In contrast with Pergamon and Alexandria, grand capitals of kingdoms, the tiny island of Delos in the central Aegean prospered in the mid-Hellenistic period as a commercial port, specializing
In the slave trade (Figure 18.10). Under the nominal control of Athens with the Romans keeping a close watch, Delos was effectively run by and for the merchants who had settled there from all parts of the Mediterranean. The Italian contingent was especially important; indeed, Delos gives us the earliest remains of a Roman trading community anywhere in the Mediterranean.
Delos had long been venerated as the place where Leto gave birth to her twins, Apollo and Artemis. From the Iron Age on, the sanctuaries to the twin gods attracted pilgrims from the entire Greek world. Holding special importance for Ionian Greeks, including Athens as well as the islanders and cities of Ionia proper in the east Aegean, Delos was the site of the Delian League and its treasury in the fifth century BC, then continued in the following centuries as a small but independent city-state.
The status of Delos changed dramatically in 166 BC. Rome awarded the island to Athens, who established the island as a free port: goods could be brought in, sold, and exported without taxes on the transactions. For the next century, until it was sacked by troops of Mithridates VI, king of Pontus, in 88 BC during his revolt against Rome, and again by pirates in 69 BC, Delos was a highly prosperous commercial center, the Singapore or Hong Kong of the eastern Mediterranean. After the first century BC destructions, its commercial and religious importance declined drastically. In addition, with trading patterns changed during the Roman Empire, there was no need to resurrect Delos. Only a small number of inhabitants continued until final abandonment in the seventh century AD.
Excavations conducted on Delos since 1873 by the French School of Archaeology at Athens have uncovered much of the ancient city (Figure 18.11). The sheltered harbor on the west coast served as the focus for settlement. The sanctuaries, established early, lie close by. To the north and to the south spread the residential and commercial districts, with newer shrines among them.
Certain houses of the Hellenistic period are particularly magnificent, with peristyle courts decorated with fine mosaics. But life here was fragile: on this waterless island survival depended on careful collection of rainwater in cisterns underneath the courtyards.
The commercial buildings consisted notably of warehouses and agoras. As large spaces both covered and uncovered, such architecture rarely gives clues as to the precise activities that went on inside them. At Delos we are much helped by inscriptions, which mention (often in fragmentary form) who was doing what, but even they only infrequently answer the questions we might like to ask. For example, where were the thousands of slaves bought and sold? We do not know, for any of a number of spaces might have served the purpose. Warehouses lining the shore south of the harbor are good candidates, for they are separated from the residential neighborhood behind by a wide street, a possible division between the transient commerce coming and going by sea and the permanent housing behind. Less likely, perhaps, is the Stoa of Poseidon or Hypostyle Hall (modern name) of the late third century BC (Figures 18.12 and
Figure 18.12 Plan, Hypostyle Hall, Delos
18.13). Its architecture is unusual and puzzling: its precise function is unknown, although it has been classified as a commercial building. A large covered hall, it measures 65.45m x 34.30m. Solid walls form three sides and turn into the fourth, where a line of fifteen Doric columns form a broad entrance. Inside, the hipped roof is held up by forty-four columns, arranged nine columns in five rows, with no column in the center. The outer twenty-four are Doric, the taller, inner twenty Ionic; the eight central columns, forming a square, held up a lantern with a clerestory, for illumination. A clerestory is a section of a building that rises above adjacent parts; the higher walls carry windows, bringing light into the interior. We met the clerestory in Egyptian houses and the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, and we will see it again in the basilicas of Roman architecture and of Early Christian church architecture.
The agoras, open-air squares, have often been cited as places where slaves were traded. But this is only a possibility, not proven. Clearly commercial centers, the agoras tend to be filled with religious items, such as altars and shrines, but this reminds us of the religious atmosphere in which business was conducted in Hellenistic Delos. In the absence of a strong governmental authority, the gods were invoked as witnesses; transactions were always sealed with oaths sworn to the gods.
The largest agora of Delos, the Agora of the Italians, lacking the religious features seen in other agoras, must have served a different purpose. Built in the late second century BC, this agora consists of an irregular rectangle, roughly 70m x 50m, lined with a portico of 112 Doric columns (Figure 18.14). Beyond the portico lay alcoves. Shops were entered from the outside, thus separated from the functions of the interior of the agora. Could this be a center for the slave trade? Evidence is not forthcoming. Instead, equipped with a palaestra and bath for sports, a space usable for the gladiatorial combats Romans enjoyed watching, and possibly a banquet hall, this agora may have been a clubhouse and recreational facility for the Italian community on Delos. With an entry through a single propylon, the walled space looks defensible too, a consideration that may have interested a minority community far from home. If so, the agora may well have been put to the test in 88 BC, when the soldiers of Mithridates VI attacked, massacring the Italians in the eastern Aegean. After the defeat of Mithridates and the reassertion of Roman power, the agora was repaired, but then was finally abandoned in 60—50 BC as Delos fell into decline.
Figure 18.14 Plan, Agora of the Italians, Delos
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