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Modern Description: A hundred metres further along the same road are the remains of the Sanctuary of Dionysos (a divinity of great importance in Thasos), hemmed in by modern housing under which the main temple itself perhaps lies undiscovered. The principal foundations visible today belong not to a temple, but to a splendid, choragic monument of the mid-4th century BC, whose form was nonetheless very similar to a tetrastyle, pro-style temple. Steps led up through the columns into a square interior in which nine large statues were arranged in a shallow hemicycle – Dionysos in the centre (the head of which is in the Museum), flanked by figures symbolising eight different forms of drama and performance, amongst them: Comedy (also in the Museum); Tragedy; Dithyramb; Nikterinos (or ‘Nocturn') etc. An inscription relates how some of the most renowned musicians, actors and dramatists of the age attended the dedication of this monument. Note, once again, how two small altars are huddled into the left of the foot of the central stairs, at uncomfortable angles: both of these predate the monument, and their precedence and sanctity has been respected by the later Hellenistic builders.
Fifty metres further north, between the Sanctuary of Dionysos and that of Poseidon, the modern street passes by one of the ancient gates from the port into the city, the so-called Gate of the Goddess on a Chariot, from the beautiful but worn relief it bears on one of its massive door-jambs. The construction dates from the very beginning of the 5th century BC, and the relief from shortly after. Originally one relief each side was planned, but the pendant image was never begun: only the un-carved panel remains, curiously at a higher level on the jamb than its pendant on the other side. The relief shows a goddess – almost certainly Artemis – in the chariot, her hair tied back in an elegant pony-tail which is still just visible, and accompanied by Hermes who holds the bridle of the horses. Elements of the securing mechanism of the doors are well-preserved and visible in the threshold.
The late-5th century BC Poseidonion, a little way beyond, is another sanctuary of which today we see perhaps no more than half; the remainder – including possibly the temple – is interred under the buildings which border the area to the east. A meticulously constructed stone wall runs across the line of vision, with the entrance to the temenos in the centre. To the left of the entrance a water spout led off rain water which fell in the sanctuary into a well; to the right stands a small rectangular altar to Hera Epilimineia (Hera ‘of the port'), which displays holes for the fixing of a wooden or metal superstructure. An inscription found here forbad the sacrifice of goats to the goddess. The entrance is also partly bounded by two dedicatory bases bearing inscriptions. The monolithic threshold which bears the fixtures for doors, led through a short colonnaded porch into an open area with an altar ahead (in front of the present escarpment), a statue base to the left, and the rectangular base of a shrine (dedicated perhaps to Amphitrite) to the right. Beyond this at the far southern end of the temenos is a series of six hestiatoria, or banqueting rooms, used principally during the mid-winter Feast of Poseidon. At the opposite (north) end, outside the enclosure, are the remains of houses, some with storage pithoi still in place.
The Residential Quarter beside the Hermes Gate: This is an area of considerable interest which takes it name from the northernmost gate of the town which leads out to the ancient commercial port. It bears a rather damaged, early-5th century BC relief showing the god Hermes entering the town accompanied by the faintly discernible form of three female figures – perhaps the three Charites that accompany the god also on the relief in the ‘Passage of the Theoroi'. A faint cross has been incised just above the relief. At ground level to left and right of the gate there are two carefully constructed channels – small tunnels almost – that perforate the walls to allow for the effluence of rainwater at this low point in the city. Originally these were fitted with iron grills for security: on the wall above, beside the modern street, can be seen two large, curiously fashioned stones of ogival form, whose size and shape correspond to the entrances to these drain galleries, and which were probably used as further security for closing them in times of flood, siege or attack.
The ancient street runs along the inside of the walls; from it radiate other streets going inland, and dividing the excavated area into housing blocks. The plan of these streets did not change in centuries, but the housing blocks it defined evolved constantly. There were latterly substantial dwellings here: some were two floors high with pitched roofs, built around open peristyle courtyards which had a paved impluvium to collect rainwater from the roof into cisterns below the building, still marked today by the round caps and perforated flagstones at their mouths. These upper-level remains are mostly from the late Hellenistic and Roman Imperial times; but the area has been continuously inhabited since the late 8th century BC – i.e. before the colonisation of the island from Paros. The constant rebuilding after destructions by earthquake, enemy, or the attrition of time, means that a variety of different kinds of ancient masonry can clearly be seen here, from the decorative, polygonal stonework of the 6th century BC at the base-level of the southern and eastern blocks, through the smaller rectangular blocks of Hellenistic stonework built on top of it, up to the 2nd century AD alterations at the highest levels. Different again in method are the beautiful, regularly alternating layers of thinner (gneiss) and thicker (marble) rectangular blocks in the southeast corner under the hill, which constitute the massive terracing walls for the higher levels and are probably of the late-5th/ early-4th century BC. These walls are all grey today with the patina of time: but it is important to imagine them with the much more brilliant surface of newly quarried, white marble.
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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