Video-BETA Cam-SP
Duration: 30 min 42 sec

Summary

  The ancient inhabitants of Delos built (around 2.500 b.C.) their ellipsoid huts at the top of the mountain Cythnos, where they could easily observe and control the small valley and the surrounding sea, as times were difficult and unstable then. Mycenean people, who already dominated the Aegean sea, arrived at the island at the end of the 15th century b.C. and felt quite safe to settle in the small valley by the sea. The Apollonean altar existed already since the years of Homer and it reached its peak during the archaic and classic period, when Greeks coming from the whole Greek world gathered to worship the god of light, Apollo, and his twin sister Diana, goddess of the moon. A few houses and farmhouses already existed around the temple, but the ancient city, as seen today, developed within a few decades after 166 b.C., when the Romans, who at the time dominated the Aegean sea announced exemption from taxes for the harbor of Delos. As a result many people, including rich men, bankers and ship owners from the known world settled in the island attracting a big crowd of builders, sculptors, craftsmen and mosaic workmen who built for them luxurious houses decorated with wall paintings, mosaic floors and sculptures. The wealth and the friendly relations between the people of Delos and the Romans were the main cause for the destruction of the island. The island was plundered and destructed twice, in 88 b.C. by the king of the Black Sea Mithridate who was in war with the Romans and in 69 b. C. by the pirates of Athinodorus, ally of Mithridate. Since then the island fell into a decline and was gradually deserted.The archaeological excavations which began in 1872 and are still on have discovered the altar and a big part of the Hellenistic city.
   It is estimated that around 90 b.C. approximately 30.000 people lived in this small island which is actually just a small dot in the map of the Mediterranean sea. Also it is concluded by several inscriptions and tombs excavated in Rhyneia that besides the Athenians and the Romans who constituted the majority of the population, the island was also inhabited by several other people of different origin, e.g. from the Peloponnese, central and west Greece, Macedonia, the islands of the Aegean sea, Thrace, the Black Sea, the Taurean Peninsula, Troy, Myssia, Aeolis, Ionia, Lydia, Caria, Lycia, Bithynia, Poflagonia, Cappadocia, Pissydia, Pamfylia, Cilykia, Syria, Mydia, Cyprus, Egypt, Cyrene and Arabia.
   All these different origins coexisted peacefully, adjusted to the Greek type of life, spoke and wrote Greek, lived in Greek houses, built their own altars in which they were free to worship their own gods without facing any problems, worked and entertained themselves, while their children studied in the same Gymnasium, played and exercised together in the same arenas.Apollo after some initial hesitation decided to accept sharing his birth place with Sarapy, Isis, Arpocrates and Anouvy, with the god of Israel and the gods of the Arabs, with Atargaty and Athad, with the gods of Hascalona and Iamnia.
   As a result, for the first time in human history we see most of the Mediterranean cultures coexisting in this small corner of the earth. Ships arriving constantly at the harbors of Delos not only delivered goods but also brought people and news coming from almost all cities of the Mediterranean sea, making the world seem like a small place around the Mediterranean.