“DOORWAY TO THE AEGEAN” Written by: Vasso Maganari Translated by: Antigoni Mountraki Part 3 Dear Mythologists, have a good evening! In the two previous parts of our journey, we set out for a long tour in the ancient history of Naxos. We wandered through its myths, we climbed up the isle of Bacchus and we admired the impressive “Portara”, we visited the temple of Demeter inland, we “touched” the Kouros of Melanes and the Kouros of Apollo. In today’s trek, we are going to travel through time once again to different, but equally interesting eras. We are going to board pirate galleons and sail across the Aegean Sea of the Byzantine times; we are going to explore the beautiful capital of the island, starting from antiquity and getting to the time of the mysterious Venetian lord, Marco Sanudo, while at the same time we are going to discover the history hidden within the high stone walls of the Castle of Chora. So, what do you say? Shall we set sail? The modern capital of the island is built over the remains of the ancient town of Kallipolis. This town was built around 1600-1100 BC and it was one of the biggest and greatest towns of the Aegean Sea. Bathed in the light of Archipelago, it dominates the area as it was built amphitheatrically over the picturesque port of the island. Its upper part was situated on the top of a hill and it was surrounded by walls – it was, in fact, the citadel of the island. The rest of it extended up to the foot of the hill and reached the shore, at the place that today is called Grotta Beach. A large part of the ancient city is today covered by the sea, as the level of the Aegean has risen since the ancient times. Another big part of Kallipolis that included the city centre and the market of the ancient town stood where the Orthodox Cathedral is today. According to old manuscripts, on a rock island in the middle of the harbor, where the church of Mirtidiotissa is today, there was the Temple of Poseidon. Also, in a distance of about ten kilometers from the ancient Kallipolis, in Yria, there was one of the most important sanctuaries of ancient Naxos. In this place, the Naxians built a lavishly glorious temple, dedicated to god Dionysus. The Sanctuary, the remains of which are still preserved up to the present time and were found between the shore and the village of Glinado, was kept intact until the mists of the Roman era. The Temple, which dates back to the 6th century BC, was entirely constructed with the marble from the quarries of the island. Along with the Temple of Demeter, it is considered the precursor of the Parthenon – mainly because their construction was predated by a century and then, because they have a lot of similarities in terms of architecture. After the utter destruction of the island by the Persians, in 490 BC, and despite their defeat by the Athenian Empire, Naxos never managed to regain its previous glory in the years to come. Those splendid years of antiquity were succeeded by a long period of cultural stagnation and obscurity. During the Roman Empire, Naxos turned into a Roman province and was used as a place of exile. That lasted until the early Byzantine period, when a new historical era began: remarkable Christian churches and monasteries were constructed, with exceptional quality icon paintings, so that the historians today speak about the “Byzantine surprise” of Naxos. A lot of big byzantine castles and fortified monasteries began to be built at the same time. At that time, the Aegean was a major commercial marine route that connected Constantinople with the large ports of West and East, actually forming a bridge that linked the Byzantine Empire with the silk and spice routes. That was the reason why the Aegean caught the eye of the great naval and commercial powers of Europe, which had the intention of establishing colonies and gaining the control of the trade routes of Asia. Furthermore, the distinctive morphology, with the numerous small and big islands and the large number of the rock isles that provided countless hideouts, favored the activities of pirates and buccaneers –who were Arabs (Saracens) and Genovese in their vast majority- and who evolved to a plague for the commercial ships, which, loaded with merchandise, crossed the Aegean and for the coastal towns of the biggest and richest of the islands –among them Naxos. The consequences were devastating for the economy, the civilization and even the lives of the Naxians. Due to this fact, the inhabitants were forced to move their capital to the midland, to the ancient-byzantine castle of “Apaliros”. Apaliros Castle, which is said to be older than the city of Mystras, was built on the south of Naxos, quite far from the sea but still on a spot that could oversee the whole region. Chora and a great proportion of the island’s population (about 2500 people) moved inside and around the castle. The Castle, built on a steep rocky hill, was extremely fortified. It housed the capital of the island for more than 500 years, providing its inhabitants with the security they needed, while it is perhaps the only case of an early Byzantine fortified town, as far as the architecture is concerned. A research conducted by the Norwegian professor of archaeology, Knut Odegaard, and his team in 2010, revealed two churches among the castle fortifications (one of them with two naves), as well as a bakery, an oil mill, cisterns, dwellings (about 250) built at different levels (which were connected to each other with staircases) and streets, 5 meters wide. They also discovered ceramic remains and coins that date back to the 6th century. In the early 13th century (1207), Marco Sanudo, nephew of the doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, invaded the island, as well as another 18 islands of the Cyclades and conquered the Apaliros Castle. He founded the Duchy of the Aegean and he placed his headquarters in Naxos. He transferred the capital again to its original place, while on the hill, where the citadel of Kallipolis was built, he constructed his own castle, using pieces of the ancient fortification and the settlements. Sanudo, aiming to a better management of the resources, divided the island into 56 provinces and introduced a feudal system. The local people lived in poverty throughout the Venetian period –they had no rights on the land and they were forced to cultivate it for the sake of the Venetian nobles of each region. During that period, the rulers started to build a lot of towers, which left their marks on the island in the years to come. These towers are divided into three main categories: those that were part of the castle fortifications and were of a defensive nature; those that served as dwellings and were mainly the holiday resorts of the nobles and were equipped with utility rooms, such as storage rooms, ovens, stables and wine presses; and the tower-monasteries or castle-monasteries, which were orthodox monasteries in the form of a tower for protection from pirate raids. One of the most amazing buildings in terms of construction is the medieval Chora Castle. This Castle, which was built by Sanudo as it was mentioned before, apart from being an administrative, educational and religious Venetian centre, was the main place of his residence. Despite the centuries that have passed, the Castle has been maintained in excellent condition. It is surrounded by a fortified wall and includes the Venetian settlement. In the main entrance of the Castle, the visitors are amazed by the imposing wooden door, which is still in place and is called “Trani Porta” (Big Gate) by the islanders. Through it, we get into the interior of the castle – a vivid mystic medieval atmosphere is still present in every step we make. Strolling through arches, cobbled alleys and secret passages, we reach the centre, where a Catholic Cathedral is built, dated back to these old times. A little further ahead, we can see the remains of a tower, which, according to the tradition, was the palace of Sanudo himself. Quite near those two buildings, there is the Ursuline School, the Capella Kazantza and the School of Commerce, which currently houses the Archaeological Museum of Naxos. That was the School that Nikos Kazantzakis attended for a while, when he and his family fled to Naxos to escape from the wrath of the Turks. A little higher up, on one of the most majestic places of the castle, there is one of the most magnificent towers of Chora that dominates the place with its excellence. This tower belonged to one of the largest families of the Venetian nobility, the family of Crispi. It was one of the twelve towers- ramparts of the castle that surrounded its walls and remains intact up to the present day. Around this tower, in the interior of the castle, the wealthy Venetians had built their mansions. The wooden gates with the blazons and the engraved coats of arms of those families, which still adorn the entrances of these old mansions, prove their stay on the island –by looking at them, the visitors are mentally transferred to another, distant era. Quite a few of these houses are still inhabited by the descendants of those Venetians, who have never left the island. The part of the city that stretched out of the Castle was divided into two settlements. One was on the West and was called “Bourgo”. It was the place where the richest people of the island lived. On the South, there was the “Nio Chorio” (new village), the inhabitants of which were Cretan colonists, at least in their vast majority. On the North of the hill, one could find a neighborhood of Jewish and Armenian merchants. Apart from the Apaliros Tower and the Castle, there are a lot more that have been preserved. Some of the most important ones are: Della Roca Tower, Tower of Bazeos (that has been converted into a monastery), Fragopoulos Tower, Tower of Himarros, Palaiologos Tower, Markopolitis Tower, the fortified Monastery of Panagia Ypsilotera, Bardanis Tower, Zevgolis Tower, Bellonia Tower and so on. Thanks to the rich imagination of the islanders, each of the towers is surrounded by mystery stories and legends. One of these eerie stories inspired Alexandros Papadiamantis, the so-called “Saint of the Greek Letters” and prompted him to write one of his masterpieces. The action unfolds during the period before the conquest of Naxos by the Venetians, that is to say between 1199 and 1207, a couple of years before and after the Siege of Constantinople by the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade. Because of that, the title given was “The Merchants of Nations”. The story is set in one of the tallest and steepest towers of the island and the main characters are three: Ioannis Mouchras, the prince of Naxos, his beautiful wife Augusta and the Venetian Doge Sanudo. The story is about the burning passion between Augusta and the doge that leads to the tragic death of Augusta! Several years ago, it was one of the most successful series on the Greek television. It was enriched with a song that had the same title, composed by Stavros Xarchakos and performed by Nikos Xilouris. There was, my dear, once upon a time, a beautiful lady, a noblewoman, let me tell you a young married girl a blond damsel waiting for her master, night and day and a Saturday night, oh dear, a Sunday she begs, oh dear, the sun and the moon: “my sun, light up his way, my moon go and talk to him, for my sake he wanders, he sails across the seas pirates he slaughters and destroys under the sun, under the moon, under the rain and he leaves me forlorn and lonely”. A galleon sailed, my dear, windward He flung himself, my dear, into the battle and the fight In a pirate pack I saw fire and massacre break out…. “THE MERCHANTS OF NATIONS” “In the year 1199 AD, on Naxos island, there was a mansion on a majestic and quaint beach, near a hill that was near the sea […] It was huge and decent, fortified with three towers and a high wall! It was considered to be a shelter of the place […] It was built a century ago and Earl Pragostis, who had constructed it, was said to have poured blood on its foundations […] The breastwork of His Majesty was built on a severed rocky shore. From here and onwards there was a steep cliff – so sharply slopped that when somebody looked at it, their eyes got weary and they got a throbbing headache. This mansion was called “Pragostis’ Tower”. The islanders used to recount that one night, Earl Pragostis had pushed his wife from the top of the cliff down to the bottom, as he suspected that she was unfaithful to him. After this crime, full of rage and melancholy and in a desperate need of orgies, he would abduct the women and the girls from the houses of the islanders and would lead them to the castle. After a night of lust and nightmare, he would precipitate them from the top, to make amends for the death of his wife… They also used to say that some forty years after the death of the Earl, from time to time, at around midnight, two shadows would appear on the top of the tower, afoul and groaning. It was Earl Pragostis and his wife, who were brought to the scene of the horrendous evildoing by Fate… There were many people, swearing oaths, who testified to have seen this […]” Alexandros Papadiamantis youtube/watch?v=uX5HMCL5hC8 youtube/watch?v=uX5HMCL5hC8 Sources *Naxos practical guide to the island * the piracy in the Aegean from Medieval times to 1821 – History *CYCLADIC: the secrets of Apaliros Castle
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 17:40:32 +0000
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