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Modern Description: 1.5 km east of Parikiá, beside the main road to Náousa, is the possible location of the Heroön of Archilochus, or Archilocheion, at a site known today as ‘Tris Ekklisies' (‘three churches'), named after the three 17th century chapels which formerly stood here, which were removed by archaeologists when the site was fully explored. The chapels were built over the remains of a large Early Christian basilica of the 6th century, whose broad, three-aisle, plan with apse, is now clearly visible, as well as the foundations of an unusual apsidal chapel which obtruded from the middle of the south wall. The large threshold blocks in the west with door-locking slots, and the fixtures for the feet of the ciborium can be seen. The paving of the sanctuary in Parian marble is of particular fineness, and many columns, panels, capitals and templon elements, in the same brilliant material have been set up at various points across site. These pieces were nearly all taken from pagan buildings and reused or re-cut; this explains why such a high proportion of them bear Hellenistic inscriptions, and why several of the blocks show the incised, ancient imprints of feet – one in the floor of the central nave; others just to the south. There is a marked number of these intriguing and beautiful symbols on Paros, which elsewhere are most frequently found in sanctuaries of Isis and Serapis, as votive gifts or records of the presence of devotees of a cult. In the 1950's the inscribed plaques, now in the museum, referring to the building of a heroön to Archilochus, in response to an utterance of the Delphic Oracle, were found not far from here; and when Tris Ekklisies was excavated shortly after, the 6th century BC Ionic capital with the dedicatory inscription to Archilochus, also in the museum, was found on the site. It is therefore generally believed that Tris Ekklisies marks the site of the original monument to the poet; and that the blocks incised with footprints may have belonged originally to it.
The sensitivity and nervous energy of his writings (which has come down to us in only fragmentary form) are inseparable from the formal metre in which they are written. The invention of short flexible units of iambic trimeters and trochaic tetrameters, and the loose arrangement of the epode as a structure, gave his verse the agility to change mood as quickly as the weather. Archilochus's greatness was never in doubt throughout Antiquity, and it is revealing of the Greek temperament that he was revered almost as much as Homer was; hence the elaborate heroön here on Paros, where the poet's cult could be perpetuated. The monument was said to be the haunt of hornets and wasps.
Wikidata ID: Q39295403

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

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