So yesterday I gave you a juicy quote from the geographer Strabo, in which he explained how Delos had become an entrepôt of slavery. Today I’ll talk a little about this island, as it has a rather fascinating history.
Delos is famous in Greek religion as the birth place of the gods Apollo and Artemis. The story goes that when Hera found out that the goddess Leto was pregnant with Zeus’ children, she forbade any of the islands or mainlands to offer Leto shelter when she was in labor. Since Hera was the goddess of marriage, she had dominion over childbirth to some extent and could therefore boss around Eileithyia, the goddess of labor and childbirth. Leto ended up giving birth on Delos because the story goes that at that time it wasn’t really an island: it was so small that it simply floated around the Mediterranean. So once she got to the island, Eileithyia took pity on her and helped her give birth to the twin gods.
As a result, there are a number of very prominent temples to both Apollo and Artemis on Delos. However, Apollo’s blessing didn’t always protect Delos. During the Classical Period, Delos fell under Athens’ hegemony. While they were nominally independent, it was quite clear to the Delians that their foreign policy couldn’t do anything to piss off the Athenians. This influence ended in 314 BCE, after Athenians themselves were thoroughly under the control of the Macedonians.
The Macedonians themselves would eventually gain influence over Delos, as is evident in the archaeological record. In the second century, the Macedonians eventually angered the Romans enough that the Romans conquered them, and Delos passed into Roman control in 167 BCE. At that point, Delos was rather insignificant due to its small size, but the Romans were about to change that. In addition to the Macedonians, the Romans were also angry at Rhodes, a large island that had grown wealthy through trade. To retaliate against Rhodian obstinacy against Roman rule, the Romans made Delos the preferred market place in the center of the Aegean sea.
We know much of this history of Delos through ancient historians, but Delos is also a very important archaeological site. It in fact has the largest number of ancient Greek houses of anywhere in the world. This is because it was abandoned in the 60s BCE, after the island suffered a serious pirate attacked in addition to a severe earthquake in 69 BCE. You can go to Delos today and see these houses in addition to the theater, temples and numerous other buildings, such as storehouses and emporia.
In between Rome’s anointment and this destruction, Delos prospered and prospered quickly. Archaeologists believe that in 90 BCE Delos had 30,000 people living in it, easily two or three times larger than at the beginning of the second century.
Many of those people must have been slaves, but it is hard to see these slaves in the archaeological record. Not that people haven’t tried. For many years a number of emporia were said to be specifically for the sale of slaves. Monika Trümper put these ideas to rest in 2009 with her book Graeco-Roman Slave Markets: Fact or Fiction, in which she pointed out how we can’t assume that these public spaces were set aside for the sale of slaves.
Alright, that was a long post! I’ll talk tomorrow a bit about how we can look for slaves at Delos in the archaeological record.
Delos is famous in Greek religion as the birth place of the gods Apollo and Artemis. The story goes that when Hera found out that the goddess Leto was pregnant with Zeus’ children, she forbade any of the islands or mainlands to offer Leto shelter when she was in labor. Since Hera was the goddess of marriage, she had dominion over childbirth to some extent and could therefore boss around Eileithyia, the goddess of labor and childbirth. Leto ended up giving birth on Delos because the story goes that at that time it wasn’t really an island: it was so small that it simply floated around the Mediterranean. So once she got to the island, Eileithyia took pity on her and helped her give birth to the twin gods.
As a result, there are a number of very prominent temples to both Apollo and Artemis on Delos. However, Apollo’s blessing didn’t always protect Delos. During the Classical Period, Delos fell under Athens’ hegemony. While they were nominally independent, it was quite clear to the Delians that their foreign policy couldn’t do anything to piss off the Athenians. This influence ended in 314 BCE, after Athenians themselves were thoroughly under the control of the Macedonians.
The Macedonians themselves would eventually gain influence over Delos, as is evident in the archaeological record. In the second century, the Macedonians eventually angered the Romans enough that the Romans conquered them, and Delos passed into Roman control in 167 BCE. At that point, Delos was rather insignificant due to its small size, but the Romans were about to change that. In addition to the Macedonians, the Romans were also angry at Rhodes, a large island that had grown wealthy through trade. To retaliate against Rhodian obstinacy against Roman rule, the Romans made Delos the preferred market place in the center of the Aegean sea.
We know much of this history of Delos through ancient historians, but Delos is also a very important archaeological site. It in fact has the largest number of ancient Greek houses of anywhere in the world. This is because it was abandoned in the 60s BCE, after the island suffered a serious pirate attacked in addition to a severe earthquake in 69 BCE. You can go to Delos today and see these houses in addition to the theater, temples and numerous other buildings, such as storehouses and emporia.
In between Rome’s anointment and this destruction, Delos prospered and prospered quickly. Archaeologists believe that in 90 BCE Delos had 30,000 people living in it, easily two or three times larger than at the beginning of the second century.
Many of those people must have been slaves, but it is hard to see these slaves in the archaeological record. Not that people haven’t tried. For many years a number of emporia were said to be specifically for the sale of slaves. Monika Trümper put these ideas to rest in 2009 with her book Graeco-Roman Slave Markets: Fact or Fiction, in which she pointed out how we can’t assume that these public spaces were set aside for the sale of slaves.
Alright, that was a long post! I’ll talk tomorrow a bit about how we can look for slaves at Delos in the archaeological record.