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Modern Description: None of the other gates of Thasos – and few others in the Aegean world – give such a rich sense of the significance of an entrance through the walls of a city as the Gate of Silenus. Its lintel is missing, as well as a couple of metres of wall and crenellation above; but the massive masonry, in parts so delicately finished, the paved street, the proximity of the housing blocks and, above all, the unforgettable relief image of Silenus himself, create a unique ensemble. The image which was carved around 500 BC occupies the full height of a single block of marble standing 2.50m high; it must therefore qualify to be one of the largest relief figures in Greek art. Silenus, like a larger-than-life, naked cowboy, sporting a long pony-tail of hair and wearing nothing but leather boots, heads into the town, in a state of high sexual excitement, with his left hand open and a drinking vessel in his right hand. In front of him is a carved and pedimented niche for offerings. Wine was an important economic staple of the island and Silenus's association with wine must partially explain his prominence both here and on the city's coinage: but a full explanation can only be arrived at by an understanding of Silenus's wider significance. He was a frequenter of the crowded town-centre, not of the Olympian heights of the acropolis where Apollo and Athena were honoured.
The unusual characteristic of the area of habitation just inside the gate of Silenus, is that its buildings have had to be raised on more than one occasion to avoid flooding caused by a continuous rise in the water-table during Antiquity: this is true of the threshold of the gate, too. The form of the streets and the layout of the buildings are nonetheless well defined here. This was a more popular area of shops, workshops and small houses, than the quarter by the Gate of Hermes. The protruding stones on the right-hand side of the street running in from the gate probably mark the limits within which each shop-owner could display wares in the public space. Note also the particularly fine finishing of the stonework on the outer (south) corner of the projecting tower.
Trismegistos Geo: 30548

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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