, the morphological complex of cube+vault/ dome has a cosmological provenance and, in the view of Grabar, owes its wide diffusion precisely to this reason. Just as the Pantocrator watches over the world from the heavenly sphere, so Christ dominates from the vault of Cosmas’ world, and similarly rules from the dome of the church.2

These symbolic charges of the church do not represent later interpretations, nor even the conceptions of a select group of mystics. The church of the Holy Wisdom has a square ground plan and is topped by a dome. We find a similar form in the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, a sixthcentury Alexandrian merchant and traveller, who did not of course belong to sacerdotal society. This form consists of a parallelepiped covered by a semi-cylindrical barrel vault (fig. 1) which Cosmas calls an oikos, a term he employs for this twostorey world of his. Cosmas’ vault-heaven has stars borne by angels on its interior surface and is supported by four walls, while the base of the parallelepiped, the earth, is surrounded by ocean. There is a centre of the earth, from which rises a mountain. The similarity of the world of Cosmas to that of the

From the first years of Christianity, the church was already an image of the world. As the abode of God it was also, and more particularly, a realization of the heavenly world and of Paradise. At the same time, the church arises from and refers back to Heavenly Jerusalem, the second Paradise. The two dimensions of the church, the worldly and the heavenly, were 257

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3. Free cross plan: church of the Virgin, Tomarza, 6th century (from Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture)

these Justinian’s construction of large churches with a dome, led to the church type of cross-in-square plan with dome, which was clearly present by the eighth century (fig. 2: a and b). In Justinian’s reign the aforementioned symbolic dimensions of the church were consolidated. This type symbolically embodied the cross, the Cross of Martyrdom and of the Crucified Christ. The symbol of the cross is also dominant in the church form of the free cross (fig. 3).3 The cross is one of the main elements in the Hebrew image of earth, heaven and the world. In biblical texts, the earth and the world are square or circular and divided into four regions by a central cross, whose centre indicates the centre of the world. It was at this centre that the two Trees in the garden of Eden, of Life and of Knowledge of Good and Evil, were located; Calvary, where Adam was buried and Christ was crucified, was also at the centre of the world, and so was Mount Zion, the navel (omphalos), which was considered to be the highest mountain in the world. The placing of a dome corresponding to the intersection of the two perpendicular axes of a cruciform church creates a heaven above the earth, which is symbolized by the middle section of the church. It is precisely the earth that the square defined by four central pillars symbolizes in ecclesiastical architecture. Heaven is the pinnacle of the central vertical axis of the church, its third cosmic axis, but is also to be found at its east end, given that the sanctuary symbolizes Paradise.4 This fact points to a symbolic equivalence of the centre-east axis with the vertical axis and leads to the conclusion that the first, the earthly axis, constitutes a projection on earth of the second, the heavenly axis.

2. Cross-in-square plan churches with a dome: a. early plan, church of the Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs, Gerasa, 465, and b. later plan, church of Myrelaion (Budrum Cami), Constantinople, circa 930 (from R. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (Penguin Books), Great Britain 1965).

institutionalized by the decisions of the ecumenical councils. The church retained this symbolism throughout the Middle Ages, in both East and West. In the West, the Early Christian basilica, with its rectangular ground plan, was enriched with a transverse aisle or transept, producing a ground plan in the shape of a Latin cross, a shape that was widespread in Gothic ecclesiastical architecture. In the West too, the cruciform ground plan was subsequently transformed into a circular shape, which in fifteenth-century Italy was thought to be ideal, because it was considered perfect and a symbol of God’s attributes.

From the very beginning of Christian art the dome was decorated with the pre-eminent pictorial subjects relating to the heavenly domain. These subjects accompany all vaulted forms, such as conches and arches. So, for example, the upper part of the dome of the church of St George (the Rotunda) in Thessaloniki (a Roman mausoleum that was converted into a church, probably in the second half of the 5th century) portrays Christ – a typical subject in the dome – carrying the cross on his shoulder. In a zone below are the figures of four angels and the phoenix, in the zone below that important personages are portrayed, while in the lowest zone military and civilian saints are shown against a prominent but idealized architectural

In Byzantium, the transformations of ecclesiastical architecture in the fifth and sixth centuries, and within the framework of 258

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4. The south mosaic in the lower zone of the dome of the church of St George, Thessaloniki.

background, without reference to specific buildings. The upper part of the dome has the connotation of the higher heavens, which is typical of Christian domes, and the zone below that of the heaven of the angels and the phoenix, symbolizing the resurrection of the dead; the two together symbolize the triumph over death. The two lowest parts symbolize earth, but in an ideal state. The dome was not the only element of the church to receive a specific set of subjects. The apse and other areas of the sanctuary received a specific type of iconography, of theological or liturgical content. After the establishment of formal wall painting, all iconographic details were defined precisely. In a second phase, the sanctuary apse, the most important element of the church after the dome, received the Virgin Mary, the Platytera (of the Heavens), who is portrayed frontally as Queen of Heaven, usually seated on a golden throne and holding the Christ-Child in front of her, in the midst of angels. After the Platytera, the representation of the Divine Liturgy was instituted, combined with the representation below it of the Holy Communion of the Apostles with Christ as High Priest. Depicted on the sanctuary vault are the Miracles of Christ or possibly the Mariological Cycle, while the Ascension is pictured at the centre, covering the greater part of the vault. Christ’s Ascension to heaven is directly related semantically to his position in the highest heaven, a position signified by the iconography of the dome, and this close affinity is one more indication that the east-west axis of the church constitutes a projection of its vertical axis. 5. Τhe pentaomphalon of the church of the Pantocrator, Constantinople: a. ground plan and b. photo (from G.A. Prokopiou, Cosmological Symbolism in the Architecture of the Byzantine Church, 1981 (in Greek)).

Grabar concludes that the ensemble of mosaics in the dome of the church of St George in Thessaloniki is eschatological 259

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6. The labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral, approximately 18 m. in diameter.

in character and symbolizes the Second Coming. A semiotic analysis of one of the seven mosaics of the lowest zone, by Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos and Andreas Ioannidis, showed that the general meaning of the mosaic is the Economy of Salvation and that the mosaic is organized pictorially around two intersecting axes which subdivide it into four parts. The vertical axis is identified with the vertical axis of the world and the horizontal one defines the boundary between earth and heaven, which is separated into the visible vault of heaven and the invisible heaven, dwelling place of the Godhead (fig. 4).5 The centre of the floor of the church, which corresponds to the highest point of the dome and coincides in cruciform churches with the intersection of their perpendicular axes, is called the omphalos (navel).6 The omphalos received the omphalio, which was circular or square and was made of marble or porphyry, or in the form of a mosaic. The omphalos and its synonyms, mesomphalos and mesonaos, as well as the omphalio, refer to the navel of the human body and also carry the connotative signification of the centre of the earth and the world, a position held by Jerusalem. The anthropomorphism of the omphalos is connected with a broader anthropomorphism of the church, to the extent that the ground plan of the cruciform church, in both West and East, is identified with Christ on the Cross. There are also omphaloi in front of the main entrance to the bema, and they may also be placed at other characteristic points on the church floor.

7. a. One of the copies of the Beatus map, 8th century (from W. Müller, Die heilige Stadt, 1961). b. Hereford map, 13th century (from Great Greek Encyclopaedia, “Cartography” (in Greek)).

church is the ”labyrinth”, which is found on the floors of certain churches. The earliest labyrinth, dating from the fourth century, is in Orleansville in Algeria, and many such labyrinths appeared in the twelfth century (fig. 6). These labyrinths, which are related historically to the labyrinthine forms of ancient Greece and also appear in Gothic squares, are identified with the world. They were often called ”streets of Jerusalem” and were used as substitutes for the pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Corresponding to the omphalos is the aetos (eagle), a circular carpet embroidered with an eagle, which has an ecclesiastical use. A complex form of omphalio makes it appearance on church floors mainly in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Referred to in the texts as pentaomphalon, it is composed of a central omphalio and four others arranged symmetrically on its circumference. Thus, the central omphalio of the pentaomphalon in the middle of the church of the Pantocrator at Constantinople is surrounded by four smaller omphalia placed on the diagonals of the square enclosing the pentaomphalon; in between the omphalia, four square slabs form a cross, disposed in the inscribed-cross plan of the church (fig. 5: a and b).7

Thus, the church is, on the one hand the world and heavenly Jerusalem, as its omphalos indicates, and on the other, just like earthly Jerusalem, it defines the centre of the world. Jerusalem already had the status of cosmic centrality for the Jews. For example, according to Ezekiel (5:5): “Thus says the Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her’” . This mythical geography provided the framework of Western Medieval cartography, which placed Jerusalem at the centre of a circular earth, surrounded by a cosmic ocean, and was often divided into four regions by a cross of water (fig. 7: a and b).

The form corresponding to the omphalio in the Western

At the same time, this four-part circle was an ideal rendering, 260

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9. One of the typical ground plans of a circular Ethiopian church (from M. Griaule, “Disposition de l’assistance à l’office abyssin”, 1934).

If the church concentrates a cosmology, it also incorporates a cosmogony. Thus, during the consecration ceremony of a church in the West, the bishop sprinkles its floor with water, starting from the middle and following a cruciform course. We have seen that the church is the abode of God and the gate of heaven.7 A St Andrew’s cross is drawn on the floor with sand or ashes (along the diagonals of the ground plan). The bishop also draws with his staff the Greek and Latin alphabets, from A to Ω and from A to Z respectively. This procedure is considered to repeat the creation of the world, from beginning to end. Part of the ceremony is to anoint the walls of the church in twelve places, referring to the twelve foundations of heavenly Jerusalem.

8. Idealized ground plan of Jerusalem, from the Historia Hierosolimatana by Robertus Monachus Remensis, 12th century (Upsala University Library).

now at the level of an urban plan, of the form of earthly Jerusalem, which was the object of the first Medieval efforts to design an urban ground plan (fig. 8). The four-part circle is the form by which the Western Middle Ages conveyed heavenly Jerusalem – the heavenly archetype of the earthly one –, which according to Revelation 21:10–23 had a square quadripartite ground plan and twelve gates: “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God …Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb ... And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. Its length, breadth and height are equal …And the construction of its wall was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones ... And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each individual gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. But I saw no temple in it: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”

So we see that Jerusalem, in both its earthly and in its heavenly state, was a central element of Christian thought and that it was also identified with a “cosmogram”. The Christian church was its embodiment par excellence, both at the centre and on the periphery of the Christian world. Thus, for example, the circular Ethiopian church, which appeared in the sixteenth century and was influenced by local tradition, consists of a central cubic sanctuary and is surrounded by two or three circular and concentric partitions. The sanctuary is orientated according to the cardinal points and the movement towards it is from west to east, as in all Christian churches. The openings in the middle partition follow two perpendicularly orientate axes, while the corners of the sanctuary combined with openings in the middle partition define two axes orientated on the intermediate points of the compass (fig. 9).8 The connotative signification of the sanctuary is “Jerusalem”.

Constantinople and the Mese Avenue To achieve Jerusalem was the aim and desire of the whole of Christianity, in whatever form, and indeed in spatial scales not restricted to architecture. The followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, known as Mormons, who consider their Church as the true realization of the first Christian Church, have founded numerous settlements in the 261

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos ceremony of defining the limits of a future city, of its main street arteries, decumanus (E-W) and cardo (N-S), and of the other streets parallel to these, was called by the Romans limitatio. Constantinople was founded in 324 or 325, and the inauguration ceremony, which lasted 40 days, took place in 330. In this ceremony Constantine aspired to recreate Romulus’ ceremony at the time of the founding of Rome, thus enhancing the city as the New Rome and himself as a contemporary Romulus. The ceremony was equivalent to the Roman consecratio and probably included pagan and Christian sacrifices. Constantinople was the epicentre of a cosmic centre, because, as Michael Psellos tells us some seven centuries later, the state was the “Eye… of the Universe… it is the midmost place of the earth… and it is also the imitation of everything” (Scripta minora, II. Epistulae, epistle 193). The expression “eye of the universe” was often used by Byzantine writers. So, the state was the centre as well as the image of the world. Turning to the city of Constantinople, its general orientation, which followed that of the peninsula it occupied, followed an east-west axis, to the symbolism of which we shall return. The Seven-hilled (Heptalophos) city extended over an area with seven hills, just like Rome, whose hills must have symbolized the planets. A multiple of the same number appears in the administrative organisation of the city, which was divided into 14 regionas, just like Rome and just like the third-century settlement of Septimus Severus, which preceded Constantinople. The area intra muros was divided by Theodosius II, about a century later, into 12 sections, a number in which we may seek religious symbolism.

10. Constantinople of Constantine and Theodosius II (from P. Lavedan and J. Hugueney, Histoire de l’urbanisme, 1966).

name of their utopia. Joseph Smith, who founded this Church in New York in 1830, likened the Mormons’ endeavours to create communities to those of the ancient Israelites to found the new Zion.9 Archetype of earthly Jerusalem is the heavenly city, which was also the archetype of every Christian settlement. We shall examine below whether this generalization applies specifically to the Byzantine settlement and whether this religious sheathing of the settlement influenced its organization and morphology, as in the case of the church. Very few answers have been given to this problem so far, which is why an initial approach to it will be presented here.

The centre of the city was the foros (the Roman forum). It was elliptical in shape (fig. 10), like the cosmic Coliseum at Rome, which alluded to the cosmic ocean around the earth (fig. 7: a and b). Louis Hautecoeur identifies it with the templum (a projection of a heavenly region on earth and image of the world for the Romans and Etruscans), the marking out of which constituted the nucleus of the inauguratio, the first phase of the foundation ceremony for a Roman settlement.10 The main artery of the city was orientated east-west in its eastern and main section and was identified with the extension of the main axis of the foros at either end. At the centre of the foros, a very tall porphyry column, topped by the colossal portrait statue of the emperor as Sol invictus, was erected. The emperor’s head faced the rising sun (hence the popular name of the statue as Anthelios) and bore a crown with seven rays, which according to a later tradition were made from the nails used in the Crucifixion, nails anachronistically said to have been sent to the emperor from Jerusalem by his mother Helen. The base of the column was surrounded by four arches. The emperor held a spear in one hand. Tradition has it that a number of objects associated with Christ’s life and death had been deposited beneath the plinth of the column. Theodosius II built a new forum (forum Tauri), which was larger than that of Constantine; it was located west of the former and on the main street artery of the city. At the centre of this forum too stood a porphyry column topped by a statue of the emperor. A cross was placed on top of Constantine’s column following the

We shall be guided by the first newly-built Christian city, Constantinople, which was founded by Constantine the Great (reign: 306–337) at the time of transition from (Graeco)Roman to Byzantine society. The emperor considered many cities for the site of his new capital, among them Serdice (Sofia), and had decided on at Troy. But then (as the emperor told his coterie), he had a dream in which an eagle dropped a stone on Byzantium. This was how the emperor explained his choice of the specific location, a former colony founded by the Megarians in 657 BC and named Byzantion. After citing divine intervention to justify his choice of the site for the new capital, the emperor is said to have led a group of nobles and architects, and walked westwards in order to mark the position of the land wall with his spear. When one of the nobles, thinking that he had moved too far, asked him: “How much further Sire?”, the reply was “Until he who goes before me halts”, indicating that the emperor meant that was being led by a supernatural presence. In this way, he indicated that divine inspiration led him to extend the city’s limits, which had previously been defined in a more conservative way. The 262

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Constantinople, Christian Rome and Church: three realizations of the heavenly Jerusalem

destruction of his statue, which fell during a storm in 1105. The main artery of the city was called the Mese Avenue and, according to a superficial description, northwest of the forum of Theodosius it split into two branches, also named Mese: a southwest branch that passed through two fora and ended at the Golden Gate in the wall of Theodosius II (who had extended the land wall of Constantine westward in 413), and a northwest one. To the east, the Mese ended in the square of the Tetrastoon – the Augusteon after Constantine –, which was surrounded by a double row of columns. Situated around the Augusteon were the Great Palace, Hagia Sophia and the Hippodrome, buildings associated respectively with the emperor, God and the people. The Mese between the Golden Gate and the Augusteon was used for the victorious emperors’ triumphal march and was called the Via triumphalis (triumphal road). The arteries with the name Mese, and especially the latter one, were lined on both sides with porticoes (emboloi).11

The hypothesis that the northwest Mese of Constantine’s city corresponded to the cardo is confirmed by Constantine’s interventions in Rome itself. Specifically, Rome was believed to have been re-founded symbolically by the apostles Peter and Paul, who replaced, again symbolically, the pagan pair of Romulus and Remus. The tombs of the two apostles are equidistant from the cosmic centre of the city, which was defined by Vespasian’s Coliseum, and are located respectively at the west end of the decumanus, on the right bank of the Tiber (Peter’s place is on Christ’s right), and on the southern extension of the cardo, on the left bank (Paul’s place is on Christ’s left). In 324, the basilica of the Saviour, the most important church of Christian Rome, was consecrated, built by Constantine at the Lateran, towards the east end of the decumanus. Two years later, he erected the huge basilica of St Peter in the Vatican, at the west end of the decumanus. He was also the builder of the basilica of St Paul, on the southern extension of the cardo. The northern route of the cardo was marked at the end of the fourth century by the basilica of Santa Pudenziana, which was replaced in the mid-fifth century by Santa Maria Maggiore.

The word mesos in Byzantium signified a qualitative (mese property, mesoi subjects) or spatial middle. In the second instance, the indicated centre was nodal, as in the case of the Mese or Great Mese on the Athos peninsula, or axial, like the Mese Avenue. In the view of Phaidon Koukoules, the latter owed its name to its central position in the street network, 12 but this is not the main reason. In reality the principal Mese of Constantinople, which ran between the Golden Gate and the Augusteon, obviously corresponded to the main axis of Rome, which already in the reign of Nero, who extended a more ancient axis, ran from the Vatican hippodrome on the west eastwards to his villa at the Lateran on the Caelius hill, the former palace of Plautius Lateranus. This axis was the decumanus of the city, and the Roman decumanus was considered to be the projection on earth of the sun’s orbit, which was believed to divide the universe in two parts. The principal Mese was, then, a cosmic axis, and this symbolic meaning shows that it was not named ad hoc, because of its relative geographic location, but that it was the realization of an a priori cosmological idea. With reference to the Roman model of the two road axes at right angle, we can safely assume that the northwest branch, also called Mese, corresponded – and this is its essential description – to the cardo of Rome and of the Roman city in general, which was considered to be the projection on earth of the cosmic axis joining the centre of the earth and the world to the polar tar.

In this way, from the late fourth century, Rome was organized symbolically around a “cross of (four) basilicas”, which sanctified and protected it, a type which was certainly directed by Constantine. This cross was associated with the notion of a circular wall, as can be seen from the fact that in the second half of the third century Aurelian used the Coliseum as a centre for the construction of the city walls. Through these elements, Rome undoubtedly became a reflection of heavenly Jerusalem. The type of the four basilicas, the crux basilicarum, combined with a cross of streets, the crux viarum, or without it, spread to the rest of the Italian and other European cities and was particularly prominent in the eleventh century. On the decumanus, the axis urbis, Nero had erected his colossal portrait statue (40 m. high), certainly the model for the complex in the forum of Constantine. As a cosmic axis, this statue was associated metaphysically with the decumanus: the latter was the vertebral column of the emperor, whose head was the enormous palace of the Domus Aurea and whose navel was the Capitoleum, while his feet lay at the hippodrome. This Roman anthropomorphism was Christianized. In Christian Rome, however, the decumanus had two heads, on the east that of Christ Crucified (the basilica of the Saviour) and on the west that of Peter (basilica of St Peter), who, in humility towards Christ, asked to be crucified upside down, on an inverted cross. Thus, movement on the decumanus from east to west symbolized the Descent and the Incarnation of the Word, and that in the opposite direction, the Redemption and Salvation, the ultimate meaning of the Rotunda mosaic in Thessaloniki, already mentioned.13

That the word Mese could have a cosmological content is also shown by its use in the extract from Psellos mentioned above, where it denotes the centre of the earth. And that the Mese Avenue itself had a cosmological connotation is demonstrated by the location of its second centre, given that the forum of Theodosius I was situated on the Mesomphalon hill: the omphalos of the universe is situated at the midpoint of the horizontal cosmic axis. The porphyry cosmic column of the emperor with his statue on top can only be the vertical cosmic axis, which passes through the omphalos of the world. This meaning is a repetition of the symbolism of the porphyry column complex with the statue of Constantine, which rises at the centre of the cosmic ocean.

Finally, there is no doubt that Constantine applied to both cities the archetype of heavenly Jerusalem. Within this framework he situated the palace in Constantinople and conceived the location of Hagia Sophia at the east end of the decumanus. Like the Roman emperors who preceded him, Constantine was a solar emperor and his palace was considered to be the holy golden residence of the sun. The appearance of 263

Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos the Byzantine emperor on the Heliakon (= balcony, exostarion) of the palace and on the Kathisma (= grandstand) in the hippodrome symbolized the rising sun.

keystone of the (constructed) dome/heaven – sanctuary, the holiest part of the ground plan from the aspect of the divine presence, at the east end.

The emperor was at once ruler of the cosmos and a cosmic emperor. In the tenth century, Liutprand from Lombardy, ambassador of King Berenger II to Constantinople, described the rising of the throne, which is corroborated by other sources too. The emperor rose like the sun, and this rising was associated with the idea of the cosmic axis, which was also expressed by the statue complex in the forum of Constantine. This was not his only connection with the centre of the world. We learn in the tenth century, from the De Administrando by Constantine Porphyrogenitos, that the emperor stood on a porphyry block in the Heliakon. The same work also mentions various omphalia for ceremonial use within the palace, some of which are covered with a kamelaukeion, that is a canopy.

Constantinople: the two Meses as the cruciform frame with obvious orientation towards the east and symbolic orientation towards the other cardinal points– omphalos/centre of the world (the two fora), in (indirect) relation with the intersection of the two main street axes – material realization, with the presence of the colour purple (porphyry), of the cosmic axis, which, together with its imaginary extension upwards, joins the omphalos with the (visible) heavenly dome – church and holy residence of God’s mediator at the east end. It is clear that these similarities are too close to be fortuitous and that they are due to the projection, realization and incorporation in space of the model of heavenly Jerusalem. One more similarity may be added to the above. The symbolic correspondence of the sanctuary with the dome of the church has led us to the conclusion that the E-W axis of the church constitutes the symbolic projection of its central vertical axis. Exactly the same phenomenon is encountered in Constantinople, given that the upward climax of Constantine’s forum was the emperor himself, who is also the inhabitant of the East.

This ideological status of the emperor, just like the material one, springs from within the material socio-economic structure of Byzantine society and its relations with its social environment. In my view, the evidence available for the fifth century shows that Byzantium was characterized by a mixed mode of production, which was dominated by what Marx called the “Asiatic mode of production”, also known as Oriental Despotism, while it also included remnants of the Roman “slave-owning” mode of production (e.g. private property, slave ownership interlinked with production) and emerging elements of feudalism (e.g. the power of the big landowners), the transition to which assumed a clear form from the eleventh century. The rise of the Asiatic mode of production was an answer to the pressure generated by the invasions of the Germanic tribes in the third century. A religious crisis had already appeared in the Roman Empire prior to the invasions, which was intensified as a result of the insecurity that the invasions created. Thus, an ideological phenomenon in this period was the turn towards the security of another world, because of the sense of insecurity in this life, a turn which was a psychological preparation for the acceptance of Christianity.

The above description of the major symbolic elements of the space of the city indicates that the latter represented a gigantic realization, the first on a symbolic level, of the form which is the cross-in-square church with dome. Also, the crux basilicarum around the omphalos in Rome is an early realization, on an urban scale, of the pentaomphalon. The use of the model of heavenly Jerusalem shows that Constantine did not simply appropriate the Roman crux viarum by Christianizing it. His essential symbolic gesture was deeper and harked back to a Judaic-Christian model and not a Roman one.

The Byzantine cosmic city and its Modern Greek survivors

The Asiatic mode of production is marked by the role of the emperor. This is pictured with clarity in the fifth century. The emperor was the head of a centralized and strictly hierarchical state, and was surrounded by a very small number of superior functionaries. Control of the administration began with him and he was also the ultimate controller of land ownership. This objective position allowed him to exploit the religious concerns of his day, by placing himself in the position of the mediator between God and men, and guarantor of salvation, a strategy for which the Roman precedent already existed. He became isapostle (equal to an apostle) and God’s representative on earth, and his court became a copy of the holy hierarchy; at the same time he appropriated the cosmic symbols.

The use of the Mese as thoroughfare-cosmic axis of the city is a principal characteristic of Byzantine cities. Thessaloniki, a Hellenistic and subsequently a Roman city, possessed from its foundation three main street axes. The first two are parallel and are the street that the Romans called the Via Egnatia, the basic axis, and the present Aghiou Dimitriou Street, north of it; they run approximately east-west. The third axis was perpendicular to these and is identified with the present Eleftheriou Venizelou Street. A short distance north of the Via Egnatia and east of E. Venizelou Street, close to their intersection, lies the Roman agora (fig. 11). In the late fourth century, Theodosius the Great built a city wall and the Heptapyrgion fortress. For the Romans, the Via Egnatia and what is now E. Venizelou Street, or some street parallel to it, were the decumanus and the cardo of the city respectively. In the Byzantine Age, the Via Egnatia was called Leophoros (= Avenue) and close to it lay the main Byzantine marketplace, a combination analogous to that in Constantinople. The quarter named ‘Omphalos’, later inhabited by Jews, must date from this period. Scholars wonder about its location and one of the places suggested is in the area of the forum. All these locations share the common characteristic of

The analysis of the spatial symbolism of Constantinople reveals a new dimension in the shaping of its space. At the same time, it leads to an unexpected isomorphism, that between city and church. The basic components of this isomorphism are: Church: a cross as frame, orientated to the cardinal points – omphalos/centre of the universe (cf. the porphyry omphalia) at the intersection of the two arms of the cross – imaginary vertical cosmic axis, joining the omphalos with the summit, the 264

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11. Map of Byzantine Thessaloniki, with the main street network, the walls and monuments (based on maps of the late 19th and the early 20th century) – after O. Tafrali, Topographie de Thessalonique, 1913).

adjoining the intersection of the former cardo and the former decumanus, from which we may suppose that there was in Byzantine Thessaloniki the same combination of the omphalos and the cross as that encountered in Constantinople.14

important socio-economic changes effected from the tenth century. Monemvasia was an important settlement since at least the eighth century. It comprised an upper city, and a lower one built in the eleventh century. The upper city, neighbouring the castle, was situated on the east side of a rocky hill and ended in a precipice, which had been fortified. At its base, to

The basic symbolic elements of the first Byzantine city survived throughout the life of the Byzantine State, despite the 265

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12. Monemvasia, late 17th century (from K. Andrews, Castles of the Morea, 1953).

13. Map of Mystras (from Ch. Bouras, “Dwellings and settlements in Byzantine Greece”, 1974 (in Greek)).

the south, extended the lower city, which was also fortified. A late seventeenth-century plan shows that the lower city was divided into four quarters by a cross formed by two streets (fig. 12), approximately orientated towards the cardinal points.15

the available data, as provided mainly by Alki KyriakidouNestoros, are clear. According to common customary or simply traditional practices, the outside perimeter of a village with its fields is defined by natural features, such as big trees, rocks and stones, on which a cross (Gr. stavros) is inscribed, hence their name stavrata; or by chapels, which define an imaginary circle. The perimeter of the village itself, again, is also defined by elements in circular arrangement, often with icon shrines. This circle which circumscribes the village can also be made by ploughing, using a plough drawn by calves with attributes considered to be special; after the ceremony, the calves are buried at the common starting and end point. At the most conspicuous points in the encircling furrow, wooden crosses are sometimes placed. In some regions this ceremony is called gainiasma (= inauguration). A similarly magicoreligious apotropaic circle is achieved more usually today by the procession of the icons of the church or the Epitaphios.

The fortress of Mystras was built on a high hill in 1249 by Guillaume de Villehardouin and, like that of Monemvasia, commanded the surrounding area. The area was recovered by the Byzantines in 1262 and three years later the first makeshift buildings were erected on the fortified lower slope of the hill, in the lower city; the latter developed around 1300. In the midfourteenth century, the city became the seat of a despotate and started to expand up the hillside. The fortified upper city, the Polis or Chora, was divided into two sections by the winding Mese street, which is orientated approximately east-west, on which lay the central square with the despot’s palace. In the northern section of this city were the residences of the nobles, and in the southern those of the officials and the wealthy. East of the Mese, in the lower city, but in contact with the wall of the upper city, stands the katholikon of the Pantanassa monastery. The lower city was also subdivided into two sections, the Mesochora or Mesochorion, and the Katochora, or Katochorion, probably by a main street running roughly north-south (fig. 13).16

The magical circle created by the shrines around the village could be considered to be of pagan origin, and indeed such a dimension exists. There also exists, however, a way of “encircling” or “girdling” the village, which is compatible with the circle and which shows that the encircling is dominated by the model of heavenly Jerusalem. This is a way of protecting the village by the use of shrines, sanctified trees or other elements, at the four cardinal points, where the entrances to the village are sometimes to be found. The cross formed in this way was the reason why these villages are in many places called stavromena, that is crossed. The word stavroma is also used for the encirclement, and the circular ploughing. This linguistic use indicates an indissoluble semantic unity between the cross and the circle, two fundamental elements of heavenly Jerusalem, which appropriated the pagan magical, apotropaic and cosmological circle.

Just as material circumstances basically explain the emperor’s role, so they explain the creation of urban and regional space. In the case of Constantinople, the reference to divine intervention provided a rationale for the choice of the new capital, nevertheless the strategic importance of its location is indisputable. Similarly, the model of heavenly Jerusalem requires an orthogonal crux viarum, but topographical reasons and practical needs led to a deviation from it. However, although material circumstances were in Byzantium, as elsewhere generally, decisive for the shaping of space, there were concurrently ideological, symbolic processes that developed and were inextricably associated with them, and it is these that we have emphasized in the present chapter.

As we have seen, the Byzantine cosmological model of space, dictated by heavenly Jerusalem, is also characterized by a third fundamental element: the vertical cosmic axis of the centre of the world. The village church embodies this axis. It is usually located in the central area of the village, and in older villages usually at their highest point. At its top is the cross, a height later exceeded by the cross on the belfry. Custom demands

The model of heavenly Jerusalem survived in Greek customs, as recorded by Greek folklorists and anthropologists, even though they themselves did not make this connection. Nonetheless, 266

The Religious Symbolism of the Byzantine City that no building in the village should be higher than this – the highest cosmic point for Christian symbolism.17

in Byzantine Greece”, Architectural Issues (O.V. Doumanis and P. Oliver (eds), Settlements in Greece), 1974, 38 (in Greek). 17 See A. Kyriakidou-Nestoros, Folklore Studies Ι (Society for the Greek Literary and Historical Archive), Athens 1989, 30–34 (in Greek), and M.G. Varvounis, Traditional Religious Behaviour and Religious Folklore (Odysseas), Athens 1995, 36 (in Greek). 18 I wish to thank Anthony Marmarinos, doctoral candidate at the N.T.U.A., for his bibliographical assistance on the subject of the crossed (stavrota) villages. So potent was their religious charge that they have found their way into Greek literature, for example in the novel Christ Re-crucified by N. Kazantzakis.

In conclusion, Constantinople, a model Christian city, the Byzantine city generally and the subsequent Greek settlement incorporate and follow, a Christian religious model in their general organization and morphology. It may be that the same model was also used in the West. In Greece, however, it acquired a particular expression, the one that we recognize as the built Greek landscape.18

Notes Texts of the school of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. A. Grabar, “Byzance”, in Symbolisme cosmique et monuments religieux (Musée Guimet), Paris 1953, 65–66, 68–69; W. Wolska, La topographie chrétienne de Cosmas Indicopleustès (PUF), Paris 1962, 113, 121–122, 133, 245–248; and G.A. Prokopiou, Cosmological Symbolism in the Architecture of the Byzantine Church, Athens 1981, 75, 157–163 (in Greek). 3 I am particularly grateful to my colleague Professor N.K. Moutsopoulos for suggesting the selection of churches in figures 2 and 3. 4 On the above, see Prokopiou, Cosmological Symbolism, op. cit., 43–46, 73– 75, 79–80, 129, 187; M. Eliade, Le sacré et le profane (Gallimard), Paris 1957, 55–56; K. Lehman, ‘The dome of heaven’, The Art Bulletin 27, 1945, 1, 13–14; and W. Müller, Die heilige Stadt: Roma quadrata, himmlisches Jerusalem und die Mythe vom Weltnabel (Kohlhammer), Stuttgart 1961, 180–182, 189, 195. 5 A.Ph. Lagopoulos and A. Ioannidis, “Sémiotique picturale: Analyse d’une mosaïque byzantine”, Semiotica 21 (1–2), 1977, 75–109, and Great Greek Encyclopaedia (Phoenix), “Bema hagion” (in Greek). 6 Note that a central feature of the centre of the world is that the cosmic axis passes through it, joining heaven and earth, thus allowing their communication. 7 Prokopiou, Cosmological Symbolism, op. cit., 46, 128–130. 8 See M. Griaule, “Disposition de l’assistance à l’office abyssin”, Journal de la Société des Africanistes 4, 1934, 272–278. 9 R.H. Jackson, “The Mormon experience: The plains as Sinai, the Great Salt Lake as the Dead Sea, and the Great Basin as desert-cum-promised land”, Journal of Historical Geography 18(1), 1992, 41–42. 10 L. Hautecoeur, Mystique et architecture: Symbolisme du cercle et de la coupole (A. et J. Picard), Paris 1954,.78. 11 P. Lavedan and J. Hugueney, Histoire de l’urbanisme: Antiquité (Henri Laurens), Paris 1966, 204–207; A. Kriesis, Greek Town Building, Athens, 162–165 and Great Greek Encyclopaedia, “Column of Constantine”, “Constantinople” (in Greek). 12 See Ph. Koukoules, “Names and kinds of bread in Byzantine times”, Annual of the Society for Byzantine Studies (ΕΕΒΣ) V, Athens 1928,41–42 (in Greek), and “The streets and porticoes of Byzantine cities” ΕΕΒΣ XVIII, 1948, 4 (in Greek). See also Ch. Ktenas, ”The Protos of the Holy Mount Athos the the ‘Great Mese’ or ‘Synaksis’”, ΕΕΒΣ III, 1929, 236 (in Greek), and K.I. Amantos, “Linguistic observations in Medieval authors”, ΕΕΒΣ II, 1925, 284–285 (in Greek). 13 For Roman and Early Christian Rome, see E. Guidoni, “Il significato urbanistico di roma tra antichitàe medioevo”, Palladio n.s. 22 (1–4), 1972, 3–32. 14 See N.K. Moutsopoulos, “The Jewish neighbourhoods of Vrochthoi, Rogos and Omphalos”, Makedonika XI, 1996, 16, 27–30. 15 Renewed thanks to Professor Moutsopoulos for locating the drawings of the settlement presented here. 16 For the above settlements see Kriesis, Greek Town Building, op. cit., 149– 152, 155–157; N. Nikonanos, “Thessaloniki”, in Encyclopaedia Domi, 1970 (in Greek); O. Tafrali, Topographie de Thessalonique (Paul Geuthner), Paris 1913, 121–122, 126, 140, 143, 147; G.I. Theocharidis, Τοpοgraphy and Political History of Thessaloniki in the XIVth Century (Institute of Balkan Studies 31), Thessaloniki 1959, 11–17 (in Greek); Ch.N. Bakirtzis, The Basilica of St Demetrios (Guide-Books of the Μonuments of Μacedonia 4), (Institute of Balkan Studies), Thessaloniki 1972, 9–12 (in Greek); K. Andrews, Castles of the Morea (The American School of Classical Studies at Athens), Princeton, N.J., 1953, 161–162, 195–196, 199–203, 209; A.K. Orlandos, Palaces and Houses of Mystras (Archive of Byzantine Monuments of Greece III, 1), Athens 1937, 6–12 (in Greek); and Ch. Bouras, “Dwellings and settlements 1 2

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IV.b. The Greek City under Ottoman Rule

CHAPTER 23

The Effects of the Turkish Conquest on the Cities of Asia Minor and the Balkans Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Professor Emeritus of Architecture Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The Turkish conquest of Asia Minor

procedures. Episcopal courts were widespread and well organized.

Historical background: the tenth century and the Turkish conquest in the eleventh century According to Speros Vryonis: “In the tenth and eleventh centuries, as the sources make clear, there was a large number of cities in Asia Minor, which played a vital role in the social and economic life of the peninsula’s inhabitants. In the past, the question had been raised as to whether there was some continuity between the Asia Minor cities of Late Antiquity and of the Early Byzantine period on the on hand, and the cities of the tenth and eleventh centuries on the other. The problem is complex, given that there are no sources that could shed light on the transitional period: the seventh and eighth centuries are dead periods as far as written sources are concerned”.

The most favoured city was probably Ephesos, with its famous fair which attracted Georgians, Rus, Jews, Saracens and possibly Latins (fig. 1). Pergamon was in ruins (fig.2); as was usual, the Byzantine settlement, built with ancient spolia, was situated at the highest point of the ancient city (fig. 3).3 Smyrna shared with Ephesos the same fertile soil and rewarding sea-lanes. Phygela, Strobilos, Miletos and Phokaia, although smaller cities, participated in the agricultural and maritime economic activity of the region. The cities of Nikomedeia, Nicaea, Pylai, Prousa, Pergamon, Lampsakos, Abydos, Adramyttion, Kyzikos and Pythion had the advantage of a particularly favourable location on the trade routes leading to the imperial capital. Nicaea appears to have been extremely wealthy, with its Jewish colony and its inns for Muslim merchants. Prousa was renowned for its thermal baths, as was Pythia. But the greatest city in southwest Asia Minor was Attaleia, an important port between Syria, Cyprus, Egypt and Constantinople. On the northeast coast, Herakleia had trade links with Constantinople to the west and with Byzantine Cherson to the north. Kerasous exported small amounts of textiles to Constantinople. These ports, together with Sinope (fig. 4) and Amisos, apparently exported substantial quantities of cereals to Cherson.

Nevertheless, the little evidence there is confirms that the urban centres of Asia Minor in Late Antiquity, in contrast to the corresponding centres in the Haemus (Balkan) Peninsula, survived and continued in existence during the tenth and eleventh centuries.1 G. Ostrogorsky, in his seminal study of this issue, cites testimonies from which it can be deduced that at least 44 such cities lived on until the seventh and eighth centuries, and perhaps even later. However, the great question that still remains is: How was it possible for the Christian Greek population of Asia Minor, which according to some estimates numbered 32,000,000 in AD 395 and which thrived numerically up to the eleventh century, to have shrunk by 1922, to just 1,500,000 refugees, who took shelter in Greece?2

When Constantine X Doukas ascended the throne (1059), Turkish raids had already destroyed Armenia, the Byzantine provinces of Iberia and Mesopotamia, the regions around Koloneia and Melitene, and were now threatening the more central parts of Asia Minor. Sebasteia was the first to be plundered (1059). Anion was laid waste in 1064. Amorion was pillaged for a second time and its inhabitants were massacred. Chonai was sacked and devastated. In 1071, the Byzantine army suffered a major defeat and decimation at the hands of Alp Arslan.

As far as the nature of these Byzantine urban centres during the tenth and eleventh centuries is concerned, it should be noted that the institutions and the autonomy of the ancient Graeco-Roman cities had long since vanished, as can be concluded from the relevant Justinian legislation. The cities of this period have totally different institutions: military and political authority was exercised by the strategos of the theme (= provincial governor) and his representatives in the various cities, and was independent of the management of financial and fiscal affairs. Metropolitans and bishops not only regulated ecclesiastical matters but also shared with government officials the supervision of the city’s administration and undertook responsibility for a continually increasing part of the legal

Within a decade (1071–1081), the Seljuk Turks succeeded in controlling the whole of Asia Minor. In 1093/4, however, the region returned to Byzantine rule.3 The Byzantines counterattacked during the period 1081–1143. They advanced slowly but steadily into the East, retaking Sinope and the neighbouring regions, Kyzikos and Apollonia. By 1097 the Turks had been defeated throughout the East and were forced to retreat from 271

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1. Ephesos. General topographical plan (after E. Akurgal, Ancient Civilizations and Ruins of Turkey, Istanbul 1978, fig. 50). 1: Main gate of Ayasoluk castle (6th c. AD). 2: Church of St John. 3: Isa Bey mosque (1375). 4: Temple of Artemis. 5: Gymnasium. 6: Stadium. 7: Byzantine walls. 8: Byzantine baths (6th century AD). 9: Church of the Virgin Mary (early 4th c., on top of Roman ruins).

Nicaea, Dorylaion, Caesarea, Komana, Maras (Germanikeia), Adana and Mopsouestia. Subsequently, after the fragmentation of the Byzantine State by the Crusaders, the Empire of Nicaea (1204–1210) was founded. Between 1210 and 1224, the Byzantines fortified the environs of Smyrna. The imperial court of John Batatzes was transferred from Nicaea to Nymphaion, between 1224 and 1258. In the thirteenth century, Smyrna became the most important centre of the empire. By the last quarter of the thirteenth century, Byzantium was in a state of decline. It was at the epicentre of two powerful forces attacking it violently: the Serbs from the western provinces and the Ottoman Turks in Asia Minor. Incumbent of the throne at the time was Andronikos II (1282–1328), a man sensitive to literature and the arts, but of mediocre administrative abilities, which proved inadequate for these crucial years when the empire was on the verge of catastrophe.4

2. Pergamon. Upper City, general topographical plant (after Akurgal, Ancient Civilizations, op. cit., fig. 24). 1: Temple of Hera Basileia (159– 138 BC). 2: Prytaneion. 3: Temple of Demeter.

Hosrev was assassinated in 1247, having in the meantime been forced to pay tribute to the Mongols.8 The Empire of the Rum Seljuks finally collapsed, torn apart by civil conflicts, which intensified under the pressure of the Mongol threat.

The Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan5 first appeared in Asia Minor at the time when the Seljuk Sultan Kai-Hosrev II was reigning at Ikonion. His army was defeated and the Mongols advanced as far as Caesarea, destroying everything in their path.6 The sultan begged Baldwin II, the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, for assistance, but this was refused.

The Mongol infiltration into Asia Minor had swept along many Turkish tribes, particularly the Turcoman and the Uguz, who had settled on the western fringes of the state of the Seljuks, with their tolerance or assent. However, when the state broke up, these peoples progressively gained autonomy and independence. Consequently, as Paul Lemerle observes, “it is very difficult, during this period even to sketch the limits of Turkish hegemonies in Western Anatolia, the various beyliks and emirates”.9

By contrast, the Byzantine Emperor of Nicaea, John Doukas Batatzes, agreed to help and in 1243 a treaty was signed between the Byzantines and the Seljuks. According to Georgios Acropolites, this alliance safeguarded the Empire of Nicaea from the Mongol threat.7 However, nothing of substance resulted from this treaty at the time, both because the Seljuk State was exhausted by internal strife and because Sultan Kai-

Shortly before 1317, the citadel of Smyrna fell into the hands of the Turks of Aidini and the Byzantines abandoned the city. When the Arab traveller Ibn Battuta (Mohammed Abn Abdallah Ibn Battuta, 1304–1368) visited Smyrna in 1333, 272

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4. Sinope, general topographical plan (after A. Bryer and D. Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments of Pontos, vol. I, Washington D.C., 1985, fig. 4).

hippodrome, but no inscription in Greek has been found built into the castle walls, only some in Arabo-Persian script. The most famous fairs were those of St Phokas at Sinope and of St Eugenios at Trebizond (anc. Trapezous), the most important roadstead joining the Byzantine Empire with the northern regions of the Islamic world, the Caucasus and Cherson (figs 5–7). Its fairs, held several times a year, were international events, at which Greek merchants met Circassians, Jews, Colchians, Georgians, Armenians, Arabs, Cossacks and Rus merchants. The bulk of Byzantine textile production was exported to the Islamic world through the markets of Trebizond, while perfumes, spices and other rare commodities were imported into Byzantium through this port, whence they were forwarded, together with the local wheat production, to Constantinople. Up until the thirteenth century, and much later, the population of these cities was Greek (Byzantine).

3. Pergamon, urban fabric of part of the Upper City in the Byzantine Age (after W. Radt, “Pergamon”, Turk Arkeoloji dergisi XXIII, 1988, 53, fig. 1).

he found it for the most part in ruins. In the first half of the fourteenth century Smyrna, under the leadership of Emir Umur of Aidini, was the operations base of the emir’s pirate fleet, which was the scourge of the Aegean islands.10 At that time too the authoritative Ibn Battuta visited Pontic Sinope (Sanub), which he described as “… a densely populated city, beautiful and at the same time well fortified. It is surrounded by sea except for the east side, where there is only one gate, which no one can enter without permission from its governor, Ibrahim Bey. Outside the city there are eleven villages inhabited by Greek infidels”11 (fig. 4).

Those cities in eastern Asia Minor that were involved in transit trade between Byzantium and the Islamic world were usually inhabited by Armenians, Syrians and Greeks. Artze is a case in point, a large urban commercial centre, which the eleventhcentury Byzantine historian Michael Attaleiates reported as “receiving commodities of every sort, too numerous to count, from Persia, India and the rest of Asia”.

Nikomedeia (Izmit), a city in Bithynia, was founded by Justinian on the inlet of the Bay of Astakinos. Georgios Monachos12 refers to Theodosius “as the lauded King of Nikomedeia”, but there is no more information on this city for the following centuries, up until its conquest by Orhan in 1326.

Not far away was Theodosioupolis (Erzerum), which had yielded its primacy to Artze before the Turk invasions (fig. 8). Anion, Mantzikert (Malazgirt) and Nisive were among the typical frontier cities with mixed populations, which relied to a large extent on trade.

Very few traces remain of Cappadocian Caesarea. There are remnants of a fortress, thought to date to Justinian’s reign, but which are most probably Seljuk. There was a moat surrounding the walls. During the years of Turkish occupation, the marketplace, governor’s residence, barracks, various government buildings, large mosque and inns were accommodated within the enceinte of the ancient fortifications. No trace of Christian buildings has been found in this area; a mausoleum, contemporary with the fortress, is a work of Seljuk art. Nonetheless, there are ruins of Christian churches outside the fortified area, quite a distance away, around the site of the

The most important of the eastern cities, Melitene (Malatya) and Edessa (Urfa), were very remote. The first, after being retaken by the Arabs, was resettled mainly by Syrian Monophysites and secondly by Armenians and Greeks. It remained a vital economic, religious and cultural centre for Syrians until its destruction by the Ottoman Turks in the second half of the eleventh century. In 963, Nikephoros Phokas laid siege to Mesopotamian Edessa (Urfa) and, according to the information of Leon the Deacon:14 “After capturing Edessa, therefore, and having entered the 273

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6. Trebizond, 1223–1869 (after Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, op. cit, vol. I, fig. 42).

5. Trebizond, before 1223 (after Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, op. cit., fig. 41). The Classical walling is shown by a heavy line.

sanctuary of the Holy Confessors and appeased God, he left his army to rest. For he had heard that the figure of the Saviour and God, which had been stamped on the Tile, was kept in this very fortress. And they say that it was stamped in this fashion … Deciding this, the barbarians guarded the fortress with wonder and respect. Then King Nikephoros, having gone out of the city, took from there this venerable Tile and, after setting them to make for it a case of gold and precious stones, he placed it in this with reverence and set it in the church of the Mother of Our Lord, which stands in the royal habitations”. In 1144–1145, Edessa was retaken by the Turks and devastated. It had been burned and pillaged for the first time in 1059 by the Sultan of Ikonion. It was destroyed and plundered for the second time in 1173 by Kiliç Arslan II. In 1069, Ikonion and its environs were devastated. Edessa is one of the few cities whose population numbers are known. An Arab source mentions that in 1071 its population was composed of 20,000 Syrians, 8,000 Armenians, 6,000 Greeks and 1,000 Latins (total 35,000), while 75 years later, prior to its destruction, it had 47,000 inhabitants. In central Asia Minor, Anazarvos, Tzamandos, Podandos were densely populated centres, surrounded by numerous villages. The most important cities were Adana, Mopsouestia and Seleucia in Cilicia. Further north, on the Asia Minor plateau, Caesarea, centre of commerce and place of pilgrimage, linked Herakleia with Archelais and Nigde. The main station in the south was Ikonion, which Attaleiates describes as a large and flourishing city: “for it excelled both in the throngs of people and in the sizes of the houses and in all the other things that are

7. Trebizond, the citadel (after Bryer and Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments, op. cit., fig. 44.

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8. Miniature of Erzurum (after Nakkas Matraki and Hasim Karpuz, Turk Ilam Mesken Mimarisinde Ersurum Evleri, Ankara 1984, fig.1).

decent and enviable, and in it every kind of animal is raised”. Ikonion (Konya), a city of ancient Lycaonia, is described by Ibn Battuta as “a large city with beautiful buildings, an abundance of water and orchards. The streets are very wide and the bazaars admirably designed, with a separate bazaar for each trade. This city is said to have been built by Alexander. Now it is under the rule of Sultan Badr-an-din ibn Karaman”.15 At the centre of the city stands the half-ruined Iç Kale (inner citadel/keep), inside which are remnants of the Seljuk palace. During the Ottoman period the city’s various nationalities lived in different neighbourhoods. The fortification wall, with towers and a moat, had been built by the Seljuk Sultan Alaedin. The city was conquered by Kiliç Arslan and later, at the time of the Third Crusade, by the Emperor of Germany Frederick Barbarossa, after whose death, it was taken by the Seljuks.

9. Antioch. Topographical plan of the ruins of the city, after the excavations. The outline of the walls of Tiberius and Justinian is distinguished. Above, reconstruction of the grid of the Hippodamian street network.

the opulence of the city before its destruction by the Turks in the late eleventh century. The River Fur that flows through the Hellenistic city of Antioch is none other than the River Yabuk, whose headwaters are on Mount Livanos and in the Hama region16 (figs 9 and 10).

The city of Chonai, in the Meander valley, was a well-known place of pilgrimage, with the church dedicated to Archangel Michael and an important fair, while the city of Laodikeia in the same region was a centre of textile weaving. On the road leading northwest of Ikonion towards Dorylaion, there were several administrative and military centres: Laodikeia Kekaumene, Tyriaion, Philomelion, Synnada, Polybotos, Akroenos, Amorion, Kaborkion, Santabaris, Nakoleia, Kotyaion, Trokanda and Pessinous. Dorylaion was the key site towards the northwest passes of the Asia Minor plateau. The twelfth-century Byzantine historian Kinnamos describes

According to Ibn Battuta, Kausariya (Caesarea) was one of the largest cities in the land, from where he “started out for Bargama (Pergamon), which is in ruins but has a strong fortress on the hilltop. This fortress was built by the father of the then sultan (Dumur Khan)”. The same traveller relates that Bursa (Prousa) was “a large city with beautiful bazaars and wide 275

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Argyroupolis and Nikopolis. Vryonis presents a catalogue of the cities that were destroyed between the eleventh and the thirteenth century: Western Asia Minor: Tralleis, Priene, Miletos, Karia, Antioch, Melanoudion, Nyssa, Tripolis, Thyaira, Ephesos, Magnesia Hermou, Kroulla, Katoikia, Kenchreai, Bolokoma, Angelokoma, Anagourda, Platana, Melangeia, Assos, Prousa, Nicaea, Apameia, Smyrna, Sozopolis, Agridir, Ikonion, Kaladna, Eriza (Kara-Hisar), Ine-Giol, Kopru-Hisar, Thoatera, Pegai (Biga), Cybela. Eastern Asia Minor: Edessa, Caesarea, Arsigui, Abliotike, Axara, Theodosioupolis (Erzerum), Sebasteia, Alaskert, Anion, Melitene. Southern Asia Minor: Mopsouestia, Tarsus, Agiaz, Adana, Korykos, Patara, Myra, Laranda (Karaman), Herakleia, Seleucia (Silifke). Northern Asia Minor: Pompeioupolis, Dokeia, Kemach.21 10. Antioch, mosaic floor from a room in an opulent residence (Fatih Cimok, Antioch on Orontes, Istanbul 1980).

The various Turkish petty-states of Anatolia were under the control of continually renewed Turcoman hordes. These pressures resulted in an intense westward movement of the Turkish tribes. In Vryonis’s view, “The loss of Asia Minor was equivalent to the destruction of the Byzantine Empire. Consequently, the Byzantines made serious attempts – as many as their sadly deteriorating power allowed – first to recover and then to hold the regions in the East, up to the time when Michael Palaiologos recaptured Constantinople in 1261”.22

streets, surrounded by vegetable gardens and flowing waters. Outside the city there are thermal baths, one for men and one for women, which are visited by patients, a guest-house built by one of the Turkoman kings… The Sultan of Bursa is Orhan Bek, son of Othman Çuk … he was the one who took Bursa from the Greeks (1329) and is said to have laid siege to Paznik (Nicaea) for twenty years, but died before the city’s fall”.

Byzantium was in such severe decline that it was unable to put up any effective resistance. The system of border defences established in the days of the Empire of Nicaea was in ruins and the hinterland was left at the mercy of foreign incursions, while the defences of the Akritai (Marchlanders) had disintegrated and troops had in the meantime been recalled to the western fronts.23 In these circumstances, the Turks, unhindered except for occasional pockets of resistance, carried out systematic pillaging and destruction of populated areas, resulting in the desolation of entire regions, such as those north of the Meander (Menderes), from which the population was forced to flee in order to survive; even the monasteries did not escape the destructive fury of the invaders.24

Ibn Battuta describes the region of Attaleia with enthusiasm: “it extends over a large area and is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen, apart from the fact that it is densely populated with a good street layout. Each section of the population inhabits a different neighbourhood. The Christian merchants live in a neighbourhood known as Mina (the Port), which is enclosed by a wall, whose gates are closed at night and during the Friday liturgy. The Greeks, who were its old inhabitants, live on their own in another neighbourhood, the Jews in another, the king, his courtiers and the Mamelukes in yet another, and each of these neighbourhoods is enclosed by its own wall. The rest of the Muslims inhabit the main city. Surrounding the city and all the neighbourhoods we mentioned there is a great wall”.17

According to the testimony of Georgios Pachymeres, the arable lands east of the Sangarios river in the province of Paphlagonia had been abandoned and had degenerated into a Scythian wilderness.25 Formerly fertile and prosperous regions that had been tended even lately by diligent peasants, were soon covered by scrub and woodland, and became almost impenetrable.26

The Greek quarter had straight streets, which were wider than those of the other quarters. The city was supplied with water from cisterns.18 Until 1836 an old Byzantine castle had survived on the top of the hill dominating the city of Adana, but it was destroyed by Mehmed Ali, the Khedive of Egypt (who was born in Kavala), during his campaign against Sultan Mahmud.19 Adana is also mentioned by Leon the Deacon.20 Nikephoros Phokas, in the war against the Agarenes in 964 “took, with the first shout, Adana and Anavarza and more than twenty fortresses. And then, attacking and surrounding Mopsouestia, he vigorously besieged it ”.

Such was the desolation of these regions that in 1281, when Michael Palaiologos dispatched an army to defend the area, adequate supplies could not be found to feed the soldiers. The devastation of the land was total.27 To the terrible destruction and the flight of the population should be added the large-scale massacres and forced conversions to Islam. The invaders systematically killed all males who refused to abandon their faith. The fall of the fortress of Tralleis on the Meander was followed by great carnage because of its inhabitants’ long and vigorous resistance. Islamization of the population followed.28 When Emperor Andronikos visited the region and saw the ruins

The following cities stood along the road leading from Bithynia to Asia Minor: Ankyra, Saniane, Gangra, Kastamon, Euchaita, Amaseia, Dokeia, Neocaesarea, Sebasteia, Koloneia, 276

The Effects of the Turkish Conquest on the Cities of Asia Minor and the Balkans of Tralleis, he was so moved that he decided to rebuild and repopulate it.29 However, the reconstruction of the city and its walls did not save it from a new Turkish incursion, some years later. In 1280 the Turks retook Tralleis, only to abandon it after the ensuing slaughter, taking 20,000 prisoners with them .30

A Greek prince was forced to help Sultan Bayezid I to conquer Philadelpheia, the last independent Byzantine city in western Asia Minor. As a vassal of the Turks, Manuel Palaiologos was summoned by his Ottoman overlord to participate in the expeditions against the Turkish hegemonies in north-central Asia Minor (1392). This experience left Manuel with sad impressions, which are reflected in his gloomy texts.37 In his letters he describes the desolation of this once flourishing land. The inhabitants who managed to escape death at the invaders’ hands sought refuge in the mountains, in caves and forests; food was scarce; the roads were dangerous and full of brigands.

In addition to the destruction caused by the first Turkish invasions into Karia and Paphlagonia, between the years 1262 and 1264, large numbers of people were carried off into captivity in regions further to the east.31

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: the weakening of Hellenism

What is particularly impressive, however, is that the region Manuel was passing through was totally alien to him, even though it had once been a Greek Christian land:

By the early fourteenth century, the defences of Byzantium had been paralysed and the last attempts to stem the invaders had failed. Next came the destruction of Lydia. There too the Turks vented their cruelty on undefended settlements. The greater part of the population was butchered. Those who managed to survive sought refuge on the neighbouring islands and in Thrace. In 1304, first the fortress of Thyraia fell to the Turks, after a siege lasting many days, and then Ephesos (Aya Soluk) was savagely pillaged. After devastating Lydia, the Turkish hordes turned north, towards Mysia.

“The plain where we pitched our camp once had a name, when it was thriving and was populated and governed by the Romans. Now, as I try to find out its name, I seem like an ignoramus who is inquiring about the wolf ’s wings, as the saying goes, since there is no one to enlighten me. There are many cities here, but they are deserted; a city’s ornaments are its inhabitants, and if they are lacking one can no longer call them cities. Most cities present a sad sight to the descendants of those who once inhabited them. Their destruction is so complete that not even their name has been saved. Whenever I inquire about the name of a city, those who take the trouble to answer me say ‘We call it by this name’ (time has erased their former names), a reply that instantly depresses me, and, not having lost my senses, I grieve in silence.”38

The Aegean islands and the Sea of Marmara filled with refugees. Pachymeres describes the tragic fate of a group of fugitives who had escaped to the Prince’s Island (Prinkiponisi). There they met with a worse fate, this time at the hands of Christian pirates. They had fled the Ottomans only to fall into the hands of Venetians, and Emperor Andronikos was forced to pay a heavy ransom to liberate them.32

“When Manuel was travelling in the East, Turkization and Islamization had already been going on for three centuries and had almost been completed.”39 Nicaea, which capitulated after a long siege, was totally devastated. The Turks ransacked the churches and looted the treasures and the holy relics of the local saints.40 After the fall of the cities, the massacres and enslavements, the Ottomans, spurred on by religious fury, forced the inhabitants to recant their faith.

While the Turks were ravaging Lydia and Mysia, Osman (Atman) turned against Bithynia, after the battle in the environs of Baphea (“this area around wonderful Nikomedeia”), in 1301. There, he found the population harvesting the crops in the countryside. He massacred a large number and took many captives. Some managed to escape and take refuge in neighbouring fortresses. Most of the fugitives fled to the port of Nikomedeia, which was famed for its strong fortifications.33 Full of refugees and beleaguered, the city soon began to suffer from famine and epidemics.34

We learn this from the Pittakia of Patriarch John XIV (1333– 1347), written not long after the fall of Nicaea. The patriarch advised the city’s Christians to remain steadfast in their faith and not to forget that the Agarenes could become masters only of their bodies but never of their souls.41

This was roughly the situation in the region of Asia Minor between 1326 and 1337, when the last three Byzantine cities of Bithynia fell to the Ottoman Turks: Prousa in 1326, Nicaea in 1331 and Nikomedeia in 1337.35

The destruction caused by the Turks in the regions of Bithynia, Mysia, Phrygia and Lydia defied description. Pachymeres has preserved a vague picture. It was not long before the Turks crossed from the coast of Asia Minor to the neighbouring islands and created their own pirate fleet. Chaos reigned everywhere.42

“Following the period of conquest (by the Turcomans), the capitals of the numerous emirates became administrative, economic and religious centres, which gradually brought back stability and prosperity, in varying degrees, as can be clearly seen during the third and fourth decades of the fourteenth century.

According to Nikephoros Gregoras, the Osmanlis were set to massacre all the people of the conquered lands.43 This initial idea was shelved, however, as they realized that the populations they were about to exterminate could be exploited more productively as labourers and ultimately as sources of taxation.

In fact, certain emirs tried to exploit the involvement of the Ottomans in Europe (in 1389) by incursions into their lands. Bayezid I wasted no time and marched out eastwards to face his enemies… During his first campaign in the East (1389–1390) Bayezid destroyed the last independent Greek city of Western Asia Minor, Philadelpheia (Alasehir) and annexed the emirates of Aïdin, Saruhan, Mendese, Hamid and Germiyan.”36

Apart from the descriptions of destruction preserved by both Byzantine and Turkish authors (chroniclers Mudjim Basi and Hodja Hussein), whose testimonies are the same,44 there is also information from Ibn Battuta, who travelled throughout Asia Minor, after its conquest by the Ottoman Turks (in 277

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos 1333), from Nisive and Amis (Diyar Bakir) to Nicaea, visiting Laodikeia, Ephesos, Attaleia, Magnesia and Pergamon.45 In Attaleia (Antalya) he first noticed the Asia Minor Greeks, living in a separate neighbourhood surrounded by walls, and in Laodikeia too he met many Greek inhabitants.46

where they were constantly reinforced by additional waves of fugitives from Mainland Greece and the islands. Unfortunately, it is impossible for us today to gather urbanplanning data referring to the size, organization and function of the Byzantine cities of Asia Minor. Protracted and repeated devastations and re-foundings on top of existing ruins, as well as the re-founding of former Seljuk and subsequently Ottoman settlements, have totally obliterated the evidence that could have been used to determine even rudimentary urbanplanning parameters, such as the search for and identification of social centres, street axes, building blocks, water-supply systems and other features. Byzantine sources are devoid of such information. Scattered information may be drawn from a few subsequent sources, which include testimonies about the dire life of urban centres in Asia Minor following the Ottoman conquest and its consolidation.

The Arab traveller’s descriptions reveal the desolation of the cities as a result of the Turkish raids, and the total devastation of a number of them.47 Thus, Pergamon, a once densely-populated city, was by then in ruins.48 He writes about Nicaea (Yaznik): “Yaznik is located on a lake and can be reached only by one bridge-like road which can accommodate only one rider at a time. It is in ruins and deserted except for a few men in the sultan’s service. There are vegetable gardens and there is drinking water in the wells. It is surrounded by four walls and a moat lies between every two of them, and one can have access to it over wooden drawbridges”. At the time of Ibn Battuta’s visit, its walls were in good condition, attesting that Nicaea surrendered without resistance (in 1331).49 At Smyrna the greater part of the port had been destroyed.

The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans Ottoman infiltration in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries As early as 1326, the hordes of the Asia Minor emirs had begun to invade the territories of southern Thrace and Macedonia each year, advancing as far as central Greece, where they caused devastation.53 In 1337, Turkish troops, marching as allies of Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, laid waste Epirus and Albania. From 1341, during the wars between Andronikos and his namesake and heir, Turkish troops regularly invaded Thrace on the pretext of providing allied assistance to John Kantakouzenos, but in reality in order to pillage, with Umur Pasha of Aidini at their head (1343).54 In 1352, Suleiman’s son took the small fortress of Tzympé on the Kallipolis (Gallipoli) Peninsula.55

In several Byzantine cities the Greek population was extremely small or had vanished and had been replaced by Turks. Christian churches had been destroyed, plundered and turned into Islamic places of worship, such as the great church of Ephesos. In the cities of Amaseia, Gümüs (Argyroupolis), Erzidjan (Keltzene) and Erzerum (Theodosioupolis), Hellenism had suffered such irreparable damage that in 1327 the Patriarchate of Constantinople tried to merge the communities of Sebasteia, Euchaiton, Mokesos, Nazianzos and Ikonion, and to assign them to the Metropolis of Caesarea: “by the indulgence of God, through the prevailing multitude of sins confusion and aberration from the attack of godless foes”.50 In the course of his travels, Ibn Battuta often describes enslaved Greeks, male and female, whom the Turks treated as servants. He saw a great number of slaves in Laodikeia, in the harem of the city’s governor. In conclusion, Ibn Battuta’s descriptions show that the country’s economy was at its lowest ebb and that its population was oppressed, exhausted and subjugated by force. Most cities were in ruins and their once Christian populace had been massacred or had left, or had been taken captive. There was widespread destruction and desertion in Asia Minor.51

After the fall of Kallipolis and the establishment of a Turkish garrison in the city, the future of the European territories of the Byzantine Empire was a foregone conclusion.56 In 1359 Ottoman troops reached the walls of Constantinople for the first time. After building the fortress of Rumeli Hissar, the Ottomans strengthened their presence on Thracian territory. The greatest expansion of the Ottomans in the Balkans occurred during the reign of Murad I (1362–1389).57 The Byzantines attempted to save what was possible. Times were hard, and the West reacted with pusillanimity to this tragic situation. The long centuries of bondage for the Balkans were about to begin.58

A substantial number of Christians, from among the old inhabitants of the Empire of Trebizond and of northeast Asia Minor, “in the last decades of the fifteenth century moved east, seeking refuge in Iberia and Georgia, and after the fall of these regions to the Turks, they moved even deeper into the Caucasus (where they founded the Bishopric of Achtala) and towards the southern coast of Russia”. According to Apostolos Vakalopoulos, the new immigrants, as a minority among the local populations, were assimilated in the course of time.52

The Turks had come to know the coastal region of the Balkans even earlier. It was the Byzantines themselves who had called them in as allies in the never-ending rivalries between incumbents of and claimants to the throne. Since those times the Turks had realized that the internal resistance of the people had been weakened by the long disputes and civil wars, and the defence systems of fortified cities were in a lamentable state.

However, on present data it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to estimate the number of Christians who stayed on in the hinterland of Asia Minor. At any rate, a sufficient number had remained, and with time and gradual changes in conditions, they managed to survive and grow, as in the regions of Cappadocia, Attaleia and the Asia Minor littoral,

After the defeat of the Christian forces of the Balkans in the battle of Cirmen on the River Evros (anc. Hebrus), on 26 September 1371, the fate of these regions was sealed. Byzantine historiography, based on contemporary sources, describes in the darkest terms the early years of the conquest and the treatment of populations that resisted the Turks.59 The populations of 278

The Effects of the Turkish Conquest on the Cities of Asia Minor and the Balkans the cities and fortresses which had resisted were enslaved and their possessions looted by the Ottoman conqueror’s troops. The heroic, albeit futile, resistance of the Byzantine garrisons on many occasions is well known. Many cases of self-sacrifice are preserved in legend and popular tradition. The ruins of these anonymous fortified settlements which, to this day dominate the summits of almost inaccessible rocks throughout Macedonia, bear unique witness to the provincial pattern of land use and settlement in the Byzantine Age.

belonged to Byzantine landowners. According to inalienable Islamic law, all land belonged to the sultan, who granted tenure of it as payment for services rendered to his military magnates, the heroes of the conquest, such as Evren Bey and his horsemen. Large populations of Yuruk nomads (Yörüks), who had been moved from their homelands in Asia Minor, settled around Thessaloniki. The Ottoman Turks did not look after the castles of the interior. Only on coastal sites, such as Thessaloniki and Kavala, did they proceed to strengthen defensive works and fortify the walls with new towers and cannon emplacements. It was then that the White Tower and its contemporary Chain Tower (Jindjirli Kule) were built and equipped with artillery, which the Turkish traveller of the mid-seventeenth century Elviya Çelebi describes in every detail. A little later, and certainly before 1660, they set up the gun emplacement of Top Hane in the port, which had already started silting up since the time of the Turkish conquest after the destruction of the spit (Tserempoulon). Towers were also built on the citadel (Heptapyrgion), which was strengthened and now took the Turkish name of Yedi-Kule.

Byzantine chroniclers have recorded for posterity the dates of the fall of the great urban centres of the Balkans in the fourteenth century. When Murad I set forth from Asia Minor on his campaign to conquer the Balkans, he first built Rumeli Hissar, a strong foothold on the European coast. From there the rapid expansion of the Ottomans began. In 1361 they took Kallipolis, and in 1363 Murad’s general Lala Sahin made his victorious entry into Philippoupolis (Filibe), where he was awarded the title of Beylerbey of Roumeli. The sultan himself moved his seat to Didymoteichon (Demotica) and after 1369 to Adrianople.60 The year 1363/4, when Adrianople became the capital of the European sultanate, marked the start of the Turkish campaigns for the conquest of the Balkans, which advanced in four different directions (1370–1382). To the north, the Turks occupied Beroe (Stara Zagora), Aetos, Yambolu, Karnovat, Samakovo, in 1367/8 Agathoupolis, in 1372/3 Sozopolis, in 1382/3 Prilep and Monastiri (Bitola) and Küstendil. In 1379, after the unfortunate battle of Nikopolis, they took that city, then Beliko Tirnovo and in the same year Bedini, and finally Sofia (1385).61 Following their victory at Cirmen (26 September 1371), the Turks conquered the whole of Bulgaria within 15 years.

In 1389, the Turks crushed the last resistance of the Christian armies of the Serbs and Vlachs at Kossovo. An unexpected event, the appearance of Tamerlane in Asia Minor, forced Bayezid to withdraw his army to this endangered region. He was defeated and taken prisoner by Tamerlane at the battle of Ankara in 1402, and so the greater part of the Macedonian region cast off the temporary yoke of the Ottoman Turks in various ways. The long internal dynastic feuds between Bayezid’s heirs provided breathing space before the ultimate fall of Byzantium in 1453.

The Byzantine Emperor John V tried desperately, by resolving various religious issues with the Vatican, to secure military assistance from the West, stressing the grave danger of the Turkish presence on European soil. A danger that was in fact very quickly confirmed, and which Europe succeeded in averting with great sacrifices and only at the last moment. Between 1351 and 1371 Kypsela and Kesane fell to the Turks; between 1372 and 1386, Bera, Maroneia (1374), Chrysoupolis, Xanthi, Drama (1372–75), Zichna (1383), Serres (1383), Kastoria (1385/6) and Veroia (1385/6); and then, Edessa (1390), Servia (1393 and finally in 1426), Stromnitsa (1389)62, Ochrid (1444, 1451) and Christoupolis (Kavala, 1387).

The Ottoman incursions into Serbia, Bosnia, Albania and the despotate of the Morea, during the reigns of Murad II (1421– 1451) and Mohamed II (1451–1481), were catastrophic.65 In the course of the Turkish campaigns in Serbia (1455–1456) Belgrade, Novo-Bardo and many other cities were destroyed.66

The Turkish forces now turned northwest and occupied the regions of Monastiri, Prilep, Naissos (1386), Divra, Skopje, Deavolis, Belesa. They inflicted great destruction on Serbia and Hungary. In 1397 Belgrade suffered greatly from invasion by Turkish hordes.63 In the same year, the Ottomans destroyed towns and cities in the Peloponnese, demolished the walls of Argos and drove the inhabitants into captivity.64

The invasion of Albania in 1459 was equally calamitous. According to Kritoboulos, the invaders destroyed the entire harvest and demolished the forts and castles they took. These devastations were repeated with greater ferocity in 1466, when the Albanians rose and resisted heroically, from their bases at inaccessible sites in mountainous regions. Kritoboulos describes the sultan’s campaign against them as: “inhabiting great high mountains and inaccessible places, and having in them numerous safe forts and strong townships on the shores of the Ionian Sea, and a rugged terrain is fortified all over with large forts and deep forests and steep precipices”.67 In the end, the Albanians were forced to submit, and paid a heavy price in blood for their heroic resistance.

In 1389 Thessaloniki fell to the Ottoman Turks for the first time, after a three-year siege. The Ottomans finally took the city after a brief transitional phase, during which it passed into the hands of the Serenissima Repubblica of Venice. However, they did not settle in the city immediately, as they were few and were involved in stabilizing their northern acquisitions. This was the period of systematic settling of incomers in crucial and especially fertile places, especially in plains, which formerly

In 1466 the hordes of Mohamed II invaded the Morea, which they devastated and burnt, carrying off the people into bondage. According to the narrative of the Athenian Laonikos

There is reference to the sack of numerous thriving towns and Albanian forts. The cities of Skodra, Alessio, Kroya, Dyrrachion, Berati, Avlon, Argyrokastro and others, were either destroyed and no longer inhabited, or reduced to villages or forts occupied by military garrisons.68

279

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Chalkokondyles, it was then that droves of inhabitants were enslaved and many others were butchered.69 The walls of the city of Corinth were pulled down.70 In 1464 the Turks invaded the Peloponnese for the third time, during the war against the Venetians, when they razed the walls of Argos to their foundations.71

regional organization, new important centres began to develop either on top of the old ones, which were rebuilt, or as new foundations, in both cases based on the new demographic realignments. In the first decades of the sixteenth century, the Ottomans invaded Croatia and Hungary (1526). Belgrade finally fell in 1521 and Buda in 1541.79

The French diplomat Bertrandon de la Broquières, who travelled from Asia Minor and throughout the Balkans in 1433, describes in his book Le voyage d’outremer,72 Makri completely destroyed, the port of Kavala in a dreadful state and the fortified city of Peritheorion on Lake Vistonis in ruins, as was the fortress of Bera (Pherrai). When he reached Sofia, he observed that its walls had been torn down to their foundations.

After the conquest of the Balkans, the Turks demolished the walls and citadels of certain cities in the interior, because of their reduced strategic importance, since the Ottoman Empire was continually extending its boundaries northwards and so that they could not be used as pockets of future resistance. Inland cities which retained their fortifications were Kastoria, Veroia, Skopje, Dyrrachion, Ochrid, Prilep and Servia. Skopje and Ochrid were seats of sanjaks.80

Varna fell to the Ottomans in 1444, Ainos in 145673 and Skodra in 1470.74

Apart from a few exceptions, the Turks were not interested in building new fortifications and fortresses (such as the fortress of Kara-baba facing regions bordering Venetian territory). However, they took pains over the upkeep and repair of the road network, and to build bridges; they also built hostelries, the caravanserais, for the accommodation of travellers.

It is particularly important for the subject of this chapter to enumerate the Byzantine urban settlements in the Macedonian region that survived during the Ottoman Occupation and those that perished. Throughout the period, life continued in the large cities, such as Thessaloniki, Lamia (Zeitun), Serres (Siroz), Zichna, Bera (Feredjik), Didymoteichon (Demotica), Xanthi, Kavala, Drama (Dirama), Meleniko, Philippoupolis (Filibe), Mesemvria, Sozopolis, Anchialos, Veroia (Karaferia), Edessa (Voden), Kastoria, Chlerenos (Florina), Ochrid, Monastiri (Bitola, Tolimanastir), Stromnitsa and others. By contrast, other fortified settlements were abandoned, such as Servia, Gynaikokastro (Avret-Hisar), Maximianoupolis, Anastasioupolis (Buru Kale), Chrysoupolis, Redina, most of the mountainous fortified settlements, as well as some located in the fertile plains.

In fortified historic settlements, such as Thessaloniki, Kamoutsina (Gümuldjina), Serres, Drama, Veroia, Kastoria, Larisa, Ioannina and elsewhere, they created new trading centres, put up covered marketplaces (bezestens) and bathhouses (hamams), and founded mosques (camis) and prayer-houses (tekes) for the Dervish orders which played a significant role at the time of the conquest.81 According to Vakalopoulos, the two main bases of the Turkish nomadic economy were animal husbandry and warfare, which were interrelated. “The continual search for new pastures for their flocks led the Turks to frequent raids against neighbouring farming populations, the plundering of whose properties and the enslaving of whose people yielded additional benefits.” The Muslim faith infused greater vigour by lending a holy character to the raids of Turkish tribes, especially the Ottomans. “The peculiar fusion of nomadic with Islamic elements determined the direction of the conquests and the par excellence military and expansionist nature of the Ottoman State.”82

The Ottoman conquerors also settled in the devastated cities they had captured. With vindictive rage, they pulled down the walls and churches of cities that had resisted, as in Nikomedeia and many others in Asia Minor. In the case of Nikomedeia, only the emir with his guard settled among the ruins of the desolate city. During Murad’s reign, Serres had been settled by Saruhan nomads, who occupied abandoned lands in 1385. There is similar information about Veroia, Zichna and many other Macedonian cities.

This invasion could not have been fortuitous, spontaneous, or simply conquering or expansionist. Professor Ö.L. Barkan, the Turkish scholar who has studied the issue, claims that the conquests of the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans were based on a carefully designed plan. After organizing the Turkoman tribes in a military system, the Ottoman authorities were forced by domestic and socio-economic conjunctures to secure land for them, by launching the campaign against the Balkans, where, as they well knew, the fertile plains were extremely under-populated, due to protracted civil strife and Bulgarian incursions.83 The aim of the invasion was not to achieve some kind of colonial control of dominions, but to secure territory in which to settle and employ an excess labour force from regions of central Asia Minor.

Nevertheless, the Ottomans founded certain cities, such as Elbasan (1466), Sarajevo and the New City (Yeni Sehir) on the ruins of Byzantine Larisa in Thessaly.75 Other Turkish settlements were Yenisea (Yenitze Karasu) in the vale of Xanthi (Eskitze) near the River Nestos, Chrysoupolis (Sari Saban), Yeni Bazar (Pazarakia) in Apollonia, 76 and Yenitsa (Yenitze Vardar, Yenice-i-Vardar), which were founded by Hadji Ahmed Gazi Evren around 1361, following the conquest of Komotini and the Vardar region east of Veroia.77 Broquières also describes Bera (Pherrai) as a Turkish settlement inhabited by Greeks and Turks.78 By contrast, the Thracian cities of Misterio and Peritheorion were exclusively Greek. Misterio might be the Mesine of the Ottoman period, the Byzantine Mosynoupolis.

By means of this system and by applying a well-prepared plan, farming populations were moved and resettled in arable plains, and stock-rearing populations were transported to corresponding pastoral regions. At the same time, of course,

After the conquest, the Ottoman Turks continued to apply, in a way, the old Byzantine administrative system. In terms of 280

The Effects of the Turkish Conquest on the Cities of Asia Minor and the Balkans these installations of people also aimed to control, expel and alter the composition of the previously solid Christian populations in the conquered land.

and their establishment in it, the Ottomans had devised a pioneering system of peaceful penetration by disciplined and fanatical members of the dervish order. These dervishes, the advance party of the Turkish conquests from central Asia Minor towards the Balkans, built their prayer-houses (tekes) in the foothills of mountains and often raised families and founded villages of the same name around the limits of their tekes.89

As a more effective method, the Turks employed the system of moving homogeneous population groups to strengthen territories that were short of labour. These transfers of Turkoman but also of subjugated Christian populations, were made even from remote regions. Thus is explained the appearance, from Ottoman times, of Slavs in areas of eastern and western Macedonia, the populations of which had abandoned their lands during the invasion. Indeed, Barkan considers it perfectly natural for a state, with a particular perception of its rights, to impose mass emigration on its subjects whenever it deemed this necessary.84

Soon after their conquest, the Ottoman Turks began establishing relations with the subjugated people, modelled on nomadic organization. According to Apostolos Vakalopoulos: “they tried to transfer their nomadic experience to their relations with the subjugated rural and urban populations, that is, they attempted to handle the populations they conquered like herds90 and to transform themselves into shepherds of men”.91

In particular, there is reference to transfer of nomads in 1385, in the reigns of Murad I and his son Bayezid, from the Saruhan in Magnesia (Manisa) and their settlement in the Serres Plain and the Axios Valley. For certain populations the compulsory migration was a penalty for violating the salt monopoly regulations imposed by Sultan Yildirim Bayezid. The sultan dispatched his son Ertugrul to oversee the move of the Saruhan transhumance pastoralists, who had their winter quarters in Menemene, and their resettlement on the plains of Philippoupolis.85 It was from that time that Yuruk nomads, organized on military lines,86 settled in many parts of Macedonia, such as Yenitsa, Chrysoupolis on the Nestos, the plain of Komotini, Langadas, Naousa, Kozani, Alexandroupolis (Dedeagaç) and Rhodopi. The Ottomans also resettled populations in the plain of Zagora, in the northern Balkans, at Skopje, Monastiri, Küstendil, Petritsi, Meleniko, as well as at Pharsala, Servia, Florina and Stromnitsa. In order to consolidate their possessions, the Ottoman administration imposed, apart from the planned and forced population movements, controls on the independent movement of individuals or groups from the countryside to the cities.87

The situation in the Balkans after the Ottoman conquest After the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans, a large number of fortresses and cities lost their importance, because they lost their strategic significance as routes of communication changed. Many Balkan regions, especially the lowlands, were deserted and their populations carried off into captivity. The rich plains had been colonized by Turks. One hundred and fourteen cities are recorded in various Ottoman censuses for the southern and eastern regions of the Balkans in the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century. The number of cities in the various regions were as follows: 34 of Adrianople, 9 of Vizye, 9 of Silistria, 11 of Nikopolis (which included all of North Bulgaria), 3 of Vidinion, 9 of Küstendil, 7 of Sofia and 7 of Cirmen. In Euboea (Agroboz), which included a part of Attica, there were 9 cities, in the region of Trikala 8 and in the Morea 8.92

Chalkokondyles describes Turkish colonization in the time of Murad I and Bayezid I: “… and now you could see scattered over many parts of Europe great hordes of Scythians. And under Amurad, their chief, they settled in Macedonia around Therme, in the land around the Axios river; Amurad also led a large horde of Turks to the place and they settled there. And the plain of Zagora, as it was called, was settled by Amurad, and the territory of Philippoupolis. However, the Chersonese, which is on the Hellespont, was settled previously by his brother Suleiman. Thessaly and the region around Skopje and the land of the Triballoi from Philippoupolis to the Haemus and the city called Sofia, Bayezid plundered the country of the Illyrians and Triballoi”.88

The frequent waves of Islamization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries forced the Balkan Christians who had survived in the cities to seek refuge in inaccessible mountains, where they founded new settlements. Thus, most of the Balkan cities became Turkish.93 There are references to the utter destruction of many flourishing cities and fortified settlements in Albania. According to Z. Shkodra “the cities of Skodra, Alessio, Kroya, Dyrrachion, Verati, Avlon, Argyrokastro and others were either destroyed and no longer habitable, or were turned into villages or fortresses in which Turkish garrisons were installed”.94 With the cessation of hostilities, the consolidation of the conquest and the large scale Islamization of the Albanians, a rebirth of the cities commenced; only now the Albanian element was dominant once more.95

The Ottoman Turks settled in sparsely populated areas of the Byzantine Empire’s rich timars. After 1430 the vilayet of Thessaloniki comprised certain ziamets, Yuruk villages, various mülks, and the large vakuf of the Gazi Evren Bey. Land was also given to Turkish spahis. Monastic property was considered as vakif and was protected. The inhabitants who were forced to stay became serfs to Muslim landowners, first Turks and then Albanians, and were gradually Islamized, such as the Valaades of the villages of Voiou and the province of Anaselitsa.

The situation that emerged in Asia Minor and the Balkans, on the territory of the once powerful Byzantine Empire, after the attacks and invasions of the Turkish hordes, has been described on the basis of information in Byzantine texts and historical testimonies. Byzantium, exhausted by interminable civil wars, dynastic rivalries, the Catalan and Alan threat, and attacks from East

In order to prepare and facilitate the conquest of the land 281

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos and West, in a state of penury and with few economic resources, due to its shrinking territory, witnessed the destruction of its great historical urban centres in Asia and the Balkans, as well as the massacres and enslavement of the Roman populations – by now a Greek people – a large part of whom became renegades to Islam. The compulsory tribute of children, the Islamization of the flower of the subject Christian population and the strengthening of the sultan’s forces with new manpower immediately followed the first invasions.

d’Umur pacha’, Paris 1957, 10. 10 Ahrweiler, “Smyrne”, op. cit., 7, 8, 40–42. 11 Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354 (introduction, translation and notes by S. Siafakas), Athens 1990, 121 (in Greek). 12 Chronicle, vol. II (Carolus de Boor), Stuttgart 1978, 628, 735 (in Greek). 13 Great Greek Encyclopaedia, vol. 13, “Caesarea” (in Greek). 14 Leon the Deacon, Of History, (Books X), Bonn, 70ff (in Greek). 15 Ibn Battuta, Travels, op. cit., 106, 113. 16 Benjamin of Tudela, The Book of Travels (in Europe, Asia and Africa 1159– 1173) (introduction and commentary by K. Megalommatis and A. Savvides), Athens 1994, 68 (in Greek). 17 Ibn Battuta, Travels, op. cit.,107, 111, 116, 117. 18 Great Greek Encyclopaedia, vol. 6, “Attaleia” (in Greek). 19 Great Greek Encyclopaedia, vol. 1, “Adana” (in Greek). 20 Books of History, vol. X, Bonn II, 52, 9 (in Greek). 21 S. Vryonis, “Southern Asian cities which were destroyed by the Turkish (Turkoman) invasions and settlements (11th-13th century)”, in History of the Greek Nation, vol. 8, 1980, 319 (in Greek). 22 S. Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Islamization Process (11th-15th century), Athens 1986, 131 (in Greek). 23 Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, book IV, op. cit., 311: “… for the forces, which were many and admirable, were overwhelmed by the Westerners and little by little reduced in numbers, and those who lived towards the east faced such great danger that those setting forth from the city on foot could not go even to Pontic Herakleia” see Ostrogorsky, Histoire, op. cit., 513–514. Precious information on the situation in Asia Minor after the 11th century is presented in Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism, op. cit., 38, 62, 120, 354, 355, 394ff. 24 Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, book IV, op. cit., 310, 311: “for that reason the Meander was abandoned not only by the people in most of the cities, but also by these monks … and so, bit by bit, the Meander was deserted ...” see also D. Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête des peuples balkaniques par les Turcs », Byzantinoslavica XVIII (2), 1956, 223. 25 Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, op. cit., 311. 26 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 223. 27 Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, book I, op. cit., 504–505. 28 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 224. 29 Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, book VI, op. cit., 469, describes the events with accuracy: “… and Emperor Andronikos, on passing through the region of the Meander, saw also a very great city, Tralleis. He was taken with the delights of the place and was minded to rebuild it once more, for it had been destroyed, and [he impelled] those who had fled along with many others to settle there, and to give the city his own name, so that in the future it was not called Tralleis, but Andronikopolis or again Palaiologopolis. And thus he saw to it in great haste, and having appointed the grand domesticus, he gave orders that it be rebuilt as quickly as possible” . 30 Nikephoros Gregoras, Roman History, Bonn, V, 5 (142) (in Greek): “but not four whole years had yet passed after the rebuilding, and since the Turks encircled them and besieged them for a long time, those within, who had not perished from thirst and hunger, were forced to surrender to the foe. 31 Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, book III, op. cit., 222–223. 32 Ibid., book IV, 314, 325, 326, 589. 33 Ibid., book II, 327–336. 34 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 226. 35 I. Chasiotis, “Hellenism in the first two centuries after the Fall”, in History of the Greek Nation, vol. X, 1974, 12–13 (in Greek). 36 Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism, op. cit., 126, 127. 37 Ibid., 368. 38 See Legrand, Lettres de l’empereur Manuel Paléologue, Amsterdam, 1962, pp. 22–23. 39 Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism, op. cit., 368. 40 Nikephoros Gregoras, Roman History, IX, 13 (p. 458): “In this period the barbarians captured Nicaea, the famous great city, after besieging it for a long time, by hunger and assault; and from it many of the sacred icons and books, and the relics of holy women, after taking them to Byzantium, they exchanged for money. And now without fear, because they had established themselves on the shores of Bithynia, the barbarians imposed very heavy taxes on all the small cities that remained, which they had not totally destroyed with all their inhabitants, which they could have done in a very short space of time. But they did not fail to make frequent raids and they always took captive most of the poor wretches on land and on sea.” 41 F. Milkosich-Ioseph Muller, Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi, vol. I, Vindobonnae 1860, LXXXII, (183, 197). 42 Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, book V, op. cit., 388–389 : “… In the

The Fall of Constantinople and of Trebizond set their seal on the period, but they were only the last act of the drama whose first act should be placed many centuries earlier. According to I.T. Pamboukis, the moral ease with which the conquest of the urban centres was accepted was the product of the enormous distress and desperation that the inhabitants had suffered from earlier times and which resulted from many causes.96 The countryside had succumbed to the systematic propaganda from the co-ordinated Bektaş Dervish centres formed around the tekes, which were to be found at key sites in the countryside from the late fourteenth century. In many cases the conversions to Islam occurred voluntarily and in waves. It is to those systematic and sometimes voluntary Islamizations, which took place during the Ottoman Occupation, especially in Asia Minor, that the demise of Anatolian Hellenism is due. However, despite these persecutions the Christian serfs (reâyâs) managed to survive and to preserve their language and traditions, with the assistance of the Orthodox Church. With the new privileges which Mohamed the Conqueror had granted it, the Church had acquired wider powers over the entire Christian flock, both in the Balkans and in Asia Minor centres where the Greek presence lingered on. The Church struggled to preserve the Greek language and literature. At the same time, the various guilds of craftsmen, together with the local councils of elders, played a major role in the preservation and survival of the Nation. Indeed, in the coming centuries, in certain Greek urban centres of Thessaly, Macedonia and Epirus there was a renaissance of crafts and local production, hesitantly to begin with, more openly later on, especially following the treaties the Sublime Porte was forced to sign with the Central European Powers, which benefited the subjugated peoples.

Notes S. Vryonis, “Asia Minor”, in History of the Greek Nation, vol, 8, Athens, 1979, 348–351 (in Greek). 2 G. Georgiadou-Arnaki, The First Ottomans (Texte und Forschungen zur Byzantinisch-Neugriechischen Philologie 41, Appendix of the ByzantinischNeugriechischen Jahrbüchern), Athens, 1947, and I.T. Pamboukis, “Digenes Kioroglu”, in Scholarly Annual of Byzantine Studies, vol. XVIII, Athens 1949, 315 (in Greek). 3 Anna Komnene, Alexiad, vol. III (Leib), 23 (in Greek), and H. Ahrweiler, “Smyrne”, in Travaux et Mémoires, vol. I, Paris 1965, 5. 4 G. Ostrogorsky, Histoire de l’Etat byzantin, Paris 1956, 500, 501. 5 Georgios Pachymeres, Michael Palaiologos, (De Michaele Palaeologo et Androniko Palaeologo), book V, Bonn, 346 (in Greek). 6 P. Wittek, La formation de l’empire ottoman, London 1982, 299. 7 Georgios Acropolites, Chronicle Text 41, 69, 70 (in Greek). 8 Great Greek Encyclopaedia, vol. 23, “Turkey” (in Greek). 9 P. Lemerle, L’émirat d’Aydin. Byzance et l’Occident : Recherches sur ‘Le geste 1

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The Effects of the Turkish Conquest on the Cities of Asia Minor and the Balkans economic and Demographic Development, vol. I, 1986, 42 (in Greek). 69 Laonikos Chalkokondyles, Proof of Histories, Bonn 1893, 347 (in Greek). 70 Critobuli Imbriotae historiae, III, 9(1) (127–128). 71 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 239. 72 Paris, 1892, 168–170; see Angelov, “Certains aspects”, op. cit., 340ff. 73 Chasiotis, “Hellenism”, op. cit., 12–13. 74 Todorov, The Balkan City, op. cit., 51. 75 Ibid., 53, 54, 94. 76 I think that Yeni Bazar was located here and not near Lake Tachinos, that is in modern Neochori, as Angelov assumes in “Certains aspects”, op. cit., 264. 77 N.K. Moutsopoulos, “Historical sketch of Komotini”, in Thracian Annual, vol. 7, Komotini, 1987–1990, 170–199 (in Greek), and Demetriades, Central and Western Macedonia, op. cit., 62. 78 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 264. 79 Todorov, The Balkan City, op. cit., 49, 51. 80 Demetriades, Central and Western Macedonia, op. cit., 31,36. 81 Moutsopoulos, Traditional Architecture, op. cit., 21. 82 Vakalopoulos, “The situation of the Greeks”, op. cit., 26. 83 Ö.L. Barkan, “Le déportation comme méthode de peuplement et de colonisation dans l’empire ottoman”, Revue de la Faculté des Sciences Economiques de l’Université d’Istanbul 11 (1–4), 1949–1950, 87. 84 Ibid., 103: “On comprend aisément qu’un État qui avait une telle conception de ses droits et obligations ait pu demander à ses sujets de se déplacer en masse quand il estimait nécessaire”. 85 Ibid., 110. 86 A.E. Vakalopoulos, History of Modern Hellenism, vol. I. Its beginnings and formation, Thessaloniki 1961, 18–115, 204–221 (in Greek), and vol. II. Ottoman Rule 1453–1669, Thessaloniki 1964, chapter entitled “The position of the Christian reâyâs, particularly of the arable farmers, in the Ottoman-held Greek lands” (9–43) (in Greek). 87 D.N. Karydis and M. Kiel, “Sanjak of Euripos, 15th-16th century: Conditions and characteristics of the developmental process of cities and villages”, Quarterlies 28–29, 1985, 1897–1898: “One category of factors included the obligatory and expedient population movements carried out by the Ottoman administration, another category included the possibility of population movements from the countryside to other cities, subject to certain terms and conditions” (in Greek). 88 Chalkokondyles, Proof of Histories, op. cit., 100–101. 89 Ö.L. Barkan, “Les fondations pieuses comme méthode de peuplement et de colonisation: Les derviches colonisateurs de l’époque des invasions et des couvents (Zaviye)”, 59ff. 90 Herd: reâyâ, from which rayas is derived. 91 Vakalopoulos, History, op. cit., vol. II, 26. 92 N. Todorov, “Sur certains aspects des villes balkaniques au cours des XVeXVIe siècles”, in Actes du XIIe Congrès International d’Etudes Byzantines (Ochride, 10–16 septembre 1961), vol. II, Belgrade 1964, 223–225. 93 Todorov, The Balkan City, op. cit., 39. 94 Shkodra, “Nouvelles données”, op. cit., 15–24. 95 Todorov, The Balkan City, op. cit.,42. 96 Pamboukis, “Digenes Kioroglu”, op. cit., 316.

East the situation was always difficult and grew worse, so that every day worse and more alarming messages reached the emperor. What was of concern to us we saw with our own eyes and learned from those who had witnessed and indeed suffered them, if any escaped from the evil, we heard them recount their sufferings, and this was the only channel between us and the enemy, who invaded all the territories and the churches and the beautiful monasteries, and destroyed some of the fortresses, and set fire to the finest, and lived with daily murders and abductions that were most atrocious and such as had never been heard of before. And for the upper parts of Bithynia and Mysia and Phrygia and Lydia and lauded Asia, except for the small cities, and only these, the end came … and there was no possibility of resisting nor of gathering armies. Because the Roman forces not only had been weakened, but were without supplies, and leaving the East they fled speedily to the West, caring only to save their lives. And it was not possible to install others in the places we have mentioned.” According to him also, p. 344: “… not only on land and on sea. For further in front pirates, having seized the island of Tenedos, kept it for themselves and used it as a base, and sailing out of it they performed many terrible deeds and then returned to it. But then, as they wished, and being free of fear so long as the Persian ships were being built inland, they pounced on the Cyclades and caused them much harm, and with their ships they attacked Chios once, and once Samos and Karpathos and Rhodes itself, and along with these not a few other islands, and those that had previously been inhabited they almost laid waste.” 43 Nikephoros Gregoras, Roman History, I op. cit. (458). 44 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 226. 45 Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354 (translated and edited by H.A.R. Gibb), London, 49, and G. Arnakis, “The travels of Ibn Battuta in Asia Minor and the condition of the Greek and Turkish populations in the fourteenth century”, in Annual of Byzantine Studies 22, 1952, 135–149 (in Greek). 46 Arnakis, “The travels of Ibn Battuta”, op. cit., 138–140. 47 See Angelov, “Certain aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 227. 48 Ibn Battuta, Travels, op. cit., 135: “… We went on next to Barghama which is in ruins but has a strong fortress on the summit of a hill”. 49 Ibn Battuta, Travels, op. cit., 136, and G. Arnakis, “The travels”, op. cit., 147. 50 Miklosich – Muller, Acta, op. cit., 143. 51 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”,op. cit., 227, 228. 52 A. Vakalopoulos, “The situation of the Greeks and their ordeals under the Turks” in History of the Greek Nation, vol. 10, Athens 1974, 74 (in Greek). 53 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 233. 54 Nikephoros Gregoras, Roman History, XIII, 12 op. cit., (683): “In this year a dearth of grain affected both the Byzantine and most of the Roman cities of Thrace. Because although the Roman were embroiled in civil wars, the Turks from Asia were fearlessly making frequent raids with monoremes and triremes and were disembarking in Thrace, and indeed in a season when the wheat wa ripening, and they not only burnt the fields and stole the animals, but also took the men and women as captives, wreaking all manner of evil”. 55 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 233. 56 N.K. Moutsopoulos, Traditional Macedonian Architecture 15th-19th Century, Thessaloniki 1993, 13 (in Greek). 57 Ostrogorsky, Histoire, op. cit., 558. 58 Moutsopoulos, Traditional Architecture, op. cit., 14. 59 E. Oberhummer, Die turken und das osmanische Reich, Berlin 1917; H. Gibbons, The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, Oxford 1916; G. Arnakis, The First Ottomans, Athens 1947 (in Greek); and Ostrogorsky, Histoire op. cit.,. 60 I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “La conquête d’ Adrianople par les Turcs: La pénétration turque en Thrace et la valeur des Chroniques Ottomanes”, in Travaux et Mémoires, vol. I. Paris 1965, 458 (and 439–461 in general). 61 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 233, 234. 62 V. Demetriades, Central and Western Macedonia according to Evliya Çelebi, Thessaloniki 1973, 22, 25–27 (in Greek). 63 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit., 234, 237. 64 Sphrantzes, Chronicle, Bonn 1838, 83 (in Greek). See Angelov, “Certains aspects”, op. cit., 238. 65 Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête”, op. cit.,238. 66 Critobuli Imbriotae historiae, in Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae, vol. XXII (Diether Roderich Reinsch), Berolini 1933, II, 8, 4, 7(1)(98, 108). 67 Ibid., 16 (136, 137, 196, 197). 68 Z. Shkodra, “Nouvelles données sur la législation des esnafs en Albanie pendant les siècles XVI-XIX”, in Conférence des études albanologiques de l’Université d’Etat de Tirana, Tirana 1962, 15–24, and Angelov, “Certains aspects”, 238; see N. Todorov, The Balkan City 15th-19th Century: Socio-

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CHAPTER 24

Cities and Villages in the Early Ottoman Period Dimitrios N. Karydis Professor of the History of the City National Technical University of Athens

The period of Ottoman rule in Greece is still obscure in many respects, in spite of its long duration and its decisive importance for shaping preconditions for development after the nineteenth century. Its fateful identification with a period of bondage and subjugation, the chauvinistic tone of the national historiographies of the Balkan states after their independence, the inaccessibility (or ignorance) of reliable sources for historical research, as well as, perhaps, the conjunctures of political correlations in the wider Balkan region, were factors responsible for this obfuscation.1 Nevertheless, as we hope will become clear in due course, modern historical research on the formation and the evolution of the built environment during this period can contribute decisively to creating a new field for appraising the historical development as a whole.

development of cities, towns and villages, and, finally, on the particular formative characteristics of a space that remained dark or distorted for a long time, due to ignorance or to imaginary narratives.4 Extensive use will be made here of data from these research sources, some of which are published for the first time.5 Emphasis will be given to sectors of social and economic history.

The framework of Ottoman feudal authority Ottoman domination of the Balkans in the fifteenth century followed a turbulent period of civil strife in Byzantium and violent conflict between city-states of the West and peoples of the East, during which the productive space of the countryside and the built environment of the cities suffered severe blows.6 Thus, this domination shaped totally new conditions for the development of cities, towns and villages. The new political reality was determined not only by the political unification of the former Byzantine-Frankish provinces, but also by certain features of the Ottoman feudal system of production, which had a positive effect in this direction.7 These were features related to the land-tenure system (the sultan owned the land, controlled the surplus product, part of which was granted to officials in return for military service and strict determination of the direct taxation of the producers), and to the commercial nature of production (combined with payment of taxes and of tithes in cash, which was widespread from early on).

The timeframe of the present chapter is the first two centuries of Ottoman Occupation, from the mid-fifteenth to the midseventeenth century. The end of this first period of Ottoman rule was marked by a series of changes inside the Ottoman Empire (mainly in the administrative system and the terms of land tenure) and by the impact of extraneous factors on previous changes, primarily the strong Western European economic infiltration, with France in the leading role. This text cannot cover the whole of the built environment in Greece, not only because this space exhibits an undeniable polymorphism and particularity (with principal differentiations between insular (fig. 1) and coastal/mainland-mountainous), nor because the conditions of Byzantine feudal disintegration and Frankish domination prevailing in the period prior to the Ottoman conquest determined substantial differentiations from region to region, but mainly because we consider it pertinent to refer only to settlements for which we have reliable research sources. As far as these sources are concerned: in the same way as Seraphim Maximos, over fifty years ago, opened up new vistas of research in the social and economic history of Greek lands during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, by showing the importance of the French archival sources,3 so it is possible today to draw reliable information about conditions in Greece during the Early Ottoman period from another set of archival sources, the Ottoman ones. Extremely detailed reports on population, taxation and production, with data recorded at regular intervals, as well as other observations of use to historical-geographical research, allow us to draw conclusions on population-demographic changes, on the

By the early sixteenth century an advanced form of division of labour already existed in the countryside and greater opportunities for trading agricultural products and handicrafts in urban markets emerged. And, although the Ottoman ruling class based its military and political power on the structure of the agricultural economy, the income this class earned from the cities was almost twice that earned from the countryside.8 In other words, it could be claimed that Ottoman feudalism fertilized the urban centres. This process was accompanied by the practice of settling populations from elsewhere, which was, up to a point, responsible for transforming the ethnicreligious composition of these centres.9 However, impressive as the presence of the city may have been in the reorganization of geographical units, the presence of the rural village, the small settlement unit with few households, was equally important in 285

Dimitrios N. Karydis

1. Mykonos. View of the town from an unpublished portolan by Chevalier de Constantin, 1685 (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, F. Fr., 14.682, 23).

a.

b.

c.

2. Demographic development of the nahiye of Kastritsa, 1425–1570. a. The state of the region in 1425. b. The state of the region in 1520. c. The state of the region in 1570. The numerical scale, bottom left, shows the number of households. Muslim households are marked by a black dot, Christian ones by a white circle and Jewish ones by a circle and arrow (after M. Kiel, Die Kultur Griechenlands, 1996, 192–195).

this process. The desolation and desertion of large, fertile plains, characteristic of Byzantine feudal decomposition and Frankish rule, gave way to a regionally balanced cultivation of every tract of land. Isolated fortified settlements were succeeded by networks of settlements, in which there was a strict hierarchy between city and countryside (fig. 2: a, b and c).

dynamically in the productive process, as were the section of the Muslim population that was not part of the ruling class and the smaller groups of Jews, Armenians and others. This incorporation was assisted effectively by the existing millet system, that is, the formation of communities of individuals who shared religious beliefs. This system guaranteed the spiritual and cultural existence of the various social groups (given that the heads of the millets acted as guarantors of the loyalty of the subservient population, vis-à-vis the Ottoman administration) as well as the tax payments of the subject productive population (reâyâs).10

The built environment was gradually restructured, thus corresponding to a hierarchical urban network based, on the one hand, on strictly defined geographical-administrative units and, on the other, on a broad communication network and on transcending the close exchange relations between city and countryside of the previous period (fig. 3). Within the above framework, the indigenous Christian population, often under the guidance and protection of the Church, was incorporated

However, this by no means paints an idyllic and, above all, stable picture of development and prosperity. Despite the relative improvement of the material conditions of the subject 286

Cities and Villages in the Early Ottoman Period

3. Athens, plan drawn by Capuchin monks, circa 1670 (after Comte de Laborde, Athènes aux XVe, XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Paris 1854, vol. I, 78). 4. Thessaloniki. The ethnic-religious formation of the city, 1478 (after H. Lowry, “Portrait of a city”, 1980–1981, 278).

Christians during the early period of Ottoman rule, as far as the preceding terms of feudal exploitation are concerned, they were still exposed to conditions of compulsion and vassalage. These conditions became more severe, to the point that, gradually, after the mid-sixteenth century, the centrifugal forces leading to the distancing of the higher Ottoman officials from the sultan’s control and tutelage were strengthened. This left the field free for levying extra taxes, which became ever more necessary due to the frequent military operations, and for tightening non-economic means of coercion.

to the devaluation of the silver currency (akçe). These internal and external factors gradually altered the terms and conditions of the development of cities, towns and villages.12 The tendency for commercial profiteering and the negative effects of poor harvests and epidemics drove producers into debt, the repayment of which passed through the usurious movement of capital funds appropriated by the ruling feudal class. Debts meant the loss of cultivation rights and the increase in the number of unpaid compulsory labour days. Under the pressure of land scarcity and excessive taxes, the formerly “independent” farmer of the fertile plain turned himself into a settler in the barren mountainous regions or ended up in the cities, swelling their parasitic populations. The closed economy of the village community was thus confronted with the commercial nature of the economy of large mercantile-manufacturing centres. Cities were by now growing at the expense of the countryside and large urban centres at the expense of the smaller towns. The world of the village and the world of the city gradually became two entities, which ceased to be complementary.

Over time, conditions worsened for wider strata of the productive population. The intensification of feudal exploitation is detected through the action of internal and external factors. Internal factors were the restrictive practices of urban guilds,11 the indifference of the Ottoman feudal class to the basic parameters of agricultural production (introduction of new crops and improvement of cultivation methods), and the change in land tenure conditions with the move from the timar to the çiflik system. External factors were the colonial type of trade prescribed by Western European economic infiltration, and the import of cheap silver from Spain, which contributed 1455

1466

1478

1500

Athens

1520 2,116 (0.5)

Livadia

217 (25)

427 (22)

Thebes

487 (-)

1,524 (4.6)

Atalanti

248 (-)

471 (7.8)

Lamia

514(24)

583 (22)

Chalkis Larisa Thessaloniki Kavala Mytilene

1540

527 (38)

1570

1601

598 (26)

752 (28) 1,497 (8.1)

501 (8.4)

685 (7.6) 739 (25)

468 (-)

533 (-) 596 (78)

4,157 (-)

87 (14)

47 (34)

1643

3,208 (1.8)

421 (84) 2,137 (41)

1613

5,904 (23)

4,465 (17)

1,592 (77) 3,684 (27)

208 (54) 763 (40)

627 (59)

1,019 (41)

1,194 (40)

Table 1. Population development in certain cities, indicated in number of households, during the period 1455–1643. Each household is estimated to number 4–5 individuals. The percentage of the Muslim population is given in parenthesis (after D.N. Karydis and M. Kiel, “Sanjak of Euripos”, Tetramina 28–29, 1985, 1, 859–1903 (in Greek); H. Lowry, “Portrait of a city”, 1980–1981; and M. Kiel and F. Sauerwein, Ost-Lokris, 1994).

287

Dimitrios N. Karydis

5. The region of Lamia with the villages of Chart 1, geomorphological map (after D.N. Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki, 1994, 95–97 (in Greek)).

6. The region of Livadia with the villages of Chart 2, geomorphological map (after D.N. Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki, 1994, 95–97).

inhabitants of Athens in 1570 placed it in the category of large cities of that period. In 1478, almost half a century after its fall, Thessaloniki had about 11,000 inhabitants. This number had almost doubled by the early sixteenth century, reaching around 30,000 by the beginning of the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520). In the capital of the island of Lesbos, the 2,000–2,300 inhabitants at the end of the Frankish period of the Gatelusi (1462) grew to 3,500 in 1521 and 4,500 at the end of the sixteenth century. As regards the ethnic-religious composition of this population (and the change of this composition) in the above periods, the same sources record an overwhelming presence of Christians (around 80–90%), with the exception, of large administrative, political-military centres, such as Chalkis, Trikala, Larisa, Thessaloniki and, later, Rhodes, where the situation was different (fig. 4). It is worth noting that this ethnic-religious composition in the total population of wider geographical units (sanjaks) closely follows the previous ratios.15 The factors that dictated population and demographic changes in cities will be discussed below.

Chart 1. Population development in the villages of the kaza of Lamia (Zetouni), 1466–1570 (after D.N. Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki, 1994, 75).

The development of cities and villages The Ottoman archives provide clear and credible evidence of population and demographic changes in the cities, towns and villages of Greece in the early period of Ottoman rule. Thus, it can be deduced from these sources that, already by the period 1450–1520, population growth in many cities was striking, with continuously upward trends during the following decades. In fact, during the first century of Ottoman rule, the average annual population-growth rate in South Balkan cities, kept pace with corresponding rates in Central Balkan cities.13 The same rates for the sixteenth century are also compatible with the overall growth rates which Fernand Braudel recorded in cities and towns of the Mediterranean basin.14 Table 1 is indicative of these numbers. The approximately 17,000

Observations on the population of the villages in the agricultural hinterland are of interest not only because they complete the picture of population composition and change, but also because by formulating the relation between urban and rural population in specific geographical units, we are able to approach an important aspect of the relation between city and countryside within the framework of the Ottoman feudal system. From the unity of the city and its associated villages emanated the mechanisms of socio-economic transaction. The agricultural hinterland produced the surplus, part of which was appropriated by members of the dominant feudal class, while another part was left for the producer and found its 288

Cities and Villages in the Early Ottoman Period were those relating to each region’s productive potential for staple crops (such as wheat) and to population movements from one geographical region to another. Regarding this latter factor, Lesbos is a case in point; whereas in 1548 there were 94 villages in the kaza of Mytilene (as recorded in the relevant register), the number fell to 44 in 1671 and to 38 in 1709. Nonetheless, the total population rose from 3,442 households at the beginning of this period to 6,385 at the end – which fact suggests an increase in the population density of certain villages and the abandonment of other sites. On the same island, the 28 villages entered in the 1521 register for the kaza of Eressos fell to 10 in 1644, while a similar reduction is recorded in the kaza of Kalloni. In these two cases it appears that important population movements took place between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century, from the central and western parts of the island eastwards, but also a small movement of Muslims toward these parts from regions of Anatolia. In several cases, similar population movements, even between cities, were compulsory – result of an Ottoman administrative practice called sürgün, which did not, of course, concern only Muslims.17 For example, Mohamed II is known to have moved by force Christians from Trebizond (captured in 1461), Jews from Thessaloniki (captured in 1430) and Muslims from Anatolia to Constantinople, just as he moved Muslims from Constantinople to Thessaloniki and Trebizond, thus altering the purely Christian composition of their population.18 The opposite of what we observed on Lesbos took place on Euboea: the 122 villages of 1473 (with a population of about 24,000), rose to 171 in 1506 (population 41,000) and to 229 in 1570 (population 65,000).19

Chart 2. Population development in the villages of the kaza of Livadia, 1466–1570 (after D.N. Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki, 1994, 74).

way to the city market. The commercialization of the surplus in the market, on the one hand provided the necessary money for tax payments, and on the other promoted the exchange of agricultural products from the countryside for manufactured goods from the city. The measure of this exchange relation was the degree of the division of labour between farming and cottage-craft industrial activities. For example, between 1466 and 1570 in four kazas (geographical units that were smaller than the sanjak and contained one major city and its associated villages) in Central Greece, those of Amphissa, Atalanti, Thebes and Lamia (fig. 5 and chart 1), the proportion of the population living in the city fell in relation to the total population of the kaza, whereas the respective proportion of the population in the countryside rose. In this particular period, this phenomenon signifies the transition from a situation in which negative factors, such as military operations, intensified feudal exploitation, and the insecurity of the productive population, all contributing to the weakening of the hinterland, to a situation more favourable to the development of the agricultural economy. Thus, again between 1466 and 1570, the population in most villages doubled or even trebled, while there were also cases of villages that appeared for the first time in Ottoman records from the sixteenth century, with the comment “where there was formerly an uninhabited area of arable land”. Favourable conditions for the development of villages were determined by other factors too, as in the case of villages in specific locations along traffic routes (dervenochoria), and came under a specially favourable taxation regime (fig. 6 and chart 2).16

Particularly indicative regarding the relation of population magnitudes to production data is the case of eastern Lokris.20 The annual yield of grain in this region21 corresponded to 2,322 kg. per household in 1506, a far larger quantity than the 1,500 kg. per household that was considered to be the yearly subsistence minimum.22 In 1540, although the number of households rose, grain production fell to 1,126 kg. per household, but a substantial increase is noted in the yields of cotton and of animal products – both safety-valves for extra income in difficult times.23 Thirty years later, in 1570, grain production per household was improved (reaching 1,215 kg.), while production indices of other goods were satisfactory too and there was a notable increase in the number of mills.24 However, whatever benefits may have accrued from the improvement in the relevant magnitudes of production were apparently absorbed by the population growth. So, in the mid-sixteenth century, this region maintained an unstable equilibrium between population, land fertility and general production conditions (land-tenure terms, cultivation techniques). The factor that disrupted this equilibrium a little later was taxation: the increase in the head tax and extraordinary taxes established a generally negative growth framework, which was also characterized by population-demographic stagnation and decline. The overall picture of productive activity in this region of eastern Lokris is given in table 2.

Many factors determined the number of villages in a geographical entity, as well as the population magnitudes and their changes through time, in the rural hinterland. The most important

Summarizing what has been said about cities and villages, we should note that although the positive magnitudes of population changes in cities, from the mid-fifteenth to the 289

Dimitrios N. Karydis

a.

b. 7. Monastery of the Pammegistoi Taxiarchai “Leimonas” on Lesbos, 1520. a. Part of the cell wing. b. The cellar (photo. D.N. Karydis).

mid-sixteenth century, do not of themselves obviously suggest a developmental impetus, when examined together with data for the countryside they acquire another dimension. During a period when natural population growth (excess of births over deaths) could not have had a primary role (bearing in mind the frequency of epidemics), we must have recourse to other factors of mechanical growth, such as the conditions of the division of labour between city and countryside: an evolving productive activity in the countryside, to the extent that it was followed by operational specialization, could be transferred to the activities of the city, attracting to it the corresponding productive population. At the same time, the practice of compulsory movements of population, combined with administrative and fiscal factors (which applied to cases of deserting cultivated lands), safeguarded both the population and the economy of the countryside.

example of the situation in the agricultural hinterland of Livadia. According to the register of 1466, it was the second largest village, after Tavla (anc. Dauleia), in the kaza of Livadia. The 119 households of this kaza in 1466 grew to 289 in 1570. The rather infertile surrounding lands were not adequate for the satisfactory production of grain. In 1570, after subtracting the tithe and the seed for sowing, the producer was left with just 960 kg. of wheat and barley – a substantially lower quantity than the yearly subsistence requirements of a family of five. Animal husbandry, wine-making and textile-weaving covered the difference. The 2,115 bales of cotton of 1570 indicate the importance of this crop.27 However, development in this region too was disrupted when, in the course of the seventeenth century, the head tax was doubled or even trebled and competition from Western European textiles worked against domestic production.

Livadia and its agricultural hinterland illustrate this situation well.25 An important textile industry in this city was supported by water mills for pressing felt (kebe), by exploiting the abundant, rushing waters of the River Erkynas. There were four such water-powered presses in 1466, six in 1506 and 11 in 1570 (the number of flour mills in the city, in these last two years, was two, 16 and 22). In 1506, cotton production reached 5,538 bales, a substantially larger quantity than the respective output of the whole of eastern Lokris in the same year, as we saw in Table 2. As early as 1506, silk production in Livadia reached 1,135 ledre (about 380 kg.). Rice production too enjoyed substantial growth: it is first mentioned in the register of 1506, while that of 1570 notes that 131 households in the city (half of which were Muslim) were occupied exclusively with rice-growing.26 Apart from the indigenous Christian population, the productive process was supported by the Muslim population which had been moved there from Thessaly (Muslims also strengthened the large centres of Trikala and Larisa) and by the Jewish population: no such population is recorded in the register of 1466, but that of 1520 mentions 36 Jewish households, which most probably came from Thessaloniki.

Monasteries also played an important role in the reorganization Basic Products

Year

Total Output

Total yield in akçe

Output/ household

akçe/ household

wheat

1506 1540 1570

3,130,001 kg. 2,358,129 kg. 3,059,826 kg.

688.795 517.514 874.236

1,366 kg. 831 kg. 1,000 kg.

300 182 286

barley

1506 1540 1570

1,578,660 kg. 722,218 kg. 670,516 kg.

175.788 96.032 108.850

689 kg. 272 kg. 219 kg.

77 34 35

oats

1506 1540 1570

319,270 kg. 175,743 kg. 200,200 kg.

28.502 11.237 18.200

139 kg. 62 kg. 65 kg.

12 4 6

wine

1506 1540 1570

628,390 lit. 406,522 lit. 428,610 lit.

179.540 116.140 153.077

274 lit. 143 lit. 140 lit.

78 41 50

cotton

1506 1540 1570

4,991 bales 8,661 bales 7,146 bales

24.955 43.305 42.876

2.18 bales 3 bales 2.33 bales

11 15 14

sheep

1506 1540 1570

21,388 34,396 40,024

384.984 763.312 1.120.672

9 12 13

168 269 366

1506: 65 mills or 35 households/mill 1540: 106 mills or 27 households/mill 1570: 127 mills or 24 households/mill 1506: 730 akçe total yield/household 1540: 617 akçe 1570: 854 akce 1506: 1 Venetian ducat = 40 akçe changes in the value of the 1540: 1 Venetian ducat = 55 akçe silver coin akçe 1570: 1 Venetian ducat = 60 akçe mills

Table 2. Economic development in eastern Lokris 1506–1570 (after Kiel and Sauerwein, Ost-Lokris).

The village of Kaprena (anc. Chaironeia) is a representative 290

Cities and Villages in the Early Ottoman Period

8. Athens, diagrammatic representation of the development of the city during the 15th and 16th centuries (after D.N. Karydis, Urban Issues of Athens in the Ottoman Period, 1980 (in Greek)).

9. The Medieval city of Rhodes, 1480 (The Medieval City of Rhodes and the Palace of the Grand Master (Archaeological Receipts Fund, Ministry of Culture), Athens, 1994, 88 (in Greek)).

of agricultural production in the countryside, a role that is often obscured by their religious-cultural mission. For example, in Euboea, in the area of the village of Rovies (67 households in 1474 and 135 in 1570), there was one monastery in 1490, which accumulated a total production valued at 385 akçe. By 1540 there were six monasteries, with a total production value of 4,152 akçe, which rose to 6,614 akçe in 157028. On Lesbos, near the village of Daphia, the monastery of the Pammegistoi Taxiarchai Leimonos, which was founded in 1527 by the hieromonk Ignatios, grew impressively during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, acquiring control over a huge land property which was protected by patriarchal sigils and Ottoman hodjets: the monastery’s tax payment amounted to 150 akçe in 1548 and grew to 27,475 akçe in 1709 (or 4,995 akçe at 1548 prices); in 1672, this same monastery owned 4,626 olive trees (fig. 7: a and b).29

century enabled certain towns and cities to recover some of their lost prestige of the tenth to the twelfth century. Thebes, for example, which was renowned for its silk industry in the twelfth century (as was Corinth for its glassware workshops),32 having gone through a period of economic and population decline33 during the Frankish period, began to recover in 1466, with about 2,300 inhabitants. This number rose to around 7,000 in 1540, a year in which a 361 ledre output of silk, worth 11,200 akçe, is recorded. Production in the same sector rose to 770 ledre in 1570, with a respective value of 35,000 akçe.34 And this picture of economic and demographic upturn may not be unrelated to the appearance in the sixteenth century, of a group of important iconographers, such as Frangos Katelanos and the Kontaris brothers, Georgios and Frangos, who were active over a wide geographical area, and whose art is “associated with a series of wall-paintings in monasteries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in Boeotia (monastery of Hosios Meletios), in Euboea (monastery of Galataki) and possibly in the Peloponnese”.35

In order to complete the picture of the development of cities and villages, data on the professions of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish populations should be examined. These data abound in Ottoman archival sources and constitute an additional means for understanding economic life: for example, the fact that in Thessaloniki, in 1478, 16% of the Muslim population and a large part of the Christian one were employed in the processing and trading of hides and leather is sufficiently indicative of this activity’s importance.30 Investigation of such data refutes earlier views of Greek historiography, such as the one claiming that the indigenous Christian population of the cities “fled to the mountains” after the Ottoman conquest.31 The opposite took place. Indeed, the developmental impetus in the fifteenth

As mentioned above, already by the late sixteenth century conditions had altered radically in most cities and villages. The changes in the system of administration and land tenure (expansion of the çifliks), together with the acute fiscal crisis facing the Ottoman Empire, were accompanied by a different logic of organizing the urban network and the hierarchy of settlements. A new framework of productive relations gradually took shape, through which the subject population found its way towards a political and cultural awakening. 291

Dimitrios N. Karydis

10. Residential areas in Nafplion, 1715 (after D.N. Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki, 1994, 88).

11. Restoration drawing of the kulliye complex of Faik Pasha at Arta, in 1492 (M. Kiel, “Osmanische Baudenkmaler in Sudosteuropa, in Die Staaten Sudosteuropas und die Osmanen (Sudosteuropa-Jahrbuch 19) (Sudosteuropa-Gesellschaft München and Walter Athammer), München, 76).

The changes in the built environment

other buildings gave it a new character. By contrast, smaller towns hardly experienced any such changes. This new character of cities was not indicative of any Islamization of former Byzantine urban centres – at this point we should remember the preceding socio-economic analysis.

In the context of the developmental impetus in cities and villages during the Early Ottoman period, the built environment of the troubled Late Byzantine and Frankish period was reconstituted and organized on a different basis.36 As a rule, the old Medieval walls determined the tripartite division of cities in Greece into Castro – Chora – Exechoro, a distinction that corresponded not only to separate entities of ideological (political-religious) and economic functions (trade, handicrafts-agricultural production), but also to a highly explicit social division of space.37 In many cities the walls were gradually demolished and, where the topography allowed, the urban tissue expanded substantially in the area of the exechoro (fig. 8). The varos, a word of Slav derivation, denoted precisely this spread extra muros.38 Of course, the three previous entities did not cease to exist, since the conditions of feudal organization remained, and in time they came to correspond to a new and powerful ethnic-religious separation, particularly regarding the relation of the castro to the other two entities. Thus, while the right of settlement in the castro was restricted to the political-military section of the Ottoman ruling class, there was a more organic and functional association between the other two entities.

As far as more specialized urban-planning features are concerned, parameters of the existing administrative-taxation system were of decisive significance for the process of urban development. Specifically, the distributive nature of the tax system, which applied equally to the cities and the countryside, determined the allocation and collection of taxes according to taxable population entities, within which the heads of households were co-responsible for the payment of predetermined taxes. These entities were ranked in parallel with the administrative divisions, from the wider region to the kaza, so that the smallest unit could be composed of the inhabitants of a village or a neighbourhood-mahalle in the city. Thus, the mahalle constituted the urban unit, with a church or a mosque as its reference centre. The Muslim mahalle was named after the mosque, while the Christian neighbourhoods were named after the parish priest or the church itself. For example, the register of 1478 groups the Christian population at Zichna in Macedonia into 14 neighbourhoods named after priests, in contrast to Thessaloniki where, in the same year, the Christian mahalles were named after the old Byzantine churches.41

In Ioannina, in 1431, the inhabitants had the right to settle in the castro itself and to control the cannon, and were exempted from any compulsory movement of population and from the obligatory tribute of children – these rights were lost after the unsuccessful uprising of Bishop Dionysios in the early seventeenth century.39 In Rhodes, a century after the city’s conquest, the Christians, like the Jews and Armenians, continued to live outside the walled nucleus, but were allowed to enter it in daytime (fig. 9).40

Given the importance of the community system of administration allowed by the Ottomans, the various millets (of Christians, Jews etc.), appointed in the cities “a primate from each neighbourhood to oversee civic affairs”, as mentioned for Veroia (anc. Beroea) in 1668.42 The inclusion of new residential areas within the city boundaries meant the adoption by this population of the main ideological-political and economic mechanisms. We should assume that in towns or mediumsized cities this inclusion was by optimum-size units of 50 to 80 households on average, and that within these units, as regards the origin and descent of the inhabitants, but also the

The change in the aspect and nature of built space was radical, particularly in cities where new buildings were erected in order to serve its new functions. Mosques, with tall minarets, hamams (bathhouses) with domes, medreses (Muslim seminaries), imarets (poor-houses, charitable foundations), bezestens (large pillared and domed market halls), hans (inns/hostelries) and 292

Cities and Villages in the Early Ottoman Period

13. The aqueduct of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha in Kavala, 1530 (M. Kiel, “Remarks on some Ottoman Turkish aqueducts and water supply systems in the Balkans” in Marc van Damme (ed.), Commentarii Henry Hofman Dedicati (Utrecht Turcological Series 3), Utrecht 1992, 111).

12. The bezesten in Serres (S. Curcic and E. Hatzitryphonos (eds), Secular Medieval Architecture, 1997, 290).

homogeneity of ethnic-religious categories, there existed in most cities plenty of room for the development of interpersonal relations and co-responsibility. Neighbourhoods were clearly differentiated according to ethnic-religious categories and exhibited wide variations in population size.43

1. The city centre constituted a powerful, distinct entity, functionally enriched by a multitude of public buildings, workshops and shops, which is identified as an urban-planning entity, rather than as the sum of individual constructions. As a rule, housing was absent from this entity.47

Returning to Thessaloniki, in 1478, 27 communities of Muslim incomers were attached to 10 Christian neighbourhoods. Each neighbourhood had a large population, ranging from 800 to 1,500. Neighbourhoods north of the Via Egnatia had a majority of Muslims, while the opposite was the case in neighbourhoods south of it, such as of Aghios Minas, the Acheiropoietos and the Hippodrome, where the Jews settled some years later (certainly before 1500).44

2. The network of roads connecting the city centre to its agricultural hinterland followed a hierarchy of movements, within which products entering the city and destined for the marketplace had to pass through specified points-gates of entry-control and follow a specific route to the marketplace.48 3. Certain activities, such as tanneries and other workshops, as well as seasonal markets, had a specified location in the city. It is difficult to calculate precisely housing density for cities in the Early Ottoman period, because, although reliable data on urban populations are available, we lack the real extent of their successive developmental phases, within the limits of which inhabitants who paid “urban” taxes settled. However, by taking a series of factors into account, it is reasonable to assume that this density did not exceed 100–150 inhabitants per hectare. Lower densities were more usual, around 80 inhabitants/hectare in cities such as Athens; and rarer were densities approaching 200 inhabitants per hectare in cities with topographical constraints, such as Nafplion (fig. 10).49 These numbers are comparable to respective magnitudes of contemporary cities in Central and Western Europe.50

Differentiation of residential areas by strict social division of space depended more on parameters such as size, the administrative importance and economic development of the city (which defined the breadth of class associations), than on climatic and topographic parameters. Moreover, as is well known, in pre-capitalist cities land values were determined by competition for prestigious sites – and such sites, in a society which used space and architectural expression for the symbolic representation of its power, were to be found in the commercialadministrative centre, the marketplace.45 In the process of urban development and the formation of residential areas, an important role was played by the decrees that regulated in minute detail everything to do with building activities, such as those contained in the Hexabiblos of C. Armenopoulos.46 We are thus led to the conclusion that, subject to all these factors, the development of the city was anything but “accidental” or “lacking organization”, as might be suggested by a superficial consideration of the form of the city, with its irregular narrow streets, open spaces, etc. This is made clearer by what follows on the formation of the city centre and the function of the marketplace in it.

As regards the city centre, its amenities, particularly in larger cities with many buildings for religious and secularadministrative functions, determined a strong, central, urbanplanning entity, not segmented at spatial and functional levels. The kulliye (public-benefit complexes) of Constantinople, an entire complex of medreses, imarets and hans, surrounding the large mosque and the covered markets, confirm this picture, as do similar situations in cities such as Arta, Serres and Komotini (fig. 11). Within this entity, the bazaar, or carci, which denotes the economic function of the marketplace, was expressed by three distinct spatial-temporal sub-entities: the daily, the weekly and the yearly-seasonal. The first, the daily,

Apart from the issues on the formation of residential areas, three basic principles for organizing the urban tissue can be identified: 293

Dimitrios N. Karydis Mytilene and Chorographia of Lesbos, 15th–19th centuries (Olkos), Athens 2000 (in Greek). 6 For the framework of the economic function of cities in the Late Byzantine period, see E. Francès, “La féodalité et les villes Byzantines au XIIIe et au XIVe siècle (Recherches Internationales à la lumière du Marxisme (Féodalisme à Byzance) 79(2), 1974, 107–124. 7 The notion of production system refers here to the forms of appropriation of the direct producer’s surplus and the forms of distribution of the surplus to the social groups which are socially and economically associated with him. In this perspective, the research is independent of the adherence to features of a state of Oriental-type theocratic despotism, which is allegedly to be contrasted with the “classic” European model of feudalism. For this issue, see B. Hindess and P.Q. Hirst, Precapitalist Modes of Production (Routledge and Kegan Paul), London 1975. For the more specific features of determining and collecting the feudal land levy in the Early Ottoman period, see B. Moutaftsieva, Agricultural Relations in the Ottoman Empire (15th-16th century)(Poreia), Athens 1990 (in Greek). 8 S. Asdrachas, “Aux Balkans du XV siècle”, Etudes Balkaniques 3, 1970, 51. 9 O.L. Barkan, “Les déportations comme méthode de peuplement et de colonisation dans l’empire Ottoman”, Revue de la Faculté des Sciences Economiques de l’Université d’Istanbul 11(1–4), 1953. 10 N. Pantazopoulos, Aggregrations of Greeks during the Ottoman Period, Athens 1958 (in Greek). 11 For the corporate organization of production in the classical age of the Ottoman Empire, see H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire, the Classical Age: 1300–1600, London 1973, chap. 15. See also, G. Baer, “Monopoly and the restrictive practices of Turkish guilds”, in The Economic Structure of the Balkan Countries (Melissa), Athens 1979, 575; and E. Vourazeli-Marinakou, The Greek Guilds in Thrace during the Turkish Domination (in Greek), in Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin, VII. La ville: Institution économique et sociale, Thessaloniki 1950. 12 For economic issues in cities and particularly for commercial activities, see O.L. Barkan, “Quelques observations sur l’organisation économique et sociale des villes Ottomanes des XVIe et XVIIe siècles”, (Society of Macedonian Studies), Bruxelles 1955, and T. Stoianovich, “Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant ", Journal of Economic History 20, 1960, 83–110. 13 In the first half of the 16th century, according to data for 69 cities of the central Balkans, 56.45% belonged to the category of small cities (with populations of up to 2,000 inhabitants), 39.2% to the category of medium-size cities (from 2,000 to 10,000 inhabitants) and 4.4% to the category of large cities with populations of over 10,000 – see O.L. Barkan, “Essai sur les données statistiques des registres de recensement dans l’empire Ottoman aux XVe et XVIe siècles”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 1(1), 1958, 9–36. 14 The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, vol. I (Collins), London 1972, 326ff. 15 In 1520, when Ottoman political and military domination was finally consolidated and the basic structures for exercising authority were crystallized, the Muslim population in the sanjak of Morea was just 2.1% of the total, in the sanjak of Euripos (Euboea, Attica-Boeotia, Phokis, Phthiotis) it amounted to 2%, in the sanjak of Trikala (Central Greece, Thessaly) it was 17.5%, in the sanjak of Pasha (Macedonia, Thrace) it was 26.3% and in the sanjak of Ioannina (Epirus, Thesprotia) 2%. 16 Population magnitudes of villages, like those of cities, differed substantially among various geographical regions. In the village of Chasia, of the kaza of Athens, there were 33 households in 1506 and 100 households a century later. At the village of Tavla (anc. Dauleia) in the kaza of Livadia household numbers were 150 and 366 in the respective years. A register compiled shortly after the conquest of Chalkis shows population numbers of Euboean villages in 1474: Gerontas 12 households, Aphrati 33 households, Lepoura 17 households, Avlonari 97 households (see E.Balta, L’île d’Eubée à la fin du XVe siècle (Doctoral thesis, Université de Paris-Panthéon, Sorbonne), Paris 1983). On Lesbos, in the kaza of Kalloni, one of the four kazas on the island, the village of Aghios Kosmas had 130 households in 1548 (109 Christian and 21 Muslim), while on the same island, in the kaza of Mytilene, the average village size was 37 households, which grew to 130 households in 1671 and 168 households in 1709 (data for Lesbos are from unpublished research by M. Kiel). 17 In part of the Greek and foreign bibliography, the rationale of this practice is often viewed exclusively as a policy of Islamization and alteration of the ethnicreligious constitution of the subject population. This perception ignores the intention of the Ottoman administration, at least during the first centuries of domination, to safeguard primarily the regional-planning equilibrium of the conquered lands. With respect to the nature and extent of Islamization, see N. Todorov (and A. Velkov), Situation démographique de la péninsule Balkanique,

is usually exhibited through a network of main streets, a strict division concerning the goods for sale or the crafts practised.51 The second, the weekly, defined the “meeting point” of city and countryside through the exchange of craft and agricultural products. The third, the seasonal, corresponded to the annual buying and selling deals (such as those for wheat), which were complementary to the annual fairs held at specified sites on the main commercial highways linking large urban centres.52 The presence of domed marketplaces (bezestens) in the centre of cities such as Larisa, Serres (fig. 12) and Thessaloniki, which were loci both for trading goods and for warehousing valuable commodities (silk textiles, precious stones), was directly related to the role of these cities as centres of transit trade (entrepôts), as centres of a developed domestic craft-industrial production and as centres for promoting the commercial output of a wider region.53 This last observation should be coupled with the interventions made in the early years of Ottoman rule in many places in the countryside, for the repair and maintenance of overland routes and the rebuilding of bridges and aqueducts (fig. 13), which were basic infrastructure works for the restoration of a network of “urban” centres. As an epilogue, it is worth noting that the above outline of the formation and evolution of the Greek city in the early years of Ottoman domination has two basic features: first, it is not structured on the basis of a generalization of individual empirical data, and second, it does not correspond in any way to some model of city organization. On the contrary, this outline is based on the recognition of certain structural features of urban-planning formation, which the disciplines of Social and Economic History, and Historical Geography, play a major role in identifying.

Notes Typical cases of two different approaches in modern Bulgarian historiography are the texts by D. Angelov, “Certains aspects de la conquête des peuples balkaniques par les Turks”, Byzantinoslavica XVII (2), 1956, 220– 275, and N. Todorov, Balkanskiat Grad, 15–19 vek., Sofia 1972. 2 For a systematic approach to this research field, see D.N. Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki, Discourse on the Formation and Development of Greek Cities, from the 15th to the 19th Century (Symmetria), Athens 1994, with relevant bibliography (in Greek). 3 See S. Maximos, The Dawn of Greek Capitalism: Turkish domination 1685– 1789 (Stochastis), Athens 1973 (3rd edn, 1st edn, Athens 1945) (in Greek). 4 The importance of these sources has long been pointed out in the foreign literature. See e.g. O.L. Barkan, “Research of the Ottoman fiscal surveys”, in Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, London 1970, 163–171; I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr and N. Beldiceanu, “Règlement Ottoman concernant les recensements (première moitié du XVIe siècle)”, Sudostforschungen XXXVII, 1978, 1–40; H. Lowry, The Ottoman Tahrir Defters as a Source for Urban Demographic History: The Case of Trabzon (ca 1486–1583) (Doctoral thesis, University of California), Los Angeles 1977; and J. Alexander, Toward a History of Post-Byzantine Greece: The Ottoman Kanunnames for the Greek Lands, c. 1500–1600, Athens 1985. 5 The author made a preliminary approach to published Ottoman archival material in his unpublished doctoral thesis, Urban-planning Issues of Athens in the Ottoman Period (N.T.U.A.), Athens 1980 (in Greek). This study, with its suggestions on the growth path of the city in the early years of Ottoman rule, served as a starting point for the Dutch historian M. Kiel’s search for additional data for regions of mainland Greece from unpublished sources (in the archives of Ankara and Istanbul). Fruit of this collaboration was a joint publication The Sanjak of Euripos (Tetramina 28–29), Amphissa 1985 (in Greek). My collaboration with Kiel continues and we recently published Astygraphia of 1

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Cities and Villages in the Early Ottoman Period fin du XVe début du XVIe siècle, Sofia 1988, 34–36, and S. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. I (Cambridge University Press), London (2 vols) 1977, 19. 18 See H. Lowry, “Portrait of a City”, in Diptychs of the Society of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies, Athens 1980–1981, 279. 19 See M. Kiel, “Central Greece in the Suleymanic age”, in Suleyman the Magnificent and his Time: Acts of the Parisian Conference (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 7–10 March 1990), Paris 1990, 399–424. 20 We follow the data and analysis provided by M. Kiel and F. Sauerwein, Ost-Lokris in turkischer und neugriechischer Zeit (1460–1981)(Passavia Universitäts Verlag), Passau 1994. 21 This region included parts of the counties of Phthiotis and Boeotia, with Atalanti as the central city. The now-drained Lake Kopais was also included in the same area. 22 See S. Asdrachas, “Aux Balkans du XVe siècle  : producteurs directs et marchés”, Études Balkaniques 6(3), 1970, 46. 23 It is worth noting that, in the same period, in Thessaly, purely Christian villages, such as Rapsani, Aya and Ambelakia complemented their deficient grain yields with purchases from Muslim villages in the Thessalian Plain, to which they sold products from their increased cotton crop. This was a factor which, in the long run, drove the textile industry into Christian hands. (See M. Kiel, Die Kultur Griechenlands in Mittelalter und Neuzeit (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), Göttingen 1966). 24 In the same year, that is 1570, grain output per household in the prosperous villages of the Boeotian Plain exceeded 2 tonnes. 25 See M. Kiel, “The rise and decline of Turkish Boeotia, 15th-16th century” in Proceedings of the 6th International Boeotian Conference (BAR International Series 666), 1997, 315–358. The data on Livadia, which follow, are taken from this text. For interesting observations on the urban form of the town and the benefits it derived from water, see I. Dimakopoulos, “Livadia: Its urbanplanning development and monuments, from the 11th century to 1821” in Armos: Volume in Honour of Professor N.K. Moutsopoulos, vol. I (School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Thessaloniki 1991, 491– 535 (in Greek). 26 It is claimed that rice cultivation was introduced into the Balkans by the Ottomans – see H. Inalcik, “Rice cultivation and the Celtukci-Re’aya system in the Ottoman Empire”, Turcica XIV, 1982, 69–141. An opposite opinion, based on 11th-century crops, is expressed by A. Laiou-Thomadaki, Agricultural Society in the Late Byzantine Era (National Bank Cultural Foundation), Athens 1987, 48 (in Greek). 27 For the economic activity of villages, in the period of the 15th-16th century, see S. Asdrachas, Mechanisms of the Agricultural Economy in the Ottoman Period (Themelio), Athens 1978 (in Greek). 28 Kiel, “Central Greece in the Suleymanic age”, op. cit., 422. 29 S. Karydonis, The Holy Stavropegiac Monasteries in Kalloni on Lesbos, Constantinople 1900 (in Greek). This presentation is hardly compatible with the general spirit in the Description of Lesbos (1620), by the Metropolitan Gabriel (See I. Foundoulis, Description of Lesbos by Gabriel Metropolitan of Methymne, Athens 1960 (in Greek)). 30 For an analytical review of these professions, see Lowry, Portrait of a City, op. cit., 254–293. Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki, op. cit., 63ff. 31 See, e.g., A. Vakalopoulos, History of Modern Hellenism, Thessaloniki 1976, vol. II, 95ff. (in Greek), and idem, “La retraite des populations Grecs vers les régions éloignées et montagneuses, pendant la domination turque”, Balkan Studies 4, 1964, 265–175. See also B.G. Spiridonakis, Essays on the Historical Geography of the Greek World in the Balkans during the Ottoman Period (Institute for Balkan Studies), Thessaloniki 1977, chap. 5. 32 T. Loungis, “The evolution of the Byzantine city from the fourth to the twelfth century”, Byzantiaka 16, 1996, 59 (in Greek) (I am grateful to Prof. J. Sariyannis for bringing this text to my attention). 33 This is indicated by the large inflow of Albanian settlers (Arvanites) to the region in the late 14th century (See K. Setton, Catalan Domination of Athens, 1311–1388 (Variorum Revised Edition), London 1975, 274–275. This bibliographic suggestion is noted in Kiel, “Central Greece in the Suleymanic age”, op. cit., 406). 34 Kiel, “Central Greece in the Suleymanic age”, op. cit., 406 and 421 (Table 5: a and b). 35 M. Chatzidakis, “Post-Byzantine art (1453–1700) and its influence”, in History of the Greek Nation, vol. 10, (Ekdotike Athenon), Athens 1976, 424–425 (in Greek). Ch. Bouras, “The church of the monastery of Malesina in Lokris”, in Churches in Greece after the Fall of Constantinople, (N.T.U.A.), Athens 1993, 139 (in Greek). 36 For an outline of the organization of the built environment in the Byzantine Age, see Ch. Bouras, “City and village: Urban planning and architecture”, in

Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik, 31(1), 1981, 611–653, with detailed bibliography on available research sources. 37 In 1350, Ioannis Kantakouzenos, referring to Serbia, wrote that the town is “divided by three cross-walls, so that from outside it looks as if there are three cities, one on top of the other” (see A. Xyngopoulos, The Monuments of Serbia, Athens 1957, 10–11 (in Greek)). 38 The Ottoman population census of 1548, for Mytilene, refers to the mahalle of the varos, with 33 households. The canal that, since Antiquity, separated the castle to the east, from the rest of the island, to the west, had been filled in by the early 16th century. On the provenance and spread of the word varos, see also T. Stoianovich, “Model and mirror of the pre-modern Balkan city”, Studia Balkanika 3, 1970, 101. 39 E. Antoniadou-Bibikou, “Deserted villages in Greece”, in Economic Structure of the Balkan Lands (Melissa), Athens 1979, 191 (in Greek). 40 See Sieur A. Morison, Relation historique d’un voyage…, 1704. A different perspective on Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (“the Christians inside the walls… and the Ottomans outside, near the arable lands”), which is deduced(?) on the basis of the imaret and the Eski cami complex in Komotini (see. Ch. Bakirtzis and P. Xydas, “Imaret, Komotini”, in S. Curcic and E. Hadjitryphonos (eds), Secular Medieval Architecture in the Balkans, 1300–1500, Thessaloniki 1997, 294–295 (in Greek)), is rather hasty and inappropriate, as it does not take into account the expansion of cities outside the Byzantine fortified enceinte after the 14th century. 41 N.K. Moutsopoulos, The Byzantine Castro of Zichna, Thessaloniki 1986, 305–306 (in Greek). For Thessaloniki, see below, note 44. 42 See Th. Philadelpheus, History of Athens, Athens 1902 (in Greek), and I. Vasdravelis, Historical Archive of Veroia: Selections, Thessaloniki 1942 (in Greek). 43 From the unpublished inventory of 1548 for Mytilene, we note selectively: from the Christian mahalles, mahalle of Papa Nikolas, 18 households, mahalle of Papa Dimitris, 33 households, mahalle of Papa Michalis, 66 households; from the Muslim mahalles, mahalle of the meçsid of Mahmud bey, 5 households, mahalle of the holy mosque, 6 households, mahalle of the Lower Castle, 14 households (Kiel and Karydis, Astygraphia, op. cit., 37). 44 Lowry, Portrait of a City, op. cit., 254–292. 45 D. Harvey, Social Justice and the City ( Johns Hopkins University Press), Baltimore 1973, 260. 46 C. Armenopoulos, Procheiron, the So-Called The Hexabiblos translated into Vernacular …, Venice 1776 (by Nikolaos Glykeis from Ioannina) (in Greek). See also, G. Velenis, “The framework of laws influencing the development of the character of dwellings during the Turkish occupation”, Storia della Città 31–32, 1986, 33–36. More generally on the formation of residential areas, see M. Cerasi, La città del Levante ( Jaga Book), Milano 1986. 47 N. Todorov, “Quelques aspects de la structure éthnique de la ville médiévale Balkanique”, in La ville Balkanique sous les Ottomans (XVe-XVIe s.) (Variorum Reprints), London 1977. See also Cerasi, La città del Levante, op. cit., 122. 48 N. Beldiceanu, Les actes des premiers sultans (Mouton and Co.) vol.1, Paris, 1960, codex 43, par. 5 and 7, and codex 35, par. 2 and 4, which refer to the market of Constantinople in the late 15th century. 49 G. Tankut, Anabolu-Napoli di Romania, n. d. In this study, data on the neighbourhoods of Nafplion are drawn from Ottoman records of 1715, from which interesting conclusions can be proposed on real-estate prices for various dwelling types and locations in the city. For Athens we rely on 18th-century data. 50 In 1460, Lübeck had a population density of 150 persons/ha., in the mid15th century the towns of Tuscany had a density of around 200 persons/ha., while in the early 14th century in the Iberian peninsula, density reached 260 persons/ha. in cities such as Granada and Toledo – see J. Cox Russell, Medieval Cities and their Regions (David and Charles), Newton Abbot 1972, 43, 109, 179. 51 We should remember that there was a corresponding functional specialization in the agora of ancient Athens: the bakers’ market - στοά των αλφίτων, the garment market - ιματιόπωλις, the fish market - ιχθυόπωλις, the garlic market - εις τα σκόροδα, the onion market - εις τα κρόμμυα, etc. A similar concept of specialization characterized spatial organization in the classic Muslim market, as indicated by the suq (commercial streets) in Aleppo, Damascus and Baalbek (see I.M. Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Harvard University Press), Cambridge, Mass. 1967). The view that later, in the Ottoman period, the restrictive practices of corporate organization were exclusively responsible for the compartmentalization of market space according to similar products and workshops (V. Dimitriadis, Topography of Thessaloniki in the Era of Turkish Domination, 1430–1912, Thessaloniki 1983, 95 (in Greek)) is unfounded (Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki, op. cit., 131– 133).

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Dimitrios N. Karydis S. Lambros, Trade Fairs and Markets in the Peloponnese in the 17th Century (Miktai Selides), Athens 1905, 616–622 (in Greek). One of these trade fairs took place at Moscholouri in Thessaly, starting on 20 May and lasting for two weeks (Stoianovich, “Model and mirror of the pre-modern Balkan city”, op. cit., 110. In 1521, the takings of this market reached 17,900 akçe (of which 2,882 akçe came from the horse market), and in 1570 the takings were 70,340 akçe and 7,300 akçe respectively (Kiel, “Central Greece in the Suleiman period”, op. cit., 422). 53 The covered market, bezesten, of Thessaloniki was built in the reign of Bayezid II (1481–1512), and that of Serres slightly earlier, in 1494. For an analysis of the architecture of these buildings, as well as for comments on the architecture of buildings and urban settlements in the Early Ottoman period, see Curcic and Hadjitryphonos, Secular Medieval Architecture, op. cit., 286– 295. 52

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CHAPTER 25

Greek Highland Refuges of Northern Greece in the Early Ottoman Period Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos Professor Emeritus of Architecture Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

The new highland settlements

(from Kravara), “Chasiotis – Chasiotika” (from Chasia), “Thrakiotis – Thrakiotika” (from Thrace), “Moraitis Moraitika” (from the Morea, i.e. Peloponnese), or on tribal origin: “Vlachos – Vlachika” (Vlach), “Pharserotis – Pharserotika” (Arvanito-Vlach), “Kopatsaros – Kopatsarika”, “Karagounis – Karagounika”, “Gyftos – Gyftika” (Gypsy/ Rom), “Arvanitis – Arvanitika” (Albanian). Immigrants were distinguished not only on the basis of origin, but also according to occupation or attribute: “Sayakas” (serge-weaver), “Terzis” (comp. Terzidis) (braid-embroiderer), “Taliadouros” (wood-carver), “Zographos” (painter), “Pelekanos” (comp. Pelekanidis) (stone-cutter), “Boyatzis” (and Voyatzis) (dyer), “Samartzis” (saddler), “Tambakis” (and Tamvakis) (tanner), “Gemitzis”(= yemici, ‘old salt’-experienced seafarer), “Chatzis” (= Hadji, a person who has made pilgrimage to the Holy Land), etc. Villages also took their names from trades and occupations: Chionades (snow-shovellers), Chalkiades (coppersmiths), Chouliarades (spoon-makers), Karvounades (charcoal-burners), Melissourgoi (beekeepers), etc.

The problem of the demographic upheavals in the years of the Ottoman invasion is well known, as is the fact of the relocating and settling of populations, which took place steadily in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in the reign of Sultan Murad, of Gazis and then Yuruks in Northern Greek regions, particularly Macedonia, as well as in other parts of the country. The Ottoman Turks settled in sparsely-populated areas, on the rich feudal estates of the Byzantine aristocracy, which after 1430 constituted, at least in the vilâyet of Thessaloniki, the zéamets, the various mülks and the large vakuf of the Gazi Evren Bey, places where chiefly Turkoman tribes and Yuruks were installed. Land was also given to Turkish spahis. The Ottomans characterized monasterial property as vakif and protected it. Inhabitants who were obliged to stay became landless peasants (serfs) of Muslim landowners, Turks and later Albanians too, and were gradually Islamized, like the Valaades of the villages of Voio and the province of Anaselitsa. The inhabitants of the plains sought refuge in the mountains, after the systematic settling of Turkish populations, especially Yuruks and Konyars, as in the villages of the lowland zone from Kozani to Lake Ostrovo.1 This systematic and enforced departure of the Greek populations from the lowland regions must have taken place either en masse or progressively, in small groups or clans.

Initially these highland settlements had no names. The names that appeared later were often given them by the inhabitants themselves or by their neighbours. When the inhabitants chose the name this often explained the cause of the settlement’s creation, e.g. “Kataphygio” (Refuge). In other cases they chose the name of the group’s patron saint (particularly in the case of stock-raisers), or that of the patron saint of their old homeland. They also used the name of the founder’s lineage or the name of their old homeland. The name of the settlement could also derive from the inhabitants’ activities (Psarades = Fishermen, Kireç köyi/Asbestochori = lime-producers) or from their crops (Kapnochori = Tobacco village, Vamvakia = Cotton village) or some landmark (a tree – Melia = Apple tree, Achladia = Pear tree, Itia = Willow, Kastania = Chestnut tree) or a building (Myloi = Mills) or the morphology of the ground (Livadi or Variko = pasture land, Limna = Lake, Cherso = Fallow land).

In their consecutive departure from and installation in already existing settlements, the new inhabitants selected or were directed to sites far away from the original nucleus. If these new inhabitants originated from the same initial nucleus (which was rare), their incorporation was achieved easily. If they came from elsewhere and arrived long after the time of the initial choice of the location and settlement – the memory of which was charged with indescribable hardships, pain and loss of life until they acclimatiszed –, they gathered in localities with different names, which they gave to their mahalles (neighbourhoods). The origin of the new groups or individuals from elsewhere remains in memory and can be recognized in the surnames given to the incomers (the “outlanders”), who were known by the generic term xenos (foreigner). Surnames were based, either on place of origin: “Maniatis – Maniatika” (from the Mani), “Kritikos – Kritika” (from Crete), “Roumeliotis – Roumeliotika” (from Roumeli), “Kravaritis – Kravaritika”

Following the Ottoman invasion (figs 1, 2), the major part of the indigenous population sought refuge on the wooded mountain ranges of Pindos and all their outliers in western Greece: Grammos, Vermion, Pieria, Olympos, and Chasia. The mountains protected the persecuted Christian population. Many villages retain to this day the name Kataphygi (Refuge), as 297

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos

2. Tortures of Christians during the period of Ottoman Rule.

1. The Ottoman conquerors transporting Christian prisoners (Gennadius Library).

3. Agricultural activities during the years of Ottoman rule (Bibliothèque Nationale de France).

in the case of the well-known Macedonian village in the Pieria mountains.2 Tradition has it that the inhabitants lived in a fertile village called Podari, on the banks of the River Haliakmon, but being oppressed by the Turks they withdrew – at date unknown – to the precipitous wooded slopes of Flambouro, on the high plateau of which they had their sheepfolds. They cleared the large oak and pine forest that covered the plateau and built their new village, which is snowbound every winter. It thus escaped the presence of Ottoman officials and became the most independent of all the head villages in the region.3

Perivoli, Avdella, Siniatsiko (Askio), Siatista, Eratyra (Selitsa), Vlasti (Blatsi) and Galatini (Kontsiko), as well as Kleisoura, Pentalophos, Vogatsiko, Kostarazi and others, were co-settled in this way.4 “The poor soil”, writes Apostolos Vakalopoulos, “imposed terrible austerity, almost malnutrition, and drove the people to animal husbandry, which became their mainstay, as it supplied them with food and clothing”.5 Under the particularly harsh conditions of highland life, the persecuted population was forced by necessity to exploit all its resources in order to survive. It fought an ongoing battle with the forest, the clearance of which demands continuous vigilance, for when stopped, the forest returns in force to claim the lost ground. And as Ioannis Philemon puts it: “If the Greek was forced to inhabit the most rugged mountains and the stony ground of the islands, he profited from it without suffering irretrievable loss. Fitter and more resourceful, he has already progressed in his enterprises, by developing his common sense and an honest way of life”6 (Fig. 3).

Scattered information sheds some light on villages that were abandoned in the early years of the Ottoman Occupation. However, the ruins at these sites may also be of refuge centres that were deserted after other, perhaps more recent, incursions. On the basis of tradition and the few surviving data (church inscriptions, place-names, ruins), it is deduced that many mountain villages of western Macedonia and northeastern Epirus, such as the highland towns of Pindos: Samarina, 298

Greek Highland Refuges of Northern Greece in the Early Ottoman Period

4. Mother taking her child to the teacher. Detail from a fifteenth-century portable icon depicting scenes from the life of St Nicholas (Monastery of St John the Theologian, Patmos). 5. Merchant from Epirus (Gennadius Library).

There was a big concentration of Vlachs on Pindos. According to Vakalopoulos, their excess population found outlets in other mountain ranges and Olympos from very early on. The Vlach populations of the villages of Neochori, Fteri, Milia, Vlacholivado and Kokkinoplo preserved their traditions when they arrived from the mountains (certainly from Pindos), some hundreds of years ago, and built first Livadi. “The credibility of this tradition is strengthened by the similarities of names, language, pronunciation, customs and mores, etc. of the Vlachs of Olympus and Pindos” (of Samarina and elsewhere).7

tax liabilities and selected the brighter youths who would be supported in their studies. It was there that they decided what assistance should be given to the needy, the dowry that an orphan girl should receive and how to help widows and orphans. Last but not least, it was there that they selected the best teacher and decided to build the village school (fig. 4). The social and community work carried out by the village elders was of great importance during the difficult years of bondage. The demogerontia was the institution that contributed to the survival of the Greek Nation and the advancement of the best, so that they could help and guide the rest for the benefit of all.10

During this period, then, most of the highland settlements of Macedonia were founded or unified from various scattered, but also neighbouring, installations (katounes), mainly of Vlach shepherds. As we shall see, these settlements of mainly Vlach populations, Latin-speaking and bilingual, were to flourish during the ensuing centuries.8

Up until the nineteenth century “education, particularly among the subjugated Greeks, was mainly the concern of the local communities or ecclesiastical authorities and, occasionally, of professional guilds or even individuals”.11 The other fundamental institution that functioned during the period of Ottoman rule was the cottage-industry associations, which provided not only economic assistance for inhabitants of the settlements, but also social welfare, with their organized care for association members and their families (isnafi).

Institutions and economy The subject Greek Christians, the Rum or reâyâs9 of the Ottoman Empire, rallied round their natural spiritual leadership, the clergy, under the bishop, and the demogerontia or council of lay elders, who were responsible to the Ottoman authority for the collection of taxes and the administration of justice.

Certain highland settlement nuclei in Macedonia and the Pindos originated from older demographic realignments, which will not concern us here. At any rate, in the new mountain hearths in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the subject Greeks organized their lives in an exemplary way, managing to survive and to keep their traditions and their faith. The growth of cottage industries processing animal products, especially wool and hides, was the major source of wealth.

In those times, in urban centres and head villages, the sole social centre of the neighbourhood (mahalle) was the church, where Christians attended Mass on Sundays and holy days, and participated in various religious and social celebrations (weddings, christenings, funerals). Village dances and feasts took place in the open space in front of the church. In church loggias the older women imparted their knowledge of household affairs to the younger ones and offered advice to new brides. This was where future matchmakings were hatched, on the basis of a common perception of the couples’ suitability. In the shelter of the church the elders apportioned fairly the

The Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi (circa 1670) records that in the seventeenth century there was a thriving trade in silk textiles and silverware in Ioannina, while at Moschopolis “carpet-making and cloth-weaving were chiefly responsible for the increase in wealth and the growth of its population”.12 Wool products were available as yarns and various hand-woven 299

Nikolaos K. Moutsopoulos textiles. The technique of dyeing yarns red, with dye extracted from the madder plant, was particularly advanced at Ambelakia in Thessaly and at neighbouring Rapsani. In Kastoria, imported small pieces of fur (hordades) were processed by special traditional techniques. These almost worthless snippets were stitched together in a masterly manner and exported as whole furs, which looked as though they were made from a single skin.

have the same names, the same language, the same pronunciation, the same features, the same clothes, the same professions, the same manners and customs, and the same songs as the inhabitants of Samarina and the neighbouring villages”. Cf. Heuzey, Le mont Olympe et l’Acarnanie, op. cit., 45–48, and Vakalopoulos, History, op. cit., 84, 89. 8 We mention the highland settlements in Greece, located at an altitude of 1,200 m. and above: Aghios Athanasios in Pella (1,200 m. a.s.l.), Leivadites in Xanthi (1,200 m. a.s.l.), Magouliana in Arcadia (1,200 m. a.s.l.), Pades in Ioannina (1,200 m. a.s.l.), Alonistaina in Arcadia (1,220 m. a.s.l.), Plekati in Ioannina (1,240 m. a.s.l.), Nymphaio (Neveska) in Florina(1,350 m. a.s.l.), Kato Vermio in Imathia (1,400 m. a.s.l.), Katafygi in Kozani (1,400 m. a.s.l.), Pisoderi in Florina (1,420 m. a.s.l.), Aetomilitsa in Ioannina (1,430 m. a.s.l.), Samarina in Grevena (1,450 m. a.s.l.), Pourianos Stavros in Magnesia (1,600 m. a.s.l.). 9 Reâyâ, the herd, and generally the name of Ottoman subjects, especially of the non-Muslim subjects of the sultan – N.G. Svoronos, Review of Neohellenic History, Athens 1976, 42 (in Greek). 10 N.K. Moutsopoulos. Kastoria (Greek Traditional Architecture), Athens 1989, 62 (in Greek). 11 S. Papadopoulos, Educational and Social Activities of the Greeks of Macedonia during the Last Century of Ottoman Rule, Thessaloniki 1970, 11 (in Greek). 12 See D. Salamangas, Isnafia and Professions in Ioannina during the Ottoman Period, Ioannina 1959, 17 (in Greek). Cf. S. Lambros, “Moschopolis and the Sinas family”, Νeos Hellenomnemon, 21, 1927, 160 (in Greek). 13 N. Svoronos, Le commerce de Salonique au XVIIIe siècle (PUF), Paris 1956, 122. 14 Vakalopoulos, The Western Macedonian Emigrants, op. cit., 9ff. and Svoronos, Le commerce de Salonique, op. cit., 124. 15 K. Amantos, “The privileged rulings of Islam in favour of the Christians”, Hellenika VIII, 1936, 103, 141 (in Greek); N. Vlachos, “The relations of the unredeemed Greeks with the dominant Ottoman State”, in L’hellénisme contemporain (Commemorative volume), 1953, 135; and E.E. Koukou, The Formation of Greek Society during the Ottoman Period, Athens 1971, 27–58 (in Greek).

Certain political events and treaties, such as the Treaty of Carlowitz (26 January 1699), which followed the sixteen-year war between Ottoman Turkey and Venice, Austria and Poland, contributed particularly to the economic development of the highland settlements of Macedonia and its neighbouring regions.13 The peace which followed the wars favoured the growth of trade. The flourishing of the Greek diaspora communities was also reflected in the homelands of the subject Greeks. It was during this period that the various cottageindustry associations intensified their activity and soon reached their economic heyday, particularly in settlements on the slopes of Mount Olympos and neighbouring Mount Kissavos (such as Rapsani, Tyrnavos, Ambelakia and others). After the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718), new vistas opened up for Greek enterprise and commerce, which were soon reflected in the burgeoning of Greek Letters, Arts and local architecture, in spite of the devastation that took place in the years 1715, 1721, 1738, 1744 and the perceptible decline in trade that ensued.14 We should not, however, neglect the principal cause of the survival and growth of Hellenism, namely the “privileges” which Mohamed II granted the Patriarch immediately after the Fall of Constantinople, and certain other privileges which villages and towns in Greece managed to acquire subsequently, by various means.15

Notes A.E. Vakalopoulos, History of Modern Hellenism, vol. 2. Ottoman Rule 1453–1669: The Historical Foundations of Modern Greek Society and Economy, Thessaloniki 1964, 62 (in Greek). 2 See Κataphygi (Refuge) in Naupaktia, Aitolo-Akarnania, Agnanta in Arta, Karditsa, Kozani, Grevena (pres. Kallithea) – Dictionary of Municipalities, Communities and Settlements in Greece, (National Statistical Service of Greece), Athens 1974 (in Greek). 3 L. Heuzey, Le mont Olympe et l’Acarnanie, Paris 1860, 205–206, and Vakalopoulos, History, op. cit., 81–82. Podari, a name resembling another common village name: Podochori, which, if compared with the respective Slav name, Podgorie (= at the foot of the mountain), may be of help in searching for the probable site of the initial settlement cell in a riverine geomorphological formation tangential to the foot of a mountain. 4 N.K. Moutsopoulos, “The mansions of the traders of Macedonia”, in The Course of Communalism in Macedonia through Time (Acts of Symposium. Event for the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Macedonia, 9–11 December 1988), Thessaloniki 1991, 356 (in Greek). Cf. Th. Sarantis, “The villages of Grevena (according to the Codex of the Zavorda Monastery, 1692)”, in Calendar of Western Macedonia, vol. 1, 1960, 207–212 (in Greek). 5 A.E. Vakalopoulos, Western Macedonian Emigrants during the Ottoman Occupation, Thessaloniki 1958, 4 (in Greek). 6 I.N. Philemon, Εssay on the Philike Hetaireia, Nafplion 1834, 72–73 (in Greek). Cf. the collective publication in Αrmoloi, 1 August 1976, entitled The Teams of Master Craftsmen, 7 (in Greek). 7 According to Costas Krystallis, Collected Works, vol. 1 (pref. intro. ed. G. Valetas), Athens 1951, 504 (in Greek): “We note finally that the Vlacholivadites 1

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CHAPTER 26

The Rebirth of Settlements in Greece during the Late Ottoman Period Evangelos P. Dimitriadis Professor of Historical, Social Analysis of Space and Urban Planning Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Greece during the Late Ottoman period, that is the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is considered as corresponding grosso modo to the territories of the present Greek State.1 The historical process in this Balkan geographical space was linked chiefly with two societies, in both of which the productive forces were at a low level of development: the dominant Ottoman society (Muslim culture) and the subject Greek one (Christian culture). However, the European great powers made their dynamic appearance on the political horizon of the Balkans, while the major Greek urban centres, particularly those with more than 5,000 inhabitants, were home to various ethnic groups, such as Jews, Armenians and Albanians, as well as Western Europeans and others.

north) to Europe. In the context of this entrepreneurial growth, ports, such as Thessaloniki, Trieste, Dubrovnik and others, acquired pivotal importance for the commercial connections between the Balkans and Europe. Industrialization – barring local exceptions – did not follow the commercialization of the settlements, because of the politico-economic framework and the low level of development of the productive forces.5 With the Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji in 1774,6 Russia extended her political sovereignty, at the Ottomans’ expense, to the Black Sea and the Danubian Principalities, while Christian traders were allowed freedom of navigation in the seas controlled by the Ottoman State. The Aegean islands as well as coastal zones (e.g. Pelion) felt the beneficial impact of the treaty, and Greek capital turned towards international maritime transport, which the resultant rapid growth of the merchant fleet of the subject Greeks (Hydra, Spetses, Psara, etc.). Concurrently, the Greeks of the Peloponnese and the islands migrated to South Russia (Odessa), a decisive event for the national revolution of 1821.

Exogenous causes of the rebirth of Greek settlements The accelerating phenomenon of economic and political change, which appeared in Europe from the sixteenth century and was linked to the demise of feudalism and the emergence of the nation-state, did not proceed at the same rate everywhere.2 Mercantilism formed the class of capitalist merchants who accumulated the novel proto-industrial goods and incorporated them in the European market.3 The result was a true commercial revolution, particularly in maritime transport, with emphasis on trade in comestibles and consumer goods, and on the search for new markets. The powerful European states developed imperialism, established new colonial territories and supported colonialism.

The Greek space In the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries two periods of development of the urban network can be distinguished, the watershed between which was the founding of the Greek national State in 1827. In the first period, which began in the late seventeenth century and lasted until the outbreak of the War of Independence, Greece was a single and subjugated space, for which information of a general nature is available by geographical regions, while for the end of this period, when the highlands enjoyed economic growth (1774– 1821), there is also a proliferation of descriptive monographs on settlements.

Within the context of the European zone, the Balkans became a field of contest for political influence, in anticipation of the dismemberment of the formerly mighty Ottoman Empire. The European powers gained influence in the Balkans, and especially in Greek lands, mainly during the eighteenth century, by means of international treaties, and this influence contributed decisively and in many ways to the rebirth of the network of Greek settlements.

The second period was peculiar in that it comprised two separate entities, corresponding to various geographical zones that differed radically from each other, even though they followed parallel paths. Greece was no longer a single space. The first entity included the historical centres of northern Greece (Macedonia, Thessaly, etc.), which were a continuation of the first period, cast in the Balkan mould and not planned by specialists (see below). In the second entity there was an urban network that corresponded to the southern and free

With two important treaties, of Carlowitz, 1699, and of Passarowitz, 1718,4 the Austrians overtook the Ottomans in the northern Balkans and the Venetians withdrew from the Greek political scene, while merchants, traders, immigrants, and others were permitted to move freely from Greece (mainly the 301

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1. Historical study diagram showing the various periods and the main features of Greek settlement space.

geographical part of Greece, which enjoyed autonomous existence as a state. The settlements were, as a rule, new (because the majority had been destroyed in the War of Independence) and planned by specialist engineers. Thus, in the period 1821– 1913 Greece was not a single space in terms of settlement (fig.1).

highlands to the lowlands occurred towards the end of the eighteenth century, and turned into a dominant trend after the founding of the independent Greek State. Whereas, in general terms, the growth of the Greek population was stable in the period 1700–1750, it followed a rising trend in the period 1750–1821.

First period: single settlement space, eighteenth century to 1821

Trade8 The “domestic market” of the Ottoman Empire was a combination of: 1. local markets (bazaars) in the administrative centre of the kaza (Turkish administrative region, usually smaller than today’s prefecture), where the agents of the socioeconomic élite were settled, and 2. a system of trade links within the boundaries of the empire, which handled goods, but without unifying the market (such as the annual fairs). Alongside these forms of trade in the empire, there was the more specialized form of large-scale import trade of special commodities, which was run by the European states with their own merchant fleets and their own system of consular and commercial establishments.

(unplanned cities) Population7 The eighteenth and the first two decades of the nineteenth century constitute a single historical period for Greece, in the framework of the decomposition of the institutions of the Ottoman Empire, its inability to modernize economically, and the gradual inclusion of and dependence on the economy of Greece, due to the increased demand for its agricultural products in relation to the European market. By the end of the period, the revolutionary idea of a nation-state, founded on the population and cultural unity of Hellenism, had taken shape through many contradictions.

The accumulation of material goods in highland settlements, and their commercial development9 began in the late seventeenth century (e.g. Milies on Pelion, in 1716). New crops that were in demand in Europe, such as currants, cotton, tobacco and maize, displaced the wheat fields in the lowlands and the highlands. Closed markets (economic enclaves) were created, which channelled the agricultural output to the international market. Two-thirds of this output came from highland settlements, where more than half the country’s population lived (fig. 2).

There was an undisputable population increase in the eighteenth century, which is confirmed by the ample bibliographical sources, but the rate of increase does not appear to be uniform throughout the period. Without new sites being settled exclusively, population nuclei developed that had been formed in the seventeenth century and survived under marginal economic conditions. A migratory movement of surplus populations from the 302

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2. Administrative and economic centres in Greece in the 18th century (HGN, vol. XI, 1975, 169, in Greek).

Socio-economic characteristics of the geographical regions

economic centres, such as Moschopolis, Korytsa, Siatista, Kozani, Kastoria, Ochrid, developed in the eighteenth century. Domestic trade in Macedonia was carried out chiefly through fairs (such as at Servia, Avret Hisar (Gynaikokastro), Dolia or Doliani, Veroia, Serres, Makrynoros) and was in the hands of Turks, Jews and Greeks.10

The foundations for the development of trade between Macedonia and Central Europe were laid in the period between the international treaties of Carlowitz (1699) and Kutchuk Kainardji (1774). The population of Macedonia in the late eighteenth century was around 700,000, and Thessaloniki became the major port of the Balkans where foreign agents established themselves. In 1742, the first Greek burghers of western Macedonia started businesses in the North Balkans and Central Europe, while important manufacturing-

In Thrace11 the population was rural and worked exclusively for the big Turkish landowners and the Ottoman foundations in the region. The fertile plain yielded abundant products (e.g. wheat, cotton, tobacco, wines), which were transported to Constantinople, Smyrna and Europe. Animal husbandry 303

Evangelos P. Dimitriadis developed as well. Economic growth contributed to the creation of a few but powerful commercial centres. Adrianople was the second most important city in Thrace, after Constantinople, with trade links with Smyrna, Chios and Thessaloniki. Philippoupolis also grew into an important centre of Hellenism in the eighteenth century, while a number of coastal cities, such as Raidestos, Kallipolis and Ainos, grew up thanks to shipping and their relations with the Aegean islands.

population of 5,000–6,000 in 1721, produced silks and soap, while Livadia produced woollen cloth and was considered the wealthiest rural centre in the region. The Peloponnese16 is singular in that it was occupied by the Venetians for three decades (1685–1715) during the Ottoman period, and was subsequently re-taken by the Turks (1715– 1821). During the first period, the Venetians looked to the security of the Peloponnesian population, which they took measures to increase, because it had been substantially depleted; thus, in 1700 the population reached 176,844. Furthermore, they encouraged agricultural production by means of land distribution (6 hectares per family), they applied a lenient taxation system for agricultural products and protected local production by levying tariffs on imported goods, especially wine. In this way, the Peloponnese expanded its viniculture and became a currant-producing region with export potential (e.g. to England). Its agricultural produce (e.g. currants, cereals, cotton, olive oil) found its way to the international market via Venice.

Epirus in the late eighteenth century12 was ruled despotically by Ali Pasha (1788–1822), along similar administrative lines to those of the declining Ottoman State; he decided on foreign relations, finances and tax farming, and controlled the judiciary and the army. In addition, by means of specious judicial interventions in the land-owning system of his pashalik, he misappropriated 1/3–1/2 of the arable land in the region under his control. Highland settlements retained the community system of local self-government or the patriarchal social system (e.g. Vlachochoria on Pindos). Strangely, intensive cottage industrial activity emerged in the area of Ioannina, where several manufacturing-guild professions thrived13 and many workshops and crafts prospered (silversmiths, gold-embroiderers, silk-weavers, etc.). In the Zagorochoria, Mastorochoria and elsewhere, a heavy woollen cloth, called dhim’to, was produced by handloom, while fish-processing took place around the Gulf of Amvrakia. Metsovo, Syrako, Kalarytes and Perivoli were well known for their hand-woven textiles. In general, however, cottage industrial products satisfied local demand.

After the Venetian-Turkish War of 1714–1715, the Ottomans returned. There was a spectacular increase in population (300,000 in 1780, from 177,000 in 1700), a phenomenon also associated with immigration (from the coast of Asia Minor, the Aegean islands, Mainland Greece, etc.). Towns and cities were strengthened; Patras, Mystras, Nafplion, Argos, Corinth, Tripolis were teeming with life; other notable urban centres were Methoni, Koroni, Monemvasia. These commercial centres of the Peloponnese basically retained their rural character. Its rich crops were exported (e.g. to Genoa, the Dalmatian coast, Leghorn/ Livorno). At the same time, manufactured goods were imported (e.g. textiles, velvet, furs, paper).

Thessaly, with a population of around 300,000, was a typical province of the Ottoman Empire, with an immense, sparsely populated plain, where poor farmers grew chiefly wheat.14 In the second half of the eighteenth century, the only significant city was Larisa, on the Macedonia-Peloponnese land route, with a mixed population of Turks, Christians and Jews. The thinning out of Thessaly’s population, by the deadly epidemics in 1667 and 1688, resulted in the desertion of agricultural lands and their subsequent incorporation into large çifliks in the eighteenth century. Despite these events, Larisa in the early eighteenth century enjoyed a flourishing commercial life, which attracted the interest of foreigners.

Trade and the economy in general of the Peloponnese experienced ups and downs, due to internal and external causes. The presence of many small ports fragmented commercial and maritime activities, thus impeding the rise of one powerful centre, like Thessaloniki for instance. At the same time, imports of craft products discouraged the development of any substantial local industry. Only Patras, in the late eighteenth century, approached 20,000 inhabitants. We note, in summary, that towards the end of the first period (1774–1821) economic activity in Greece was concentrated: 1. In the highland cottage-industrial centres of regions such as Macedonia, Epirus and Thessaly; 2. In the richer currant-producing lowland areas, where the innovative rural entrepreneurial activity developed, especially in currants; 3. On the maritime islands, chiefly Hydra, Spetses, Psara, but also Mykonos, Poros, Kasos, Symi, Skopelos, which, exploiting the international situation, acquired merchant fleets and participated in international transportation.

Furthermore, textile manufacturing developed thanks to cotton growing and stock raising. The most important cottageindustrial centres in Thessaly were Tyrnavos (cotton, silks) and the villages of Pelion, Makrynitsa, Portaria, Zagora, and so on. Ambelakia, with its pioneering co-operative, also acquired great fame (1778). Eastern Thessaly was, in general, more developed than the western part, because of its key location on overland as well as maritime routes. Central Greece appears to have been sparsely populated until 1821, with peculiar regional economic conditions, unproductive soils and small-scale migrations; it was a centre of military clashes and of oppressive rule by the Ottoman authorities, such as the infamous Hadji Ali Haseki and the Turkish landlords of Attica.15 Scant archival material survives on social organization and community institutions. The only cities were Athens, Livadia, Thebes, Salona, Missolonghi and Aitoliko. Furthermore, the port of Galaxeidi operated as an entrepôt and gateway for Central Greece. Athens, with a

Examination of the typological traits of unplanned rural settlements The Balkan settlement A broader classification and categorization (typology) of the unplanned rural settlements in the Balkans during the Late Ottoman period raises the issue of combining and evaluating 304

The Rebirth of Settlements in Greece During the Late Ottoman Period criteria of a different nature, which are more or less orientated toward geographical space. We think that we can identify four groups of criteria, whose analysis and interconnections are necessary elements for describing spherically and understanding the determinants of the organization of the rural settlement in this period. These criteria, starting from space ending with society, concern the geographical (I), geometric (II), sociospatial (III) and ethnic-economic (IV) characteristics of the settlement.

“concentrated” (compact or loose, with the “clan settlement” as an intermediate one); b) “linear”; c) “walled” (all the dwellings of related families); d) “isolated” (farm or villa, relatively rare on the mainland); and e) “fortified” or “martial”. The typological criteria for rural settlements, already commented on, chiefly refer to their spatial (geographical) and geometrical dimension, and only secondarily to their social dimension. Conceding that space is a social product, we think that the overall picture of settlements should be completed by two other groups of criteria: socio-spatial (III) and ethniceconomic (IV), in the belief that in this way a fuller study of the phenomenon will be achieved.

According to the historical geographer J.M. Wagstaff, and as indicated in his relevant study,17 the first two categories (I and II) have attracted only the limited interest of geographers. The 36 papers published at the time of his publication (1968), in languages other than Greek (chiefly in German, English and French), adopted a national or regional approach and were concerned with broader geographical regions of the Balkans, with particular interest centred on the form and origin of these small settlements. The Greek studies in foreign languages were chiefly concerned with the domestic or traditional architecture of the settlements.18 Among the geographical studies of interest for Greece is that by the Serb geographer J. Cvijic,19 in 1918, which deals with Balkan settlements in the wider zone south of the Danube, in the context of their cultural history. On the basis of mixed criteria – geographical, morphological and socio-economic – Cvijic identifies five categories or types of settlements in Greece, which he calls moreover the zone of Byzantine culture. These five categories are:

Socio-spatial characteristics (III). In the wider Greek region the socio-political model of patriarchal organization emerged, with the social and political dominance of the patriarch or founder of the lineage and later the council of the heads of families. Society and space were in correspondence, and indeed on three hierarchical levels:22 a) of the tribe (the total of related clans e.g. the Souliotes), to which the entire settlement corresponded, b) of the kindred or clan, to which the neighbourhood (mahalle) corresponded, and c) of the multi-headed or extended family (related families) to which the extended dwelling or the complex of dwellings corresponded. In the case of a clan moving and founding a new neighbourhood-cell, isolated or incorporated in another settlement, a shrine to the patron saint, a fountain, and later an oven with its workshop were built, while the neighbourhood was named after the founder of the family or his place of origin. As the settlement grew, the “administrative responsibility” of the lineage founder was transferred to the common administration within the context of the council of elders.

a) The “de Timok” type (Balkan region). b) The “village-çiflik” type, chiefly in Macedonia and Thessaly, which consists of a rectangular square (or series of squares), around which the mean dwellings of the landless peasants were arranged in parallel rows. Sometimes the settlement was surrounded by a mud-brick wall with a single gate. c) The Greco-Mediterranean type, which was the most widespread, a compact settlement associated with an ethnic group and its way of life. Dwellings were of stone or mud-brick and laid out along paved streets, leading to the central square. d) The Turco-Oriental type, chiefly in Macedonia and Thrace, where pockets of Turkish populations and their typical dwellings can be identified. e) The mixed type, relating to scattered settlements along the borders of Greece, with mixed populations and the characteristic way of life of each ethnic group.

Ethnic-economic characteristics (IV). The land where the settlement was situated was of major significance for its institutional existence. As we know, all the arable land of the conquered country belonged to the sultan (the public sector), who generally ceded its exploitation, but not its ownership, to Ottoman officials, who paid him taxes.23 In the context of the existing institutional status of rural land tenure and property relationships, we distinguish two major cases which were related to the characteristics of the settlements. In the first case, tenure was granted in the sense of the tenure of “private land” and we then have the economic emergence of the çiflik-settlement, with various exploitative relationships between çiflik-holder and tenant farmer. At the same time, this practice at a national level is considered as the total acceptance of the dominant Ottoman structure.24

To these useful points should be added efforts made in the field of regional studies to describe models of rural settlements based on the geomorphology and geology of the terrain, in relation to its water content. Thus, A. Philippson20 distinguishes two types of settlement, which gradually fade away after the 1880s. The first type was used by nomadic or semi-nomadic people, that is transhumant farmers-stock raisers, and the second, lying at a distance from the main settlement (e.g. Kalyvia), by cultivators. Furthermore, he considers settlements of the “hostelry” (han) or monastery type as isolated ones.

In the second case, where tenure was of public, semi-public or “dedicated” land, settlements of a varying economic nature appeared in practice, which differed in securing tax and other privileges, and varied in their partial acceptance of the Ottoman structure (ranging from a free village paying a tithe – tax of 1/10 – of its harvest, to a settlement with full privileges of various kinds).

On the same subject, A. Beuermann, in a 1955 publication,21 presents the fullest classification of settlements with respect to geographical and geometrical features. He first distinguishes settlements into temporary and permanent, depending on their use by the social group. He then distinguishes the permanent settlement into the following five categories: a)

Apart from these two major categories, we may mention the occasional case of the total rejection of the dominant Ottoman structure (e.g. joining the life of the subject kleftes (armed 305

Evangelos P. Dimitriadis

3. Type of unplanned rural settlement: the present urban form of Makrynitsa in Magnesia (Pelion) (from a research programme of the Architecture and Urban-Planning Workshop III, A.U.Th., scientific director X. Skarpia-Hoepel).

irregulars), like the villages of Souli), or the subjugation to or collaboration with foreign European powers. In such cases, the settlement was not dependent on its land, at least on the institutional level.

neighbouring settlements. The settlement grew in concentric rings. Examples of the simple type of settlement in Pelion are Makrynitsa, Portaria, Milies, Trikeri and Mouresi (fig. 3). A similar situation is observed in the concentrated settlement of Epirus28, the so-called “compact” or “circular” village – see Cvijic’s category c. and Beuermann’s category a.

The Greek settlement Following the large-scale demographic realignments in the years of the Ottoman invasion, numerous new rural settlements were created, built with improvised materials, which were very often reused.25 Thus, we are not clear about their form, but we have indications about the conservative rural way of life of their inhabitants. This rural network, which was dense in parts of the country (e.g. Epirus, highlands of Thessaly), underwent continuous changes. There was a tendency to abandon small and isolated settlements in favour of larger ones, which were safer.26 The morphology of these settlements testifies to the tough social and economic circumstances of the subjugated inhabitants, and to their kin groups, which sometimes gathered together in the same settlement and sometimes deserted it.

2. The “complex type”, which we consider a typological development of the previous one and in which the original neighbourhood (cell) was multiplied into four linked neighbourhoods, each containing a nucleus of social life. Despite the separation of the neighbourhoods, which was usually due to physical and functional obstacles, these settlements constituted single entities with one centre (in the most important neighbourhood), which may move geographically within the year. In Pelion, such complex settlements were Tsangarada (separate neighbourhoods: Taxiarchis, Aghia Paraskevi, Aghia Kyriaki and Aghios Stephanos), Upper Volos, etc. 3. The “outport type”, which served the maritime transportation needs of a large village (e.g. Chorefto for Zagora, Aghia Kyriaki for Trikeri), or a group of villages (e.g. Agria for Drakia, Aghios Lavrentios and Karabasi). This settlement developed along the coastline, to a shallow depth inland, and its urban tissue was based on two or three streets parallel to the coast, intersected by several streets perpendicular to them. This type resembles the highland villages of Epirus, with the so-called “roadside” or “linear” village, which developed along both sides of a roadway, following the morphology of the ground, and was usually built along a neighbouring river, to which the roadway runs parallel29 – see Beuermann’s category b.

Thanks to the relative political stability during the eighteenth century, the increase in agricultural production and the growth of trade in the Balkans and the Aegean, the rural settlements in economically thriving areas (e.g. Pelion) acquired a more permanent form, which they retained at least until the early nineteenth century. In Pelion (a commercial production centre), K.A. Makris27 distinguishes three village types, not preplanned, but in line with the functional and aesthetic norms of local society. These are the following: 1. The “simple type”, which consisted of a central nucleusneighbourhood (cell), where the social, religious, leisure and commercial life of the village was concentrated. Thus, the square, the main church, the shops and the fountain were located in the centre. Around the nucleus, and depending on the terrain, cobbled paths radiated towards the fields or

We note that, in general, the highland rural settlements in Greece exploit the lie of the land, in order to secure a good view, plenty of sunlight and healthy living conditions, and apply simple functional and economical solutions to the street network. These settlements follow the geographical and 306

The Rebirth of Settlements in Greece During the Late Ottoman Period geometrical features of analogous Balkan settlements, and at the same time obey socio-spatial and ethnic-economic criteria. At the local institutional level they follow the unwritten laws of the community, which regulate issues of everyday relationships in the context of community life.

Second period: non-single settlement space (1821–1913) Unit I. Northern Greek settlement space (unplanned cities) Under the terms of the treaties of the early eighteenth century, Northern Greece was linked, freely at last, with the Balkan hinterland and communicated with Central Europe, while Thessaloniki was dominant, thanks to its strategic geographical importance, and regained the features of a central urban node in the settlement network. The cities that grew in this space historically formed an “urban life” of a particular character, in which the multi-ethnic composition of the population was prominent (Greeks, Turks, Jews, Gypsies, etc.). Each culture, with its own religion, followed its own social, economic and spatial practices, which articulated overall a complex mosaic of urban space. The social predominance of one of these cultures was projected onto the central space of the city, as happened in general in pre-industrial European cities.30

4. “Bazaar city”: Ioannina in the second half of the 19th century. Diagram of districts, based on information of I. Lambridis, 1887 (from E.P. Dimitriadis, The Vilayet of Ioannina, 1993, 132).

This region was characterized initially by the model of the bazaar city, which originated in the years of the conquest and where Ottoman culture was predominant (e.g. Ioannina). At the same time, in the same geographical space, we have the emergence of the bazaar city associated with Greek and Christian culture (e.g. Kozani). On the other hand, from the third quarter of the nineteenth century, the model of the mercantile city appeared, which was mainly due to the prevailing of European Christian culture. Other settlement models appeared concurrently, such as the seaport-city of Thessaloniki.

the dwelling also differed, to the extent that its internal layout served different social conditions (e.g. the Greek patriarchal organization or the Turkish segregation by gender, selamlikharem). Through long-term use, the urban tissue became steadily more complex, due to the irregular geometry of the plots of land. At the same time, it acquired quality in the ranking of public, semi-public and private spaces, in such a way as to subordinate the part to the whole and to unify the cityscape. The street network became denser, following the parcelling of space, but it was articulated by certain major axial thoroughfares that remain unchanged over time.

The bazaar city 31 In this type of city the bazaar was in a central location (e.g. outside the main gate of the citadel or on the main street), and there the farmers traded directly with the citizens, without the intermediary of merchants. This exchange process indicated either marginal growth or no growth. The marketplace was dominated by open-air or covered markets (bezestens), where large and small guilds were organized by streets, with their workshops and stores. Increased parcelling of land characterized the morphology of the marketplace.

Let us now look in greater detail at the two versions of the bazaar city: The Ottoman culture model (Ioannina). Following the Ottoman conquest of the powerful Byzantine city in 1430, the settlement grew within the confines of the citadel (fig. 4). After the expulsion of the Christians from the citadel, following the failed coup of Dionysios the “Skylosophos” (1612), there was a migration of rural populations to the city and their concurrent conversion to Islam. Thus, the need arose for expansion and the creation of new districts. It was then that the market or bazaar (carsi) expanded extra muros of the citadel.32

The boundaries between city and countryside were set, and the defensive character of the city was also reflected in its interior: urban space was structured in building units-insulae with enclosed building layouts; a religious building (church, mosque or synagogue) was usually situated at the centre of this arrangement. In the larger settlements, the main ethnic communities lived in separate neighbourhoods-quarters (mahalles), each with its own distinctive urban morphology. Thus, the Ottoman neighbourhoods were open-spaced with greenery, the Greek ones were similar but more compact and inward-looking, and the Jewish ones were densely built, unhealthy and faceless, so as not to arouse interest. The form of

In the seventeenth century the city acquired the layout of an Ottoman settlement, which was expressed by open-air and covered markets, such as the bedestens or bezestens. Urban development beyond the limits of the marketplace was organized on the basis of neighbourhoods or mahalles. The major developmental axis of the settlement coincided with the main street, running in a northwest-southeast direction 307

Evangelos P. Dimitriadis

5. Kozani at its peak, 18th-19th century (after S. Avgerinou-Kolonia, “Kozani”, 1990, 211).

and passing through the centre of the bazaar. Activities aimed at the inhabitants of the countryside (horse fairs, wood sales, etc.) began to be located at the two main entrances (north and south) to the city.

As can be seen from the above, by the late eighteenth century the character of the Ottoman city had acquired its definitive form; on the one hand it had the formal character of a militaryadministrative centre with public buildings, and on the other the economic dimension of a bazaar city.

Among the fundamental city functions that added particularity to the built space and the natural environment were the cemeteries, which were scattered throughout the urban tissue, as well as various public buildings, such as barracks, hospitals and social welfare facilities. In the Ottoman city, greenery and especially the garden were considered not only decorative but also functional elements.

The Christian culture model (Kozani). A notable case of this subcategory, in Western Macedonia, was the founding of Kozani33 during the Ottoman period, in the northern mountainous and wooded region of the Haliakmon basin, which was the natural passage to southern Greece. We can distinguish two phases in the evolution of the settlement, which correspond to its history, the form of its economy and its urban organisation (fig. 5).34 During the first phase, between the twelfth and the thirteenth century, the first neighbourhood-cell (Beuermann’s category c was established for security reasons, by means of the transfer of Christians (clans), on a site northeast of the present settlement, where the church of St Demetrios stands. In the course of

In the late seventeenth century, the monk Paisios mentions neighbourhoods which had developed around eleven mosques. Six more mosques were built during the eighteenth century. By the end of this century there were in Ioannina 17 mosques, 18 Muslim cemeteries, two synagogues, which had existed since the Middle Ages, one Jewish cemetery and six churches, two of which (St Athanasios and the Archimandreion) were former monasteries. 308

The Rebirth of Settlements in Greece During the Late Ottoman Period

6. “City-agency”: Thessaloniki in the early 20th century (based on V. Dimitriadis, Topography of Thessaloniki in the Period of Ottoman Rule, 1430–1912 (EMS), Thessaloniki 1983).

time and up to the early seventeenth century, the number of neighbourhoods grew to four, around homonymous churches (Aghios Demetrios, Aghios Georgios, Aghioi Anargyroi and Aghios Athanasios), and the population reached 400 families, employed in cottage industries, textile-weaving and viticulture, within the framework of a closed economy. Between the fourteenth and the fifteenth century, the establishments in the neighbourhoods became permanent (see Beuermann’s category a, Makris’s category a and Cvijic’s category c), while farmlands and forests were organized to serve primary production requirements. In the same period, the wider region of the Haliakmon basin was settled by Turks (Konyars and Yuruks), which fact attracted more fugitive Christians to the city. The textual tradition of the rural settlement of Kozani emerged in the mid-sixteenth century.

of St Nicholas (1745), which resulted in the unification of the neighbourhoods (a process of citification and a form of synoecism), the construction of roads and bridges to link them, as well as the social cohesion of the large families (see Makris’s category b). A heyday for the settlement followed, with the organization in 1768 of the guild system (roufetia), which covered a multitude of well-built workshops (cottage industries), and the development of various trade-craft activities, which served the wider region and beyond. The creation of the urban merchant class (bourgeoisie) followed. The proto-industrial town of Kozani was distinguished on the one hand by its numerous mansions, and on the other by its Balkan wide-fronted rural residences with hayat, in the context of an urban plan characteristic of the bazaar city.

During the second phase, in the mid-seventeenth century, two important migrations of large farming clans (Papaginas and Trantas) took place and Charisis Trantas secured tax privileges and religious protection from the Sublime Porte. At the same time, there was a surplus of local production, which triggered the developmental process, with the “productiontrade-transport (caravans)” circuit, and contact with Central Europe (even emigration). Around 1664, the local noble Charisis Trantas, a legendary figure in local lore, founded the marketplace (carsi) and the magnificent metropolitan church

Mercantile city35 From the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman administrative reforms in favour of the Christians (e.g. Hatti Serif Gülhane, 1839 and Hatti Humayun, 1856), together with international circumstances, such as the Crimean War (1853–1856) and the American Civil War (1861–1865), favoured the development of trade in the Balkans and especially in the region of Thessaloniki, through whose port chiefly cotton and cereals were exported (fig. 6).36 309

Evangelos P. Dimitriadis Sub-phase i. Limited urbanization and the polarization of space (1821–1880)

Thessaloniki was a typical model of the mercantile city, which from the late 1880s began to follow the generalized trend of urban development in Europe. At a regional level the city exploited the traffic of local and supra-local trade with a network of roadways, which was combined with the creation of the railway network in Northwest Europe, which reached as far as Thessaloniki (Hirsch line, 1871) and was linked to the port’s operations.

This was typified by an increase in trade, a much smaller increase in industry and a parallel decrease in agriculture, with reference to the total population. The urban class of middlemen, which linked financially the socio-economic system of the “Greek diaspora” with that of the “domestic” system, in the context of international capitalism, flourished.39 The domestic socioeconomic system in the cities basically consisted of the urbanindustrial/entrepreneurial class, the artisans and a limited working class (0.45% of the total population in 1876). There was a large participation of servants and other non-productive groups (49% of the population of Athens in 1879).

The socio-economic changes in the city were also expressed by the modernization of its urban space. After the fire of 1890, about which not much is known, rebuilding was carried out to a Neoclassical urban plan in a substantial sector of approximately 20 hectares, in the central southeast part (intra muros).37 However, the rest of the urban fabric retained its traditional form and was organized on the basis of ethnic quarters and religious delineations, around local religious or social centres. Thus, the Jewish community and the foreign commercial agents were located near the harbour and the newly-formed city centre. The Greek community followed to the southeast, and the Ottomans resided in the northern section, in the highest and healthiest part of the city.

In the countryside, big landowners, sharecroppers and farmers with smallholdings were dominant. The new state was controlled by the royal court, which served its own interests and those of foreign states, as well as the system of the Greek diaspora. With respect to the network of settlements,40 the classification of cities into five population categories (5,000–10,000, 10,000–20,000, 20,000–50,000, 50,000–100,000 and over 100,000 inhabitants) gives a total of 27 settlements and shows that the first category (5,000–10,000) prevailed, while the population of Athens was growing at a rapid rate. The network of settlements retained the same organization as in the feudal economy (intensive ruralization), with a limited degree of hierarchy and polarization, which was chiefly located in the capital.

The traditional marketplaces were still organized by professional guilds (esnafia), according to Medieval models, in almost the same places around the harbour. The eastern section of the central marketplace, around today’s E. Venizelou Street, was controlled by the Jews, and the western section by the Turks (with the Bezesten as its nucleus).The economic centre of the Greeks (bank district) was located in the southern section of the market, near the church of St Menas.

During this period the foreign craftsmen working in Greece until 1833 introduced the Neoclassical city model as an innovation. This model served the bourgeois class and the royal court, secured the link with the West, underlined the contrast with the immediate Ottoman past and reconnected the ancient Hellenic world with the Modern Greek kingdom.41

The Europeanization of Thessaloniki was accompanied by essential infrastructure works, such as a central water supply (1880–1893), sewers (1890), gas supply (1887–1890) and municipal street-lighting (1893). Several thoroughfares were laid in the centre, and taller buildings with ground-floor shops were erected on the wider streets. Land prices rose, but without an equivalent improvement in the quality of life (e.g. without greenery, recreation facilities). Industry was located at the edge or on the outskirts of the city, near natural resources or the roads and sea routes.

Thus, by 1845 all the important urban centres of the Greek State had been designed according to Neoclassical urban plans, which gave priority to local ports and to important settlements within the administrative hierarchy (e.g. Corinth, Patras, Eretria, Sparta, Nafpaktos). By 1879, 93 settlements (with 500 to 25,000 inhabitants) had acquired an urban plan.

Thus, the pre-industrial mercantile city continued to be multiethnic and multi-cultural in character, due to its ethnic quarters. At the same time, however, it was modernized towards a protoindustrial form.

Sub-phase ii. Increase of spatial polarization (1880–1907/13) The economic, social and political features of this sub-phase were a continuation and evolution of the previous one. The urban population increased mainly in certain urban poles, among which Athens was undoubtedly predominant. Of the 55 settlements with more that 5,000 inhabitants (1907), there was population growth in 51. Settlements with 5,000–20,000 inhabitants (1st and 2nd category) prevailed quantitatively, and settlements with 10,000–20,000 inhabitants (2nd category) increased substantially. The population of Athens exceeded 100,000. During this period there was an increase in the degree of ranking and the complexity in the network of settlements with more than 5,000 inhabitants. This phenomenon did not present a great discontinuity with the previous phase and was due mainly to the annexation of new territories to the national state. The state was strengthened and institutions and

Unit II. Southern Greek urban space (planned towns) Southern Greece was transformed from a dependent part of the collapsing Ottoman Empire into a European-type national state, with modern institutions and an economy controlled by capital, while social forces evolved in parallel and urbanization progressed in a space where the rural element clearly prevailed. In the period 1821–1907/13, mercantile capitalism expanded at the expense of the feudal economy, and indeed from South to North. The following sub-phases have been distinguished on the basis of the criterion of the new settlement ranking of space, in the context of which central planning and the layout of the city were given priority. Athens was appointed as the sole pole of political and economic power.38 310

The Rebirth of Settlements in Greece During the Late Ottoman Period regulations were elaborated and put into effect by a specially formed administration and its agents. The Neoclassical model was applied in a weakened form even in small settlements (e.g. Arta, Karditsa).

I. Chasiotis, “The decline of Ottoman power”, in History of the Greek Nation (henceforth HGN) (Ekdotike Athenon), Athens 1975, vol. XI, 35–38, 50–51 (in Greek). 5 D. Grothusen, G.D. Silva et al., Modernization and Industrial Revolution in the Balkans in the 19th century (co-ord. V. Panayotopoulos) (Themelio), Athens 1980 (in Greek), and D.N. Karydis, Chorographia Neoteriki: Formation and Evolution of Greek Cities from the 15th to the 19th Century, (Symmetria), Athens 1994 (in Greek). 6 See S. Papadopoulos, “The Greek revolution of 1770 and its impact on Greek lands”, in HGN, vol. XI, 83–85 (in Greek). 7 See V. Panayotopoulos, “Demographic developments”, in HGN, vol. XI, 152–158 (in Greek). 8 See S. Asdrachas, “Economy”, in HGN, vol. XI, 172–181 (in Greek). 9 K. Moskoff, National and Social Conscience in Greece, 1830–1909: The Ideology of the Middleman Field, Athens 1974, (2nd edition) (in Greek). 10 A. Vakalopoulos, History of Macedonia 1354–1833, Thessaloniki 1969, 275, 279 (in Greek). 11 K.A. Vakalopoulos, Economic Functioning of Macedonian and Thracian Space in the mid-19th century in the Context of International Trade (Macedonian Studies Society (MSS) 54), Thessaloniki 1980 (in Greek). 12 P.A. Aravantinos, Chronicle of Epirus (and of the Neighbouring Greek and Illyrian Lands) (S.K. Vlastos printer), Athens, vol. I, 1856, and vol. 2, 1857 (in Greek). 13 G. Papageorgiou, The Guilds in Ioannina in the 19th and the early 20th Century (Series of Doctoral Theses of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Ioannina 4), Ioannina 1982 (in Greek). 14 R.J. Lawless, “The economy and landscapes of Thessaly during Ottoman rule”, in F.W. Carter (ed.), An Historical Geography of the Balkans (Academic Press), London-New York-San Francisco 1977. 15 D.N. Karydis, “Economy and society in Turkish-dominated Athens” Scientific Thought 9, 1982, 12–19 (in Greek). 16 See A. Vakalopoulos, “The last period of Venetian rule 1685–1715” and V. Sfyroeras, “The second Turkish domination 1715–1821”, in HGN, vol. XI, 206–209 and 209–212 respectively (in Greek). 17 J.M. Wagstaff, “The study of Greek rural settlements: A review of the literature”, Erdkunde: Archiv für Wissenschaftliche Geographie 23(4), 1969, 306–317. 18 E. Friedl, Vasilika: A Village in Modern Greece, New York 1962; I.T. Sanders, Rainbow in the Rock: The People of Rural Greece, Cambridge Mass. 1962; A.C. Smith, The Architecture of Chios (P.P. Argenti), London 1962; and J.M. Wagstaff, “Traditional houses in northern Greece”, Geography 50, 1965, 58–64. 19 J. Cvijic, La péninsule Balkanique: Géographie humaine, Paris 1918. 20 A. Philippson, Der Peloponnes, Berlin 1892, and idem, Thessalien und Epirus, Berlin 1897. 21 A. Beuermann, “Strukturwandel landlicher Siedlungen in Griechenland” in Verhandlungen des Deutschen Geographentages (Hamburg 1955) (Tagungsberichte und Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen), Wiesbaden 1957, 409–415, and idem “Typen landlicher Siedlungen in Griechenland”, Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 100, 1956, 278–285. 22 Aravantinos, Chronicle, vol. 2, op. cit., 157. See also S.P. Aravantinos, History of Ali Pasha Tepelenli, Athens 1895 (in Greek), 69, and I. Martinianos, Moschopolis 1330–1930 (S.P. Kyriakidis, ed.) (Macedonian Library 54), EMS, Thessaloniki 1957, 70–71 (in Greek). 23 K. Vergopoulos, The Agricultural Issue in Greece (Exantas), Athens 1975 (2nd edition with preface by Samir Amin), 55–58 (in Greek). See also G. Pachys, The Agricultural Issue in Epirus, Athens 1882, 43–44 (in Greek), and N.I. Pantazopoulos, “Community Life in Thessalo-Magnesia during the Ottoman period”, in School of Legal and Economic Sciences Yearbook 14, 1967, 1–103, (12–13) (in Greek). 24 E.P. Dimitriadis, Social Formation and Urban Space: Twenty Settlements in the Konitsa Province of Epirus (Doctoral thesis, School of Architecture A.U.Th.), in Scientific Yearbook of the School of Architecture A.U.Th., vol. 8, Appendix 1, Thessaloniki 1980, 86–88 (in Greek). 25 See chapter 25, by N.K. Moutsopoulos, in the present volume. 26 Martinianos, Moschopolis, op. cit. 27 K.A. Makris, The Popular Art of Pelion (Melissa), Athens 1976, ch. “Town planning” (47–54) (in Greek). 28 G. Stadtmüller, “The problems of the historical investigation of Epirus”, Epirotic Annals 9, 1934, 149 (in Greek). See also Dimitriadis, Social Formation and Urban Space, op. cit., 286–295, 320–323. 29 See relevant note 28. 30 For the socio-spatial model of the pre-industrial city, investigated by Gideon Sjoberg and named after him, see G. Sjoberg, The Pre-Industrial City: 4

We note that during the nineteenth century, in order to consolidate the national sovereignty of the new state, the settlements of southern Greece were renovated, while at the same time the housing needs of populations in settlements destroyed by the war were met. By 1912, 174 settlements with populations of 500 to 20,000 inhabitants acquired a new plan. The Modern Greek city, irrespective of size, came under a single system of state administration. The homogenization of urban space in accordance with Neoclassical planning principles constituted a central dichotomy with the rest of the urban centres in the northern Greece, which in the same period were developing according to the model of the Balkan city. Towards the end of the century, in the context of internal reorganization, the industrial city raised common issues, similar to those that appeared in other new national Balkan states.

The model of the planned Neoclassical city In the context of the industrial revolution and the optimistic notions of progress that this generated, artistic creativity in mid-eighteenth century Europe, in its search for new forms, veered towards Greek Classical Antiquity, with the Parthenon as its model par excellence.42 This political-cultural movement affected the whole as well as the partial elements of the so-called Greek Neoclassical city, which acquired its paradigmatic form in Athens, and in part Thessaloniki (Hébrard plan, 1921). Monumental geometric elements in the layout, a new perception of greenery (a return to nature) and a co-existence of natural and historical-architectural elements entered into the planning of urban space, in the context of its renewal-rehabilitation and the resolution of issues of sanitation, circulation, etc. Principal street axes were planned in space (as in the Baroque city), while the façades of the buildings lining these were given a “formal” Neoclassical aspect in their proportions, symmetry, openings and decoration. After the second half of the nineteenth century, urban planning laid emphasis on providing amenities for the city or the port (public buildings, marketplaces, schools, etc.), and infrastructure networks (sewers, gas, water supply, etc.). At the same time, however, the anonymous architecture of the outskirts of the large urban centres and the hinterland coexisted productively with Neoclassicism and has bequeathed us an important traditional legacy of the early twentieth century.43

Notes V. Kremmydas, “Space and History, some theoretical points and an example: Ports and sea lanes in Ottoman-ruled Greece (18th and early 19th century)”, in E.P. Dimitriadis and A. Karadimou-Yerolympou (eds), Space and History: Urban, Architectural and Regional Space (Proceedings of the Skopelos Symposium, September 1987, School of Architecture, A.U.Th.) Thessaloniki 1989, 23–29. 2 See P. Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (New Left Books), London 1974. 3 See D. Harvey, Social Justice and the City ( Johns Hopkins University Press), Baltimore 1973. 1

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Evangelos P. Dimitriadis Past and Present (The Free Press), New York, 1960. 31 V.I. Filias, Society and Power in Greece: Bastard Urbanization (1800– 1864) (V. Makryonitis and Assoc.), Athens 1974, 24 (in Greek). See also A. Samouilidou and A. Stephanidou-Photiadou, “Thessaloniki during the Ottoman period: The Turkish monuments”, Archaiologia 7, 1983, 53–65 (in Greek). 32 E.P. Dimitriadis, The Vilayet of Ioannina in the 19th cent. Ioannina. From “Bazaar City” to the “Mercantile City”: Historical, Spatial, Urban and Architectural Study (Kyriakidis Bros), Thessaloniki 1993, 112–116 (in Greek). 33 S. Avgerinou-Kolonia, “Kozani”, in G. Lavvas (ed.), Greek Traditional Architecture, vol. 7. Macedonia I (Melissa), Athens 1990, 201–240 (in Greek). 34 P. Lioufis, History of Kozani, Athens 1924 (in Greek). 35 Moskoff, The National and Social Conscience, op. cit., 83, characterizes in this way those towns (villes-comptoirs) in which the international market is active while the lowland rural economy is absorbed. 36 K. Moskoff, Thessaloniki 1700–1912: Section of the Entrepreneurial City, Athens 1974 (in Greek); see also N.G. Svoronos, Le commerce de Salonique au XVIIIe siècle (PUF), Paris, 1956. 37 A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, “Modernisation and urban planning in 19thcentury Thessaloniki”, in G. Karadedos (ed.), Neoclassical City and Architecture (Proceedings of the 1st Panhellenic Conference, Architectural History Seminar A.U.Th., 2–4 December 1983), Thessaloniki 1983 (unpublished), 60–62 (in Greek). 38 See chapter 27, by P. Tsakopoulos, in the present volume. 39 See C. Tsoukalas, Dependency and Reproduction: The Social Role of Educational Mechanisms in Greece (1830–1922) (Themelio), Athens 1977, 20, 195–196 (in Greek). 40 A.Ph. Lagopoulos (co-ord.), Investigation of the Urban Settlement Network in Greece, 3rd phase (T.E.E. – Central Macedonia Section and Chair of Town Planning A.U.Th.,), Thessaloniki 1978 (unpubl.), 308–311 (in Greek), and A.Ph. Lagopoulos, “Social formation and settlement network in Greece”, Geoforum 17(1), 1986, 41. 41 See K. Kafkoula, N. Papamichos and V. Hastaoglou, Town Plans in 19thcentury Greece, in E.E.P.S., vol. 12, Annexe 15, Thessaloniki 1990, 111–119 (in Greek). 42 G.P. Lavvas, “Classicism, historicism, eclecticism”, in Karadedos (ed.), Neoclassical City and Architecture, op. cit. 43 D. Philippidis, “The influences of classicism on traditional architecture”, in Karadedos (ed.), Neoclassical City and Architecture, op. cit., 237–243. See also chapter 27, by P. Tsakopoulos, in the present volume.

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PART V THE MODERN GREEK CITY

CHAPTER 27

The Greek City and Neoclassicism Greek urban planning in the nineteenth century Panayotis Tsakopoulos Architect N.T.U.A. and D.P.L.G., Dr of Regional Planning, Université de Paris X-Nanterre The nineteenth century constitutes an important stage in the urban-planning history of southern and eastern Mediterranean countries, during which the model of the Ottoman or Islamic city was replaced, more or less aggressively and with or without the consent of the local societies, by the Western urbanplanning model, as consequence of a more general political, economic and social transformation. The gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of national states in the Balkans, as well as the French colonial expeditions to North Africa, were accompanied by radical interventions in urban space on an institutional, functional and morphological level. Their goals were urban-planning and military, as well as ideological, and their axis was the delineation of a Neoclassical morphology upon organically developed urban tissues.1

Greek city can be distinguished. The first spans the period of Capodistria’s administration (1828–1832) and the first years of Othon’s regency and reign (1833–1843), while the second covers the period after 1856 and up to 1912. In the intermediate period (1843–1856), the departure of foreign engineers and architects from the civil service, and the political and economic instability, brought inertia at both the institutional and planning level.

First period (1828–1843) The Neohellenic cities after the declaration of Independence After ten years of war, most cities and settlements in southern Greece were in ruins and had been deserted by their inhabitants, production was in a shambles and the existing economic and social network had collapsed. The proclamation of the independent Greek State left the most economically important Greek provinces outside its borders. Major urban centres in the Greek Peninsula, such as Thessaloniki, Ioannina or Larisa, remained under Ottoman rule, and the urban centres of the independent state lost a large part of their importance, when they found themselves cut-off from the Ottoman economic body or forfeited their political, administrative or military role (Tripolis, the Ottoman capital of the Morea, was a typical example, as were the coastal defensive towns of Methoni, Koroni and Navarino). By contrast, cities whose economy was based on the trade of products from their rural hinterland were less adversely affected by the curtailment of their “economic space”, while others, such as Patras on the west coast of the Peloponnese or Hermoupolis on Syros – centres of trade with Europe –, enjoyed substantial growth.7

European army engineers and architects – French in Egypt and North Africa, French and Bavarian in Greece, Austrian and German in Romania and Serbia, Czech and Russian in Bulgaria – were the agents of this transformation. They brought to the countries in which they served the theory and practice concerning the city, which had been elaborated by the Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century and which was expressed in architecture and urban planning by the Neoclassical movement. This was a functionalist approach to the city and to building, which considered technique as the chief space-producing instrument.2 It was not just a new style or a new morphology, but a different conception of space, which also explained the variety of its expressions, in both architecture and urban planning. Systematic research into nineteenth-century Greek urban planning only got under way in the last two decades.3 At three conferences and two exhibitions of urban plans, held in the early 1980s,4 a substantial amount of material was codified, which was enriched in the following years by the publication of books and articles, and by scientific programmes.5 Many archives in Greece and abroad contain large volumes of data, only part of which has been studied so far. These are chiefly the General State Archives in Athens, the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works, and various archives of prefectures and municipalities. Among European archives, we mention the very important Archives of the French Army.6

Thus, after 1830, there was a restructuring of the network of urban centres in Greece, with a transfer or a redistribution of economic activities and the need to create a new political and economic network. At the same time, basic priorities of the administration, both under Capodistria and the Bavarians, were the urbanization of the country and a new ranking of space, which was favourable to the city, through methods of adjustment as well as planning. In a rather short interval of fifteen years, dozens of urban plans were drawn up, while the administrative machinery required to implement the urbanization policy was gradually organized. In Capodistria’s

Two main phases in the history of the nineteenth-century 315

Panayotis Tsakopoulos time, plans were prepared chiefly for the war-ravaged centres of the Peloponnese and the fortified coastal sites which were still considered useful to the defensive network. In the first Othonian period, emphasis was placed mainly on the commercial centres of the Peloponnese and Central Greece (Megara, Thebes, Agrinion) as well as on the coastal cities where urbanization tendencies were stronger (Chalkis on Euboea, Adamas on Melos, Hermoupolis).8 The founding of new cities (Itea, Lidoriki, Sparta, Megalopolis, Eretria on Euboea) was designed with regard to a plan for settling diaspora Greeks or foreigners, a plan that largely remained on paper.9

fundamental principles of the European concept of the city, at the levels of construction, hygiene, allocation of uses, provision for basic infrastructure networks, the process of production and control of space and morphology (adoption of the rectangular grid). Further decrees were issued for the planning of Athens (RD 9–4-1836, RD 12–11–1836 and RD 28–9-1837) and Hermoupolis (RD 2–8-1839 and RD 23–12–1842), focusing on issues such as the observance of building regulations, the size of land plots, the construction system, building coefficients, approval of building plans and monitoring by public authorities of the legality of constructions, etc.15 These texts can thus be considered the forerunners of the subsequent General Building Regulations.16

The new ranking of the urban network was determined by the choice of Athens as the new capital in 1834. The city became almost the unique pole of political power and economic activity, and soon outshone the development of provincial centres.

City plans as means of organizing space and marking ideology The presence of European army engineers or of Greeks from abroad in the Greek Civil Service had an obvious impact on the drafting and application of urban-planning policy. The engineer officers or the army geographers of the French expeditionary force and the Greek officers of the “Officer corps for fortifications and architecture”, in Capodistria’s time, as well as the Bavarian architects and geometers of the Architectural and Topographical Section of the Secretariat of the Interior, during the Regency and Othon’s reign, were the vehicles that brought contemporary European urban-planning ideas as well as military spatial-organization practices to the new state.

The transfer of European models and the institutional framework for the city From the mid-eighteenth century, European states found that a more cohesive planning of the administrative machinery and legislative framework was essential for tackling the problems of space in a coherent way. The concept of the city acquired an increasingly concrete form in legislative texts pertaining to the development of urban land (leading to street plans characterized by the division of rectangular housing blocks and land plots, with obvious consequences for the morphology of space), hygiene and the location of polluting practices,10 traffic circulation11 and control of urban activities; the planning of cities became a concern of the administration, physicians and engineers.

The concept of the plan for the expansion of the city as a sum of housing blocks17 was dictated by the need to develop urban land as well as by the military urban-planning mentality.18 It is apparent in the plan of the new quarter of Nafplion, which Stamatios Voulgaris proposed to locate outside the walls by the sea (1828), and in his plan for the suburb of Pronoia (1829), as well as in the plans for Argos by Captain De Vaud (1829), for Itea by Andreas Kalandros (1831), for the enlargement of Aigion (probably by Stamatis Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert, 1834), Megalopolis (1837), Nafpaktos (1838) and Karystos (Othonopolis, 1842), where the division of housing blocks into numbered plots was planned.

The first decisions taken by Capodistria aimed at the control and institutional organization of space, in accordance with contemporary European models: a population census, new administrative divisions that over-rode the community system of the Ottoman period by strengthening central authority, drawing the Map of Greece, drafting urban plans and establishing the legislative framework for the layout and sanitation of cities,12 the construction and safety of buildings, and the creation of new settlements (with free land allocations to settlers).13

However, urban planning in post-revolutionary Greece was not merely a technical problem. It was necessarily a means of marking the break with the past – at an ideological and a morphological level – in the main cities of the urban network of the Ottoman period, with the new capital as spearhead. For Voulgaris, his proposed interventions for Nafplion marked the city’s first step “from barbarity to civilization”. The major arrangement of the tissue of the Medieval city consisted in delineating the central axis in the form of a bow string, which bypassed the main Ottoman street (the “bazaar street”) and is identified with the axis of symmetry of the quadrangular square, which it marked out on the site of the old Venetian foro, with the Venetian barracks as the focal point of the perspective.

In the time of the Regency, the “Public Economy Office”14 was founded, with broad jurisdiction over the control and organization of space (mapping the territory of the State, measurement of national, municipal and private lands, population census, location of antiquities, recording of national resources, crops, trade, etc., and a study for their exploitation, the development of industry and shipping, a communication plan and a settlement programme). Urbanization was undertaken through creating new city-colonies, on the model of similar attempts in Central Europe, while a new legislative framework made provision for encouraging industry, extending the road network and monitoring the construction and the hygiene of the cities. Mention should be made of the Royal Decree (RD) of 15–5-1835, “On the hygienic building of cities and villages”, which was of fundamental importance for Greek urbanplanning legislation and introduced to the Greek scene the

For the first time geometry was introduced into the tissue of Greek cities, not only as an instrument of arrangement but also of ideological marking. To the inward-looking space of the Ottoman city – incomprehensible, “untidy” and uninviting – it juxtaposed straight streets and rectangular public spaces: to 316

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2. “Plan of the new city of Patras”, S. Voulgaris, 1829 (Tsakopoulos, L’urbanisme, 1986).

kingdom, held a dominant place in their work. We shall not analyse here its morphological co-ordinates; we simply note that it combined axes and focal points in a geometric synthesis of profoundly symbolic character, and promoted a continuous dialogue between the ancient topography and the landmarks of the new city (see the monumental axis of the geometric synthesis with its two poles, the palace of the monarch and the Propylaia of the Acropolis, as well as the basic triangle which faces the archaeological site).21

1. Tripolis. Developmental phases of the Garnot-Voulgaris plan, with the Ottoman tissue as the spatial foundation, 1828 (from Tsakopoulos, L’urbanisme, 1986).

its complexity and hierarchy, it counter-posed the rationality of the homogenized plan. The generative element of the plans prepared for existing settlements was usually the central mosque or some other Ottoman public building, which had survived the ravages of war and had been turned into a church, a hospital or a barracks. The old mosque, which in the Ottoman city stood in an irregular enclosed space, now dominated a public square of geometric form, of which it became the perspective focal point and determined the axis of symmetry. The new axes bisected the “forks” of the spindle-shaped tissue of the Ottoman city, simultaneously creating the framework of a rectangular plan.19

The plan for Athens had a direct influence on the geometer Stauffert’s plan22 for the new Sparta (1834- fig. 5), another city with a highly-charged Classical past. Here too there is the axis of symmetry of the geometric synthesis, linking the royal palace with the archaeological site, while with the curvature of the transverse axis the entire city tended to enclose the archaeological zone. Schaubert and Kleanthis also drew the plan for Eretria (1834), and Schaubert alone the plans for Megara (1836- fig. 6) and Corinth (1836- fig. 7). In the last, the royal palace was located on the site of the serai of Kiamil Bey, as the focal point of the city’s basic axis, on which a network of open spaces and public buildings was structured.

A number of plans of the Capodistrian period are particularly interesting because they diverge from the simple rectangular model and, with a strong symbolic tendency, convey the transition to the new era. These are Voulgaris’s plans for Tripolis (1828- fig. 1) and Patras (1829- fig. 2), in which the Corfiot engineer essentially ignored the Ottoman tissue, which had in any case been ruined by war, and employed as initial syntheses the Renaissance models of ideal cities (two main thoroughfares intersecting at right angle in the central, quadrangular square with closed corners, with four more quadrangular squares situated at the midpoint of the axes). In the plan for Patras these are combined with elements of French cities of the Napoleonic period, such as the homogeneous rectangular grid of housing blocks, which was superimposed on the initial ideal shape.20 Noteworthy too are the plans of Lieutenant-Colonel Audoy, of the engineers corps, for Methoni (1829) and of Rudolph de Borroczün for Argos (1831- fig. 3).

The divergence of this plan by Schinkel’s student from that drafted by the army geographer Eugène Peytier just a few years earlier (1829), is indicative of the typological differences between the urban plans of the Capodistrian period and the first Othonian period, as well as of the political and ideological directions of each era. If in Peytier’s plan, ideological requirements were satisfied by sporadic application of the Neoclassical city’s urban forms, such as straight streets, rectangular squares, etc., and if rationalism was paramount in his thinking (see for example his approach to the existing urban tissue, as expressed in his letters to Capodistria),23 Schaubert’s plan, by contrast, seemed to obey the needs of a single geometric synthesis, in which the application of the vocabulary of Neoclassicism was justified per se and the existing tissue was merely an opportunity for certain delineations. However, plans such as those of Sparta and Corinth were not the rule in the first period of Othon’s reign, since restrained modifications of existing urban tissues (fig. 8) or Hippodamian extensions of plans (see fig. 9) continued to be the rule for the Architectural Department of the Secretariat for the Interior.

In the Regency period, the architects Schaubert and Kleanthis, both students of one of the pioneers of German Neoclassicism, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, at Berlin’s Bauakademie, set their seal on the morphology of urban plans. The plan for the new city of Athens (1832- fig. 4), which was to be the capital of the Greek 317

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3. Athens, the Kleanthis-Schaubert plan, 1832 (from Athens a European Case, 1985).

5. Sparta, the Stauffert plan, 1834 (General State Archives, Ministry of the Interior, File 114- photo by P. Tsakopoulos).

4. Argos, the plan of R. de Borroczun, 1831 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works, 1984).

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6. Megara, the Schaubert plan, 1836 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works).

7. Corinth, the Schaubert plan, 1836 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works, photo by P. Tsakopoulos).

8. Plan for Agrinion, 1843 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works).

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9. “Plan of the village of Sinano” (Megalopolis), 1837 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works).

10. Plan of Philiatra, 1876 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works).

Second period (1856–1913)

the Corps of Civil Engineers to replace the officers of the Army Engineer Corps, who had been responsible for public works until then. The new department’s responsibilities extended to road works, port installations and the railway network, together with urban planning and the construction of public buildings.

A period of internal reorganization A new period for Greek urban planning began just after the mid-nineteenth century. The end of the Crimean War signalled intensification of European penetration of the Balkans and the Middle East, resulting in important transformations in those regions. Greek governments abandoned the irredentist chimaera of the Great Idea (Megali Idea) and turned to the serious problems of the country in a period of internal restructuring. Urban-planning activity in Greece in the second half of the nineteenth century may be associated more closely with corresponding activity in the new national Balkan states24 than with that in Europe, where the industrial city had, for some time, been posing problems on a different scale.

Important developments were made during the premiership of Charilaos Trikoupis (1881–1892), with an impressive extension of the road27 and railway networks, the widening and bridging of the Euripos Strait, the construction of the Corinth Canal, harbour installations and new ports (Katakolo, Kyllini, Kyparissia), etc. In 1882 a second French Mission under Alfred Rondel was invited to plan and execute a series of public works. It remained in Greece for a decade, and an additional twentytwo foreign engineers were employed. “The proliferation of public works expanded the country’s productive potential, gradually reduced the isolation of the provinces and reestablished the functional unity of space, by influencing the distribution of population and economic activities, and even the size and character of the cities”.28

Pivotal to attempts to modernize the Greek State, by strengthening central authority, by commercializing agricultural production and by unifying Greek economic space, was the stepping up of public works, which were spearheaded by landreclamation projects (such as the draining of Lake Kopais), road building and port installations.25 The road network in the mid-nineteenth century was only slightly more extensive than that of the Ottoman period, since the Regency programme had not been implemented effectively, with the result that only 168 km. of carriageways existed in 1852. Through a series of laws, the state attempted to systematize road building, in order to achieve economic and military control of space, and gave clear priority to meeting the needs of coastal trading centres.26 By 1868 the road network included 21 highways of total length 460 km., while by 1882 it exceeded 1,000 km. These figures do not include the important road network of the Ionian Islands, which was constructed under British rule, and was around 850 km. at the time of their Union with Greece (1864).

Reorganization of the network of urban centres and urbanplanning priorities: infrastructure networks and urban facilities In the second half of the nineteenth century, significant changes took place in Greece, with the transfer of economic activities from the highlands to the lowlands and from the hinterland to the coast, and a restructuring of the old equilibria in population distribution.29 The urban population grew substantially after 1870, with the coastal centres of the northern and western Peloponnese leading the way, while the cities of the old urban network (Tripolis, Nafplion, Argos) remained stagnant.30 After 1856 a series of towns and cities that had not been studied before but whose development was predicted, were planned.

In 1857 the first French Mission under Daniel arrived in Greece, in order to study the “spatial network” of Athens, to implement the first road-building programme for the capital and to organize the Department of Public Works. Law 588 of 1878 established the Department of Public Works as an independent service of the Ministry of the Interior, and set up

In the Peloponnese, these were the centres for the collection and export of currants, on its north and west coasts31 (Philiatra (fig. 10), Gargalianoi, Pyrgos, Katakolo, Amalias, Kato Achaia, Kiato, Xylokastro, Akrata), as well as Kalamata and Messini, 320

Greek urban planning in the nineteenth century 7,000 inhabitants, which benefited from trade in currants and the agricultural products of its hinterland.36 Institutional framework, structure and morphology of urban plans The institutional framework, which was systematized during this period, attempted to strengthen urbanization and to control city development.37 Law 258 of 1856, “On the construction of pavements, sewers, etc.”, prescribed that cities should be surrounded by a building-free zone 1,500 m. wide. Law 122 of 1867, “On the implementation of the plans for cities and towns of the kingdom”, provided the framework for implementing approved urban plans and extended the legal provisions for Athens and Hermoupolis in the period 1836–1842 to all cities in the country. Law 949 of 1866, “On districts”, defined the framework of settlement policy, by encouraging the founding of new settlements with financial support from the State. The act specified the procedures for allocation of and construction on land plots, and secured the necessary spaces for erecting public buildings and welfare amenities.38

11. Athens, street plan: Kolonos, 1893 (Athens a European Case, 1985).

which competed as olive oil exporting centres in Messinia; in Central Greece they were ports of local importance (Amphilochia, Stylis, Limni in Euboea) and country towns (Amphissa, Arachova, Vonitsa); and in the Cyclades they included some of the basic settlements. For the regions of Thessaly and Epirus, which were incorporated in the Greek State in 1881, these included the centres of the Ottoman network (Larisa, Trikala, Karditsa, Volos, Arta), the stations of the new railway network (Pharsala, Velestino, Kalambaka), as well as the “national villages”, that is new settlements on public lands which were created after 1907 (Nea Anchialos of Volos).32

The second period of Greek urban planning was marked by the plan for New Corinth (fig. 13), which was drawn up in 1858, following the earthquake that had devastated the old city the year before. The model followed for establishing new settlements or extending older ones was based on a simple rectangular grid, with large building blocks divided into plots of 300–600 m2 and no enhancement of major axes and monumentality . Public squares were created by leaving one or more blocks free of buildings. These principles were codified by urban-planning legislation a few years later (Laws 122 and 949). The distinction of two central poles, suggested by the plan, that is the port (with customs house and other public buildings) and the main square (with civic buildings, marketplace, church, schools etc.), was to be followed by most of the plans drawn for coastal settlements in the following years.39 In the context of this model, but also as an echo of plans for the first European spas, the plan for the new city of Kyllini (1864, fig. 14) was one of the most ambitious of the time in terms of the proposed urban facilities: public and municipal buildings, marketplace, schools, even a hospital, all situated in neatly designed parks and linked by tree-lined avenues.40

New settlements were established during this period, chiefly as outports for cities with commercial activities. Usually, however, these did not enjoy notable growth, since state intervention was limited to land allocations for cultivation and settlement (Kyllini, Katakolo of Pyrgos, Marathos of Gargalianoi, Paralia of Kalamai). Several urban plans were drawn up for the capital, whose population grew from 4,000 in 1835 to 200,000 in 1912, and its area from 200 to 1,900 hectares. The sporadic straightening and widening of streets in the old section of the city until 1860 gave way to the overall plan of 1864–1865, which was followed by several successive expansions and alterations that gave the city its form in the early twentieth century (fig. 11).33 The new element of urban planning in the second half of the nineteenth century was the systematic provision of specific facilities (state and municipal buildings, marketplaces (fig. 12), schools, hospitals, etc.) and infrastructure networks for the city or its port.34 In Athens a first sewerage system (1858–1890) and water-supply system were installed, the railway to Piraeus, Lavrion and Kifisia was inaugurated (1869–1882), and public gas lighting was introduced (1857–1892), to be replaced by electricity in the city centre (after 1902). Numerous public buildings were constructed, largely through financial benefactions (House of Parliament, Academy, Polytechneion, Army Cadet Academy, City Hall, Library, Zappeion, two theatres, schools and hospitals, old and new Municipal Market).35 Provincial cities followed the same model. Pyrgos was a characteristic example. A City Hall, municipal marketplace, water supply system, public lighting by oil, two cemeteries and two new outports under construction (Katakolo and Kyllini) constituted the facilities of a city with

Characteristic of the plans prepared for reorganizing the old settlements in the Peloponnese and Central Greece were the straightening and widening of basic streets and squares, and small-scale interventions in the existing tissue (since expropriation costs were prohibitive), while special regulations were adopted for market areas, where very small plots were permitted, exclusively for commercial use.41 The plans for the cities of the newly-annexed territories of Thessaly (fig. 15) and Epirus, after 1881, fell into two categories: 1. Plans of settlements where the absence of extensive damage precluded planning and implementing radical interventions, with the result that urban tissues retained their character and complexity, until the early postwar years at least. Morphologically they are distinguished by the simple rectangular composition of the housing blocks in the new quarters and the more or less 321

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12. “Plan for the Municipal Market of the city of Upper Patras”, 1870 (Tsakopoulos, L’urbanisme, 1986- photo by P. Tsakopoulos).

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13. “Plan of the New City of Corinth”, 1858 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works).

14. Plan of Kyllini, 1864 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works).

15. “Street plan of the Fortress of the city of Volos”, 1888 (published by the Map Archive of the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works).

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Panayotis Tsakopoulos limited intervention in the existing tissue, chiefly by means of street alignments and the creation of squares (Volos 1883, Arta 1884, Kalambaka 1892).

History of Athens Foundation), Athens 1966, (1st edition) (in Greek), and I. Travlos, Urban-Planning Evolution of Athens, Athens 1960 (in Greek). 4 Namely: a. The Neoclassical City and Architecture Conference (History of Architecture Seminar A.U.Th., Thessaloniki 1983) - see Neoclassical City and Architecture, 1983 (in Greek). b. The International Symposium on History Neohellenic City (Society for the Study of Modern Hellenism)- see Proceedings of the International Symposium on History Neohellenic City: Ottoman Legacies and the Greek State, 2 vols, Athens 1985) (in Greek) - and the Exhibition of urban-planning drawings organized under the auspices of the Symposium (curators V. Dorovinis, I. Sotiriou and P. Tsakopoulos), Ministry of the Environment, Traditional Settlements Directorate, Exhibition of Greek City Plans 1828–1900, Athens 1984). And c. Symposium on Architecture and City Planning Polis, Asty, Capital, op. cit. (no Proceedings were published), which was organized on the occasion of the Exhibition: Athens a European Case (scientific adviser G. Tsiomis)- see the Exhibition Catalogue: Athens a European Case (Ministry of Culture- Athens, European City of Culture), Athens 1985 (in Greek); see also the collected essays: Athens Capital City (Ministry of Culture – Athens, European City of Culture), Athens 1985 (in Greek)). Earlier publications include: a. Technical Chamber of Greece, First Greek Technical Scientists of the Liberation Period, Athens 1976 (in Greek), which presented the material of the exhibition by the same name at the NHRF, 1973, b. the exhibition mounted by the Ministry of Regional Planning and the Environment on the Urban Plan of Athens (curators A. Angelopoulos and I. Sotiriou), 1983, and c. the publications of S. Loukatos, the most important being the “Reconstruction of ruined cities in liberated Greece under Ioannis Capodistrias”, in The Ministry of Education and Religions, Year of Capodistrias: Two Hundred Years from his Birth (Conference Proceedings), (National Printing House), Athens 1978 (in Greek), which effectively introduced us to the research on the history of 19th-century Greek urban planning. 5 In addition to communications included in conference proceedings already mentioned, we refer to the following studies, in chronological order: G.S. Prevelakis, Evolution et organisation spatiale de la capitale grecque, de 1830 à la veille de la 2ème Guerre Mondiale (unpublished doctoral thesis), Paris 1977; I. Travlos and A. Kokkou, “City planning and architecture”, in History of the Greek Nation (Ekdotike Athenon), Athens 1977, 515–528 (in Greek), and Hermoupolis: The Creation of a New City on Syros in the Early nineteenth Century (Published by the Commercial Bank of Greece), Athens 1980 (in Greek); A.Ph. Lagopoulos (co-ordinator), Investigation of the Network of Urban Settlements in Greece (Technical Chamber of Greece - Section of Central Macedonia and 2nd Chair of City Planning, P.S. A.U.Th.), Thessaloniki 1976–1978 (in Greek); A. Agoropoulou-Birbili, “The urban dwelling in British-occupied Corfu and the building regulations for the Ionian Islands”, Corfu Chronicles XXVI, 1982, 424–442 (in Greek); Y. Tsiomis, Athènes, 1983; V. Dorovinis, “Capodistrias et la planification d’Argos (1828–1832)”, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, Suppl. VI. Etudes argiennes, 1980; E. Kalafati, “Nafplion 1822–1830: The city planning of the Revolution”, Historika, Dec. 1984 (in Greek); D. Philippidis, Neohellenic Architecture (Melissa), Athens 1984 (in Greek); P. Tsakopoulos, L’urbanisme dans le Péloponnèse au XIXe siècle: De la ville Ottomane à la ville néohellénique (unpublished doctoral thesis, Paris X), 1986; K. Chatzimichalis, N. Kalogirou and A. KaradimouYerolympou, The cities of Northern Greece before and after the Liberation (General Secretariat of Research and Technology), Athens 1988 (in Greek); M. Kardamitsi-Adami, “The first Greek engineers”, Technika Chronika 4, 1988, 63–89 (in Greek); K. Kafkoula, N. Papamichos and V. Chastaoglou, City Plans in nineteenth Century Greece, in Scientific Yearbook of the Polytechnic School, Department of Architecture, A.U.Th., vol XII, Annexe 15, Thessaloniki 1990 (in Greek); and A. Papageorgiou-Venetas, The Ancient Heritage and the Historic Cityscape in a Modern Metropolis (Greek Archaeological Society), Athens 1994. 6 Archives du Ministère de la Guerre, Château de Vincennes, Paris: Archives Historiques du Dépôt de la Guerre of the Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre (S.H.A.T.) and Archives du Génie. See the detailed catalogue of the manuscript plans of the War Archives, where there are also urban plans of Greek cities of the period 1828–1832 – P. Tsakopoulos, Cartes et plans manuscrits de la Grèce et de l’empire Ottoman (XVIIIe-XIXe siècle), Dépôt de la Guerre, Château de Vincennes, Paris 1994 (in press). 7 Ch. Agriantoni, “Cities and industrialization in Greece, or industrialization in a single city”, in Athens Capital City, op. cit., 103–109 (in Greek), and eadem, The Beginnings of Industrialization in 19th-century Greece (Historical Archives of the Commercial Bank of Greece), Athens 1986 (in Greek); V. Filias, “Greek society”, in History of the Greek Nation (Ekdotike Athenon), vol. XIII, Athens 1977, 448– 454 (in Greek) and G. Sariyannis, “The network of urban centres in 19th -century Greece”, in Neoclassical City and Architecture, op. cit., 27–38 (in Greek). 8 “The major ports were economically and demographically flourishing

2. Plans of settlements where the extensive destruction of the Ottoman tissue permitted radical interventions, such as Larisa (1883) and Karditsa (1884) which were burnt down in 1882, thus making rectangular planning possible.42 Rectangular plans which almost ignore the existing tissue were also drafted for Trikala (1885), the Fortress of Volos (1888), and elsewhere. Moreover, the “rational” rectangular plan still embodied the ideological significance of rejecting the “dark” Ottoman past and accepting the symbolism of the new era.43 Most of the urban plans for nineteenth-century Greek cities were implemented effectively and, with successive modifications, were to form the basis of the development of modern Greek cities. There were cases where the persistence of the organic urban tissue directed or limited their overall implementation, resulting in urban-planning hybrids, such as Tripolis; elsewhere, the co-existence of the organic tissue with the geometric plan is distinguishable, as at Argos; lastly, in other places we have nothing but simple rectangular grids, for example at Patras. Urban-planning activity was a fundamental element in the formation of the Greek State, the shaping of its ideological identity and urban orientation. Although it initially followed contemporary European concepts concerning the production and management of space, in the second half of the century it tended to adapt itself to its limited potential, falling behind with respect to the issues and applications of European urban planning. Nonetheless, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the Neohellenic cities had developed their urban features and acquired their urban-planning, economic and social form. They were to assimilate the urban growth of the inter-war years and they maintained their scale until the utter disfigurement of their layout in the recent post-war decades.

Notes For the transformation of the Balkan city in the 19th century, see P. Tsakopoulos, “Modernization and urban planning in the 19th-century Balkans”, unpublished paper presented at the Architecture and City Planning Symposium Polis, Asty, Capital: From the Neoclassical to the New City (Athens, 23–24 November 1985) (in Greek) and A. Yerolympos, Urban Transformations in the Balkans (1820–1920) (University Studio Press), Thessaloniki 1996. A similar modernization process was adopted in the Ottoman Empire itself from the mid-19th century (See A. Borie, P. Pinon and S. Yerasimos, L’occidentalisation d’Istanbul au XIXe siècle (Ecole d’Architecture de Paris, La Défense), Paris 1989, and P. Dumont and F. Georgeon (eds), Villes Ottomanes à la fin de l’Empire (L’Harmattan), Paris 1992). For a parallel reference to French military urban planning in Cairo, Algiers and the Morea, see P. Tsakopoulos, “Techniques d’intervention et appropriation de l’espace traditionnel”, Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée 73–74 (Figures de l’orientalisme en architecture), 1996, 209–227. 2 See G. Tsiomis, “Neoclassicism: Technology of space”, in G. Karadedos (ed.), Neoclassical City and Architecture (Proceedings of the Ist Panhellenic Conference, History of Architecture Seminar A.U.T., 2–4 December 1983), Thessaloniki 1983 (unpublished), 232–236 (in Greek), and idem, Athènes à soi-même étrangère: Eléments de formation et de perception du modèle néoclassique urbain en Europe et en Grèce au XIXe siècle (unpublished doctoral thesis), Paris 1983, 610–651, 709–715 3 Among earlier publications we mention the important works of K. Biris, Athens from the 19th to the 20th Century (published by The City Planning and 1

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Greek urban planning in the nineteenth century cities, magnets for commercial capital accumulation and labour concentration and finally reception centres for industrial activity” – Kafkoula et al., City Plans, op. cit., 78. 9 D. Katiphori, “Expressions of interest by diaspora Greeks in founding cities in the Greek State under Capodistrias”, in Neohellenic City, op. cit., vol. I, 273–285 (in Greek); K. Lappas, “Saintsimonism in Greece”, in Athens Capital City, op. cit., 95–99 (in Greek); and Kafkoula et al., City Plans, op. cit., 89–95. A similar city-creating activity occured in Serbia too after 1836, with the settlement of refugees from areas still under Ottoman occupation, and in Romania, where the commercial cities on the Danube were founded after 1829- Tsakopoulos, “Modernization and city planning in the Balkans”, op. cit., 4–5. 10 In 1802 a Council of Hygiene was founded in France, which was responsible for public health in relation to urban activities, while specialist publications on city hygiene appeared in growing numbers, and concentrated on air circulation, the width of streets and architectural projections, drains, sewers and the location of unhygienic/polluting activities. 11 Easy circulation was a basic requirement and one of the major advantages of the ideal city. According to Michel Ragon, the 18th century witnessed the move from a city of habitation to a city of circulation. 12 Stamatis Voulgaris, a French army captain-geographer, in writing to Capodistrias notes: “It is well known that the purity of the air, the abundance of purling waters, the large dimensions of squares and streets, and cleanliness are the major prerequisites of civilized cities, the first elements of their hygiene” (Stamati Bulgari, Notice sur le comte J. Capodistrias, suivie de l ’extrait de sa correspondance avec Stamati Bulgari, Paris 1832, 19). 13 Tsakopoulos, L’urbanisme, op. cit., 116–153, 204–225, and Kafkoula et al., City Plans, op. cit., 57–61. 14 On the Bureau’s important role in the organization of the new Greek State, see Tsiomis, Athènes, op. cit., 453–466 and Lappas, “Saintsimonism”, op. cit. 15 Tsakopoulos, L’urbanisme, op. cit., 162–165, and Kafkoula et al., City Plans, op. cit., 62–66. 16 It should be noted that on the Ionian Islands, measures for the rational administration of city space were already being taken by the republican French, but were systematised by the Ionian State administration. An important element of the city’s institutional framework (which was modelled on British city planning legislation) was the existence after 1819 of building regulations, which required inter alia the submission of architectural plans for a building permit to be issued by the authorities (Agoropoulou-Birbili, “The urban dwelling”, op. cit., 424ff.). A similar requirement, which introduced the architect’s role in space creation, was included in the Capodistrian Act no. 10927, par. C of 20–4-1829, which was the first urban-planning legislation of the newly-founded Greek State. 17 Characteristic examples of this model were certain urban interventions and city plans of the First Empire in France, like the plans for the city of NapoléonVandée (1804) and Pontivy (1806), as well as of other European cities. 18 Cf. X. Malverti, “Les officiers du Génie et le dessin de villes en Algérie (1830–1870)”, Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée 73/74, 1996, 229–244, which refers to the work of the French army urban planning in Algeria, in the same period. 19 These principles were accepted initially by the inhabitants, and this differentiates the Greek model from the interventions of colonial French urban planning in the countries of North Africa after 1830 (Tsakopoulos, “Techniques d’intervention”, op. cit.). Thus, in a letter to the Extraordinary Administration of Heleia the inhabitants of Pyrgos state: “… in order for this small city… to be built in accordance with architectural lines for the eternal satisfaction of the inhabitants” (see Loukatos, “Reconstruction of ruined cities”, op. cit., 106). 20 It is characteristic that Voulgaris’s classicist vocabulary was not used in the revision of the plans, which followed a little later. The revision of the plan of Patras by Baron de Schaumbourg, Lieutenant-Colonel in the Engineers Corps of the Prussian army in 1830, resembled much more the rectangular grids of the time. 21 See Tsiomis, Athènes, op. cit., 540–586. 22 Stauffert collaborated for a time in processing the plan for Athens. 23 See Loukatos, “Reconstruction of ruined cities”, op. cit., 117ff. 24 See note 1. 25 See Prevelakis, Evolution et organisation spatiale de la capitale grecque, op. cit., 78. 26 These were the laws 112 of 1852 (which made provision for the obligatory participation of the inhabitants of the settlements in the construction process) and 314 of 1857 (which laid down the national road network), and especially 126 (which established the National Road Fund) and 163 of 1867 (which replaces the law of 1852). See specifically M. Sinarellis, “La politique de

l’Etat grec pour la construction d’un réseau routier moderne (1833–1882)”, communication at the 2nd History Symposium European Economies, Athens, 18–25 September 1983 (unpublished) and idem, “Réseau routier et Etat grec”, in Neohellenic City, op. cit., vol. 2, 375–380, and Prevelakis, Evolution et organisation spatiale de la capitale grecque, op. cit.. 27 The Peloponnese is a characteristic example: whereas Tripolis, at the centre of the peninsula, was linked, until 1882, only with Argos and Nafplion to the northeast and with Megalopolis to the south, during the premiership of Trikoupis it was linked with Sparta and Gytheion, Kalamata, Pyrgos and Corinth, Kalavryta and Patras (Sinarellis, “Réseaux routier et Etat grec”, op. cit., 380). 28 Kafkoula et al., City Plans, op. cit., 35–36. 29 In 1856, Greece had only 12 cities with over 5,000 inhabitants (13.6% of total population), of which only Athens exceeded 20,000. In 1889, there were 23 (21.4% of total population- 1833 boundaries). 30 The new cities of the first Othonian period, such as Sparta and Megalopolis, but also New Corinth, still remain stagnant (Agriantoni, “Cities and industrialization”, op. cit., 104). 31 Between 1858–1890, “the currant-producing villages present impressive population growth … while at the same time new needs for the spatial arrangement of harvesting and storing the crop prior to its transport to European ports” – Kafkoula et al., City Plans, op. cit., 80. 32 Kafkoula et al., City Plans, op. cit., 82–83. In this period we also have city plans for spas (Aidipsos, Hypati, Kyllini), and for settlements destroyed by earthquakes (Corinth, Aigion, Lixouri, etc.). 33 Athens a European Case, op. cit., 98–105. 34 Various legislative acts of the period made provision for the construction of public welfare facilities and infrastructures by means of local tax levies and relevant contributions, even of personal labour, by the inhabitants, such as the law “On road building” of 1852 and the laws on the construction of quays and harbours (Kafkoula et al., City Plans, op. cit., 71). 35 Athens a European Case, op. cit., 105–134. 36 On the Ionian Islands, the policy of providing cities with infrastructure works and public buildings apparently began in the early nineteenth century, but it is chiefly expressed in the first decades of the “British Protectorate”. Public buildings were designed and built chiefly in Corfu and Argostoli (Cephalonia), but also in Zakynthos and Lefkada, at speedy rates up to the 1840s, while later the deterioration of the fiscal situation of the Ionian State even led to their termination (1861), with the exception of those urgently needed (G. Chytiris, “Corfu in the mid-19th century”, Publications of the Society of Corfiot Studies, 1988 (in Greek)). In the first years of British rule (up to about 1830), most public buildings appear to be the work of foreign engineers (G. Whitmore, P. Saddier and British army engineers), while from the 1830s Greek engineers and architects designed technical works and manned the respective public agencies (I. Chronis, Ph. Chartas, P.A. Girontzis, G. Trichas et al.- A. Agoropoulou-Birbili, “The Work of the Corfiot Architect I. Chronis”, Publications of the Society of Corfiot Studies 10, 1983, 5 (in Greek)). In general, according to existing testimonies, the British constructed several public works on all the islands of the Ionian State, from Corfu to Kythera, either in cities (water supply, drains-sewers, harbour installations, road paving, public lighting) or in the hinterland (roads, bridges, etc.). The administration issued a number of decrees on the structure and staffing of Public Works services, and the execution of these works, the institutional framework for public works becomes tighter around the middle of the century (Agoropoulou-Birbili, “The urban dwelling in British occupied Corfu”, op. cit., 428ff.). 37 Kafkoula et al. City Plans, op. cit., 68–76. 38 A similar legislative framework and the respective administrative structures are encountered in the new Balkan national states: in Serbia (where the Ministry of Constructions was set up after 1861), there is the legislation on land expropriations of 1866, in Bulgaria (where the Ministry of Public Buildings, Roads and Communications, with a separate Architectural Section for the planning of cities, functions after 1893), and in Romania there is legislation to encourage and control urban development. In Turkey, the 1864 and 1891 Building Acts were passed, which were used for urban interventions in Thessaloniki. There is a similar planning of infrastructure works and urban facilities for the city (Tsakopoulos, “Modernization and city planning in the Balkans”, op. cit., 8–9, and A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, “Modernization and urban planning in 19th century Thessaloniki” (in Greek), in Neoclassical City and Architecture, op. cit. 54–67. 39 Tsakopoulos, L’urbanisme, op. cit., 330–349. 40 The plan for the Spa of Aidipsos (1884) is of similar interest. 41 A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, “Planning and reclamation of city space”, in Proceedings of the International History Symposium Neohellenic City, vol 2, 392 (in Greek).

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“The redrawing of the plan (for Larisa) is based on existing legislation and highlights all its characteristic problems, leading to the awareness of its inadequacy: steep compensation costs for road building to be paid by the inhabitants, peculiar land-plot partitions which do not meet standard requirements, but also lack of interest in settling people and investing the necessary funds. Its rebuilding will be delayed and only the state’s financial intervention will clear the way … with the revision of the plan and the enactment of special beneficial standards” – Karadimou-Yerolympou, “Planning and reclamation of city space”, op. cit., 390. 43 “We arrived in Larisa … the new Larisa, with wide streets, with a plan, with bold broad lines … which is rid of its Turkish features, Larisa with its open future” – from a period text, in Karadimou-Yerolympou, “Planning and reclamation of city space”, op. cit., 390. In Bulgaria, following the declaration of independence of 1878, new plans, ignoring the Ottoman tissue and implementing the Western model, were prepared for Sofia and Stara Zagora. Amadier, the French engineer who drafted the plan for Sofia, took into account only the 5 radial street axes, which Midhat Pasha had opened in the 1860s, while the City Council demolished indiscriminately all buildings not incorporated in the new plan. Churches, mosques and synagogues, and all urban remnants of the Ottoman past disappeared. In Stara Zagora, which had been destroyed by the war, the new plan drawn by the Czech engineer Lubor Bayer was a perfectly rectangular grid, which completely ignored the old structure. Such radical interventions, however (respective examples of which also occur in Serbia after 1878) were by now merely an exception. The usual practice was a limited intervention in the old tissue and the application of the rectangular grid in the plans of the extensions. (Tsakopoulos, “Modernization and urban planning in the Balkans” op. cit., 11). 42

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CHAPTER 28

The Greek City and Modernism: 1900–1940 Emmanuel V. Marmaras Professor of Urban Development and Planning University of the Aegean

In the early twentieth century important radical views were advanced on the organization of the productive process and the theoretical constitution of the social sciences and art. Terms such as Taylorism were used to define the more effective organization of industrial production through specialization of labour and its fragmentation into simplified productive procedures, and Modernism to define methodological developments in the social sciences and a Modernist viewpoint in literature and the visual arts.

of the century. The first urban-planning legislation was passed in the same country in 1909, empowering local authorities with significant responsibilities, while the term town planning was established from 1904, to express the new content which urban-planning theory and practice acquired in Britain. Last, in France, the general climate concerning the formation of the urban environment started to change from 1902, with the passing of the law on public health. This change was systematized after a long debate on urban-planning legislation in the French Parliament, which lasted from 1908 until 1918, when the relevant urban-planning act was passed.3 By 1910, the term urbanisme had already been introduced in France to express the need for state intervention in issues concerning the physical planning of cities or parts of them.

The spread of these developments also influenced the shaping of cities. Modern Functionalism, a dominant factor in the new trends, introduced the principle of the economic exploitation of space and the view that function should take precedent over form. The new architecture should turn its sights from the shell of a building and direct them towards the content it was intended to serve. Result of the new dogmas was that buildings acquired a simpler form and a more rational organization.

The echoes of these developments were felt directly and keenly in Greece, and essential decisions were taken in the urbanplanning field, leading to significant transformations in urban space. Nevertheless, these developments occurred under the influence of the country’s level of socio-economic development at the given historical conjunction, and of the imported scientific and technological innovations, the application of which was just starting.

The International Conferences on Modern Architecture (C.I.A.M.), held in the interwar years, laid the foundations for the new appraisal issues of space and particularized the manner of their realization. The foremost of these conferences was the Fourth, which took place in Greece in 1933. Its proceedings led to the formulation of the famous “Athens Charter”, which proposed inter alia that cities should be organized according to zones of basic functions (zoning). Those concerned with city issues should begin their study with the organization of the whole city and its districts, and then regulate the parts. According to the above, the new urban planning should drop its morphological concerns with the aesthetics of cities and acquire a more scientific character.1

The historical context The fall of the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century triggered a series of important developments in the Balkans, which concluded, as we know, with the founding of national states in the region. The first decades of the twentieth century were marked by wars between the new states, in an effort to expand their frontiers and secure a larger Lebensraum. The result was that the territory and population of Greece underwent successive changes. Thus, the country which in 1897 extended over 63,211 km.2 and had a population of just 2,451,185, in 1913 extended over an area of 121,794 km.2 and had a population of 4,819,793. In 1920, after the treaties of Neuilly and Sèvres, its territory reached 150,833 km.2 and its population 5,531,474. Finally, in 1922, following the Treaty of Lausanne, the territory of Greece was reduced to 130,199 km.², while its population rose to 5,913,000.

In early twentieth-century Europe, the effects of developments in urban-planning theory were rapid. Powerful countries, such as Germany, Britain and France, made radical changes in their urban-planning practices. In Germany, urban planning had already been recognized as a useful local authority activity. The term Städtebau, which was coined in 1889, became more widely accepted, while concurrently, the innovation mechanism of comprehensive planning was applied in urbanplanning practice.2 In Britain, greater emphasis was put on the environmental components of urban planning and it was within this framework of developments that the concept of the garden city was formulated by Ebenezer Howard at the turn

A substantial part of these population changes was due not only to the incorporation of the inhabitants from the newly 327

Emmanuel V. Marmaras development of the country’s productive resources, in contrast to the traditional economic base, which was the cultivation and trade of two agricultural staples, currants and tobacco. Concurrently, it applied a protectionist policy for national industrial production. This attempt to form a new domestic market is considered to have led to phenomena of intense social mobility and gradually to changes in the social stratification of the country.8 As regards developments in the ideological content of architecture and of space formation in general, it is observed that already by the 1920s Modernist positions were being welcomed in Greece. The new ideas gradually replaced the existing eclectic trends and contributed decisively to shaping the planning environment of the country’s urban centres in the interwar years. Their relatively rapid adoption by Greek society was attributed to the fact that it did not perceive them as foreign, as had occurred in other European countries, because Modernist forms to a large extent drew their inspiration from aesthetic elements and functional models of the local vernacular architecture.9 It must, at any rate, be taken for granted that Le Corbusier’s first journey to Greece in 1911, and especially his second one to the Greek islands in 1933, in connection with the Fourth C.I.A.M. Conference,10 contributed substantially to shaping the aesthetic perceptions of Modernism.

1. The A. Afentoulis apartment building, Stadiou and Kolokotroni streets, Athens 1906, A.M. Balanos and E. Angelopoulos engineers. The first multi-storey building constructed with reinforced concrete (The Alexander Afentoulis residence on Stadiou Street and Kolokotroni Square, built with the Hennebique system of reinforced concrete, Archimedes 11, 1907, 131 (in Greek)).

annexed territories, but also to the forced repatriation of Greeks from their ancient settlements in various regions of the Balkans and specifically southern Bulgaria (Eastern Rumelia), Romania, Serbia and Eastern Thrace. It is estimated that by 1922 and before the Asia Minor Catastrophe, 151,892 Greeks had been repatriated from communities abroad, while after 1922, 1,069,957 refugees sought shelter in the country.4 In a period of only four months, from late August until December 1922, around 920,000 refugees are estimated to have entered Greece.

Finally, with regard to developments in construction technology, major innovations in the building sector came into the country in the early twentieth century.11 These included firstly the use of reinforced concrete for the bearing structures of buildings (fig. 1), and secondly the technologies of the lift, central heating and the water-heater. The application of the latest innovations in building practice solved the fundamental functional problems of multi-storey apartment buildings, by supplying comfortable and quick access to them, as well as attractive living conditions.12 Furthermore, the use of new building materials, such as steel, glass, plywood and other artificial surfacing and lining materials spread, together with the standardization and normalization of building technology.13

Natural consequences of the above developments, apart from the urgent housing problem, were the large-scale economic and political effects, which proved to be of great importance for the future course of the country. Several scholars and historians were led to the conclusion that it was during the inter-war years that decisive steps were taken towards the capitalist transformation of Greece.5

Developments in Greek urban planning and the city

In economic terms, the period immediately after the Asia Minor Catastrophe was particularly critical. In its effort to cope with increasing problems, the government was forced to raise loans from foreign bankers, under unfavourable terms. The first of these loans was agreed in 1924, for a sum of 12,300,000 pounds sterling. The total amount raised in this way reached 1,015,200,000 gold francs in the period 1922–1932. The relief from the inflow of foreign exchange was temporary and was soon offset by the negative impact on the state’s finances, which led Greece to its fourth bankruptcy, in 1932.6 This was followed by a steep rise in unemployment, which was estimated at 28–30% of the labour force in the period 1928–1935, while poverty afflicted a large section of the popular classes.7

It can be claimed that the combination of scientific developments and historical circumstances existing in Greece in the first half of the twentieth century was ideal for the urban-planning phenomenon to flourish and bear new fruits. But, what were the qualitative steps taken by Greece in the urban-planning sector? As a first step we should consider the creation of a central staff agency with a clearly technical orientation, which would promote the appropriate urban-planning legislative measures. As a second step we should consider the concrete attempt to plan cities and to regulate urban space.

On the political level, these developments resulted in the gradual shift of part of the political power from the upper to the middle class. This process was aided by increasing state intervention in the national economy. The government gave priority to forming a domestic market based on the

The central urban-planning mechanism A fundamental condition for any transformation in the structures that produce built space and model the features of urban space is the establishment of the appropriate central mechanism to rank the priorities, organize the actions and 328

The Greek City and Modernism: 1900-1940 implement the state regulation of space.

that it adopted innovations concerning the structure, form and management of the built environment. Specifically, with regard to the structure of the city, the concepts introduced were the obligatory consideration of future expansions, the stockpiling of land, the zoning of urban functions, the spatial separation of production from consumption, public intervention to provide residential areas with social facilities, the regulation of building and generally land exploitation according to permitted uses, and the intensity of reconstruction. With respect to the form of the city, it promoted the organization of urban-planning space on the basis of functions and traffic needs, its condensing and thinning according to the economic yield of established uses, and the determination of the heights, volumes and façades of buildings in accordance with construction regulations. Finally, with respect to space management, control procedures of urban planning and building were secured by state agencies, local authorities and individuals, together with the collection of financial resources, and the self-financing of each region’s development by setting up special funds in which the various charges arising from the urban-planning process would be collected.18

In the case of Greece in the first half of the twentieth century, the above process manifested itself at two levels: the first was the founding of the Ministry of Transport, and the second was the passing of legislation that permitted transformations in cities, towns and settlements throughout the country, and in particular of the 1923 Law “On the plans of cities, towns and settlements in the State and their construction” and the 1929 Presidential Decree “On the general building regulations of the State”. The Ministry of Transport The Ministry of Transport was established in 191414 and held seventh place in the government hierarchy, which comprised eight ministries. The first minister was D.A. Diamantidis. The new ministry was effectively formed from responsibilities detached from the Ministry of the Interior and was organized under three Directorates: Public Works, with the Urbanplanning and Buildings Section under its umbrella; Railways, Tramways and Mechanical Installations; and Postal Services, Telegraphs and Telephones.15 The composition of the new ministry was improved in 1917, through an amendment by Alexandros Papanastasiou.16

The second law, on construction, laid down general regulations for the construction of buildings throughout Greece and, at the same time abrogated all relevant legislative acts issued in the past, of local or general application. The 1929 law formulated the first “General Building Regulations” in Greece and defined for the first time the sum of regulations, that is, restrictions and possibilities, which had to be implemented for the study and construction of buildings. It had been preceded by Law 858 of 6–9-1917 “On regulation of the maximum height of buildings under construction” and the presidential decrees of 27–11–1919 “On the maximum permitted height of buildings” and of 24–8-1922 “Amendment of Law 858 of 27–11–1919 on buildings within the urban plan of Athens”, which put certain restrictions on buildings, but these measures had been issued circumstantially.19 By contrast, the General Building Regulations of 1929 formulated the conscious planning of future transformations in cities. Through its 142 clauses, innovations were introduced for buildings in regard to adequacy of sanitation, fire safety and structural durability, the positioning on the plot with the introduction of building systems, the external form through formulating regulations for closed and open projections on the fronts and, finally, the settlement of differences between adjacent properties with the introduction of regulations for party walls, the sorting out of building plots, etc. Special care was taken for multi-storey buildings in the context of the above regulations.20

The importance that was attached to the Ministry of Transport can be seen from the additional fact that the Metsovion Polytechneion (present N.T.U.A.) was put under its supervision. A product of the new ministry’s activities in the field of technical education was the founding of the first School of Architects-Engineers in Greece, in 1917.17 However, of the greatest interest in the founding of the Ministry of Transport was the fact that it was identified with giving a new impetus to the country’s urban planning, with Papanastasiou as its “orchestrator”, and that it coincided with the beginning of systematic state intervention in urban space, the repercussions of which are felt to this day. Urban-planning legislation Since the establishment of the Greek State, the foundations for the reorganization and development of Greek cities had been laid down by two legislative acts, the decree of 3.4.1835 “On the hygienic building of cities and towns” and Law 122 of 20.4.1867 “On the implementation of plans for the cities and towns in the kingdom”. The organization of the state machine in the technical field, with the setting up of the Ministry of Transport in 1914, would have remained incomplete if a new and effective legislative framework had not been put into effect. It is ironic that the opportunity arose with the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922. On 17–7-1923 the bill was passed “On plans of cities, towns and districts of the state and the building thereof ”, which defined the rules for urban-planning development, while on 3–4-1929 the decree was issued “On the general building regulations of the State”, which specified the reconstruction methods inside cities and settlements.

The planning of cities and the reorganization of the urban tissue The drawing of urban plans was particularly felt in Athens and Thessaloniki during the 1910s. The cause was different in each case, but there was the consistent target of modernizing the country’s two largest cities on the Western European model. However, the nature of urban-planning efforts changed during the 1920s, as they turned to more summary practices, aimed at the immediate settlement and housing rehabilitation of the newly-arrived refugee populations from Asia Minor and Pontos

The first law, of urban-planning content, henceforth constituted the overall urban-planning framework for the country and is still partly implemented today. It was inspired by the respective legislations of France (1919), Germany (1918) and Switzerland (1911 and 1915), and its value lies in the fact 329

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2. L. Hoffmann, Urban plan for Athens, 1910. General traffic regulation (from G. Polyzos, “Reformation dreams and urban planning regulations”, in Athens in the 20th Century, 1986, 38 (in Greek)).

in the country’s cities and settlements. In the 1930s there was an even greater ebb in physical planning and a turn towards regulatory measures, which aimed at greater building densities in the urban centres, through a more intensive reconstruction of their tissue.21 The following more particular points could be made for the cases of Athens, Thessaloniki and the other cities and settlements in the country, where the influence of Modernist views on Greek urban space are visible.

3. L. Hoffmann, Urban plan for Athens, 1910. Omonoia Square with an obelisk in the middle (from H. Schmidt, “Wilhelminian Athens”. 1980, 53 (in Greek)).

The next plan was the one prepared by Thomas Mawson, the British urban planner who had been assigned the task by Spyros Merkouris, Mayor of Athens, in 1914. The final form of the Mawson Plan was presented on 17 February 1918. Noteworthy among the proposals were the concentration of urban activities in separate centres, the construction of working-class housing, the upgrading of the environs of the Acropolis, the traffic regulations for the existing street network and, finally, the setting up of an agency to implement and manage the plan.24 Although the Mawson Plan for Athens did not generally go beyond the basic framework of eclectic choices of the past (fig. 4), it nevertheless presented morphological affinities with British garden cities and contained views that clearly aimed at a rational organization of urban space.

Athens In the 1910s the capital was the subject of a substantial number of urban-planning proposals. Plans were prepared, in order, by Ludwig Hoffmann, Thomas Mawson, Aristidis Balanos, Stylianos Leloudas and Petros Kalligas. This intense urbanplanning activity could be considered as a Modernist answer to the successive unplanned extensions of the city, which had been practised till then. In the 1890s and 1900s, 30% of the city-plan expansions had been enacted, while during the 1910s these were limited to just 1.15% of the approved plan.22 The German urban planner Ludwig Hoffmann was the first to submit a proposal, which had been commissioned by the Municipality of Athens. Hoffmann placed emphasis on regulating the city’s traffic by creating peripheral thoroughfares, which, as ring roads, complemented the existing radial streets (fig. 2), and on improving the city’s appearance through a series of interventions to smarten up the housing blocks that would spring up from the traffic regulations (fig. 3), based on the Wilhelmenian model of eclectic urban planning. In spite of its virtues, the Hoffmann plan was not implemented because of the opposition expressed by the powers that be.23

The proposals of the Greek urban planners lacked the ambitious scope of the plans drafted by their foreign colleagues, but they were clearly closer to the real problems facing the capital in the 1910s. Specifically, Aristidis Balanos, taking into account the trend to build in the city’s western districts,25 suggested that the approved plan should be extended towards Kolonos, Sepolia, Kolokynthou and Iera Odos (fig. 5), by making use 330

The Greek City and Modernism: 1900-1940

4. T. Mawson, Urban plan for Athens, 1918. The centre of the capital (from M. Manoudi, “The Hoffmann and Mawson proposals and the Athenian Press”, in Athens in the 20th Century, 1986, 51 (in Greek)).

of the urban-planning idea of the garden city.26 Stylianos Leloudas published his urban-planning views (fig. 6) initially in March 1918 and then in July 1921. These covered almost the entire Athens basin27 and became, in a sense, the precursor of the idea of the “urban-planning complex of the capital”. Last, Petros Kalligas submitted his own “Plan of Athens”, in 1919, while in the period 1920–1924 – specifically in 1924 – he sat on committees of the Ministry of Transport and formulated the so-called “New Plan of Athens, Kallithea, Faliron and Piraeus”. During the interwar period there was little activity relating to the physical planning of the capital, in the qualitative sense of the term. This has been attributed to the urgent problems caused by the Asia Minor Catastrophe, and the need to take immediate housing measures. The views expressed by certain urban planners, such as Spilios Agapitos in 1928,29 Stylianos Leloudas in 192930 and the General Directorate of Technical Services of the Municipality of Athens in 1935,31 can be singled out on the margin of developments.

5. A. Balanos, Urban plan for Athens, 1917. The planning of the western neighbourhoods of Kolonos-Sepolia-Kolokynthou-Iera Odos (from G. Polyzos, “Reformation dreams and urban planning regulations”, 1986, 40 (in Greek)).

The Asia Minor Catastrophe, nonetheless, opened a new path in the capital’s growth during the interwar years. The activities of the agencies (Refugee Relief Fund and the Refugee Rehabilitation Committee) set up to deal with the settlement and housing problem of the refugees, who in Athens and Piraeus numbered 246,081 persons in a total population of 740,526, led to the founding of 12 major and 34 smaller

rudimentarily-planned refugee quarters in the Athens basin, at a distance of 1–4 km from the limits of the built city. At the same time, the pressures of wealthy locals and refugees had a decisive influence on the formation of a dual state policy, which aimed at increasing building heights in the centre of Athens and the founding of suburbs around it. 331

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6. S. Leloudas, Plan for the urban complex of the capital (after Stylianos Leloudas, Greater Athens: Drawings, Athens 1929 (in Greek)).

The above pressures contributed to the enactment of Law 3741 of 1929 “On ownership by storeys” and the issuing of the 1934 Presidential Decree “On building heights in Athens and its Environs”, which facilitated the construction of multi-storey buildings (fig. 7). The combination of the two resulted in the introduction of the building model of the “urban apartment block” and the emergence of the “part-exchange” system (fig. 8) in the process of its construction.32 Important Modernist architects became involved in the inter-war Athenian urban apartment block, such as Th. Valentis (fig. 9), V. Douras (fig. 10), G. Kontoleon, R. Koutsouris (fig. 11), K. Panayotakos and others, who gave the city important works.33 Furthermore, the pressures applied contributed to the extension of the urban space inhabited by the capital’s wealthy classes towards the northeast of the basin and the founding, in the 1920s, of the suburbs of Psychiko (1923), Ekali (1924), Nea Kifisia (1925) and Cholargos (1928).34

on 5 August 1917 and spread to the rest of the urban tissue. When the fire was extinguished, 32 hours later, 9,500 dwellings had been destroyed and 70,000 people made homeless in a total population of around 170,000, as it was in 1920. The city’s Jewish community suffered the greatest blow, as the fire had destroyed three-quarters of the Jewish neighbourhoods and made 52,000 Jews homeless.35 Immediately after the fire, Papanastasiou, then Minister of Transport, formed a committee, composed of Thomas Mawson, Joseph Pleyber, Ernest Hébrard, Angelos Ginis, Aristotelis Zachos, Constantinos Kitsikis and Constantinos Angelakis, which was responsible for drawing up the new urban plan of Thessaloniki. The plan was submitted in May 1918, by a group of experts headed by Hébrard. The scope and importance of this enterprise can be appreciated from the statement made by Pierre Lavedan, the historian of urban planning, in 1933: “the reconstruction of Thessaloniki by Hébrard was the first major work of twentieth-century European urban planning”.36 Noteworthy in the final plan (fig. 12) are the individual proposals: the form of the city ought to be articulated on basic street arteries and a ranked street network, administrative and economic functions should be located at the centre, spatial segregation by ethnic-religious groups should be abolished, the city should be organized in functional zones, such as those for administration, industry, leisure and housing, and provision should be made for adequate free spaces, while thoroughfares

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki’s association with the evolution of Greek urban planning began after its liberation in 1912. Up until then the city had its own role in the context of the Ottoman Empire, as one of the most important urban centres in the Balkans. The pretext for the urban-planning reorganization of Thessaloniki was the great fire, which started in the Mevlané neighbourhood 332

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7. The D. Kalvokoressis apartment building, 11 Irodotou and 12 Neophytou Douka streets, Athens 1929, D. Photiadis architect. This building is thought to be the first to apply the “horizontal propertyownership” system, according to Law 3741 of 1929 (photo. E.V. Marmaras).

8. The K. and G. Koutsias apartment building (plot owners) and M. Konstantakatos (building contractor), 17 Sina and Skoufa streets, Athens 1932, P. Manouilidis architect. This building is said to be the first one built under the “part-exchange” system (photo E.V. Marmaras) (from M.V. Marmaras, The Urban Apartment Building, Athens, 165–166 (in Greek)).

9. The P. and K. Michaelides apartment building, 1 Zaimi and Stournari streets, Athens 1934, Th. Valentis and P. Michailidis architects (photo. E.V. Marmaras).

10. The I. Tsimboukis apartment building, 21 Mavromichali and Navarinou streets, Athens 1936, V. Douras architect (photo. E.V. Marmaras).

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Emmanuel V. Marmaras should be lined with trees, so as to evoke the models of the urban-planning concepts of the “beautiful city” and the “garden city”. However, the chief innovation of Thessaloniki’s urban plan was the organizational scheme promoted to implement the proposals. According to the bill “On the implementation of the new plan for the city of Thessaloniki”, submitted to parliament by Papanastasiou, the basic concept was a form of “urban land redistribution”, the success of which was based on setting up the so-called “real-estate group”, that is a legal entity in public law which would gather all the old properties under its competence and in which the local authority would also be represented. The above bill passed into Law 1394 of 1918 and so the intervention agency for the city of Thessaloniki was created. Its brief included the evaluation procedure for old land plots, the constitution into a single real-estate group of the owners of the burnt-down area of Thessaloniki – as well as of those areas whose real estate was within the new city plan -, the new apportionment of plots according to the proposed plan, the manner of disposing of new plots and other implemental details. This organizational structure not only introduced officially into Greece the mechanism of “overall urban planning”, but also adapted international urban-planning practice to Greek reality, which was characterized in economic terms by a lack of monetary liquidity and required at the social level the securing of property rights to a specific land plot.37

11. Apergis Bros. Multi-storey car park, 3 Kanari Street, Athens 1936, R. Koutsouris architect (photo E.V. Marmaras)

12. Hébrard, urban plan for Thessaloniki, 1921. The final proposal (from A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, Replanning and Rebuilding of Thessaloniki, 1986, 278 (in Greek)).

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The Greek City and Modernism: 1900-1940 The Asia Minor Catastrophe brought new problems to Thessaloniki, with the arrival of 117,041 refugees in a city with a total population of 244,680, according to the 1928 census data, who thus accounted for 47.8% of its overall inhabitants. Refugee communities of an urban or rural nature were established around the city. The locations were selected with the clear aim of social separation of the particular refugee population groups in the urban space. Seventy-four communities and other housing settlements38 were founded throughout the wider region, following a simplified grid system of urban planning. Certain implementations of the gardencity concept were carried out in Thessaloniki, in the cases of suburban developments as in Vardari (1919) and Chortiati (1934).

the Athens-Piraeus-Kallithea urban complex. Moreover, in five cities of Northern Greece the refugee population was more than half the total population. These were, in order, Drama (refugee population = 70.2% of the total), Alexandroupolis (59.0%), Yannitsa (58.4%), Kavala (56.9%) and Serres (50.4%).41

Other cities and settlements in Greece

It becomes clear from the above that in the interwar years urban-planning developments were centred on the regional strengthening the country’s settlement network, through the housing rehabilitation of the refugees from Asia Minor and Pontos, mainly in Northern Greece.

In the context of the above regional distribution of the population, by July 1929 the Refugee Rehabilitation Committee had created 1,997 refugee settlements throughout Greece, where 578,824 refugees were housed. The majority of the settlements and the refugees were located in Macedonia (1,055 settlements, 339,094 refugees) and Thrace (562 settlements, 179,060 refugees).42 The urban plans of refugee settlements were drawn up hurriedly, without taking any particular issues into consideration, excepting the natural features of the land, and used a simplified grid system as model.

The practice of promoting approved street plans for the rest of the Greek cities had begun in the nineteenth century. It is estimated that 152 street plans for cities and other settlements were drawn up between 1828 and 1899, while 39 additional street plans were approved throughout the country from 1900 till 1912.39

Conclusion

The rationale of the regional distribution of the new urban plans followed that of the geographical location of the new regions being incorporated in the Greek State. Thus, after 1912 and in the first half of the twentieth century, state policy was expressed by drafting plans chiefly for the devastated cities of Northern Greece. The passing of Law 1728 in 1918, “On the construction of buildings in the cities, towns and settlements of Macedonia”, fell within the framework of this effort. This law underpinned an ambitious enterprise for the urban reorganization of Eastern Macedonia, again inspired by Papanastasiou.40 Indicative examples of this effort are the plans for Kato Tzoumaya fig. 13) and Serres (fig. 14), both prepared in 1920.

We have attempted to show that during the first half of the twentieth century the transition was made from the eclectic Neoclassical inheritance of the nineteenth century to a Modernist situation characteristic of almost the entire twentieth. This transition was facilitated by the adoption of more rational, more regular and simpler forms in the planning of cities and their buildings, through minimizing the functional specifications of space and implementing uniform building regulations throughout the state. We may claim that these developments form the framework of the Greek city’s entry into the Modernist phase. These processes were directed by a state machinery which in practice transformed the model of urban-planning intervention from one of the holistic and systematic programming of urban development to one of rapid urban planning and urban compression, with the construction of multi-storey buildings in their tissue. The transition to Modernism in urban planning took place, of course, under pressure of the great economic constraint and intense social need caused by the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Finally, we have to accept that, in addition to the level of development in Greece, historical conjunctures contributed decisively to the acceleration, as well as to the aggravation of developments in matters of urban space.

As mentioned already, the Asia Minor Catastrophe was the pretext for a new population distribution in the urban centres of Greece. According to the 1928 census, the refugee population living in cities numbered 602,713, which accounted for 31.8% of the total population living in the country’s 44 cities with a population of over 10,000. The 12 largest cities in Greece, apart from the Athens-Piraeus-Kallithea complex and Thessaloniki, were Patras (population 64,636), Kavala (50,852), Volos (47,892 without the Municipality of Nea Ionia), Herakleion (39,231), Xanthi (35,912), Corfu (34,193), Chania (32,239), Drama (32,186), Mytilene (31,661), Komotini (31,551), Serres (29,640) and Kalamata (28, 961). The location of the refugees played an important role in the above ranking.

In the light of the above, many shortcomings and errors committed in the period examined may be explained. What raises many questions, however, is the fact that this model of urban-planning development continued to be applied uncritically even after the Second World War. That is, it was used under different conditions, without essential changes, and indeed even more intensively, thus giving rise to the wellknown environmental, morphological and traffic problems that afflict Greek cities today.

Of the said 44 cities, 16 had a higher than average proportion of refugee inhabitants than the country as a whole (31.8%), which means that there was a greater relative geographical concentration of refugees. Twelve of the 16 cities were in Macedonia and Thrace (Thessaloniki, Kavala, Xanthi, Drama, Komotini, Serres, Veroia, Katerini, Alexandroupolis, Edessa, Yannitsa and Florina) – indeed the first six belonged to the group of the 12 largest cities out of a total of 44 –, three were on islands (Herakleion, Mytilene and Chios) and the last was 335

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13. Deyong, Urban plan for Kato Tzoumaya, 1920 (from A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, Replanning and Rebuilding of Thessaloniki, 1986, 345 (in Greek)).

14. N. Tsakiris, Urban plan for Serres, 1920 (from A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, Replanning and Rebuilding of Thessaloniki, 1986, 348 (in Greek)).

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Notes

S. Leloudas, Athens-Piraeus: Study for the New Plan of the City of Athens and Other Appendages, Athens 1918 (in Greek). 28 P. Kalligas, Plan of Athens, Athens 1919 (in Greek). 29 S. Agapitos, The City: Plans, Transport, Traffic, City Hygiene, Settlements, Cheap Housing, Athens 1928 (in Greek). 30 S. Leloudas, Greater Athens, Athens 1929 (in Greek). 31 Municipality of Athens, General Directorate of Technical Services, Resources and Requirements, Athens, 1935 (duplic.) (in Greek). 32 Marmaras, The Urban Apartment Building, op. cit., 164–166. 33 M.V. Marmaras, “Architectural expression in the apartment building of inter-war Athens”, Issues of Space and the Arts 18, 1987, 62–70 (in Greek). 34 K. Kafkoula, The Idea of the Garden City in Inter-war Greek Urban planning, in Scientific Yearbook of the School of Architecture A.U.Th., vol. 12, Annexe 4 (Doctoral thesis, School of Architecture of the A.U.Th.). Thessaloniki 1990, 188–220 (in Greek). 35 N. Moutsopoulos, Thessaloniki 1900–1917 (Molcho), Thessaloniki, 51 (in Greek); Karadimou-Yerolympou, Replanning and Rebuilding of Thessaloniki, op. cit., 135–136; and V. Hastaoglou, “On the condition of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki after the 1917 fire: Unpublished memorandum and other data from the E. Morgentau Archive (USA)”, Synchrona Themata 52–53, 1994, 33 (in Greek). 36 P. Lavedan, “L’oeuvre d’Ernest Hébrard en Grèce», Urbanisme, mai 1933. 37 Karadimou-Yerolympou, Replanning and Rebuilding of Thessaloniki, op. cit., 172, 225–229, 349. 38 N. Kalogirou, “The development of the suburbs of Thessaloniki”, in Thessaloniki After 1912 (Thessaloniki History Centre, Thessaloniki, 1–3 November 1985), Thessaloniki, 1986, 487 (in Greek). 39 K. Kafkoula, N. Papamichos and V. Hastaoglou, Urban plans in 19th century Greece, in Scientific Yearbook of the School of Architecture A.U.Th., vol 12, Annexe 15, Thessaloniki, 1990, 103 (in Greek). 40 Karadimou-Yerolympou, Replanning and Rebuilding of Thessaloniki, op. cit., 344. 41 I. Polyzos, The Settlement of the 1922 Refugees: A Marginal Case of Urbanization (City and Social Practices Sector, N.M.P.) Athens 1984 (typed), 31–32 (in Greek). 42 Polyzos, The Settlement of the Refugees, op. cit., 29. 27

P. Michelis, Architecture as Art, Athens 1965 (3 edn), 308 (in Greek). A. Sutcliffe, Towards the Planned City: Germany, Britain, United States and France, 1780–1914 (Blackwell), Oxford 1981, 27–35. 3 Sutcliffe, Towards the Planned City, op. cit., 62–87, 138, 150–153. Idem, “Britain’s first urban planning act: A review of the 1909 achievement”, Townplanning Review 59 (3), 1988, 289–302. 4 National Statistical Service of Greece, Statistical Yearbook of Greece, 1930 (National Printing House), Athens 1931, 41 (in Greek). 5 K. Vergopoulos, Nationalism and Economic Growth: Greece in the Interwar Years (Exantas), Athens 1978, 39 (in Greek); T. Lignadis, Foreign Dependence during the Course of the Modern Greek State (1821–1945), Athens 1975, 168 (in Greek); M. Malios, The Contemporary Phase of the Development of Capitalism in Greece (Synchroni Epochi), Athens 1975 (4th edn), 36 (in Greek), and N. Mouzelis, Modern Greek Society: Aspects of Underdevelopment (Exantas), Athens 1978 (2nd edn), 47–48 (in Greek). 6 Lignadis, Foreign Dependence, op. cit., 154–157; X. Zolotas, Monetary and International Currency Phenomena in Greece, 1910–1927, vol. I (Greka), Athens 1928, 121 (in Greek); and G. Andrikopoulos, Democracy in the Interwar Years, 1922–1936 (Typos), Athens 1987, 47–57 (in Greek). 7 Vergopoulos, Nationalism and Economic Growth, op. cit., 93 and L. Leontidou, Silent Cities: Labour Settlement in Athens and Piraeus, 1909–1940 (Cultural Foundation E.T.B.A.), Athens 1989, 192–195 (in Greek). 8 Vergopoulos, Nationalism and Economic Growth, op. cit., 23–24. 9 I. Despotopoulos, “Considerations on ‘contemporary’ architecture and the peculiar development in Greece”, in Athens in the 20th Century, 1900–1940: Athens Capital of Greece (Athens Cultural Capital of Europe 1985, Hellenic Ministry of Culture), Athens 1986, 58–60 (in Greek). 10 Le Corbusier, Texts on Greece: Photos and Drawings (Agra), Athens, 1987, 160–163 (in Greek). 11 M.V. Marmaras, The Urban Apartment Building of Interwar Athens: The Beginning of Intensive Exploitation of Urban Land (Cultural Foundation E.T.B.A.), Athens 1991 168–173 (in Greek). 12 N. Papas, “Cheap urban housing and the urban plan of Thessaloniki”, Works 96, 30.5.1929, 685–693 (in Greek). 13 Michelis, Architecture as Art, op. cit., 327–328. 14 Law 276, Government Gazette 156, iss. I, 11.6.1914. 15 M.V. Marmaras, “Athenian urban-planning issues of the period 1910– 1921”, Ta Historika, 6(11), 1989, 399 (in Greek). 16 Leontidou, Silent Cities, op. cit., 129. 17 Law 276/1914, art. 3, para. 8 and Journal of Parliamentary Debates, Session 82, 31.5.1914, 1801 (in Greek). 18 A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, The Replanning and Rebuilding of Thessaloniki after the 1917 Fire, in Scientific Yearbook of the School of Architecture A.U.Th., vol 8, Annexe 31 (Doctoral thesis, School of Architecture, A.U.Th.), Thessaloniki 1985, 350–353 (in Greek). 19 Law 858 of 1917 is thought to have been occasioned by the rebuilding of the seven-storey building of reinforced concrete at the corner of Othonos and Philhellenon streets on Syntagma Square in Athens, see E. Marmaras, “The privately-built multi-storey apartment building: The case of inter-war Athens”, Planning Perspectives, 4, 1989, pp. 54–56. 20 Marmaras, The Urban Apartment Building, op. cit., 43–60. 21 E. Marmaras, “From the policy of urban planning to that of urban compactness: Athens during the first half of the twentieth century”, in The Planning of Capital Cities, vol. 10 (Hellenic Planning and Urban History Association and International Planning History Society), (Thessaloniki, 17– 20 October 1996), Thessaloniki 1996, 459–474, and E. Marmaras, “Athens 1910–1940: Urban planning and architectural observations”, in Architecture and Urban planning from Antiquity until Today: The Case of Athens (VourosEutaxias Museum of the City of Athens, Athens, 15–28 February 1996) (Arsenidis publ.), Athens 1997, 269–281 (in Greek). 22 K.H. Biris, Athens from the 19th to the 20th Century (Urban planning and History of Athens Foundation), Athens 1966, 318–319 (in Greek), and Marmaras, “Athenian urban planning issues”, op. cit., 399. 23 H. Schmidt, “Wilhelminian Athens: The urban plan of Athens by Ludwig Hoffmann”, Issues of Space and the Arts 11, 1980, 50–56 (in Greek), and G. Paraskevopoulos, Sunrays and Clouds: Fifty Years of Memories 1882–1932, Athens 1932, 177 (in Greek). 24 T. Mawson, Athens of the Future and Thessaloniki of Tomorrow (National Printing House), Athens 1918 (in Greek), and Idem, “The replanning of Athens”, Architectural Review, March 1919, 48. 25 Marmaras, “Athenian urban planning issues”, op. cit., 395–411. 26 A. Balanos, Study for the Urban Plan of Athens: Section of the Settlements of Kolonos-Sepolia-Kolokynthou-Iera Odos (Hestia), Athens 1917 (in Greek). 1

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CHAPTER 29

Social and Urban Transformations before and after the Asia Minor Catastrophe Vika D. Gizeli Architect, Dr. of Sociology Paedagogical Institute

The framework of the approach

An additional negative role with regard to analysing the phenomenon of Modern Greek cities may have been played by the excessively intense criticism, in my opinion, directed in Greece and Europe today against the urban planning of yesterday, against Sociology, the Modern Movement, the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (C.I.A.M.) and its supporters, the avant-garde architects, painters and intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s, and against the ideology and practice in general of the interwar years. We can count on the fingers of one hand the scholars and intellectuals who dare to claim that they draw inspiration from the whole of that seminal period of history, criticising it, but in a “rational” and constructive manner.

Many are the theoretical approaches that various disciplines have employed to analyse the phenomenon of the city, or the “urban phenomenon”, from the collapse of the Medieval economic and social structures to the present. Many too are the avenues that we can select to probe into the evolutionary processes of the network of our cities, and more particularly of Greek cities in the interwar period. It is enough to recall how many ways there are of expressing the phenomenon of the city, and especially the Modern Greek city, in the various studies dealing with it: the city is presented as a purely quantitative phenomenon, with its population magnitudes and densities; as an ecological phenomenon, with references to environmental influences and technological developments; as the sum of individual functions and uses (such as housing, administration, loci of religious worship, trading, traffic-communication networks); as a field for applying re-distributive urbanplanning intentions; as a space for implementing specific forms of government. All are issues that are linked dialectically with the urban, built space and with the very structure and form of the city, and constitute for the well-intentioned and initiated scholar a subject that is far more than simply interesting: it is fascinating.

In spite of this, and independently of the effective or otherwise approach and analysis by scientific theories, the city and the Modern Greek city are alive and evolving, triumphantly for some and miserably for others, amicably or extortionately, on optimistic bases or with worrying prospects. Whether portending collective progress and democracy or a generalized insecurity and alienation, the city is alive and evolving constantly and dynamically. The heart of the city is permanently beating, and beating strongly. At least for the time being.

However, this prolific scientific and methodological presence is not necessarily encouraging to researchers. It suggests, from one point of view, the inability to formulate a general theory of urban space, and underlines the well-known problem that theoretical approaches to urban transformations are not only numerous, but also correspond to different disciplines, which are moreover “criss-crossed” by various epistemological currents.1 It is, nonetheless, explicable if we consider that in the intersecting of so many scientific theories and currents, it is not possible for one of these fields to subject all the rest to its own deliberation and methodology. It is explicable too if we remember that the urban phenomenon in its present form, that is as the ultimate phase of a series of continuous transformations, is just a few centuries old, and that the disciplines dealing with it are even younger. Finally, it is explicable when we consider that the analytical methods of the urban phenomenon are certainly different from those that attempt to resolve urbanplanning problems, the first operating as a prerequisite of the second and vice versa, thus complicating matters further.

Urban Sociology In my view, one of the most interesting approaches to the city is that which regards it as a form of social organization, in which the various social groups, such as socio-professional categories, social classes and all sorts of strata, are shaped, and socialization and social control, attitudes and roles operate; in which inequalities and conflicts, but also social mobility appear, attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices are confirmed and every sort of culture is developed and transmitted. It is not surprising that those who persist in focusing their interest on the city in general and the Modern Greek city in particular, from a sociological perspective or one influenced by Sociology, should raise the question whether the general social theories (of Tönnies, Durkheim, Simmel, Weber, Pareto and others) offer credible frameworks for understanding and interpreting the contemporary city, and whether these provide points on which the approach to the developmental process of 339

Vika D. Gizeli Modern Greek cities could be based.2

formation of the “city-dweller”, and many others.

As far as Urban Sociology is concerned, despite all those who today consider it generally ineffectual and passé, it still manages to bring to the confrontation of urban space all the elements of its problematic and to study social and demographic phenomena, issues relating to specific social groups, ethnic minorities and social mobility, as well as social discrimination and various social differentiations, conflicts, multifarious cultural phenomena of the urban way of life, etc.,3 all issues that prove to be tangible, diachronic and timely.

However, these issues acquired a particular specialized form in every Greek city, depending on the manner in which they manifested themselves. During this period, alongside the interconnection of Greek capital funds with the global market, the relationship between centre and the periphery evolved into a hierarchical one. Through the processes of urban formation in many regions (e.g., Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia and Thrace), the centralization of the Greek State promoted on the one hand provincial cities and on the other the administrative and commercial centre, Athens.

Here, it should be honestly stressed that both this text and its author are deeply convinced that the association of urban space and society not only continues to be self-evident, but is also of ever-increasing significance. It should not be forgotten that urban society, which according to conventional wisdom is the last stage of human social organization, not only has its “seat” in the city (and the Modern Greek city), but also constitutes at once both its chief factor and its result, and this is why the relationship between urban space and society retains our undiminished interest. Last, from among the axes around which the approach to the Modern Greek city in the interwar years revolves (the socio-political and economic data of the period, the role of capital, the labour problem, housing, legislation and the general urban-planning measures, the refugees and state housing policy, European cultural movements, architects’ training and many others), let us select those issues which are judged to be the most important and which, if not purely sociological, at any rate stress the social alongside the urbanplanning dimension with respect to the development of the Modern Greek city.

Many scholars consider that the urban integration of the socalled semi-periphery (in which Greece is classed) is due less to complex growth models of Western-European type and more, or even exclusively, to local phenomena. They consider that the birth of the first Eastern-European capitalist city followed local processes, equally complex and conflicting, but with their own singularities.4 Thus, of outstanding significance in the course of the Modern Greek city was not only the rural exodus – which is common in the history of large European cities –, but also the particular nature of this phenomenon and, consequently, the singular manner in which the urban labour force was formed, which is in any case the main axis for studying the peculiarity of Greek capitalism. Of special interest at this point is the view that on the eve of the Balkan Wars the rural population undoubtedly turned to the cities, yet even so remained to a high degree (in relation to other European examples) in the countryside, where Greek agriculture is a family affair, one of small holdings and smallscale cultivations.5 If this observation is valid, it adds another interpretation of the complex issue of both the growth and the retardation of Greek cities in the early twentieth century.

Basic developments: the Centre and the Periphery During the first decades of the twentieth century, in the interwar years, events in every field decisively affected the formation of the political, economic and social physiognomy of Greece, and proved to be the precursors of subsequent developments that are well known to us today. Naturally, developments in the Modern Greek city were also affected by and, to some extent, anticipated, developments that constitute a complete phase of social and urban transformations, or, as we would call it, a phenomenon of “urban integration”.

Indeed, in this period the Greek city, even the capital, had limited possibilities. To begin with it was “responsible” for not having the attractive force to retain the farmers and turn them into a genuine industrial labour force, since Greek industry, the par excellence economic activity of the city, was not capable of offering secure outlets. Thus, with their flight from the harsh rural life to the quays of Patras and Piraeus (fig. 1), and from there to the quarantine of Ellis Island, and on to washing dishes in Brooklyn and the Bronx, the farmers constituted one of the most important sectors of Greek social history, the well-known emigration across the Atlantic (figs 2 and 3). And this despite the fact that the first factory chimneys had already pierced the skyline of Syros and Piraeus.

Specifically, during this turbulent period, the phenomenon of the transformations of the Modern Greek city, with all its peculiarities, its ups and downs, unfolded and evolved under many and various forms, through: 1. Internal migration and transmutation of geographical into social mobility.

On the other hand, the structure of the settlement network of Greece and the isolated formation of Greek provincial cities were evolving rapidly. For a number of reasons, the structure of the settlement network was uneven, promoting Athens as a par excellence overgrown capital.6 However, the interwar period was decisive not only for the peripheral structure of the settlement network but also for other, internal, “qualitative” features of it. Chiefly, it introduced a class division and a marginalization of large sections of the population in the urban centres, and

2. Peculiar structural transformations of the rural element into a kind of industrial labour force. 3. A consequent upgrading of provincial cities and development of the capital. 4. Adoption, through special legislative regulations, of frameworks for the development and functions of the city. 5. Urbanization of the aspect of the city and its everyday life, 340

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1. The port of Piraeus in the 1920s (Poulidis Archive).

2. Advertisement for the Transoceanic Austrian Steamship Company, when it was operating under the name Austro-Americana. The company had agencies in Trieste, Patras and Belgrade (from the record sleeve of The Rebetiko Song).

3. Transatlantic emigration (from the record sleeve of The Rebetiko Song).

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5. The cottonmill in Nea Ionia, 1926 (E. Maistrou, O. Voyatzoglou, E. Karathanassi and M. Kaliotzidou, “The industrial heritage of Nea Ionia”, Buildings 11, 90 (in Greek)).

4. Ano Germanika refugee settlement in Peristeri, 1935 (V.D. Gizeli Archive).

especially the capital. During the developmental processes, the foundations for the inequalities between centre and periphery, as well as within urban centres and the capital itself, were effectively laid down.

same time the cities were inundated in an unprecedented way by homeless, unemployed and unfortunate future small property owners, with all that this implied (fig. 4). With a quantitative presence amounting to over a quarter of the total national population, the refugee potential enriched both the rural and urban elements of the country. For example, through the settling of Macedonia, thanks to ingenious planning by the state and especially the R.S.C., with the founding of dozens of villages and the settling of a numerous new population in them, the total homogenization of that province’s population was achieved.

In the context of the above, an event of supreme importance suddenly appeared, the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922, which added one more local factor to the evolution of the Greek urban phenomenon.

The arrival and the social integration of the refugees: the social dwelling

The refugee presence also proved to be catalytic in the sector of the division of labour. By strengthening the urban potential with a plentiful labour force of specialized workers as well as experienced entrepreneurs, the refugees managed, more than the local labour force, to transform certain districts within the urban centres into integrated craft and industrial settlements, unknown by the standards of the period, with all that entailed. This is why the refugee presence not only transformed the structure of large landholdings (expropriations, definitive distribution of big estates), but also transformed the urban centres into industrial cities with dense population, thus becoming synonymous with the industrial and urban transformation of Greece (fig. 5). 7In brief, the crux of the analysis is that the refugee presence did not overturn or put obstacles in the course the Greek city was following, nor did it bring any slow down in the growth processes, nor any curbing in the rates and trends of the economy or labour developments, as many had feared. On the contrary, it became a key-point in

Over and above the fact that the Asia Minor Catastrophe was a turning point of major national significance, in the sense of its historical, political and demographic impact, the arrival of some 1,300,000 Greek refugees from Asia Minor and their integration into the Greek “receiving society” are considered to have affected far more than the historical-political context and to have influenced all sectors of the country’s growth, not least the sectors of social transformations and urban-planning developments, with even cultural and aesthetic ramifications. The urban-planning transformations, in the wider sense of the term (transformations urbaines), were indeed momentous in their scale and form. Firstly, as regards land ownership, the refugee presence underlined already existing trends, as thousands of small land plots were distributed (chiefly by the RefugeeSettlement Commission, the R.S.C.) to landless refugees, while at the 342

Social and Urban Transformations Before and After the Asia Minor Catastrophe speeding up the growth process of the country and its cities, and in fact on all levels of economic, labour, social and urban transformations. The refugees were not an impediment to the country’s growth path. They turned out to be a fair wind in its sails. One example of the innovations in this period was state care in housing the homeless and the helpless, the social dwelling. Up until then housing care was non-existent as a concept, an ideology, a policy and practice for social strata in desperate need, although these existed and in great number. Care for popular housing appeared, developed and matured only from 1922 onward. The entire state machinery was put in motion and participated in the huge task of housing and rehabilitation: the Refugee Rehabilitation Fund (RRF), the above mentioned R.S.C., ministries such as the Ministry of Health and Welfare, of Agriculture, of Finance, of Transport, of National Education and Religions, prefectures, municipalities, police directorates throughout the country, schools, hospitals, various chambers, private philanthropic organizations, the Press, and the population at large, which had many reasons to believe that the issue was of immediate concern to it.

6. Cotton- and silk mills in Nea Ionia, in the 1920s (E. Maistrou, O. Voyatzoglou, E. Karathanassi and M. Kaliotzidou, “The industrial heritage of N. Ionia”, Buildings 11, 91–95 (in Greek)).

was transplanted en masse to new territories, and for many other reasons too, it was inevitable that its social strata would enrich the receiving society “class-wise” , intensify the existing division of labour and strengthen all the indigenous social classes: the tobacco workers of Kavala, the farmers of the Thessalian Plain, the working class of Kokkinia, and the subsequent merchants and businessmen of Athens, as well the industrialists (fig. 6), the scientists-scholars, and the residents of the so-called “posh” areas, adding its own “Nea Smyrni” to the city of Athens. We stress this in order to refute the usual methodological error of the one-sided perception of the refugees, on the basis of the stereotype, either of the “wealthy bourgeois” or of the “leftwing worker”. Moreover, it points out the peculiarity of the era’s social transformations, which are quite different from those that “refugees” cause in urban centres today.10

Initially, four different forms of housing were organized, with many internal categories: requisition of properties, the RRF’s makeshift and provisional structures, the permanent housing of the R.S.C., the Ministry of Welfare, etc., and selfaccommodation. Many other housing forms followed. In one way or another, Athens, as well as all Greek cities, “hosted” the state refugee settlements for years, an unprecedented example of organized construction, which initially walked the tightrope between permanent and temporary, rapidly to end up in favour of permanent social housing settlements.

Characteristic too is the affinity that the endogenous culture acquired with the newly-arrived one. The rebetiko song is an example, indeed an excellent example, of an urban song of the underclass, which passed from the refugees to the locals, and there is no shortage of social types in literature, indigenous or otherwise, who illustrate the harshness of city life. Both the Rebetes and the Alaniarides, those involuntary and blameless victims of social turmoil (whom Demosthenes Voutyras described a few years after the Journey by Psycharis), are irrefutable proof of the recording of social transformations and displacements in the urban culture of the period.

The R.S.C. and the Ministry of Agriculture also created rural settlements. These too were distinguished morphologically by flat expanses of uniform height, by a strict implementation of the rectangular grid, by inordinately long streets; in short, by oversimplification both in the choice and conception of their organization and form. This perception of strict, rectilinear geometric constructions can be seen in the legislative framework, as well as in the other applications of the time, such as the straightening of street lines in the cities of Northern Greece. Indifferent and monotonous spaces were thus created, unexciting, lacking in variation and dynamism, forming a visually and aesthetically problematical environment.8

For all of the above, we keep on stressing that the refugee presence has not been evaluated as fully as it should, as regards its impact on urban-planning developments, perhaps because it was blatant at the time, but subsequently, due to social assimilation, it stopped being obvious, and therefore a subject of investigation and contemplation. The refugee presence did not simply act in a supplementary way, by complementing through a new section the existing society and city, as has occurred in many other instances of immigration from a periphery to a metropolis. It acted as a catalyst, accelerating internal processes, often fine and invisible at first glance, but always generative of significant social and urban-planning transformations.

At the same time, however, neighbourhoods in the capital and in the provincial cities too, continued to grow spontaneously and dynamically, forming a unique living cell, which is typical of the Greek, as well as the Mediterranean city in general. This variety of contrasts, as well as of residents’ origins, should be examined together with the common cultural background, the common language, religion and national consciousness, because these are the hallmarks of the social and cultural pluralism of the time. The refugee element also had an impact on the development of urban forces and the emphasis on the class factor of cities. Interpretations of this position exist,9 which is why we shall not refer to them here. Since the large refugee element of 1922 formed at the beginning a stratified hierarchical society, which

Technical and aesthetic transformations of the city: the character of Modern Greek cities Were all Modern Greek cities recipients of the aforementioned 343

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7. The port of Thessaloniki in the early 20th century (A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, The Reconstruction of Thessaloniki, 1985, 9 (in Greek)).

transformations in the interwar years and can we consider that the term “Modern Greek city” implies a specific idealized type applicable to all Modern Greek cities? Here is one more methodological hurdle.

Nation and was consequently permeated by the aesthetic, cultural and technological currents of Europe. In Athens in particular, electric lighting was installed in private and public places; an electrically powered metropolitan railway was constructed, the streets were tarmacadamed; the first telephones made their appearance. And when, two or three decades later, the previous technical implementations had become obsolete, a new wave of improvements arrived in telecommunications, water supply, electrification, and new technical achievements were introduced (e.g. in the sector of housing and construction, central heating, the lift, widespread use of reinforced concrete), which rapidly upgraded living standards (fig. 8).13 In general, the technical progress of the times did not leave the capital or other cities unaffected.

First, it should be noted that the territorial peculiarity of Greek cities (built in island, highland and lowland regions, some more favoured some less, in the poor hinterland, in the isolated Cycladic islands or the central privileged ports) makes the “common” development steps difficult to identify, and the work of deciphering them even more so. Kavala, Thessaloniki, Florina, Trikala, Volos, Athens, Nafplion, Patras, Tripolis, Chania, Herakleion, Hermoupolis, Rhodes, Corfu: every city has a different “personality”. There was no equivalent of the levelling propensity of the subsequent decades back in the 1920s and 1930s.

This period of major economic and technical projects shows that there was a common desire to cope with all the vital problems afflicting the capital. Let us look, however, at some data of national scope on the transformations. Through innovative urban-planning actions and settlement measures, and through successive laws pertaining to architecture and construction, the development frameworks for the functions and form of the contemporary city were put in place. Basic concerns of this period were the laying of streets and the location of public buildings. In urban plans, of which there were quite a few, there is characteristic “emphasis on planning

Urban-planning developments did not produce an obtrusive façade on all Greek cities of the interwar years. They are difficult to decipher behind or before the image of each city. What can, in the end, be identified more directly are the prerequisites of economic, social and urban growth, which suddenly flooded the entire country and which were absorbed in different ways by each urban centre, producing separate results in each case. All Greek provincial cities draw, more or less, some part of their living urban-plannning history from the events of the interwar period. Thessaloniki, for instance, is still considered – despite its anarchic development – to draw essential elements of its form and its urban-planning tissue from the Town Plan and the extensive legislative framework that were instituted specifically for its reconstruction following the fire of 1917 (fig. 7).11 A Town Plan was drawn up for Serres in 1914; for Ioannina one year later; a tender was called for the Town Plan of Naousa in 1919.12 Of course, in the vanguard of transformations was Athens, which, after the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the collapse of the irredentist “Great Idea” (Megali Idea) and the loss of Smyrna and Constantinople, had become the administrative, economic and demographic centre of the country. It was, therefore, called upon to play the role of the unique capital of the entire Hellenic

8. Public transport in the capital (K. Biris, Athens, 1966, 302, in Greek).

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Social and Urban Transformations Before and After the Asia Minor Catastrophe public space”, with streets, squares or other open spaces, in accordance with Western models. And this, “in tragic contrast to everyday urban-planning practice, which always ended up to the detriment of the scale and organization of public space”.14 The tissue of the cities, and mainly of the capital, underwent reformations and reconstructions. At the same time, permanent settlements were created for workers, newly brought in from various geographical regions of the country, and state refugee settlements with organized building. The refugee issue always played a catalytic role, aggravating problems and accelerating the processes for their ultimate resolution. Social transformations, marginalizations and inequalities, as well as cohabitation, and finally even social integration and assimilation, were etched indelibly on the urban environment, which emerged as similar to, yet also different from, that of other European megalopolises. On the other hand, the stifling pressures of the newly-arrived populations drove cities to expand, which in the case of Athens led to the drafting of successive Regulatory Plans. The administrative decentralization of 1925 created a network of settlements, which grew into peri-urban municipalities, relieving the centre and underlining the need for local selfgovernment. Through intensive construction and settlement activity, co-operatives and even private settlements and suburbs, which often followed the models of the European garden city, by means of or in spite of the Regulatory Plans, the expansion of the city was secured. Unfortunately, at the same time, the foundations for anarchic and uncontrolled expansion were laid. Concurrently, there was a rich crop of laws and decrees, of General Building Regulations, etc., which on the one hand unavoidably led settlement and building activities to follow legislative frameworks, while on the other created trends for law avoidance, resulting in the beginning of uncontrolled and unauthorized settlement and building. Unplanned construction begins from this period too.

9. The Logothetopoulos apartment building, designed by Kyprianos Biris, on Bouboulinas Street, Athens, 1931 (K. Biris, Athens, 1966, 295, in Greek).

were more or less “successful” with respect to its structure and identity, its lisability, the sense of the whole and the reference points, the boundaries between neighbourhoods, the relations between heights, the inter-penetrations of private and public spaces, and to many other concepts which can be traced not only by anthropological or other scientific investigations, but also through the experiences of its citizens’ everyday life.16 All these are common traits of Greek cities in the interwar years.

Last, cities acquired the ability to house populous social categories of different income levels: the urban “apartment building” with horizontal ownership (fig. 9), which appeared in Athens, was in step with “social housing”, that is housing by state intervention for low-income groups, an institution which, as already mentioned, first emerged in response to the pressing needs caused by the influx of refugees.15 Of course, here too state intervention – a hallmark of the interwar period – in all sectors of producing the built environment and housing, started to give way to private enterprise, with all that this meant for the structure, functions and form of the city, as well as for the aesthetics and consciousness of the citizen.

The impact of European currents on Greek cities In this same period, Europe experienced the development of great social, aesthetic and philosophical inquiries, which found fertile fields of application in architecture, housing, the city and urban planning.

It follows that the conceptualist organization of the city took a similar course, independently of whether this fell within the views on “concentric zones”, “sectors” or “multiple nuclei”, or any other developmental model of internal structure. The city of this period grew in all directions, wherever it could find an outlet, either linearly along main roads (such as the AthensPatras axis), or by adding new layers on top of every previous structure which developed around the centre – a centre which was ever more dynamic in the density and the height of its buildings, its administrative functions and its form. By extension, new elements of the city began to develop, which

The major intellectual trends which focused on the dwelling and the city were to be found in the Bauhaus principles, the C.I.A.M.s, the fulfillment of the Modernist Movement, the Esprit Nouveau and the manifestoes of Ozenfant and Le Corbusier, the writings and works of Bruno Taut, Gropius, Rietveld, Ernst May and Alvar Aalto. Already from the First C.I.A.M. in the Château de la Sarraz, in July 1928, until the last before the Second World War, the Fifth, in Paris in 1937, including the Fourth, in Athens in 1933, we can easily identify the central points in the deliberation on new problems and 345

Vika D. Gizeli ground plan as a consequence of the highly-concentrated density, the transcending of nineteenth-century perceptions of hygiene-sanitation and the discovery of sun, air, light and shade, greenery. With the sociologists’ assistance came the re-defining of human requirements, the discovery and delimitation of spare time and public free space, by contrast with the private free space of Ebenezer Howard’s garden cities, admiration of the use of technology, interdisciplinary scientific-technical approaches in the course of studying the architectural and urban-planning subject, and collaboration with sociologists. Did the Greek city of the interwar years go along with the European aesthetic and philosophical currents, and to what extent? Did the local soul-searching about aesthetics and utilitarianism leave its mark on the architectural and urbanplanning form of each city in Greece? In my view, the participatory trend and the heed for the simple and useful, as well as the messages of the Bauhaus and the “happy city”, which blossomed in 1930s Europe, may have had only a limited impact on Greece, but they did not pass unnoticed, Indeed, they acquired their Greek version (as can be seen at least from the new inquiries in architecture and urban planning, the new Town Plans, participation in the Fourth C.I.A.M. in 1933, and much more), until the emergence of the reactionary regimes and the outbreak of the Second World War. Besides, neither the holding of the Fourth C.I.A.M. in Athens, aboard ship and at the Polytechneion (pres. N.T.U.A.), nor its outcome, the Athens Charter, nor the love of the créateur et provocateur Le Corbusier for the light of Greece, 18 or the interest shown by Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe in Greece, and later that shown by Greek scholars in his work, nor the friendship of Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas with Fernand Léger, for example, nor other indicators, of greater or lesser importance, were events without significance.

10. The Acropole Palace Hotel in Athens, at the corner of Patision and Averoff streets, 1925.

Nonetheless, rather than seeking blatant expressions of the above, which would lead to intense similarities between Greek cities, we should continue to look for simply converging prerequisites for transformations, which in each case are specialized in a particular way. It is commonplace that the art of construction was upgraded throughout the country, even though this occurred chiefly in the buildings of the wealthier classes. In many examples the elegant Neoclassical Greek order was in dialogue not only with the new Eclectic style, but also with the innovative currents prevailing in Europe (fig. 10 and 11). Strong personalities in the newly-founded Architectural School of the Polytechnic influenced each city’s aesthetics and pace of development.

the development of architectural functionalism (certainly very different from sociological functionalism). Let us recall these main points: 1. The issue of the dwelling took on new dimensions, it was upgraded into the broader concept of the habitat and was intertwined with the city. It would not be an exaggeration to claim that the city tended to be defined now by its habitat. 2. Social utility appeared and legitimized architecture, no longer as an art – as it had been presented until then – but as a science and as a technique. 3. The social dwelling in the form of workers’ homes, and with examples by renowned architects of the period, also fought courageously against the “artistic” nature of architectural conception.

It has also been demonstrated that the Modernist Movement won over the provincial cities, even if indirectly and even with the Athenian centre as its starting point. For instance, researchers who have studied the files in the Ministry of Education claim that with the schools built by Karantinos, Pikionis, Mitsakis, Valentis, Despotopoulos, Michaleas and many others, Greece acquired a number of schools of particular interest and clearly inspired by the principles of the period. Moreover. in the plan for the social housing of refugees, it appears that in certain circumstances, as e.g. in Kaisariani, the plans of Ernest May and the Frankfurt Municipality were followed functionally and morphologically, and that even Kokkinia and later Brahami

4. Rationalism and functionalism in the building complex, the city, urban planning itself, which conquered new ground as a new science, were consolidated decisively.17 Just a few examples of the issues of this period were: the appearance of “standards” (spatial specifications) in the study of the city, as one of the basic consequences of the idea and practice of assembly-line production, the emphasis on scale from the house to the city and vice versa, the freeing of the 346

Social and Urban Transformations Before and After the Asia Minor Catastrophe With all the particularities, oppositions and contradictions in their development, Greek cities of the interwar years – Athens included – perhaps constitute a typical case of the “phenomenon of urban integration” and certainly constitute one of the most important pieces of our collective soul.

Notes See Chapter 1 by A.Ph. Lagopoulos in the present volume. Z. Demathas and G Tsouyopoulos, “The Modern Greek city: Its process of development”, in Proceedings of the History of the Modern Greek City Symposium (Society for the Study of Modern Hellenism), vol. 2, 1985, 508 (in Greek). 3 Demathas and Tsouyopoulos, “The Modern Greek city”, op. cit. 506, 507. 4 L. Leontidou, Cities of Silence (E.T.B.A.), Athens 1989 (in Greek). 5 V. Panayotopoulos, “Rural exodus and formation of the work force in the Greek city”, in Modern Greek City, op. cit., vol. 2, 521–531. 6 I. Polyzos, “Athens capital of Hellenism”, in Athens in the 20th Century, 1900–1940: Athens Greek Capital (Athens Cultural Capital of Europe 1985, Ministry of Culture), Athens 1986, 24–31 (in Greek). 7 Th. Veremis, “Society and State: A look at the first 40 years of our century”, in Athens in the 20th Century, op. cit.,21–23. 8 Kousidonis, Ch., “The urban-planning aspect of the distribution settlements of the Ministry of Agriculture”, Technika Chronika 10 (2), 1990, 167–174 (in Greek). 9 V.D. Gizeli, “Social integration of bourgeois refugees into the city”, Bulletin of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies 9 (The Asia Minor Catastrophe and Greek Society), 1992, 61–77 (in Greek). 10 V.D. Gizeli, “Refugees yesterday, refugees today”, paper presented at the discussion Refugees Yesterday, Refugees Today: 75 Years after the Exchange of Populations – The Contemporary Drama of the Refugees (High Commission of the U.N., Athens, 25 November 1998) (in Greek). 11 A. Karadimou-Yerolympou, “The Reconstruction of Thessaloniki after the 1917 Fire”. in Scientific Yearbook of the School of Architecture A.U.Th., vol. 8, Annexe 31 (doctoral thesis, School of Architects, A.U.Th.), Thessaloniki 1985 (in Greek). 12 A. Karadimou, K. Kaukoula, N. Kalogerou, N. Papamichos and V. Hastaoglou, “City and urban planning in Northern Greece after 1912”, in The Modern Greek City, op. cit., vol. 1, 381–395. 13 K. Biris, Athens from the 19th to the 20th Century (City Planning and History of Athens Foundation), Athens 1966 (in Greek). 14 M. Mantouvalou, The Urban Planning of Athens: 1830–1940 (N.T.U.A.Politechnico di Milano), Athens 1988 (in Greek). 15 V.D. Gizeli, Social Transformations and the Origin of the Social Dwelling in Greece (Epikairotita), Athens 1984 (in Greek). 16 See K. Lynch, L’image de la cité (Dunod), Paris 1971; V. Hastaoglou, Social Theories of Urban Space (Paratiritis), Thessaloniki 1982 (in Greek); I. Photopoulou-Lagopoulou, Urban Evolution of the Centre of Athens (unpublished doctoral thesis, School of Architects A.U.Th.), Thessaloniki 1978 (in Greek). 17 G. Tsiomis, Post-graduate lectures at N.T.U.A. “Architecture-Planning of Space”, dir. A. Vrychea (27 October and 3 November 1998). 18 P.-H. Chombart de Lauwe, Un anthropologue dans le siècle (Descartes et Cie), Paris 1996, 183. 19 Mantouvalou, The Urban Planning of Athens, op. cit. 20 P. Martinidis, “Urbanity and how to acquire it”, City and Periphery 12, 1986, 57–68 (in Greek). 1 2

11. The Tetene residence, designed by Kostas Kitsikis, at 25 Alopekis Street, Athens (G. Cheirchanteri and N.D. Roubien, “Art Nouveau in Athens”, Buildings 11, 151 (in Greek)).

and other neighbourhoods were planned in accordance with the Gropius principles that were being applied experimentally in Germany.19 However that may be, the influence of European movements on Greek cities constitutes a self-contained and important chapter of study in the history of urban-planning transformations in the interwar years. If we wished to draw a central conclusion concerning urban development in this period, we could say that we find the foundations were laid for the social and urban-planning transformations and reformations of the Modern Greek city in the direction of a contemporary urban form, resulting in its development and modernization as a city that is vital, able, dynamic and pleasant. The causes of the developments were both endogenous and exogenous: the refugee issue, the European currents, the dynamism of Greek architects, the successes of the newly-founded art of urban planning, intensified those urban transformations, if not strongly, at any rate decisively. At the same time, the gigantism of the capital, unrestrained urban growth, arbitrary construction and the “uncontrolled and arbitrary conscience” all have their roots in the same period. It is possible that the most indeterminate characteristic signmark of the Modern Greek city, which is what makes it at once attractive and abhorrent to its inhabitants, may have been imprinted in the same period; all the same as well as different from each other; noisy and busy, and at the same time peaceful, tending to boring; clean but filthy; anchored in the past of limited growth, but also in its European future; charming and alluring, but also processed by ephemeral, doubtful and compliant managerial means; in any case a city with its urbanity alive and kicking, which “if you love it, you love them all”.20 347

CHAPTER 30

The Contemporary Greek City Transformation trends in the spatial diffusion of urbanization Pavlos K. Loukakis Professor Emeritus of Regional Planning Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences

Introduction

problems arose in the capital, which were tackled by the private sector, either inside the city plan or with unauthorized building in areas outside the plan. In this period too a method of house production took shape, which determined the structure of all Greek cities. This method, involving the part-exchange of a plot of land for a given number of apartments in the building to be constructed and self-home building, did not solve the housing problem of the lower income groups, while it created unacceptable profiteering in land.

We accept as a starting point for inquiry into the current structures of the contemporary Greek city the period after 1923, that is when the contemporary Greek State was established virtually in its entirety.1 The Exchange of Populations in 1923, which resulted in the sudden influx of over 1,100,000 persons into the country, created an enormous settlement problem. The bulk of the new population was settled on the eastern arc of Mainland Greece.2 During this period new rural and suburban settlements, and new quarters in contact with the existing urban tissue, were created.

From 1960 to 1981, new phenomena were the rapid and polymorphous growth of tourism, its spatial diffusion into coastal regions of the mainland and the island complexes, and

In the framework of more general modernizing reforms for the creation of a contemporary urban State, there were some related directly to the development of the Greek cities. The first and particularly significant one was the enactment of the 1923 Presidential Decree “On the Plan of Cities and Towns”. It was then that the status of the “settlements existing before 1923” and the first General Building Regulations were established. Several important infrastructure and transport projects were also undertaken during this period. By the early 1950s, Greece had a network of settlements in which the features of the interwar years remained substantially intact. The capital was still the major pole of urban growth (fig. 1). However, from the late 1970s, transformation trends on the economic and social level appeared, which also affected the spatial articulation of cities. The cities became larger and spread out into the countryside. It is this spatial diffusion that the present chapter attempts to analyse.

Basic parameters influencing the development of settlements in Greece Economic and social parameters The principal choices for the economic growth model of Greece after 1948 retained the country’s basic agricultural character, while concurrently attempting to develop the industrial sector, chiefly in the branches of consumer goods and constructions. Special emphasis was placed on infrastructure, while private initiative undertook the building sector. In the period 1948– 1960, the outflow of the rural population continued, mainly towards Athens. At the same time, extremely serious housing

1. The Athens basin, diachronic evolution from 1900 onwards (after A. Aravantinos, Urban Planning for a Sustainable Growth of Urban Space (Symmetria), Athens 1997 (in Greek)).

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Pavlos K. Loukakis administrative decentralization and reorganization, a new General Building Regulations). 4. The enactment by law of the Regulatory Plans for Athens and Thessaloniki.

Review of the system of settlements in Greece The institutional dimensions of the settlement system 1. Administrative ranking Almost all the 12,500 or so settlements in Greece (1991), on the basis of the administrative restructuring which took place initially in 1986 and more recently in 1994, are ranked under 13 Regions, 54 Prefectural Authorities and 6,000 Local Authorities (fig. 2). In the 54 seats of Prefectural Authorities there are both Courts of First Instance and regional infrastructure agencies. In certain Prefectural Authority seats there are also Courts of Appeal, regional agencies of the Ministry of Culture, military services, etc.

2. Diagram of the administrative hierarchy of the units and settlements in Greece (after P. Loukakis, Notes on Urban Planning: Fundamental Concepts, Fields of Analysis, Research Methodology, Framework of Proposals (Panteio University), Athens 1996 (in Greek)).

the phenomenon of the second home, which began slowly before 1970 and has grown steadily to this day.

A number of basic regional services are diffused from selected community seats.3 Since 1997, the nearly 6,000 Local Authorities have been compulsorily unified to form 1,100 new municipalities and communities.4

From 1981 to the present, Greece found itself within a new economic and social framework, due to its entry into the European Union (then the EEC). In this period urban centres have developed at a rapid rate. At the same time, important rural lowland areas present more complex structures than those of the other rural areas. After 1970, problems of pollution and/ or destruction of the natural, built and historical environment appeared.

2. Ranking according to the National Statistical Service of Greece The National Statistical Service (NSSG) uses two criteria to rank the network of settlements: a geographical criterion and a population criterion. According to the geographical criterion, three settlement categories are defined: lowland, semimountainous and mountainous. According to the population criterion, a settlement with up to 1,999 inhabitants is defined as rural, with 2,000 to 9,999 inhabitants as semi-urban, and with 10,000 inhabitants and over as urban. In addition, the NSSG defines a series of urban settlements as “Urbanplanning Complexes”. These criteria are highly unsound and controversial.5

Functional and institutional parameters The over-centralized administrative system has influenced the structure of the settlement network and the urban-planning organization of the cities, as well as the overall system of services. During the entire postwar period attempts have been made for the regional decentralization of productive activities through zones of favourable incentives, but with no substantial results. By contrast, the measures have been particularly effective for tourism. As regards the production of space, the Presidential Decree of 1923 and the General Building Regulations have remained the basic tools. Essential institutional interventions for Urban Planning and Regional Planning were only made after 1975. The main ones are summarized below:

3. Project ranking according to the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works The need to rank the settlement network had been expressed already in the early 1960s.6 From the viewpoint of official state intervention, the following rankings are referred to: a. The proposal of the newly established in 1979 Ministry of the Environment and Regional Planning to rank settlements in a system composed of “Centres for Intensive Development Projects” (fig. 3: a and b),7 “Urban Settlement Centres” and “Rural Settlement Centres”.

1. The constitutional decrees of 1975 for the Protection of the Natural Environment and Regional Planning. 2. The modernizing legislation in the period 1976–1979 (enactment of Regional Planning and the Protection of the Environment, enactment of land uses, the building coefficients and the protection of forests, the establishment of the Ministry of Regional Planning and the Environment (Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works, since 1985).

b. The proposal of the Ministry of the Environment and Regional Planning for a five-level ranked settlement network, in the period 1983–1984 (“Open Cities” proposal). In the same context, the ministry formulated a Regional Planning Restructuring Proposal for each prefecture (fig. 4), and after 1983 attempted an extensive urban-planning intervention by means of the “Urban-Planning Reorganization Operation” and the “Special Regional Planning Studies”.

3. Legislation in the period 1981–1989 (Urban Planning, regional development incentives, protection of the natural environment, 350

The Contemporary Greek City: Transformation trends in the spatial diffusion of urbanization The basic characteristics of the settlement system From the mid-1970s the settlement system seems to have crystallized into one of successive radial relations, which are incorporated in a pyramidal form. The capital is dominant at the apex of this system, while there is also a second metropolitan pole, Thessaloniki. Just below these, a series of urban centres have developed into powerful regional cities. Below these come the seats of the prefectures, on which the rural centres are dependent. Thus, all rural settlements are dominated by the regional and the metropolitan poles (fig. 5). Certain structural features of the settlement system may be noted: 1. The two metropolitan regions of Athens and Thessaloniki, together with the regional urban poles, form an S in space, upon which there is the greatest spatial development;8 that is, the largest part of the country’s population, of the industrial concentrations, of the services, of the infrastructure network, of the international entry-exit gates, of the tertiary education and research centres, of cultural activities and of lowland agricultural regions (fig. 6). 2. The coastal settlements and regions are in a continuous and intensifying process of receiving urban activities, and in the latter tourism, summer residence and leisure activity of all kinds constitute the dominant activity. 3. As regards the rural settlement network, the trends towards permanent internal migration have been contained, but the highland and island areas are still characterized by phenomena of exodus. 3a. The plan presents the general regulatory proposals for the Urban Area of Patras, according to the study for Patras-Aigion prepared by the Centre of Intensive Development Projects. It is one of the first applications of the standardization of the proposed land uses and their symbolism, which were attempted for the first time in Greece in 1980. The standardization of uses was made in connection with Law 947/79 and Presidential Decree 81/1980. Study: G.A. Skiadaresis and Associates, 1981 (from Aravantinos, A., Urban Planning, (N.T.U.A.) Athens 1984 (in Greek)). 3b. Herakleion Crete: Organization of the Settlement Area, proposal for a system of organization and land use. Study: P. Loukakis and Associates, 1980 (from A. Aravantinos, Urban Planning, 1984 (in Greek)).

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4. Proposed settlement structure of the Kozani prefecture, based on the “Proposals for Regional-Planning Organization” drafted by the Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works in 1984. Specifically, the proposal was to determine an inter-prefectural centre of the 1st degree (Kozani), a prefectural centre of the 2nd degree (Ptolemais), of three provincial centres of the 3rd degree (Siatista, Servia, Velevendos) and of 11 headvillages of the 4th degree (Open City Centres). Linear symbols on the map represent the ordered main dependencies of the lower degree settlements on the higher degree ones. Thus, in the Open City, 5th degree settlements are dependent on the Open City centre, which is a 4th degree settlement (e.g. Tranovalto), which is dependent in turn on a 3rd degree provincial centre (in this case, Servia), which finally refers to the inter-prefectural centre of the prefecture (Kozani) (from A. Aravantinos, Urban Planning, 1984). 5. The settlement network of Greece with Thessaloniki as its pole (after E. Andrikopoulou-Kafkala, G. Kafkalas and A.Ph. Lagopoulos, Thessaloniki: Urban Investigation, Criticism of Proposals and the City’s Evolutionary Perspectives (Architecture-City Planning Issues 5) (Paratiritis), Thessaloniki 1979 (in Greek)).

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6. The chief development axis of Greece in its wider geographical context (after Future Evolution of the Central Mediterranean Regions (Mezzogiorno-Greece), Final report, XVI General Directorate).

Basic transformation trends in the structure of the cities

Peristeri, Aigaleo, Nea Smyrni, Vyronas, with Kaisariani as a possible exception. Piraeus: Drapetsona, Keratsini, Nikaia, Korydallos, Renti.

The structure of the Modern Greek city was formed historically as a typical scheme of a single-centered nucleus, which also on occasion constitutes the historical centre (fig. 7). The basic road arteries from the hinterland converge radially upon this nucleus and pass through the commercial and industrial quarters. The rest of the city developed in general concentrically around the centre, its largest part being occupied by residential areas. In the past, industrial and craft enterprises developed within or in contact with the historical centre of the city (Athens: Psyrri, Metaxourgeio; Piraeus: port area; Thessaloniki: port area; Kavala: tobacco warehouses; Herakleion: agricultural industries; Patras: agricultural industries, machine-tool workshops etc. (fig 8). It was precisely these functional relationships that socially differentiated the residential areas similarly positioned in relation to the city centre. Thus, they determined the class nature of the various neighbourhoods of Greek cities, even in the case of the small population sizes of the recent past.

Thessaloniki: All the present western suburbs and Stavroupolis, Toumba to the east, and Kalamaria. Herakleion: Nea Halikarnassos. Volos: Nea Ionia. Xanthi: Nea Kypseli. In the postwar period, after 1950 and up to the early 1970s, there was no change in this fundamental functional, economic and social structure of the cities, even in the two metropolitan centres of Athens and Thessaloniki. The cumulative manner of city expansion, without planning, through legalization of areas that had been created without planning permission on the outskirts of cities, combined with the manner of production of the shell (built space),9 retained the old structures. The refugee areas were later united with the old tissue; building density and the demand for housing and office space at the centre increased the density of the central areas. There was a continuous expansion of the urban tissue, which nonetheless maintained its fundamental structure (figs 9 and 10).

In the interwar period, the settlement of the Asia Minor refugees was adapted to the existing functional, economic and social structure of the cities. All the urban refugee settlements were established outside the existing urban tissue, close to the industrial areas and entrances of cities. We can cite as examples:

After 1970, the structure of the urban tissue began to be transformed in various ways. This “metastasis” had already made its appearance in the swelling capital earlier on, but from the 1970s it also became apparent as a universal phenomenon, initially in Thessaloniki, subsequently in the large regional

Athens: Nea Ionia, Nea Philadelphia, Neo Herakleion, 353

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7. Diagram of the typical structure of the contemporary Greek city (after P. Loukakis, Urban Planning Notes, 1996).

8. Schematic reconstruction of the basic structure of Athens, 1978 (after P. Loukakis, et al., “Criticism of the current structure of Athens and its wider area”, Review of Social Researches 33–34, 1978).

9. The urban-planning growth of Thessaloniki, 1940–1979 (after E. Andrikopoulou-Kafkala, et al., Thessaloniki, 1979.

urban centres, and later still in the rest of the urban centres.10 We identify the fundamental transformation trends in city structure:

activities, such as leisure (restaurants, bars), bank branches, in large cities private offices, services such as the Post Office, the Telephone Company and others.

1. In city centres and the articulation of central functions. The expansion of residential areas, to the extent that they grew rapidly and intensely in density, resulted in the diffusion of the centres’ retail trade (foodstuffs, clothing, footwear, household goods, etc.) along the main radial thoroughfares, and later along their side streets. The retail trade brought with it other

In Athens, important peripheral commercial centres (Nea Ionia, Chalandri, Glyfada, Peristeri) had already been created within the urban tissue. The continuing intensity, not only in metropolitan centres but also in the larger cities, brought specialization in commercial activities (recreational goods stores, agricultural implements and machinery stores, car service stations, etc.). 354

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10. Digital map of Attica in a Geographical Information System (GIS) (Urban-Planning Section, School of Architecture N.T.U.A., 1994).

The centres of the other Greek cities continue to exhibit the following three-faceted character: they are at once regional centres, city centres and service centres for neighbourhood needs. Spatial diffusion in these cities has not yet created strong local urban-planning centres.

3. In the development of metropolitan regions for second homes and tourism. The peri-urban areas for second homes have for some three decades constituted a new structural parameter of urban centres, especially coastal ones. From holiday areas initially, they have gradually turned into areas of permanent residence, definitively extending the traditional type of urban space. Apart from those in Attica, we can cite as examples the areas of Asprovalta and Chalkidiki for Thessaloniki, Nea Peramos for Kavala, Rion for Patras, Chersonesos for Herakleion. The development of these regions creates the need for educational and medical services as well as sports facilities, it attracts commercial activities and widens the communication, transport and infrastructure networks of cities (telecommunications, water, sewage, power, etc.).

2. In industrial concentrations. The contemporary evolution of city centres, the extension of residential areas, the exacerbation of traffic problems and the deterioration of the natural environment have led to industrial activities moving out of city centres in search of new locations. Many industrial plants that were previously outside the city limits are now enclosed in the new residential areas, giving rise to a serious functionaleconomic-social problem, whether these expanded through designated Industrial Zones or Industrial-Manufacturing Parks, or through incentives, or private initiative. This centrifugal trend of the secondary sector runs parallel with the “tertiarization” of city centres (Piraeus, Kavala, Volos, Herakleion, Patras et al.).

4. In the spatial allocation of services of trans-local, regional or even national impact in peri-urban space. Over the last twenty years or so, important activities outside the urban tissue (e.g. universities, polytechnics, national security installations) have been located in a number of cities. Depending on the size of the city, a diffusion outwards of urban activities has occurred,

A recent phenomenon is the creation of supermarkets, department stores and shopping malls on the outskirts of urban centres. There are even cases of the movement of wholesale enterprises. These diffusion phenomena in the two metropolitan centres have given rise to problems of competition and of new functions for traditional historical city centres. Problems that emphasize the need for studying the role of historical centres – those that have managed to survive the profiteering exploitation of land.

At the same time, in the wider, mainly coastal, peri-urban areas, zones of intensive tourism activities have sprung up (with hotels, restaurants, beaches, sea-sports, etc.), independent of or combined with summer-home quarters. With varying degrees of intensity, these have, on an annual basis, a continuous functional, economic and social dependence on the urban centres.

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Pavlos K. Loukakis such as those noted above, which have led since the mid-1960s to the need for the delimitation of a space as “the wider area” of urban centres. For metropolitan centres these areas constitute the wider metropolitan region, while their traditional limits now denote the “heart” of metropolitan centres.11

went hand in hand with efforts to minimize expenses and travel time. Venues of everyday or weekly recreation, schools, the everyday retail trade, were elements of residential areas. The separate geographical entities thus created were still “neighbourhoods”.

5. In the diffusion of infrastructure networks. The changes noted above have led to an extensive diffusion of infrastructure networks. However, the provisioning of cities, the transport and communications nodes, water supply, collection and treatment of refuse and sewage, power and telecommunications constitute a network of essential services which it is difficult for the existing networks to cover.

For the last 20 years or so, new factors have entered the picture, such as: a. Reduction of working hours, and implementation of the continuous shift and the five-day week, resulting in more free time on a daily basis. b. Greater availability of information, updating and communication, due to the development of telecommunications, television and now informatics, resulting in the reduction of obligatory movements outside the home and the increase of recreational possibilities inside it.

At this point particularly it should be stressed that the expansion of cities, chiefly through the new areas of first and second residence, but also through all that has been previously mentioned, combined with the rise in car ownership and the poor level of development of means of mass transport and provisioning, have exacerbated traffic problems, even in medium-size cities.

c. Car-ownership ability, due to the general rise in income, resulting in a fall in the communal social use of roads as well as the possibility of travelling great distances from home. d. The dramatic decline in communal spaces and the environmental pollution of urban space, which result in a search for a better way of life, even at a higher living cost.

Recent traffic research studies have shown that about 50% of circulation surfaces in Greek cities are used for parking vehicles of every category (private and public, two and three-wheeled, etc.) and for supplying buildings (commerce, services, tourism, etc.).

e. Demographic changes (e.g. rise in average life expectancy, reduction of infant mortality, fall in birthrate), resulting in a changed family composition and different family needs for social welfare, medical care and health services, etc.

6. In the insufficiency of the natural and built environment. In the large metropolitan districts of Athens and Thessaloniki, as well as in large city centres, overall downgrading of the natural and built environment is particularly acute. The lack of urban green spaces, the failure to secure natural ventilation axes for the city (due to excessive building, the street width incommensurate with building height, poor planning and orientation of traffic networks and public open spaces in relation to natural conditions), and the progressive devastation of peri-urban greenery, are dramatically transforming the natural urban environment. Moreover, important districts of the city are being aesthetically, functionally, economically and socially downgraded.

f. The greater diffusion of workplaces outside the urban centres, resulting in a greater choice of places of residence. All these factors make the selection criteria for the place of residence more diverse, particularly in the country’s two major metropolitan centres, and also perhaps in regional urban poles as well (figs 11 and 12).12 In Athens and Thessaloniki in particular, the phenomenon of a “creeping” internal movement of their populations is observed. Thus, in the capital, the southwestern municipalities and those on the periphery of Athens and Piraeus are in decline, while there is a rise in the northwestern, northeastern and southeastern municipalities.13 Similar phenomena can be observed between the western and eastern municipalities of the urban complex of Thessaloniki.

Due to the failure to implement an integrated urban plan, these conditions have created an unacceptable regime of land (excessive division, very high prices, lack of public land) and building coefficients, indeed at an international level. At the same time, they have facilitated uncontrolled profiteering in the production of the shell, which has minimized the areas of communal use and the ordered and functionally desirable location of city operations. Thus, while the need arises for cities to expand, at the same time substantial parts of them become downgraded and demand radical transformations.

The diffusion of urbanization to the settlement network The phenomena of population movements and the evolution of the large metropolitan centres have been analysed from various theoretical angles. One of the most important is that of the peripheral cycle.14 According to this theoretical approach, the development of metropolitan centres and their surrounding periphery takes place in the following four stages:15

7. In the choice of residential location. Given that the inhabitants’ basic cycle of daily and seasonal activity is directed towards three types of spaces, which are diffused in the city, namely places of employment, of residence and of recreation, the inhabitants’ choices regarding where and how to live are neither simple nor unilateral. In the not too distant past, the basic choice was founded on the relationship “place of residence close to place of work”. This choice also had a social impact on the structure of residential areas. It was the predominant choice because, given the possibility of movement then, home close to the workplace

1. Urbanization stage. 2. Suburbanization stage. 3. Deurbanization stage. 4. Reurbanization stage. In the urbanization stage, an intense accumulation of population and activities takes place from the periphery 356

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11. Growth trends in the Mesogeia region – after I.P.A., “Economic growth and urban planning”, communication at the International Conference Planning of the Metropolitan Region for a Sustained Growth (Organization for the Regulatory Plan and the Environmental Protection of Athens, Athens, 22–24 May 1996 (in Greek)).

In the reurbanization stage, favourable preconditions arise for interventions in the metropolitan centre, such as remodellings, traffic and other adjustments for its regeneration. In Athens we are in a stage of deurbanization, and in Thessaloniki in a stage of intense suburbanization.

towards the metropolitan centre. This accumulation creates swelling negative external economies, traffic problems and transport difficulties, lack of space, rising land values, adverse natural living conditions. In the suburbanization phase, we observe a population movement towards the perimeter of the metropolitan centre, in search of better housing conditions in old or new suburbs.

A very interesting difference between the Greek and the other European metropolitan centres is that in Greece a decentralization of activities has preceded that of the inhabitants in the wider metropolitan area, so that pronounced differences arise in the types of everyday movements. Thus, if in the European metropolitan areas the tertiary sector remains in the centres, and we have movements of workers toward the centre, in Athens and Thessaloniki we have movements of employees in the opposite direction, towards their periphery:

In the deurbanizsation stage of the metropolitan centre, we observe the movement of productive activities and enterprises towards the suburbs, and consequently an intensification of accumulation there and a downgrading of the central areas. New areas and new settlements are sought, for better living conditions, in a new, wider perimeter of the metropolitan centre. 357

Pavlos K. Loukakis

12. Settlement network with Herakleion as its pole (according to the Department of Civil Engineering, Polytechnic School D.U.Thrace, Investigation of the Method of Drawing up an Integrated Regional Urban Plan: The Case of Crete (M. o E.), Xanthi, 1989, unpublished (in Greek)).

towards Oinophyta, Thebes, Chalkis, Corinth for Athens, towards Veroia, Katerini, Yannitsa, Langadas for Thessaloniki. When trying to interpret the trends of spatial diffusion of the other urban centres, we ascertain several similarities with the phenomena of urban diffusion in the two Greek metropolises. Thus, in all urban centres there are perimetric rural settlements, which function like satellites, as a type of “suburb”: the difficulty of finding a home in the urban centres encourages people to look for one in these places. Many residents of these settlements work in the city or have direct commercial relations with it, while a number of recreational and entertainment activities of city residents are located there, and many enterprises or urban uses are situated within their administrative boundaries. Given that distances between urban centres vary from 50–70 km, these wider areas, in their urbanization process, tend towards a greater spatial approximation. Characteristic instances of this are the cities of Drama-Kavala-Xanthi (fig. 13). The linear “urban formation” of Corinth-Kiato-Xylokastro-Aigion-Patras has been in existence for decades.

13. Urbanization of the wider regions of Drama-Kavala-Xanthi and trends in their spatial rapprochement (after I.P.A., Study of regional development and City Planning Organization of the Kavala Prefecture, Phase I (Prefectural Authority of Drama-Kavala-Xanthi, Prefectural Department of Kavala), 1996, unpublished (in Greek)).

The above mean that a new profile is taking shape for the relationship between people living in the city and people living in the countryside. The picture that emerges from the rural hinterland of the urban centres is of an equalizing tendency with the city, not only in the external features of built space, but also in those of the residents and social behaviours.

Epilogue In concluding this chapter, it should be pointed out from the above analysis that traditional perceptions about the differentiation between city and village (which were founded, e.g., on quantitative population or economic criteria, on employment structure or social criteria about class distinctions) are tending to be blunted.

Besides these, a set of more general observations must be taken into account, relating to the way of life and the ability of residents of rural settlements to “enjoy” the urban services and facilities on offer. Research connected with the central rural settlements (for the years 1989–1990),16 which was undertaken for the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, produced the following results:

The contemporary Greek city, whatever its size, is spreading out into rural space and is being transformed, it is tending to be absorbed and drained. Nonetheless, it is diffracted, and through this diffraction possibilities and future developments show up for the spatial relations of the settlements, which should be the subject of scientific research and political responsibility on the part of those who decide and act for the future of Greek cities. A set of definitions and conceptions may have to be reexamined, such as those of urban, rural, exo-urban, peri-urban, semi-urban, suburban and non-urban space, in order to clarify the future boundaries of planning and interventions in the structure of contemporary cities.

a. With very few exceptions, each rural home has electricity, a refrigerator, television and dishwasher, and an internal watersupply system. b. There is a high percentage use of electrical and electronic appliances. c. 64% of homes have a telephone. d. There is a substantial proportion of private means of transport. e. There is a substantial renewal of the settlement stock. f. Around 50% of commercial stores in urban centres have customers from rural settlements. g. There is a substantial diffusion of services to rural settlements. 358

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Notes The Dodecanese were united with the existing Greek State in 1946, that is, after the Second World War, but this fact does not essentially alter the above analysis and its findings. 2 P. Loukakis, “Regional relations and evolutionary trends of the network of urban centres in Greece”, Review of Social Research 28, 1976, 363–388 (in Greek). 3 M. Yannopoulou, Typological Associations of Urban and Settlement Features of the Xanthi-Rhodopi Rural Settlements (Doctoral thesis, School of Civil Engineers D.U.Thrace), Xanthi 1994 (unpublished) (in Greek). 4 Law 2539/1997 “I. Capodistria”. The new Local Authorities became operational on 1–1-1999. This act abolished the “Regional Councils”. 5 P. Loukakis and Z. Demathas, “Planning and administration of metropolitan centres: The case of Athens”, in Administrative Systems of Metropolitan Regions: Administration and the State (Studies 11) (A.N. Sakkoulas), Athens-Komotini 1994, 149–172 (in Greek). 6 Here should be mentioned the proposals drafted by the then School of Architecture of the N.T.U.A. through a series of diploma and research papers, as well as the subsequent ones at K.E..P.E. 7 With the exception of Athens and Thessaloniki, 7–8 of the urban poles of the country were characterized as Centres of Intensive Development Projects (K.E.P.A.). 8 The only powerful regional pole outside this axis is Herakleion in Crete. 9 See the beginning of the text. 10 After 1970 almost all urban centres exhibit high population growth rates, with a corresponding marked fall in the population growth rate of Athens. 11 For the capital: the traditional centre is the heart of Athens, the metropolitan centre is the entire urban-planning complex, while the wider metropolitan area includes the prefecture of Attica at least. 12 Z. Demathas and S. Tsilenis, “Population and employment projections in the recent studies of Athens”, Contemporary Issues 27, 1986, 19–28 (in Greek). 13 Demathas and Tsilenis, “Population and employment projections”, op. cit. 14 L. Nordström, “Population changes in a functional regional system”, Economic Geography, 1981; J. Kawashima, “Spatial cycle hypothesis and Roxy index method: Implications of the 1985 population census figures for the stage of suburbanization of Tokyo Metropolitan Area”, communication at the RSA Twenty-sixth European Congress, (Krakov, Poland, 26–29 August, 1986); and K. Rondos and A. Papadaskalopoulos, “The peripheral cycle approach: The case of the Metropolitan Area of Athens”, The Statistician (Scientific Review of the Association of Statistical Employees of the N.S.S.G.) 1–2, 1994, 3–22 (in Greek). 15 Institute of Regional Development, Economic Growth and Spatial Planning of the Plain of Mesogeia, 1995–2020: Spatial Regulations of the “Eleftherios Venizelos” Airport Area” (Organization for the Regulatory Plan and the Environmental Protection of Athens), Athens 1997 (unpublished) (in Greek). 16 Faculty of Civil Engineering, Polytechnic School D.U.Thrace, Specialization of Technical and Social Infrastructure Indices for a Systematic Recording of Problem Areas: The Case of the Eastern Macedonian –Thrace Region (Y.V.E.T., Ministry of the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works, E.T.A.A., Prefectural Regions Eastern Macedonia and Thrace). Xanthi 1991 (unpublished) (in Greek). 1

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The Authors

Aleksova, Blaga

Boulotis, Christos

Professor of Early Christian and Slavonic Archaeology at the Univerzitet Kiril i Metodi, Skopje. She read Art History at the same university and took her doctorate from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. She specialized in Early Christian archaeology at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a founder-member of the Archaeological Museum of Macedonia, of which she was director for a number of years. She is co-director, together with C. Mango and J. Wiseman, of the American-Yugoslav excavations at Bargala and Stobi. She has lectured at Dumbarton Oaks, the Smithsonian Institute and several universities in the USA.

Archaeologist. Awarded a German State Scholarship to pursue postgraduate studies in Classical and Prehistoric Archaeology and in Comparative Linguistics at the University of Würzburg (1975–1980), from where he received his doctorate in Prehistoric Archaeology (1980). He has taught archaeology at the Ionian University (1986–1989) and history of Aegean art at the Advanced School of Fine Arts (1986–1988 and from 2000 to now). Currently a research fellow at the Research Centre for Antiquity of the Athens Academy (since 1985). He also runs postgraduate seminars in the Department of History and Archaeology at the National and Capodistrian University of Athens. He has participated in excavations in Crete (Minoan cemetery at Fourni, Archanes and Minoan palace at Zakros), Thera (Akrotiri settlement), ancient Elis and the Mycenaean citadel of Tiryns. Since 1992, he has been conducting a systematic excavation of the prehistoric settlement at Koukonisi on the island of Lemnos.

Principal publications: Prosek-demir Kapija (doctoral thesis, 1966); “Bargala: A preliminary report (joint article, 1971); “The Old Episcopal Basilica at Stobi” (1982 and 1991); “The Early Christian basilicas at Stobi” (1986); Episkopijata na Bregalnica (1989); Loca Sanctorum Macedoniae (1995); “Ancient Cities: Large Palaeo-Christian centres in Macedonia” (1997); “Early Christian and Slav religious centres in Macedonia” (1998).

Billinge, Mark Until 2006, University Lecturer in Geography at the University of Cambridge.  He was the first Director of the Undergraduate School between 1994 and 1996.  He became a Fellow of Magdalene College in 1980 and since 2003 has been its Fellow for Development, having previously held the posts of Senior Tutor (1996–2003), Admissions Tutor (1989–1996) and Dean (1883–1989). He holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Geography from the University of Cambridge and, as a Director of Studies, was responsible for the geographical education of numerous undergraduate and graduate students. He has published in the fields of cultural and historical geography.  Having worked originally on the impact of science on the cultural geography of provincial England during the Industrial Revolution, his more recent work has been on identity on 19th-century Italy.  Studies in this latter field have allowed him to combine his lifelong passion for opera with his academic interests in the role of institutions in mediating the relationship between people and the places in which they live. Principal publications: “Trading with the past: The Crystal Palace as cultural icon” (1994); Geography Degree Course Guide (1996); “A time and place for everything: Recreation, recreation and the Victorians” (1996); “The musical elaboration of nationhood: Form and function in nineteenth-century Italian opera”; “The natural history of the opera house”.

Principal publications: “Zur Deutung des Freskofragmentes Nr. 103 aus der tirynther Frauenprozession“ (1979); Studien zu ägäischen Prozessionen im 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Doctoral thesis, 1980); “Ein Gründungsdepositum im minoischen Palast von Kato Zakros: Minoisch-mykenische Bauopfer” (1982); “The Aegean in prehistoric times: Cults and beliefs about the sea” (1987); “Nochmals zum Prozessionfresko von Knossos: Palast und Darbringung von Prestige-Objekten“ (1987); “Zwei SH IIIB Freskofragmente aus Orchomenos im Martin von Wagner Museum, Würzburg“ (1987); “Mycenaean wall painting“ (1988); “La déesse minoenne à la rame-gouvernail” (1989); “Problems of Aegean painting and the wall-paintings of Akrotiri” (1990, in Greek); “Villes et palais dans l’art égéen du 2ème millénaire avant J.-Chr.” (1990); “The olive tree and olive oil in the palatial societies of Crete and Mycenaean Greece: Aspects and views” (1996, in Greek); “Koukonisi of Lemnos, four years of excavations: Theses and hypotheses” (1997, in Greek); “The art of wall-paintings in Mycenaean Boeotia” (2000, in Greek); “Travelling Fresco Painters in the Aegean Late Bronze Age: The Diffusion Patterns of a Prestigious Art” (2000); “Aspects of Religious Expression at Akrotiri” (2005); “From Mythical Minos to the Search for Cretan Kingship” (2008); “The Art of Cretan Writing” (2008); “The Linear A tablets from Akrotiri (THE 7–12): Aspects of the economic life of the settlement” (2008, in Greek).

Chourmouziadis, Georgios Ch. Professor Emeritus of Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He holds a doctorate from the

361

Authors Principal publications: The N.P. Goulandris Collection of Early Cycladic Art (1968); Early Bronze Age Burial Habits in the Cyclades (1977); Cycladic Art (1978, translated into many languages); Thera, Pompeii of the Ancient Aegean (1983); The Wall-Paintings of Thera (1992); Early Cycladic Culture (2000); Silent Witnesses (2002); and many articles on the Aegean Bronze Age, ancient history, history of archaeology, cultural heritage management, in scholarly journals, conference proceedings and Festschriften .

same university (1973). Postgraduate studies in Germany, specializing in European Prehistory at the Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Heidelberg (1976–1978). He has excavated several prehistoric sites and is director of excavations of the lakeside settlement at Dispilio, Kastoria. His involvement with problems of Theoretical Archaeology includes editing two journals on the subject, Anthropologika and Gordon (both in Greek). Principal publications: “A new prehistoric settlement in the plain of Elassona”(1972, in Greek); Neolithic Anthropomorphic Figurines (1973, in Greek); “A clay model of a Neolithic house” (1973, in Greek); “The decorated pottery of the Early Neolithic period in Thessaly” (1974. in Greek); “Introduction to the ideologies of Greek prehistory” (1977, in Greek); Neolithic Dimini (1979, in Greek); “Introduction to the Neolithic productive process” (1981, in Greek); Magnesia: Chronicle of a Civilization (1982, in Greek); “The gardener and the wayfarer” (1984, in Greek); “On the archaeological monument in general” (1986, in Greek); “The early years of Thessaloniki” (1986, in Greek); “The tumulus and the ‘Asiatic mode of production’” (1987–1988, in Greek); “A producer without a market 4500±150 BC” (1988, in Greek); “Theocharis the pioneer” (1992 , in Greek); Analogies (1995, in Greek); The Gold of the World (1997); Words of Dust (1999, in Greek).

Gizeli, Vika D. Architect-Engineer of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1970). Postgraduate studies in Sociology at the E.H.E.S.S. and the Centre d’ Ethnologie Sociale et de Psychosociologie, Paris (1971–1975), and Urban Sociology at the Université de Paris VIII-Vincennes (1971–1973). She holds a doctorate in Sociology of the E.H.E.S.S. and the Université de Paris X-Nanterre (1980). She served as head of the Organization and Evaluation Section of the Directorate of Implementation of Educational Plans, at the Ministry of Education (1978– 1980) and has taught postgraduate seminars for secondaryschool teachers. She is currently Counsellor of Architecture and Sociology at the Paedagogical Institute of the Ministry of Education, where she is also responsible for the Applied Arts Section and the Certification and Multimedia Bureau. She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students as an external collaborator of the School of Architecture at the N.T.U.A.

Dimitriadis, Evangelos P. Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Development in the School of Architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is a graduate Architect-Engineer (1967) and holds a Doctorate in Urban Planning from the same university (1980). He completed his postgraduate studies in the Faculty of Geography of University College London, and at the University of Edinburgh, in the Patrick Geddes Centre for Planning Studies. He has participated in research projects and has delivered papers at conferences and symposia in Greece and abroad.

Principal publications: Social Transformations and the Origin of the Social Dwelling in Greece, 1920–1930 (1984, in Greek); “Histoire, urbanisation, migration et idéologie dominante” (1988); “Art and the transfer of technology” (1988, in Greek); “Social transformations and dereliction of building wealth in central parts of Athens” (1988, in Greek); Simple Sociology Lessons (1992, in Greek); “Pour une architecture des aspirations” (joint article, 1994, in Greek); “The social integration of urban refugees into the city” (1996, in Greek); “Expropriation of buildings, occupied or in other uses” (1998, in Greek); “The pedagogy of the cultural heritage” (1998, in Greek).

Principal publications: History of the City and of Urban Planning (1987, in Greek); Functionally Organized and Built Historical Space (1992, in Greek); The Vilayet of Ioannina in the 19th Century, Ioannina: From the “Bazaar City” to the “Mercantile City” (1993, in Greek); History of the City and of Urban Planning: European Cultures (1995, in Greek); and numerous articles in Greek and foreign journals.

Gounaris Alexandros Architect-Engineer of the National Technical University of Athens, architecte D.P.L.G. U.P.A.-6 (1982) and a graduate of C.R.R.U. Paris (1982). He holds a D.É.A. in Social and Historical Anthropology from the E.H.E.S.S., Paris (1981), a D.E.A. and a Doctorate in Regional Analysis and Regional Planning from the University of Paris I-Panthéon, Sorbonne (1982), and a Doctorate in History-Archaeology from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Crete (2002). He worked as an architect at the Office for Plaka (Ministry of Environment and Regional Planning) (1985–1988) and is currently an architect of the II Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, East Attica. Since 2002 he has been teaching as adjunct lecturer in the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology of the University of Thessaly. He has participated in research projects of the Academy of Athens on Lemnos, and of the University of Athens on Tinos and Naxos;

Doumas, Christos G. Professor Emeritus of Prehistoric Archaeology at the National and Capodistrian University of Athens. He holds a Ph.D. in Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London (1972). He held several positions in the Greek Archaeological Service (1960–1982), including Director of Antiquities and Director of Conservation at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture (1977–1980). He is director of excavations at Akrotiri, Thera (1975-). He has lectured in several countries and is a member or fellow of many scholarly societies, including the Society of Antiquaries and the German Archaeological Institute. 362

Authors (Ph.D. thesis, 1962, in Greek); Perati: The Cemetery, 3 vols (1969–1970, in Greek); three chapters in the History of the Greek Nation, vol. I (1970); “Vormykenische und mykenische Wehrbauten” (1977); Late Helladic Citadels on Mainland Greece (1983); numerous articles in European and American periodicals.

in archaeological excavations on Amorgos, at Skala Oropos and Thermos, and a surface survey on Kythnos, organized by the Archaeological Society at Athens; the British School at Athens excavations at Lefkandi, Euboea; the University of Thessaly excavations on Kythnos, and at Soros and Zerelia in Thessaly. Principal publications: “Cult places in the Cyclades during the Protogeometric and Geometric Periods: the contribution in interpreting the rise of the Cycladic poleis”, in M. Yeroulanou – M. Stamatopoulou (eds), Architecture and Archaeology in the Cyclades, Papers in honour of J.J. Coulton, Oxford 1005, 13– 68); “Curvilinear versus rectangular? A contribution to the interpretation of the evolution of architectural forms in Greece during the Protogeometric-Geometric-Archaic periods based on a study of the constructions at Oropos”, in A. MazarakisAinian (ed.), Oropos and Euboea in the Early Iron Age, Acts of an International Round Table, University of Thessaly, 18–20 June 2004, Volos 2007, 77–122. .

Karydis, Dimitrios N. Professor in the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens (1997- ). He is an ArchitectEngineer (1970) and a Ph.D. Engineer in Urban Planning of the same university (1980). His many area of research and teaching focuses on issues of urban history and the theory of urban planning. He has presented papers at many international conferences. Principal publications: Urban-planning of Athens in the Ottoman Period (Ph.D thesis, 1980, in Greek); Reading Urbanism (1990, in Greek); Chorographia Neoteriki (1993, in Greek).

Hoepfner, Wolfram Graduate in Architecture of the Technical University of Berlin (1963) and in Archaeology of the Free University of Berlin (1963). He took his doctorate from the Technical University of Berlin in 1965. In 1967 he joined the German Archaeological Institute at Athens, participating in excavations in the Athenian Kerameikos, Olympia, Samos and Tiryns. In 1973 was appointed Assistant Director of the central German Archaeological Institute in Berlin and head of the newly-created Architectural Section. In 1974 he directed, in collaboration with Ernst-Ludwig Schwandner, the project “Housing in the Classical Polis”, involving further excavations and research in Greece: in Epirus, Euboea, Rhodes and elsewhere. He received his Habilitation from the Technical University of Berlin in 1975 and was elected professor there in 1980. From 1988 until his retirement in 2002, he was Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Institute for Classical Architecture of the Free University of Berlin.

Kiousopoulou, Tonia Associate Professor of Byzantine History at the University of Crete (1999- ). She holds a D.É.A. in Byzantine history from the Université de Paris I-Panthéon, Sorbonne (1981) and a Ph.D. in Byzantine History from the University of Crete (1988). Principal publications: The Institution of the Family in Epirus in the 13th Century (1990, in Greek); Time and Age in Byzantine Society: The Range of Ages from Hagiological Texts of the Middle Period (1997, in Greek); Emperor or Manager: Political power and ideology before the Fall of Constantinople (2007, in Greek); (ed.) The Fall of Constantinople and the Transition from Medieval to Modern times (2005); articles in journals and collective volumes. Konsola, Dora N.

Principal publications: Haus und Stadt im klassischen Griechenland (with E.-L. Schwandner, 1986, 2nd edn 1994); Geschichte des Wohnens, vol. I. Vorgeschichte-FrühgeschichteAntike, von 5000 v. Chr. Bis 500 n. Chr. (1999); some 130 scientific articles.

Professor Emerita of Cultural Politics and History of Greek Civilization at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences. She holds an M.A. in Classical Studies from the University of Cincinnati, USA (1965) and a Ph.D. (1981) and a readership (1986) from the Faculty of Letters of the National and Capodistrian University of Athens.

Iakovidis, Spyros E.

Principal publications: Premycenaean Thebes: Spatial Organization and Layout of the Settlement (1981, in Greek); Early Urbanization in Early Helladic Settlements (1984, in Greek); “Beobachtungen zum Wegenetz in frühhelladischen Siedlungen” (1984); Early Helladic Architecture and Urbanization (ed., 1986); Cultural Activity and State Policy (1990, in Greek); “Settlement size and the beginning of urbanization” (1990); International Protection of the World Cultural Heritage (1995, in Greek), Cultural Development and Policy (2006, in Greek).

Professor of Archaeology at the universities of Athens (1970–1974), Marburg (1976–1977) and Heidelberg (1977). Member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, USA (1977–1978). Professor of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, USA (1979–1991). He collaborated in the excavations at Eleusis (1954–1955), Pylos (1954–1965) and Thera (1972–1974), and directed excavations at Perati (1953– 63), Gla (1978–1991) and Mycenae (1988- ). He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1977- ), member of the Academy of Athens (1991- ), of the Lincei Academy of Rome (1995- ) and of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2001- ), as well as of Greek and foreign scientific societies.

Kotsakis, Kostas Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology in the Department of History and Archaeology at Aristotle University of

Principal publications: The Mycenaean Citadel of Athens 363

Place Index Social and Political Sciences, where he served as Professor of Urban and Regional Development in the Department of Economic and Regional Development (1994–2000). He is an Architect-Engineer of the N.T.U.A. (1957) and holds a doctorate from Aachen Technical University, specialized in Urban and Regional Planning (1976). He was a professor (1984–1994) in the Department of Civil Engineering of the Demokritian University of Thrace (1984–1994). He also taught in the postgraduate studies programmes of the Panteion University Institute of Regional Development (1976–1993) and Department of Economic and Regional Development (1994-). He served as president of the Panhellenic Union of Architects (1974–1975) and the Greek Association of Urban and Rural Planners (1984–1985). He has been awarded several distinctions in panhellenic architectural contests for large-scale building complexes (1957–1970).

Thessaloniki. He holds a Ph.D. in Prehistoric Archaeology from the same university (1983). He has been a fellow of Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge. He has conducted excavations at Sesklo in Magnesia (1978, 1981), Toumba in Thessaloniki (1985–1999), Çatal Höyük in Turkey (1995– 1998) and Pslianbels Kolindros (2000- ). He is a member of scientific archaeological societies and of the editorial committee of international journals. Principal publications: The Middle Neolithic Pottery of Sesklo (Doctoral thesis, 1983, in Greek); “The powerful past” (1991); “Review of Aegean prehistory: The Neolithic and Bronze Age of Northern Greece” (1996); “The past is ours” (1998). Kourou, Nota Professor in the Department of History and Archaeology at the National and Capodistrian University of Athens. Postgraduate studies in Classical Archaeology at Somerville College, University of Oxford (1974–1979), from where she took her D.Phil. in 1979. She has taught at the University of Athens, as lecturer (1979–1987), Assistant Professor (1988– 1994), Associate Professor (1994–2001) and Professor (2001). Visiting professor in Australia (2005) and the USA (2005). Participated in excavations of the Themistoclean wall of Athens (1968), the Mycenaean cemetery at Mistros in Euboea (1969), at Aphrodision of Psophis in Arcadia (1970), at Grotta and Aplomata on Naxos (1971–1974) and at Kardamaina on Kos (1985). She is director of excavations at Xobourgo on Tinos since 1985.

Principal publications: “Regionalplannung und Vorschlag für eine Siedlungsumordnung im Raum Ilia (Elis) im WestPeloponnes” (joint article, 1967); “Regional relations and development trends of the network of urban centres in Greece” (1976, in Greek); “Urban-planning problems of the capital and institutional interventions after 1948” (1985, in Greek); “Issues related to the spatial levels of implementation of the regional-planning programme in Greece” (1994, in Greek); “Planning and administration of metropolitan centres: The case of Athens” (1994, in Greek); “New Athens Airport: Planning and findings of business location survey” (joint article, 1997);”The ‘urban alliances’ as a perspective of the Greek settlement’s competitiveness in the framework of European spatial development. The case of the Drama-KavalaXanthi triangle” (2004, in Greek); “Typology of Greek cities on spatial criteria of regional gravity” (joint article, Aeichoros, 2:2005).

Principal publications: The South Cemetery of Naxos (1999, in Greek); CVA Greece 8, Athens 5. Attic and Atticizing Amphorae of the Protogeometric and Geometric Period (2002); Cypriote Limestone Statuettes found in the Aegean (co-author, 2002).

Mantas, Constantine

Lagopoulos, Alexandros Ph.

Historian. A graduate of the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Ioannina. He completed his postgraduate studies in the Faculty of Classics and Ancient History of the University of Bristol, where he was awarded an M.A. in Ancient History (1991) and a Ph.D. in the same subject (1995), with supervisor the late T.E.J. Wiedemann. A high-school teacher, he is currently seconded to the Centre for Educational Research.

Professor Emeritus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and corresponding member of the Academy of Athens. He holds a degree in Architectural Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (1961) and a postgraduate diploma in Urban Planning from the Centre de Recherche d’Urbanisme, Paris (1968). In 1970 he completed a doctorate in Social Anthropology at the Sorbonne and a doctorate in Urban Planning at the N.T.U.A. He received a post-doctoral academic title from the N.T.U.A. in 1973 and an honorary doctorate in Semiotics from the New Bulgarian University of Sofia in 2004.

Principal publications: “Women and athletics in the Roman East”. Nikephoros 8, 1995, 125–144; “Independent women in the Roman East: Widows, benefactresses, patronesses, officeholders”, Eirene XXXII, 1997, 181–186; “Marriage in the Roman Imperial period”, Polis 11, 1999, 111–134; “Public and private’, Polis 12, 2000, 181–228: “Children as office holders and benefactors in the eastern part of the Roman Empire”, Polis 18, 2006, 163–186; Aspects of Slavery in the Discourse of Dion Chrysostom (2008, in Greek).

Principal publications: Author of over 100 books and articles, including Meaning and Geography (with K. BoklundLagopoulou, 1992); Urbanisme et sémiotique, dans les sociétés pré-industrielles (1995); Heaven on Earth: Sanctification rituals of traditional Greek settlements and the origin (2002, in Greek); co-edited The City and the Sign (1986) and a four-volume anthology, Semiotics (2002).

Marmaras, Emmanuel V. Professor of Urban Development and Town Planning in the Department of Architecture, University of Crete. He holds a degree in Architecture (1972) and a doctorate in Town

Loukakis, Pavlos K. Professor Emeritus (2001) of the Panteion University of 364

The Cities of Crete During the Minoan Age Owens, Edwin J.

Planning and Regional Planning from the National Technical University of Athens (1985), and took a Ph.D. in Urban History from the University of Leicester (1992). From 1996 to 2006 he taught in the Department of Geography at the University of the Aegean.

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Classics and Ancient History and Egyptology at Swansea University. He holds an M.A. in Ancient History (1973) and a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology (1980) from the University of Sheffield. He has conducted fieldwork in Turkey, Greece and the UK.

Principal publications: “The privately-built multi-storey building: The case of inter-war Athens” (1989); The Urban Apartment-Block of Inter-war Athens: The Beginning of Intensive Exploitation of Urban Land (Doctoral thesis, 1991, in Greek); Central London under Reconstruction Policy and Planning, 1940–1959 (unpublished doctoral thesis, 1992); “Problems of an interdisciplinary approach to the remodelling of the historical centres of cities (1992, in Greek); “Planning for postwar London: The three independent plans, 1942– 43” (joint article, 1994); “Central London in the 1950s: Comprehensive schemes south of the Thames” (1997); Planning and Urban Space: Theoretical approaches and facets of Greek urban geography (2002, in Greek); Twelve Greek Architects of the Interwar Period (joint book, 2005); The Hotel Mont Parnes, an Architectural Mountain Story (2007, in Greek); “Cycladic settlements of the Aegean Sea: a blending of local and foreign influences” (2008).

Principal publications: “The nymphaeum at Antioch: changes in water management and use”, (joint article with M. Taslialan) in Cura aquarum in Petra (Sieburg 2008), 301–313; “The waters of Alexandria”, in T. Schneider and K. Szpakowska (eds), Egyptian stories: A British Egyptological tribute to Alan B. Lloyd (Münstter, Ugarit-Verlag, 2007); “The Ariassos aqueduct and the development of the Roman city”, in G. Wiplinger (ed.), Cura Aquarum in Ephesus (Leuven 2006) 151–157; ‘The Ariassos Aqueduct and cultural developments in Roman cities in Asia Minor”, Mediterranean Archaeology (2005) 18, 31–40; “Zosimus, the Roman Empire and the end of Roman Britain”, Collection Latomus 239 = Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History VIII (Brussels 1997) 478–504; “The aqueducts of Sagalassos”, in M. Waelkens and J. Poblome (eds), Sagalassos III (Leuven 1995) 91–113: S. Mitchell, with Sarah Cormack, Robin Fursdon, Eddie Owens, Jean Öztürk, Cremna in Pisidia, an ancient city in peace and war (London 1995), “Water su[[;u and the aqueduct”, 141–151, “The residential districts, 158– 175; “The water supply of Kremna in Pisidia”, in G. Argoud et al. (eds), L’eau et les homes en Méditerranée, mer noire et mer Caspienne (Athens 1994) 379–382; The City in the Greek and Roman World (London 1992); “The koprologoi at Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries BC”, CQ 33 (1983) 44–50.

Moutsopoulos, Nicholas K. Professor Emeritus of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is an Architect-Engineer N.T.U.A. (1953) and a graduate of the Theological School of the A.U.Th. (1963). He held the Chair of Architectural Morphology in the School of Architecture (1958–1997) and lectured on Christian Archaeology and Art in the Theological School of the same university. He holds a Doctor of Engineering (Architecture) degree from the N.T.U.A. (1956) and an Honorary Ph.D. from the University of Sofia (1990). Postgraduate studies at the Institut d’ Art et d’Archéologie (1953–1954) and in Byzantine history and art at the E.P.H.E.S.S. (1964–1965). A corresponding member of the Academy of Athens (1980- ), the Academia Pontaniana of Naples (1981- ) and the Academy of Sciences of Bulgaria (1985- ). He supervised the restoration of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (1968–1969) and has conducted archaeological excavations at various sites in Greece.

Palyvou, Clairy Associate professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Engineering, Department of Architecture; Director of the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Programme on the Restoration and Rehabilitation of Monuments and Sites. An Architect-Engineer, A.U.Th. (1971), she pursued postgraduate studies at the Institute of Classical Studies in London (1985– 1986) and took a doctorate in theHistory of Architecture from the N.T.U.A. (1989). She served as an architect in the Ministry of Culture (1980–1992) and the archaeological excavations at Akrotiri, Thera (1977–1992). Visiting Fellow in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University (1990), recipient of the Michael Ventris Memorial Award (1987), the Fulbright Scholarship (1990) and the Samuel H. Kress Scholarship (1992). She is a founder-member and general secretary of the Society for the Study of Ancient Greek Technology.

Principal publications: “The precursors of the first Greek technical scientists: Koudarian, Macedonian and Epirot craftsmen” (1976, in Greek); “Byzantine houses at Mouchli in Arcadia” (1985, in Greek); “From Byzantine Karytaina” (1985–1986, in Greek); “Peristera, the mountain settlement of Chortiatis and the church of St Andrew: A study for the conservation and restoration of the katholikon and proposals for the revival of the traditional dwelling” (1986, in Greek); The Architectural Projection. Sahnisi: Contribution to the Study of the Greek Dwelling (1988, in Greek); Kastoria: Greek Traditional Architecture (1990); Churches of Kastoria, 9th-11th Century (1992, in Greek); “The site of Mygdonian Apollonia and the lakeside (?) course of the Via Egnatia” (1993, in Greek); “The mystic symbolism of the metropolitan throne” (1994, in Greek).

Principal publications: Akrotiri, Thera. An Architecture of Affluence 3,500 Years Old (2005); Taureador Scenes in Tell elDab’a (Avaris) and Knossos (co-author with M. Bietak and N. Marinatos, 2007). Tsakopoulos, Panayotis Architect-Engineer N.T.U.A. (1981) and Achitecte D.P.L.G. of the École d’ Architecture de Paris-La Villette (1985). He holds a doctorate in Geography and Regional Planning from 365

Clairy Palyvou the Université de Paris X-Nanterre (1986) and has undertaken post-doctoral research at the Institut d’ Urbanisme of the Université de Paris-Val de Marne (1993). He has lectured in the History of the City and Urban Planning in the Department of Geography of the University of the Aegean (2004–2005), and is a practising architect in Athens. Principal publications: L’urbanisme dans le Péloponnèse au XIXe siècle: De la ville ottomane à la ville néohellénique (Doctoral thesis, 1986); Cartes et plans manuscrits de la Grèce et de l’Empire Ottoman (XVIIIe-XIXe siècle), Dépôt de la Guerre, Château de Vincennes (1994); “Techniques d’intervention et appropriation de l’espace traditionnel: L’urbanisme militaire des expéditions françaises en Méditerranée”, Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée, nos 73–74 (1996) . Tsetskhladze, Gocha R. Gocha R. Tsetskhladze teaches Classical Archaeology at the Centre for Classics and Archaeology, University of Melbourne, Australia. He holds doctorates in Archaeology and Ancient History from the Russian Academy of Sciences, and in Classical Archaeology from the University of Oxford. He has published extensively on the archaeology of the Black Sea and Anatolia, and on Greek colonization in general. He is founder and editor-in-chief of the journal Ancient West & East and of its monograph supplement Colloquia Pontica, now Colloquia Antiqua. One of his current projects is the 3-volume publication Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas. He has excavated for many years at sites in the eastern and northern Black Sea. At present, he is director of the Pessinus excavation in Central Anatolia. Principal publications: Die Griechen in der Kolchis (1998); Pichvnari and ist Environs (1999). He has edited the following books: The Archaeology of Greek Colonisation (joint publication, 1994); Greek and Roman Settlements on the Black Sea Coast (1994); New Studies on the Black Sea Littoral (1996); The Greek Colonization of the Black Sea Area (1998); Ancient Greeks West and East (1999); Periplous (joint publication, 2000); Greeks and Natives in the Cimmerian Bosporus (7th-1st centuries B.C.) (joint publication, 2000); Greek Settlements in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea (joint publication, 2001); North Pontic Archaeology: Recent Discoveries and Studies (2001); Greek Pottery from the Iberian Peninsula: Archaic and Classical Periods (2001); Northern Pontic Antiquities in the State Hermitage Museum (joint publication, 2001); The Dictionary of Black Sea Antiquities; History of Greek Colonization and Settlement Overseas (2 vols).

366

Index of Place Names A

Akrotiri 48, 62–3, 79, 85–98, 107, 361, 362, 365

Abdera 164, 242

Alabanda 209

Abliotike 276

Alasehir 277

Abritus 234

Alaskert 276

Abydos 271

Alessio 279, 281

Achladia 72, 77, 297

Alexandria 6, 18, 186, 189, 220, 237, 365

Achtala 278

Alexandroupolis 281, 335

Actium 184, 204

Almopia 240

Adamas 316

Almyros 243

Adana 272, 274, 276, 282

Amalias 320

Adramyttion 271

Amaseia 276, 278

Adrianople 233, 244, 252, 279, 281, 283, 304

Amastris 219

Aedepsus 207

Ambelakia 295, 300, 304

Aegina 47, 48, 50, 51, 63, 65, 68, 92, 99, 105, 107

Ambrakia 177, 178, 242

Aenos 239

Amis 278

Aetna 193, 194, 198

Amisos 271

Aetos 279

Ammotopos 177

Agathoupolis 279

Amnisos 72, 77, 85

Aghia Justina 245

Amorion 271, 275

Aghia Kyriaki 306

Amphilochia 321

Aghia Pelagia 85

Amphipolis 198, 239, 240, 242, 249

Aghia Sophia Magoula 37

Amphissa 289, 294, 321

Aghios Andreas 107, 112

Anagourda 276

Aghios Athanasios 112, 130, 300, 309

Anapa 157

Aghios Donatos 231

Anastasioupolis 231, 242, 246, 280

Aghios Elias 246

Anavarza 276

Aghios Kosmas 47, 48, 51, 99, 104, 107, 294

Anazarvos 274

Aghios Lavrentios 306

Anchialos 238, 239, 242, 244, 280, 321

Aghios Stephanos 104, 107, 306

Angelokastro 246

Agiaz 276

Angelokoma 276

Agria 306 Agridir 276

Anion 271, 273, 276

Agrinion 316

Ankara 275, 279, 294

Aidini 272, 273, 278

Ankyra 232, 276

Aigai 187

Antalya 278

Aigion 231, 316, 325, 351, 358

Antigonia 185

Ainos 280, 304

Antioch 185–6, 190, 196, 213–14, 218, 220, 237, 248, 275–6, 365

Aitoliko 304

Antioch in Pisidia 213, 214, 218

Akovitika 47, 48, 50, 66

Antioch-on-the-Orontes 185, 196, 218, 220

Akragas 143

Apameia 276

Akrai 133

Apollonia 151, 158, 165, 240, 249, 271, 280, 365

Akraiphia 204

Apollonia Pontica 151, 158, 165

Akrata 320

Apros 239

Akroenos 275

Aprovatou 112

367

Place Index Arachova 321

Belgrade 234, 279–80, 283, 341

Araklovo 246

Beliko Tirnovo 279

Arcadioupolis 239

Belsk 158, 165

Archanes 72, 77, 88, 90, 92, 97, 361

Belyaus 159

Archelais 274

Bera 279, 280

Ardameri 242

Berati 279

Arethoussa 242

Berbati 47, 48, 52

Argos 109, 119, 123, 135, 136, 140, 141, 234, 240, 242, 245, 279, 280, 304, 316, 317, 318, 320, 324, 325

Berezan 147–65

Argos Orestiko 242

Beroe 239, 242, 279

Argyrokastro 279, 281

Beroea 205, 209, 221, 240, 292

Argyroupolis 276, 278

Biga 276

Arkades 210

Bitola 222, 279, 280

Arkadià 232

Bizye 239

Arkesine 204

Blatsi 298

Arsigui 276

Bolokoma 276

Arta 177, 178, 184, 242, 253, 254, 255, 292, 293, 300, 311, 321, 324

Borysthenes 134, 153

Bern 17, 123

Boston 9, 52, 107, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167

Artze 273

Bregalnica 221, 223, 226, 227, 361

Asine 47, 48, 99, 105, 107, 141

Bruges 23

Askio 298

Buda 280

Askitario 47, 48, 49

Bursa 275, 276

Assos 188, 207, 276

Buru Kale 280

Atalanti 287, 289, 295

Byblos 99

Athens 9–10, 15, 18, 24, 39, 46, 52–5, 60, 62, 67–8, 75, 82, 85–91, 97–112, 119, 121, 123, 130, 135, 137–41, 159, 164, 166, 169–74, 182, 186, 188, 190, 193–6, 200, 203–9, 212, 232, 236–7, 240, 243–9, 252–5, 267, 282–96, 300, 304, 310–21, 324–37, 340, 343–66

Byzantion 262

C

Caesarea 221, 241, 272–82 Calabria 242

Atlantis 199, 200

Caričin grad 226, 227

Attaleia 271, 276, 278, 282

Carlowitz 300, 301, 303

Augusta 231

Carystus 204

Aulon 240

Cephallenia 206

Avdella 298

Chaika 159

Avret-Hisar 280

Chaironeia 183, 240, 290

Axara 276

Chalandriani 48, 62

Aya Soluk 277

Chalkedon 145, 232

Ayia Irini 48, 62, 63, 64, 74, 92, 94, 96, 97, 107, 120, 121

Chalkis 67, 132, 138, 244, 287, 288, 294, 316, 358

Ayio Galas 55

Chania 72, 85, 92, 95, 106, 335, 344

B

Chartres 260

Babylon 18, 170

Cherson 271, 273

Baltimore 9, 25, 182, 212, 220, 295, 311

Chersonesos 145, 150–67, 355

Bansko 226, 227

Chicago 9, 19, 25, 140, 164, 212

Baphea 277

Chichén Itzá 6

Bargala 221, 222, 223, 227, 241, 361 Bargama 275

Chios 48, 54–7, 68, 109, 110–13, 121–2, 138–9, 145, 158, 205, 210, 212, 283, 304, 311, 335

Basiana 240

Chlerenos 280

Beadnos 245

Chonai 271, 275

Bedini 279

Chondros 72

Belesa 279

Chorefto 306

368

Place Index Christoupolis 237, 239, 242, 244, 245, 246, 279

Dubrovnik 301

Chroupitsa 242

Dura-Europus 187, 188, 190

Chrysi 246

Dyrrachium 222, 243, 244

Chrysoupolis 238, 242, 279, 280, 281

E

Ecbatana 191, 192, 200

Cirmen 278, 279, 281 Clazomenae 145, 158, 164

Edessa 209, 231, 240, 246, 249, 257, 273–80, 335

Colonia Laus Julia 205

Eion 237, 238, 242, 249

Constantinople 18, 221–6, 231–3, 236–8, 241–2, 245, 249–73, 276, 278, 282, 289, 293–5, 300, 303–4, 344, 363

Eirenoupolis 242

Constantion 246

Elbasan 280

Elateia 240

Copenhagen 140, 143, 163, 164, 167, 182

Elea 133

Corfu 324, 325, 335, 344

Eleusis 99, 105, 107, 121, 234, 363

Corinth 67, 105, 107, 109, 119, 132–8, 141, 158, 190, 195, 204–12, 232–4, 237, 240, 242–5, 280, 291, 304, 310, 317–19, 320–5, 358

Eleutherna 158 Elizavetovskoe 161, 167

Cybela 276

Emporio 48, 54–7, 68, 109–13, 121–2, 138–9

Cyrene 134

Ennea Hodoi 198

D

Enotia 246

Damascus 187, 248, 295

Eordea 240

Daphia 291

Ephesos 111, 130, 145, 204–9, 212–17, 271, 272, 276–8

Dassaretis 223

Ephraim 245

Daulia 240

Epidauros 94, 95, 96, 120

Deavolis 246, 279

Eratyra 298

Dedeagaç 281

Eressos 289

Delos 107, 186, 188, 193, 194

Eretria 67, 123, 132–41, 310, 316, 317

Delphi 141, 194, 209

Eriza 276

Demetrias 183–5, 231, 236–7, 240–5

Erythrai 207

Demotica 279, 280

Erzerum 273, 276–8

Didyma 170, 194, 210

Erzidjan 278

Didymoteichon 233, 239, 242, 246, 252, 279, 280

Eshera 157, 166

Dimini 37–46, 67, 191–3, 362

Eskitze 280

Diocletianoupolis 231, 242

Euchaita 276

Dion 204, 208, 212, 233, 240, 364

Euchaiton 278

Dioscuria 145, 157, 158

Euripos 243, 283, 287, 294, 320

Dirama 280

Europos 240, 248

Dispilio 30, 39, 46, 362

Eutresis 47–9, 99, 103, 107

Divra 246, 279

F

Faliron 331

Diyar Bakir 278 Dodone 240

Feredjik 280

Dokeia 276

Filibe 279–80

Dolia 303

Florence 18

Domokos 245

Florina 280–1, 300, 335, 344

Donousa 109, 110, 112

Frankfurt 346

Dorostorum 231

Fteri 299

Dorylaion 272, 275

G

Galatas 77, 86, 92

Drakia 306 Drama 243, 246, 249, 279–80, 335, 347, 358, 364

Galatini 298

Dreros 119

Galaxeidi 112, 130, 304

Dristra 244

Gallipoli 278

369

Place Index Gangra 276

Idomene 240

Gargalianoi 320, 321

Ikonion 272–8

Gazi 96, 280–1, 297

Ilium 207

Gela 133

Ine-Giol 276

Genoa 304

Ioannina 243–4, 251, 252, 280, 292, 294–5, 299, 300, 304, 307–8, 311, 312, 315, 344, 362, 364

Geraki 51, 237, 246

Iolkos 99

Gerasa 188, 258

Isthmia 210

Germae 240

Itea 103, 316

Germanikeia 272

Ithaka 140, 240

Germiyan 277

Izmit 273

Gla 100, 101, 102, 107, 363 Gorgippia 151, 157–61, 166

Iznik 236

Gortyna 115

J

Jericho 53, 67

Gortzouli 232 Gournes 85

Jerusalem 165, 177, 221, 257, 260–7, 365

Gournia 72, 77, 80–1, 85, 92–3

K

Kaborkion 275

Gratianou 246

Kadmeia 137, 193, 237, 246

Grotta 48, 62–3, 107, 112, 364

Kaladna 276

Gryneio 194

Kalamai 321

Gümuldjina 280

Kalamata 320, 325, 335

Gümüs 278

Kalambaka 321, 324

Gyenos 157

Kalarytes 304

Gynaikokastro 280, 303

Kallatis 145

Gytheion 104, 325

Kallipolis 239, 278–9, 304

H

Kallithea 300, 331, 335

Hadrianoupolis 233, 237, 239, 244, 245, 252, 253, 255

Kalloni 289, 294–5

Hagia Triada 72, 77, 85, 120

Kalyvia 305

Halikarnassos 99, 179, 209, 353

Kamarina 133

Hamid 277

Kamenskoe 161, 167

Harmonia 223

Kamoutsina 280

Helike 158

Kaprena 290

Hephaisteia 120

Kara-baba 280

Heraclea Pontica 145, 151, 154, 158

Karabasi 306

Heracleus Stibus 242 Heraion 48, 54, 55, 68, 120, 123

Karaferia 280

Herakleia 150, 160, 209, 221–3, 234–5, 239–40, 241–2, 271, 274, 276, 282

Karaman 275, 276 Kardia 246

Herakleion 46, 71, 85, 92, 115, 117, 335, 344, 351–5, 358, 359

Karditsa 300, 311, 321, 324

Hermou 276

Karia 276–7

Hermoupolis 315–16, 321, 324, 344

Karnovat 279

Hierapetra 73

Karphi 116–18, 123

Himera 133

Karystos 316

Hisar 276, 280, 303

Kasmenai 133

Histria 135, 145, 151–3, 158–9, 165

Kasos 304

Hydra 301, 304

Kassandreia 233

Hypata 214

Kassope 184, 185

Hypothebai 137

Kastamon 276

I

Kastoria 30, 39, 46, 241–6, 279, 280, 300, 303, 362, 365

Iasos 209

Kastri 48, 62

370

Place Index Kastritsa 286

Korykos 276

Kastro Kavousi 116

Korytsa 303

Kastrokephala 115

Kossovo 279

Katakolo 320, 321

Kotyaion 275

Katerini 335, 358

Koukonisi 59, 361

Kato Achaia 320

Koukounaries 107

Katoikia 276

Kozani 281, 297, 300, 303, 307–9, 312, 352

Kato Symi 72

Krissa 99, 104

Kato Tzoumaya 335, 336

Kritzimos 245

Kausariya 275

Kroulla 276

Kavala 237–45, 276, 279–80, 287, 293, 335, 343–4, 353–8, 364

Kroya 279, 281

Kekaumene 275

Krupište 223

Kekropia 193, 195

Kupi 242

Kelenidin 223

Küstendil 279, 281

Keltzene 278

Kutchuk Kainardji 301, 303

Kemach 276

Kydonia 99

Kenchreai 276

Kyllini 320, 321, 323, 325

Kephali Chondrou 85

Kyparissia 232, 240, 245–6, 320

Kerasous 271

Kypsela 279

Kerch 145, 154, 156

Kythera 207, 325

Kereopyrgos 239

Kyzikos 271

Kerkinitis 149, 166

L

Lacedaemon 231, 240, 242

Kesane 279 Khorsabad 191, 192

Lamia 231, 240, 280, 287–9

Kiato 320, 358

Lampsakos 271

Kifisia 321, 332

Langadas 30, 39, 281, 358

Kirrha 99, 103, 107

Laodikeia 237, 275, 278

Kisesim 191, 192

Laranda 276

Kitros 243

Larisa 39, 130, 135–6, 240, 243–4, 280, 287–90, 294, 304, 315, 321, 324–6

Kitsevo 246

Larisa-on-Hermos 130

Klaros 194

Lathouriza 130

Kleisoura 298 Knidos 18

Laurion 51, 61

Knossos 2, 71, 72, 73, 77, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 92, 94, 99, 109–17, 123, 192, 194, 233, 361, 365

Lausanne 327 Lechaion 136

Kokkinoplo 299

Lefkandi 109, 111, 117, 121–3, 363

Kolona 47, 48, 50, 63, 65, 92, 105

Leghorn 304

Koloneia 271, 276

Lemnos 1, 48, 54, 59–62, 68, 92, 120, 361–2

Komana 272

Leontari 246

Kommos 72, 77, 92, 117, 118

Leontini 133

Komotini 280–3, 293, 295, 335, 359

Lerna 47–52, 63, 66, 92

Kontsiko 298

Lesbos 48, 54, 56–60, 68, 86, 92, 158, 288–95

Konya 275

Lidoriki 316

Kopru-Hisar 276

Limni 321

Korakou 99, 105, 107

Lithares 47–50

Koritza 243

Livadi 297, 299

Korkyra 240

Livadia 287–95, 304

Koroni 243, 245, 304, 315

Lokri Epizephyrii 133

Koropi 50

London 4, 8–10, 15, 19, 24, 25, 39, 46, 50, 67, 68, 73, 85, 86, 97–8,

371

Place Index 110, 123, 140, 141, 163, 164, 166, 167, 184, 190, 192, 200, 212, 215, 220, 233, 248, 249, 282, 283, 294, 295, 311, 362, 363, 365

Methoni 243, 304, 315, 317 Metropolis 77, 79, 166, 278, 324 Metsovo 304

Longanikos 246

Midea 99, 102

Longas 241, 246 Luneburg 19

Miletos 67, 99, 111, 112, 130, 131, 133, 145, 151, 153, 156, 164, 169, 170, 173, 174, 176, 181, 186, 187, 190, 194, 209, 210, 212, 217, 218, 219, 271, 276

Lychnis 221, 222, 223, 227, 241

Milia 299

Lynkos 240

Milies 302, 306

M

Minoa 112, 121

Longos 240

Magnesia 33, 183, 209, 213, 215, 276, 278, 281, 300, 306, 311, 362, 364

Missolonghi 304 Misterio 280

Magnesia-on-the-Maeander 209, 213

Mochlos 72

Maionia 193, 194

Moglena 246

Makre 246

Mokesos 278

Makrygialos 30, 34, 39, 72, 77

Mokra 246

Makrynitsa 304, 306

Molisko 246

Makrynoros 303

Monastir 222, 241

Malatya 273

Monemvasia 236, 237, 242, 245, 246, 251, 252, 255, 265, 266, 304

Malazgirt. See Mantzikert

Mopsouestia 272, 274, 276

Malia 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 85, 88, 89, 92

Mora 245

Malthi 99, 102, 103, 107

Morovizdon 246

Manari 79

Moschopolis 299, 300, 303, 311

Manchester 19, 24, 39

Mosynoupolis 242, 280

Manika 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 92

Mouchli 237, 246, 365

Mantineia 232, 240

Mouresi 306

Mantzikert 273 Maras 272

Mycenae 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 106, 107, 121, 137, 363

Marathos 321

Mykonos 286, 304

Marcianoupolis 231, 234, 239

Mylasa 209

Maroneia 239, 246, 279

Myra 276

Mastorochoria 304

Myrina 59

Maximianoupolis 239, 242, 280

Myrmekion 149, 151, 156, 166

Megalopolis 8, 9, 204, 316, 320, 325

Myrtos 72, 73, 86

Megara 50, 129, 132, 133, 145, 163, 167, 193, 234, 316, 317, 319

Mystras 231, 237, 246, 252–5, 266, 267, 304

Melangeia 276

Mytilene 56, 287, 289, 294, 295, 335

Melanoudion 276

N

Nafpaktos 310, 316

Meleniko 243, 244, 280, 281 Melie 112, 121–2, 130, 131

Nafplion 243, 245, 292–5, 300, 304, 316, 320, 324, 325, 344

Melitene 271, 273, 276

Naissus 231, 234, 240, 244

Memphis 18

Nakoleia 275

Mendese 277

Naousa 281, 344

Menemene 281

Naukratis 158

Merope 245

Navarino 315

Mesembria 245

Naxos 48, 62, 63, 107, 110, 112, 123, 133, 362, 364

Mesine 280

Nazianzos 278

Messambria 145

Nea Anchialos 238, 321

Messini 320

Nea Ionia 335, 342–3, 353, 354

Metapontion 133

Neandria 130

372

Place Index Nea Nikomedia 30

Palaikastro 72, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 85, 86, 92, 96

Neapolis 99, 162–3, 167, 199, 240

Palamari 48

Nemea 39, 47, 51

Palmyra 187, 188

Neocaesarea 276

Panopeus 188, 219

Neochori 283, 299

Panormos 48, 62

Nerokourou 72, 77

Paphos 194

Nessembar 245

Paralia 321

Neuilly 327

Paris 9, 10, 21, 39, 46, 68, 75, 78, 97, 107, 123, 140–1, 165, 166, 190, 200, 212, 220, 227, 248, 249, 255, 267, 282, 283, 287, 294, 295, 300, 311–15, 324–5, 345, 347, 362–6

New City 280, 323, 324 New Rome 248, 262

Paroikia 48, 62, 63

New York 1, 10, 15, 18, 25, 68, 85, 107, 141, 163–6, 200, 212, 220, 249, 262, 311, 312

Passarowitz 300, 301

Nichoria 109, 118

Patara 194, 276

Nicopolis ad Istrum 233, 241

Patrai 204–9, 212, 240, 242–5

Nigde 274

Pautalia 240

Nikaia 186, 353

Pavlopetri 99, 104, 107

Nikomedia 30, 215

Pazarakia 280

Nikopolis 204, 212, 231–3, 239–44, 276, 279, 281

Paznik 276

Nikup 233

Pegai 276

Niš 234

Pelagonia 240

Nisive 273, 278

Pella 233, 240, 300

Nobae 240

Pentalophos 298

Notio 207

Pergamon 158, 188–90, 204, 207, 212, 215, 217, 220, 271–8

Noutzi 90

Perge 218

Noves 242

Peristitza 245

Novo-Bardo 279

Peritheorion 242, 246, 280

Nymphaeum 147, 151, 155, 156, 158, 166, 213

Perivoli 298, 304

Nyssa 276

Perperakion 245

O

Pessinous 275

Ochrid 221, 223, 225, 227, 241, 242, 243, 246, 279, 280, 303

Petra 188, 365

Ochrido 245

Petrai 246

Odessa 301

Petras 72, 77, 92

Odessos 239

Petri 51

Oikonomou islet 112

Petrina 246

Oinophyta 358

Petritsi 281

Olbia 134–5, 141, 145–50, 153, 154, 158–60, 165–6

Petritzos 245

Olympia 141, 206, 234, 363

Phaistos 71, 72, 77, 80, 84–5, 92, 110–18, 123

Olynthos 174, 175, 176, 220

Phanagoria 145, 151, 157–8, 164, 165–6

Orchomenos 47, 48, 50, 361

Pharsala 281, 321

Orleansville 260

Phasis 157, 161

Oropos 134, 363

Pherrai 280

Orrhaon 177, 178, 179, 180, 182

Philadelpheia 277

Ostrovo 246, 297

Philiatra 320

Othonopolis 316

Philippi 209, 212, 221, 237, 239, 240, 242, 245

Otzaki Magoula 35, 36

Philippoupolis 233, 239, 245, 279–81, 304

Oustra 245

Philomelion 275

P

Phlious 195

Paestum 145

Phokaia 207, 271

Pagasai 183, 184

Photike 233, 240

373

Place Index Phournou Koryphi 74

Rodovistion 246

Phygela 271

Rogoi 246

Phylakopi 48, 62, 63, 64, 92, 107, 112

Rome 18, 68, 86, 97, 123, 129, 133, 141, 163–6, 190, 193, 195, 200, 205, 207, 211–14, 220–1, 226–7, 248–51, 262–4, 267, 363

Pigoi 242 Piraeus 170–81, 205, 321, 331, 335, 337, 340–1, 353, 355–6

Rovies 291

Pithekoussai 134, 138, 141

S

Sadovets 234

Platamon 246, 247

Sakanchia 161

Platana 276

Saliagos 66, 67

Platia Magoula 32

Salona 241, 304

Plotinoupolis 233, 239, 242

Samakovo 279

Podandos 274

Samarina 298, 299, 300

Podari 298, 300

Samos 48, 54, 55, 68, 111, 120, 123, 145, 220, 283, 363

Poliochni 48, 54, 59, 60, 61, 66, 68, 92

Saniane 276

Polybotos 275

Santabaris 275

Polystylon 242

Sanub 273

Pompeii 68, 198, 362

Sarajevo 227, 280

Pompeioupolis 276

Sardike 233, 234, 240

Poros 92, 304

Sari Saban 280

Portaria 304, 306

Saruhan 277, 280, 281

Porthmeus 151, 156, 166

Scaba 234

Povisdos 245

Scheria 112

Prespa 223, 242, 246

Scythian Neapolis 162, 163, 167

Preveza 231, 242

Sebaste 209, 226

Priene 173, 179–82, 187, 190, 198–9, 205, 209, 276

Seleucia 186, 274, 276

Prilapos 243, 246

Seleucia-on-the-Eulaos 186

Prilep 246, 279, 280

Seleucia-on-the-Tigris 186

Prima Justiniana 223, 226, 227, 231

Selinous 133, 145, 163

Prosakos 242

Selitsa 298

Prousa 271, 275–7

Semibratnoe 161

Psara 301, 304

Serdice 222, 262

Pseira 72, 77, 81, 96

Serres 39, 236, 240–6, 252, 279–81, 293–6, 303, 335–6, 344

Ptolemais 352

Servia 243, 246, 248, 253, 279–81, 303, 352

Pylai 271

Sesklo 32–9, 45–6, 67, 191, 364

Pylos 47, 92, 99, 106, 107, 363

Setaina 246

Pyrgos 72, 81, 82, 242, 320–1, 325

Setina 246, 249

Pythagoreion 55

Seuthopolis 161–3, 167

Pythia 271

Sèvres 327

Pythion 246, 271

Siatista 298, 303, 352

R

Siderochori 241

Raevskoe 161, 167

Siderokastron 242

Rafina 47, 48, 49, 50, 51

Sikyon 205

Raidestos 244, 304

Silifke 276

Rapsani 295, 300

Silistria 281

Ravenna 222

Sillyon 207

Redina 237, 241, 242, 246, 249, 280 Remesiana 240

Sinano 320

Rhodes 68, 138–45, 164, 175–82, 236–7, 248, 283, 288–92, 344, 363

Sindike 157, 240, 242, 249 Singidunum 231, 234, 240

Rhodopi 281, 359

Siniatsiko 298

374

Place Index Sinope 158, 164, 271, 273 Siphnos 61, 107, 112

Thebes 47–51, 66, 92, 99, 105, 107, 135, 137, 141, 193, 232, 234–48, 287, 289, 291, 304, 316, 358, 363

Sirmium 231, 232, 234, 240, 244

Thelpousa 240

Siroz 280

Theodosioupolis 231, 273, 276, 278

Siteia 72

Therme 281

Skarkos 48, 62, 68

Thermi 48, 54, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 68, 86, 92

Sklavokampos 77, 79

Thessaloniki 1, 9, 11, 15, 29, 39, 41, 46, 71, 86, 164, 165, 183, 191, 208–9, 212, 221–7, 231–59, 263–7, 271, 279–83, 287, 288– 97, 300–15, 324–5, 329, 330, 332–7, 344, 347, 350–65

Skodra 240, 279, 280, 281 Skopelos 304, 311

Thoatera 276

Skopje 221, 222, 226, 227, 240–49, 279–80, 281, 361

Thorikos 51, 182

Skupi 222, 223, 227, 240, 241, 246

Thurii 198

Smyrna 111–13, 118, 123, 130–2, 145, 170, 204, 207, 214, 232–3, 271–8, 303, 304, 344

Thyaira 276

Sofia 165, 167, 227, 233, 244, 249, 262, 279, 280, 281, 294, 295, 326, 364, 365

Tigani 55

Sosko 246

Tokyo 18, 68, 359

Sozopol 151

Tolimanastir 280

Sozopolis 245, 276, 279, 280

Tomarza 258

Sparta 140, 171, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 212, 234, 240, 245, 310, 316, 317, 318, 325

Topeiros 239, 241

Tiryns 47–52, 92, 99–107, 119, 120–3, 193, 361, 363

Trajanoupolis 233, 239, 246

Spetses 301, 304

Tralleis 209, 276, 277, 282

Sremska Mitovica 234

Tranovalto 352

Stara Zagora 239, 242, 279, 326

Trapezous 273

Stenimachos 233, 245

Trebizond 254, 273, 274, 278, 282, 289

Stobi 221–7, 234, 235, 241, 361

Triaditsa 233

Stoloi 240 Stratos 242

Trieste 301, 341

Strobilos 271

Trikala 246, 247, 281, 288, 290, 294, 321, 324, 344

Stromnitsa 221, 225, 227, 246, 279–81

Trikeri 306

Stybera 222

Tripolis 231, 238, 276, 304, 315, 317, 320, 324, 325, 344

Stylis 321

Trokanda 275

Sukhumi 145

Troy 47, 55, 56, 66, 68, 92, 97, 99, 123, 193, 262

Sybaris 143, 147

Tsangarada 306

Symi 72, 304

Tsikalario 110

Synnada 275

Tsoungiza 47, 48

Syracuse 133, 143, 193, 220

Tylissos 72, 77, 85

Syrako 304

Tyriaion 275

T

Tyritake 149, 151, 158

Ta Maurianou 244

Tyrnavos 300, 304

Taras 133, 141, 143

Tzamandos 274

Tarsus 276

Tzepaina 245

Tauriane 226

Tzouroulon 245

Tavla 290, 294

Tzympé 278

Tegea 234

U

Teichos Dymaion 99

Ugarit 99, 365

Teos 145, 157, 164, 207

Ulpiana 240

Teotihuacán 7

Upper Volos 306

Thasos 161, 167, 209

Ur 90, 362

Thavmakos 243, 245

Urfa 273

375

Place Index

V

Yenitsa 280, 281

Vai 79

Yenitze Karasu 280

Valia Kalda 246

Yenitze Vardar 280

Vani 161–7

Z

Varna 239, 280

Zagora 112, 138, 239, 242, 279, 281, 304, 306, 326

Vasiliki 72, 73, 74

Zagorochoria 304

Vasil Levsky 161

Zakros 72, 76, 77, 92, 361

Vathypetro 72, 79

Zancle 133

Vatican 263, 279

Zappara 221, 223, 226

Vatkounion 245

Zeitun 280

Velessa 242

Zemena 245

Velestino 321

Zetouni 231, 245, 288

Velevendos 352

Zichna 243–6, 279, 280, 292, 295

Veligoste 246

Zion 257, 258, 262

Veljusa 225, 226

Zotikon 244

Venice 18, 22, 279, 295, 300, 304

Zou 72, 79

Verati 281

Zvezde 246

Veroia 221, 243–6, 279, 280, 292, 295, 303, 335, 358

Zygouries 47, 48, 50, 74, 99, 105, 107

Vetren 160, 161, 167 Vidinion 281 Viminacium 231, 240, 242 Vitsa 109 Vizye 281 Vlachochoria 304 Vlacholivado 299 Vlasti 298 Voden 280 Vodoča 226, 227 Vogatsiko 298 Volos 39, 46, 231, 306, 321–4, 335, 344, 353, 355, 363 Vonitsa 321 Voossa 246 Vostitsa 231 Vrokastro 115, 116, 123 Vroulia 138, 139

W

Washington 9, 25, 249, 250, 255, 273, 361

X

Xantheia 246 Xanthi 279, 280, 300, 335, 353, 358, 359, 364 Xylokastro 320, 358

Y

Yagorlytsk 159 Yambolu 279 Yannitsa 335, 358 Yaznik 278 Yeni Bazar 280, 283 Yenisea 280 Yeni Sehir 280

376