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108-605: The island has an area of 380 km and a population of about 13,000. It forms a separate regional unit within the East Macedonia and Thrace region. Before the local administration reform of 2011, it was part of the Kavala Prefecture . The largest town and the capital is Thasos , officially known as Limenas Thasou , "Port of Thasos", situated on the northern side. It is connected with the mainland by regular ferry lines between Keramoti and Thasos town, and between

216-628: A Phoenician fleet. The Ionians opted to fight at sea and defeated the Phoenicians. In the simultaneous land battle outside Salamis , the Cypriots gained an initial advantage, killing Artybius. However, the defection of two contingents to the Persians crippled their cause, they were routed and Onesilus and Aristocyprus , king of Soli , were both killed. The revolt in Cyprus was thus crushed and

324-581: A Milesian army, and with these reinforcements resolved instead to carry on fighting. The Persians then attacked the army at Labraunda, and inflicted an even heavier defeat, with the Milesians suffering particularly bad casualties. After the double victory over the Carians, Daurises began the task of reducing the Carian strongholds. The Carians resolved to fight on, and decided to lay an ambush for Daurises on

432-462: A debacle. Aristagoras fell out with Megabates on the journey towards Naxos, and Herodotus says that Megabates then sent messengers to Naxos, warning the Naxians of the force's intention. It is also possible, however, that this story was spread by Aristagoras after the event, by way of a justification for the subsequent failure of the campaign. At any rate, the Naxians were able to prepare properly for

540-445: A democracy. Herodotus has no doubt that this was only a pretence on Aristagoras's part of giving up power. Rather it was designed to make the Milesians enthusiastically join the rebellion. The army that had been sent to Naxos was still assembled at Myus and included contingents from other Greek cities of Asia Minor (i.e. Aeolia and Doris) as well as men from Mytilene , Mylasa , Termera and Cyme . Aristagoras sent men to capture all

648-399: A fleet supplied by the re-subjugated Cypriots, along with Egyptians , Cilicians and Phoenicians . The Persians headed directly to Miletus, paying little attention to other strongholds, presumably intending to tackle the revolt at its epicentre. The Median general Datis , an expert on Greek affairs, was certainly dispatched to Ionia by Darius at this time. It is therefore possible that he

756-502: A friend of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou , he was appointed Director of the National Intelligence Service , the first civilian to hold that post. Thasos , the capital, informally known as Limenas, or "the port", is served by a ferry route to and from Keramoti a port close to Kavala International Airport , and has the shortest possible crossing to the island. Scala Prinos 20 km south of Thassos town

864-612: A gap in the archaeological record until the end of the Bronze Age c 1100 BC, when the first burials took place at the large cemetery of Kastri in the interior of the island. Here built tombs covered with small mound of earth were typical until the end of the Iron Age . In the earliest tombs were a small number of locally imitated Mycenaean pottery vessels, but the majority of the hand-made pottery with incised decoration reflects connections eastwards with Thrace and beyond. The island

972-582: A group of Paeonians (originally from Thrace), who Darius had brought to live in Phrygia , to return to their homeland. Herodotus says that his only purpose in doing this was to vex the Persian high command. In the spring of 498 BC, an Athenian force of twenty triremes, accompanied by five from Eretria, set sail for Ionia. They joined up with the main Ionian force near Ephesus. Declining to personally lead

1080-620: A joint expedition with the Persian satrap Artaphernes to conquer Naxos , in an attempt to bolster his position. The mission was a debacle, and sensing his imminent removal as tyrant, Aristagoras chose to incite the whole of Ionia into rebellion against the Persian king Darius the Great . In 498 BC, supported by troops from Athens and Eretria , the Ionians marched on, captured, and burnt Sardis. However, on their return journey to Ionia, they were followed by Persian troops, and decisively beaten at

1188-405: A long affair, with the Carians fighting obstinately before eventually succumbing to the weight of Persian numbers. Herodotus suggests that 10,000 Carians and 2,000 Persians died in the battle. The survivors of Marsyas fell back to a sacred grove of Zeus at Labraunda and deliberated whether to surrender to the Persians or to flee Asia altogether. However, while deliberating, they were joined by

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1296-591: A regular indemnity. In 411 BC, during a period of political instability at Athens, Thasos accepted a Lacedaemonian governor; but in 407 BC the partisans of Lacedaemon were expelled, and the Athenians under Thrasybulus were admitted. After the Battle of Aegospotami (405 BC), Thasos again fell into the hands of the Lacedaemonians under Lysander but the Athenians must have recovered it, for it formed one of

1404-553: A reward, had asked for part of the conquered Thracian territory. Although this was granted, Histiaeus's ambition alarmed Darius's advisors, and Histiaeus was thus further 'rewarded' by being compelled to remain in Susa as Darius's "Royal Table-Companion". Taking over from Histiaeus, Aristagoras was faced with bubbling discontent in Miletus. In 500 BC, Aristagoras was approached by some exiles from Naxos , who asked him to take control of

1512-534: A servant with reminding him three times each day of his vow: "Master, remember the Athenians". Herodotus says that when the Persians in Asia Minor heard of the attack on Sardis, they gathered together, and marched to the relief of Artaphernes. When they arrived at Sardis, they found the Greeks recently departed. So they followed their tracks back towards Ephesus. They caught up with the Greeks outside Ephesus and

1620-405: A siege, and the Persians arrived to a well-defended city. The Persians laid siege to the Naxians for four months, but eventually they and Aristagoras both ran out of money. The force sailed back to the mainland without a victory. With the failure of his attempt to conquer Naxos, Aristagoras found himself in dire straits; he was unable to repay Artaphernes, and had, moreover, alienated himself from

1728-587: A stalemate in the land campaign, and there was apparently little further campaigning in 496 BC and 495 BC. The third Persian army, under the command of Otanes and Artaphernes, attacked Ionia and Aeolia. They re-took Clazomenae and Cyme, probably in 497 BC, but then seem to have been less active in 496 BC and 495 BC, probably as a result of the calamity in Caria. At the height of the Persian counter-offensive, Aristagoras, sensing his untenable position, decided to abandon his responsibilities as leader of Miletus and of

1836-586: A tyrant might develop an independent streak, and have to be replaced. The tyrants themselves faced a difficult task; they had to deflect the worst of their fellow citizens' hatred, while staying in the favour of the Persians. About 40 years after the Persian conquest of Ionia, and in the reign of the fourth Persian king, Darius the Great , the stand-in Milesian tyrant Aristagoras found himself in this familiar predicament. Aristagoras's uncle Histiaeus had accompanied Darius on campaign in 513 BC, and when offered

1944-414: A yield of around 2 million tonnes, and a processing plant at Limenaria produced zinc oxide . Iron ore was mined on a significant scale from 1954 to 1964, with a yield of around 3 million tonnes. Since 1964, surveys have established the existence of a deep-level zinc-lead deposit, but the only mining activity on the island has been marble quarrying. Thasos has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Csa in

2052-516: Is of generally round shape, without deep bays or significant peninsulas. The terrain is mountainous but not particularly rugged, rising gradually from coast to centre. The highest peak is Ypsario (Ipsario), at 1,205 metres (3,953 feet), somewhat east of centre. Pine forest covers much of the island's eastern slopes. Historically, the island's population was chiefly engaged in agriculture and stockbreeding, and established villages inland, some of them connected via stairways (known as skalas) to harbors at

2160-474: Is served by a ferry route to and from Kavala . Thasos is a separate regional unit of the East Macedonia and Thrace region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. As a part of the 2011 Kallikratis government reform, the regional unit Thasos was created out of part of the former Kavala Prefecture . The municipality, unchanged at the Kallikratis reform, includes a few uninhabited islets besides

2268-512: The Axis occupation (April 1941 – October 1944) Thasos, along with the region of East Macedonia and Thrace , was assigned by the Nazis to their Bulgarian allies. The Bulgarian government renamed the island "Tasos" and closed its schools. Thasos' mountainous terrain facilitated resistance activity, mainly led by the left-wing National Liberation Front (EAM). After the end of the war and

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2376-404: The Battle of Ephesus . This campaign was the only offensive action by the Ionians, who subsequently went on the defensive. The Persians responded in 497 BC with a three pronged attack aimed at recapturing the outlying areas of the rebellion, but the spread of the revolt to Caria meant that the largest army, under Daurises, relocated there. While initially campaigning successfully in Caria, this army

2484-523: The Carians to join the rebellion. Furthermore, seeing the spread of the rebellion, the kingdoms of Cyprus also revolted against Persian rule without any outside persuasion. Herodotus's narrative after the Battle of Ephesus is ambiguous in its exact chronology; historians generally place Sardis and Ephesus in 498 BC. Herodotus next describes the spread of the revolt (thus also in 498 BC), and says that

2592-471: The Falakro marbles intercalated by schists and gneisses, are up to 500 m thick and are separated from the underlying gneisses by a transition zone about 300 m thick. The rocks have undergone several periods of regional metamorphism, to at least upper amphibolite facies, and there was a subsequent phase of retrograde metamorphism. At least three periods of regional deformation have been identified,

2700-526: The Hellespont . There, he systematically besieged and took the cities of Dardanus , Abydos , Percote , Lampsacus , and Paesus , each in a single day according to Herodotus. However, when he heard that the Carians were revolting, he moved his army southwards to attempt to crush this new rebellion. This places the timing of the Carian revolt to early 497 BC. Hymaees went to the Propontis and took

2808-559: The Köppen climate classification ) with mild winters and hot summers. By far the most important economic activity is tourism. The main agricultural products on the island are honey , almonds , walnuts , olives (such as the local Throumba variety which has a protected designation of origin ), olive oil , and wine . The inhabitants also engage in the herding of sheep and goats , and fishing. Other industries are lumber and mining which includes lead , zinc , and marble , especially in

2916-595: The Median general Harpagus to conquer Ionia. He first attacked Phocaea; the Phocaeans decided to entirely abandon their city and sail into exile in Sicily, rather than become Persian subjects (although many subsequently returned). Some Teians also chose to emigrate when Harpagus attacked Teos, but the rest of the Ionians remained, and were in turn conquered. The Persians found the Ionians difficult to rule. Elsewhere in

3024-471: The Panionion . They thus formed a 'cultural league', to which they would admit no other cities, or even other tribal Ionians. The cities of Ionia had remained independent until they were conquered by the famous Lydian king Croesus , in around 560 BC. The Ionian cities then remained under Lydian rule until Lydia was in turn conquered by the nascent Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great . While fighting

3132-554: The Persian Empire , and as such represents the first phase of the Greco-Persian Wars . Although Asia Minor had been brought back into the Persian fold, Darius vowed to punish Athens and Eretria for their support of the revolt. Moreover, seeing that the myriad city states of Greece posed a continued threat to the stability of his Empire, according to Herodotus, Darius decided to conquer the whole of Greece. In 492 BC,

3240-725: The first Persian invasion of Greece , the next phase of the Greco-Persian Wars, began as a direct consequence of the Ionian Revolt. Practically the only primary source for the Ionian Revolt is the Greek historian Herodotus . Herodotus, who has been called the 'Father of History', was born in 484 BC in Halicarnassus, Asia Minor (then under Persian overlordship). He wrote his 'Enquiries' (Greek— Historia ; English— (The) Histories ) around 440–430 BC, trying to trace

3348-541: The "White Pillars", on the Marsyas River (the modern Çine), a tributary of the Meander . Pixodorus , a relative of the king of Cilicia, suggested that the Carians should cross the river and fight with it at their backs, so as to prevent retreat and thus make them fight more bravely. This idea was rejected and the Carians made the Persians cross the river to fight them. The ensuing battle was, according to Herodotus,

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3456-515: The 19th century his reputation has been dramatically rehabilitated by the age of democracy and some archaeological finds which have repeatedly confirmed his version of events. The prevailing modern view is that Herodotus generally did a remarkable job in his Historia , but that some of his specific details (particularly troop numbers and dates) should be viewed with skepticism. Nevertheless, there are still many historians who believe Herodotus' account has an anti-Persian bias and that much of his story

3564-607: The 4th century by the Greeks, then the Romans. These later mines were both open-cast and underground, mostly to exploit the island's numerous karst hosted calamine deposits for their lead and silver. Gold, copper and iron were also found; the Byzantines quarried marble on the island. In the early 20th century, mining companies (most notably the Speidel mining company) exploited the island's zinc - lead rich calamine ores, with

3672-474: The Athenians to take Hippias back as tyrant. Needless to say, the Athenians had balked at this, and resolved instead to be openly at war with Persia. Since they were already an enemy of Persia, Athens was already in a position to support the Ionian cities in their revolt. The fact that the Ionian democracies were inspired by the example of the Athenian democracy no doubt helped persuade the Athenians to support

3780-511: The Battle of Ephesus. However, the cities that Herodotus describes Daurises as besieging were on the Hellespont, which (by Herodotus's own reckoning) did not become involved in the revolt until after Ephesus. It is therefore easiest to reconcile the account by assuming that Daurises, Hymaees, and Otanes waited until the next campaigning season (i.e., 497 BC), before going on the counter-offensive. The Persian actions that Herodotus described at

3888-447: The Cypriots had one year of freedom, therefore placing the action in Cyprus to 497 BC. He next says that Daurises, Hymaees, and Otanes , all of them Persian generals and married to daughters of Darius, pursued those Ionians who had marched to Sardis, and drove them to their ships. After this victory they divided the cities among themselves and sacked them. This passage implies these Persian generals counter-attacked immediately after

3996-614: The Eretrians supported the revolt in order to repay the support the Milesians had given Eretria some time previously, possibly referring to the Lelantine War . The Athenians sent twenty triremes to Miletus, reinforced by five from Eretria. Herodotus described the arrival of these ships as the beginning of troubles between Greeks and barbarians. Over the winter, Aristagoras continued to foment rebellion. In one incident, he told

4104-405: The Greek tyrants present in the army and handed them over to their respective cities in order to gain the cooperation of those cities. Bury and Meiggs stated that the handovers were done without bloodshed with the exception of Mytilene, whose tyrant was stoned to death; tyrants elsewhere were simply banished. It has also been suggested (Herodotus does not explicitly say so) that Aristagoras incited

4212-487: The Greeks were forced to turn and prepare to fight. Holland suggests that the Persians were primarily cavalry (hence their ability to catch up with the Greeks). The typical Persian cavalry of the time were probably missile cavalry, whose tactics were to wear down a static enemy with volley after volley of arrows. It is clear that the demoralised and tired Greeks were no match for the Persians, and were completely routed in

4320-474: The Hellespont and in Caria seem to be in the same year, and most commentators place them in 497 BC. In Cyprus, all the kingdoms had revolted except that of Amathus . The leader of the Cypriot revolt was Onesilus , brother of the king of Salamis , Gorgus. Gorgus did not want to revolt, so Onesilus locked his brother out of the city and made himself king. Gorgus went over to the Persians, and Onesilus persuaded

4428-464: The Ionian Revolt, especially since the cities of Ionia were (supposedly) originally Athenian colonies. Aristagoras was also successful in persuading the city of Eretria to send assistance to the Ionians for reasons that are not completely clear. Possibly commercial reasons were a factor; Eretria was a mercantile city, whose trade was threatened by Persian dominance of the Aegean. Herodotus suggests that

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4536-404: The Ionians remained committed to their rebellion and the Persians did not seem to follow up their victory at Ephesus. Presumably these ad hoc forces were not equipped to lay siege to any of the cities. Despite the defeat at Ephesus, the revolt actually spread further. The Ionians sent men to the Hellespont and Propontis and captured Byzantium and the other nearby cities. They also persuaded

4644-423: The Ionians sailed home. The Persian forces in Asia Minor seem to have been reorganised in 497 BC, with three of Darius's sons-in-law, Daurises, Hymaees, and Otanes , taking charge of three armies. Herodotus suggests that these generals divided up the rebellious lands between themselves and then set out to attack their respective areas. Daurises, who seems to have had the largest army, initially took his army to

4752-477: The Lydians, Cyrus had sent messages to the Ionians asking them to revolt against Lydian rule, which the Ionians had refused to do. After Cyrus completed the conquest of Lydia, the Ionian cities now offered to be his subjects under the same terms as they had been subjects of Croesus. Cyrus refused, citing the Ionians' unwillingness to help him previously. The Ionians thus prepared to defend themselves, and Cyrus sent

4860-664: The Milesians were in no mood to receive Histiaeus back. He therefore went to Mytilene in Lesbos and persuaded the Lesbians to give him eight triremes. He set sail for Byzantium with all those who would follow him. There he established himself, seizing all ships that attempted to sail through the Bosporus , unless they agreed to serve him. By the sixth year of the revolt (494 BC), the Persian forces had regrouped. The available land forces were gathered into one army, and were accompanied by

4968-571: The Panagia area where one of the mountains near the Thracian Sea has a large marble quarry. The marble quarries in the south (in the area of Aliki), now abandoned, were mined during ancient times. Towns and villages with over 100 inhabitants (2021 census) are: Regional unit The 74 regional units of Greece ( Greek : περιφερειακές ενότητες , perifereiakés enótites ; singular περιφερειακή ενότητα , perifereiakí enótita ) are

5076-417: The Persian commanders were concerned that they would not be able to defeat the Ionian fleet and, therefore, would not be able to take Miletus. So they sent the exiled Ionian tyrants to Lade, where each tried to persuade his fellow citizens to desert to the Persians. This approach was initially unsuccessful, but in the week-long delay before the battle, divisions arose in the Ionian camp. These divisions led to

5184-439: The Persian royal family. He fully expected to be stripped of his position by Artaphernes. In a desperate attempt to save himself, Aristagoras chose to incite his own subjects, the Milesians, to revolt against their Persian masters, thereby beginning the Ionian Revolt. In autumn 499 BC, Aristagoras held a meeting with the members of his faction in Miletus. He declared that in his opinion the Milesians should revolt, to which all but

5292-466: The Persians. In the winter of 499 BC, he first sailed to Sparta , the pre-eminent Greek state in matters of war. However, despite Aristagoras's entreaties, the Spartan king Cleomenes I turned down the offer to lead the Greeks against the Persians. Aristagoras therefore turned instead to Athens. Athens had recently become a democracy, overthrowing its own tyrant Hippias . In their fight to establish

5400-490: The Samians secretly agreeing to the terms offered by the Persians, but remained with the other Ionians for the time being. Soon after, the Persian fleet moved to attack the Ionians, who sailed out to meet them. However, as the two sides neared each other, the Samians sailed away back to Samos, as they had agreed with the Persians. The Lesbians, seeing their neighbours in the battle-line sail away, promptly fled as well, causing

5508-848: The Serbomacedonian Massif onto the Rodope Massif. The Late Miocene oil-producing Nestos-Prinos basin is located between Thassos island and the mainland. The floor of the basin is around 1,500 m deep off the Thassos coast (South Kavala ridge; Proedrou, 1988) and up to 4.000–5.000 m in the axial sector between Thassos and the mainland. The basin is filled with Late Miocene-Pliocene sediments, including ubiquitously repeated evaporite layers of rock salt and anhydrite-dolomite that alternate with sandstones, conglomerates, black shales, and uraniferous coal measures (Proedrou, 1979, 1988; Taupitz, 1985). Stratigraphically equivalent rocks on

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5616-770: The Sultan Mahmud II to the Ottoman Albanian ruler Muhammad Ali of Egypt as a personal fiefdom, as a reward for his intervention against the Wahhabites . The island had functioned as the chief centre of recruitment for Albanians who entered the Egyptian civil service, until 1912. On 20 October 1912 during the First Balkan War , the Greek navy invaded Thasos and annexed it into Greece after more than 350 years of Ottoman Turkish rule. During

5724-489: The battle which ensued at Ephesus. Many were killed, including the Eretrian general, Eualcides . The Ionians who escaped the battle made for their own cities, while the remaining Athenians and Eretrians managed to return to their ships and sailed back to Greece. The Athenians now ended their alliance with the Ionians, since the Persians had proved to be anything but the easy prey that Aristagoras had described. However,

5832-431: The battle. With the defeat of the Ionian fleet, the revolt was effectively over. Miletus was closely invested, the Persians "mining the walls and using every device against it, until they utterly captured it". According to Herodotus, most of the men were killed, and the women and children were enslaved. Archaeological evidence partially substantiates this, showing widespread signs of destruction, and abandonment of much of

5940-568: The beloved son of god Dionysus , lived in Thasos. Lying close to the coast of Eastern Macedonia , Thasos was inhabited from the Palaeolithic period onwards, but the earliest settlement to have been explored in detail is that at Limenaria, where remains from the Middle and Late Neolithic relate closely to those found at the mainland's Drama plain . In contrast, Early Bronze Age remains on

6048-399: The citadel, being surrounded by a burning city, emerged into the market-place of Sardis, where they fought with the Greeks, forcing them back. The Greeks, demoralised, then retreated from the city, and began to make their way back to Ephesus. Herodotus reports that when Darius heard of the burning of Sardis, he swore vengeance upon the Athenians (after asking who they indeed were), and tasked

6156-498: The city in the aftermath of Lade. However, some Milesians did remain in (or quickly returned to) Miletus, though the city would never recapture its former greatness. Miletus was thus notionally "left empty of Milesians"; the Persians took the city and coastal land for themselves, and gave the rest of the Milesian territory to Carians from Pedasus . The captive Milesians were brought before Darius in Susa, who settled them at "Ampé" on

6264-592: The city of Cius . After Daurises moved his forces towards Caria, Hymaees marched towards the Hellespont and captured many of the Aeolian cities as well as some of the cities in the Troad . However, he then fell ill and died, ending his campaign. Meanwhile, Otanes, together with Artaphernes, campaigned in Ionia (see below). Hearing that the Carians had rebelled, Daurises led his army south into Caria. The Carians gathered at

6372-522: The coast of the Persian Gulf, near the mouth of the Tigris . Many Samians were appalled by the actions of their generals at Lade, and resolved to emigrate before their old tyrant, Aeaces of Samos , returned to rule them. They accepted an invitation from the people of Zancle to settle on the coast of Sicily , and took with them the Milesians who had managed to escape from the Persians. Samos itself

6480-565: The collapsed remains of a unique portrait-statue of the emperor Hadrian 's wife, the empress Flavia Vibia Sabina , with an inscription dedicated to her as a "high priestess". Thasos was part of the Eastern Roman Empire , now known as the Byzantine Empire , from 395 on. According to the 6th century Synecdemus , it belonged to the province of Macedonia Prima , although the 10th century De thematibus claims that it

6588-763: The country's third-level administrative units (counting decentralized administrations as first-level). They are subdivisions of the country's 13 regions , and are further divided into municipalities . They were introduced as part of the Kallikratis administrative reform on 1 January 2011 and are comparable in area and, on the mainland , coterminous with the "pre-Kallikratis" prefectures of Greece . Ionian revolt The Ionian Revolt , and associated revolts in Aeolis , Doris , Cyprus and Caria , were military rebellions by several Greek regions of Asia Minor against Persian rule, lasting from 499 BC to 493 BC. At

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6696-570: The democracy, the Athenians had asked the Persians for aid (which was not in the end needed), in return for submitting to Persian overlordship. Some years later, Hippias had attempted to regain power in Athens, assisted by the Spartans. This attempt failed and Hippias fled to Artaphernes, and tried to persuade him to subjugate Athens. The Athenians dispatched ambassadors to Artaphernes to dissuade him from taking action, but Artaphernes merely instructed

6804-423: The empire, Cyrus was able to identify elite native groups to help him rule his new subjects – such as the priesthood of Judea. No such group existed in Greek cities at this time; while there was usually an aristocracy, this was inevitably divided into feuding factions. The Persians thus settled for sponsoring a tyrant in each Ionian city, even though this drew them into the Ionians' internal conflicts. Furthermore,

6912-467: The expedition. Darius assented to this, and a force of 200 triremes was assembled in order to attack Naxos the following year. In the spring of 499 BC, Artaphernes readied the Persian force, and placed his cousin Megabates in command. He then sent ships on to Miletus, where the Ionian troops levied by Aristagoras embarked, and the force then set sail for Naxos. The expedition quickly descended into

7020-542: The force, Aristagoras appointed his brother Charopinus and another Milesian, Hermophantus, as generals. This force was then guided by the Ephesians through the mountains to Sardis , Artaphernes's satrapal capital. The Greeks caught the Persians unaware, and were able to capture the lower city. However, Artaphernes still held the citadel with a significant force of men. The lower city then caught on fire, Herodotus suggests accidentally, which quickly spread. The Persians in

7128-495: The heart of the rebellion was the dissatisfaction of the Greek cities of Asia Minor with the tyrants appointed by Persia to rule them, along with the individual actions of two Milesian tyrants, Histiaeus and Aristagoras . The cities of Ionia had been conquered by Persia around 540 BC, and thereafter were ruled by native tyrants, nominated by the Persian satrap in Sardis . In 499 BC, the tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, launched

7236-426: The historian Hecataeus agreed. At the same time, a messenger sent by Histiaeus arrived in Miletus, imploring Aristagoras to rebel against Darius. Herodotus suggests that this was because Histiaeus was desperate to return to Ionia, and thought he would be sent to Ionia if there was a rebellion. Aristagoras therefore openly declared his revolt against Darius, abdicated from his role as tyrant, and declared Miletus to be

7344-507: The island align it with the Aegean culture of the Cyclades and Sporades , to the south; at Skala Sotiros for example, a small settlement was encircled by a strongly built defensive wall. Even earlier activity is demonstrated by the presence of large pieces of ' megalithic ' anthropomorphic stelai built into these walls, which, so far, have no parallels in the Aegean area. There is then

7452-557: The island of Thasos from a multitude of snakes. Thasos was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1456. Under Ottoman rule, the island was known in Ottoman Turkish as طاشوز - Taşöz . Between 1770 and 1774, the island was briefly occupied by a Russian fleet. By this time its population had gravitated to the inland villages as a protective measure. Nearly 50 years later, a revolt against Ottoman rule arose in 1821, at

7560-470: The island. Seeing an opportunity to strengthen his position in Miletus by conquering Naxos, Aristagoras approached the satrap of Lydia, Artaphernes , with a proposal. If Artaphernes provided an army, Aristagoras would conquer the island, thus extending the boundaries of the empire for Darius, and he would then give Artaphernes a share of the spoils to cover the cost of raising the army. Artaphernes agreed in principle, and asked Darius for permission to launch

7668-476: The main island Thasos and has an area of 380.097 km. The province of Thasos ( Greek : Επαρχία Θάσου ) was one of the provinces of the Kavala Prefecture. It had the same territory as the present municipality. It was abolished in 2006. Thasos is located in the northern Aegean sea approximately 7 km (4 mi) from the northern mainland and 20 kilometres (12 miles) south-east of Kavala . It

7776-402: The mainland are clastic sediments with coal beds, marine to brackish fluvial units and travertines. The earliest mining on the island has been dated to around 13,000 BC, when paleolithic miners dug a shaft at the site of the modern-era Tzines iron mine for the extraction of limonitic ochre. Mining for base and precious metals started around the 7th century BC with the Phoenicians, followed in

7884-407: The mainland near Atarneus and Myus . A large Persian force under Harpagus was in the area and eventually intercepted one foraging expedition near Malene . The ensuing battle was hard fought, but was ended by a successful Persian cavalry charge, routing the Greek line. Histiaeus himself surrendered to the Persians, thinking that he would be able to talk himself into a pardon from Darius. However, he

7992-513: The mainland, where the Thasians owned gold mines even more valuable than those of the island; their combined annual revenues amounted to between 200 and 300 talents . Herodotus says that the best mines on the island were those opened by the Phoenicians on the east side of the island, facing Samothrace . Archilochus described Thasos as "an ass's backbone crowned with wild wood." The island's capital, Thasos , had two harbours. Besides its gold mines,

8100-434: The most important being large scale isoclinal folding with axes aligned north-west. The T-zone is deformed and is interpreted by some authors as a regional thrust of pre-major folding age. There are two major high angle fault systems aligned north-west and north-east respectively. A large low-angle thrust cuts the gneiss, schist and marble sequence at the south-west corner of the island, probably indicating an overthrusting of

8208-444: The origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, which would still have been relatively recent history (the wars finally ending in 450 BC). Herodotus's approach was entirely novel, and at least from the point of view of Western society, he does seem to have invented 'history' as we know it. As Holland has it: "For the first time, a chronicler set himself to trace the origins of a conflict not to a past so remote so as to be utterly fabulous, nor to

8316-473: The other Cypriots, apart from the Amathusians, to revolt. He then settled down to besiege Amathus . The following year (497 BC), Onesilus (still besieging Amathus), heard that a Persian force under Artybius had been dispatched to Cyprus. Onesilus thus sent messengers to Ionia, asking them to send reinforcements, which they did, "in great force". A Persian army eventually arrived in Cyprus, supported by

8424-538: The outbreak of the Greek War of Independence , led by Hatzigiorgis Metaxas, but it failed. The Ottoman Census of 1831 states that the island was populated exclusively by Greeks and that there were 1,821 Greek males fit to fight. This register excluded women, orphans, Christians below the age of puberty, the mentally or physically incapacitated as well as high-ranking officials, so the actual population would have been over double this. The island had been given in 1813 by

8532-416: The population, and could thus rule absolutely. Aristagoras's actions have thus been likened to tossing a flame into a kindling box; they incited rebellion across Ionia, and tyrannies were everywhere abolished, and democracies established in their place. Aristagoras had brought all of Hellenic Asia Minor into revolt, but evidently realised that the Greeks would need other allies in order to successfully fight

8640-445: The region, and thus support the revolt. Others have suggested that finding himself at the centre of an internal conflict in Miletus, he chose to go into exile rather than exacerbate the situation. In Thrace, he took control of the city that Histiaeus had founded, Myrcinus (site of the later Amphipolis ), and started campaigning against the local Thracian population. However, during one campaign, probably in either 497 BC or 496 BC, he

8748-408: The regional centre of Kavala and Skala Prinou . The most important economic activity on the island is tourism. The main agricultural products are honey, almonds, walnuts, olives (such as the local Throumba variety which has a protected designation of origin), olive oil, and wine. The inhabitants also engage in fishing, and in the herding of sheep and goats. Staphylus ( Ancient Greek : Στάφυλος ),

8856-530: The remnants of the Chian fleet. Crippled by the two defeats at sea, the Chians then acquiesced to Histiaeus's leadership. Histiaeus now gathered a large force of Ionians and Aeolians and went to besiege Thasos . However, he then received the news that the Persian fleet was setting out from Miletus to attack the rest of Ionia, so he quickly returned to Lesbos. In order to feed his army, he led foraging expeditions to

8964-402: The rest of the Ionian line to dissolve. The Chians, together with a small number of ships from other cities, stubbornly remained and fought the Persians, but most of the Ionians fled to their cities. The Chians fought valiantly, at one point breaking the Persian line and capturing many ships, but sustaining many losses of their own; eventually the remaining Chian ships sailed away, thereby ending

9072-410: The revolt. He left Miletus with all the members of his faction who would accompany him, and went to the part of Thrace that Darius had granted to Histiaeus after the campaign of 513 BC. Herodotus, who evidently has a rather negative view of him, suggests that Aristagoras simply lost his nerve and fled. Some modern historians have suggested that he went to Thrace to exploit the greater natural resources of

9180-454: The road through Pedasus . Herodotus implies that this occurred more or less directly after Labraunda, but it has also been suggested that Pedasus occurred the following year (496 BC), giving the Carians time to regroup. The Persians arrived at Pedasus during the night, and the ambush was sprung to great effect. The Persian army was annihilated and Daurises and the other Persian commanders were slain. The disaster at Pedasus seems to have created

9288-453: The shore. The local population gradually migrated towards these shoreline settlements as tourism began to develop as an important source of income. Thus, there are several "paired villages" such as Maries–Skala Maries, with the former inland and the latter on the coast. The island is formed mainly by gneisses , schists and marbles of the Rhodope massif. Marble sequences corresponding to

9396-511: The subjects of dispute between them and Philip II of Macedonia . In the embroilment between Philip V of Macedonia and the Romans , Thasos submitted to Philip, but received its freedom at the hands of the Romans after the Battle of Cynoscephalae (197 BC), and it was still a nominally "free" state in the time of Pliny . Excavations of various island sites between March and May 1887 by Theodore and Mabel Bent uncovered an 'Arch of Caracalla', and

9504-516: The suspicions of Darius I of Persia , who compelled them to surrender their ships and pull down their walls. After the defeat of Xerxes I the Thasians joined the Delian League but left in a disagreement over their mainland mines and markets. The Athenians eventually defeated Thasos' navy, and took the capital after a two-year siege. The Thasians were made to destroy their walls, surrender their ships and their mainland possessions, and pay

9612-521: The twelve cities which made up Ionia . These cities (part of the Ionian League ) were Miletus , Myus and Priene in Caria; Ephesus , Colophon , Lebedos , Teos , Clazomenae , Phocaea and Erythrae in Lydia; and the islands of Samos and Chios . Although the Ionian cities were independent from each other, they acknowledged their shared heritage, and had a common temple and meeting place,

9720-418: The whims and wishes of some god, nor to a people's claim to manifest destiny, but rather explanations he could verify personally." Some subsequent ancient historians, despite following in his footsteps, criticised Herodotus, starting with Thucydides . Nevertheless, Thucydides chose to begin his history where Herodotus left off (at the siege of Sestos ), and therefore presumably felt that Herodotus's history

9828-470: The whole army to join his revolt, and also took possession of the ships that the Persians had supplied. If the latter is true, it may explain the length of time it took for the Persians to launch a naval assault on Ionia, since they would have needed to build a new fleet. Although Herodotus presents the revolt as a consequence of Aristagoras and Histiaeus's personal motives, it is clear that Ionia must have been ripe for rebellion anyway. The primary grievance

9936-418: The whole island to flush out any hiding rebels. They then moved over to the mainland and captured each of the remaining cities of Ionia, similarly seeking out any remaining rebels. Although the cities of Ionia were undoubtedly harrowed in the aftermath, none seems to have suffered quite the fate of Miletus. Herodotus says that the Persians chose the most handsome boys from each city and castrated them, and chose

10044-518: The wine, nuts and marble of Thasos were well known in antiquity. Thasian wine was quite famous. Thasian coinage bore images of the wine-god Dionysos and grape bunches. During the Ionian revolt against Persia , Thasos was under Persian domination. After the capture of Miletus (494 BC), Histiaeus , the Ionian leader, laid siege to Thasos, without success. In response, the Thasians built warships and strengthened their fortifications, but this provoked

10152-474: The withdrawal of Axis troops in 1944, the island was caught up in the Greek Civil War . The leader of the communist naval faction, Sarantis Spintzos, was a native of Thasos. Skirmishes and communist guerilla attacks continued until 1950, almost a year after hostilities had ended on the Greek mainland. In the post-war decades, another native of Thasos, Costas Tsimas, was to attain national recognition;

10260-455: Was accurate enough not to need re-writing or correcting. Plutarch criticised Herodotus in his essay "On The Malignity of Herodotus", describing Herodotus as philobarbaros (φιλοβάρβαρος, "barbarian-lover") and for not being pro-Greek enough, which suggests that Herodotus might actually have done a reasonable job of being even-handed. A negative view of Herodotus was passed on to Renaissance Europe, though he remained widely read. However, since

10368-499: Was annihilated in an ambush at the Battle of Pedasus . This battle had started a stalemate for the rest of 496 BC and 495 BC. By 494 BC the Persian army and navy had regrouped, and they made straight for the epicentre of the rebellion at Miletus. The Ionian fleet sought to defend Miletus by sea, but was decisively beaten at the Battle of Lade , after the defection of the Samians . Miletus was then besieged, captured, and its population

10476-425: Was brought under Persian rule. This double defeat effectively ended the revolt, and the Carians surrendered to the Persians as a result. The Persians spent 493 BC reducing the cities along the west coast that still held out against them, before finally imposing a peace settlement on Ionia which was generally considered to be both just and fair. The Ionian Revolt constituted the first major conflict between Greece and

10584-467: Was colonised at an early date by Phoenicians , attracted probably by its gold mines; they founded a temple to the god Melqart , whom the Greeks identified as " Tyrian Heracles ", and whose cult was merged with Heracles in the course of the island's Hellenization . The temple still existed in the time of Herodotus . An eponymous Thasos or Thasus , son of Phoenix (or of Agenor , as Pausanias reported)

10692-584: Was embellished for dramatic effect. In the 12th century BC, the Mycenaean civilization fell as part of the Late Bronze Age collapse . During the subsequent dark age, significant numbers of Greeks emigrated to Asia Minor and settled there. These settlers were from three tribal groups: the Aeolians , Dorians and Ionians . The Ionians had settled along the coasts of Lydia and Caria , founding

10800-551: Was in overall command of this Persian offensive. Hearing of the approach of this force, the Ionians met at the Panionium, and decided not to attempt to fight on land, leaving the Milesians to defend their walls. Instead, they opted to gather every ship they could and make for the island of Lade, off the coast of Miletus, in order to "fight for Miletus at sea". The Ionians were joined by the Aeolian islanders from Lesbos, and altogether they had 353 triremes. According to Herodotus,

10908-513: Was killed by the Thracians. Aristagoras was the one man who might have been able to provide the revolt with a sense of purpose, but after his death the revolt was left effectively leaderless. Shortly after this, Histiaeus was released from his duties in Susa by Darius and sent to Ionia. He had persuaded Darius to let him travel to Ionia by promising to make the Ionians end their revolt. However, Herodotus leaves us in no doubt that his real aim

11016-721: Was part of Thracia . The island was a major source of marble until the disruption of the Slavic invasions in the late 6th/7th centuries, and several churches from Late Antiquity have been found on it. The island remained in Byzantine hands for most of the Middle Ages . It functioned as a naval base in the 13th century, under its own doux , and came briefly under the rule of the Genoese Tedisio Zaccaria in 1307–13. Returning to Byzantine control, its bishopric

11124-812: Was raised to an archdiocese by Manuel II Palaiologos . Thasos was captured by the Genoese Gattilusi family c. 1434, who surrendered it to the Ottoman Empire in 1455. Following the Ottoman conquest of the Despotate of the Morea in 1460, the former Despot Demetrios Palaiologos received lands on the island. It is related that the Byzantine Greek Saint Joannicius the Great (752–846) in one of his miracles freed

11232-474: Was said to have been the leader of the Phoenicians, and to have given his name to the island . Around 650 BC, or a little earlier, Greeks from Paros founded a colony on Thasos. A generation or so later, the poet Archilochus , a descendant of these colonists, wrote of casting away his shield during a minor war against an indigenous Thracian tribe, the Saians. Thasian power, and sources of its wealth, extended to

11340-513: Was simply to escape his quasi-captivity in Persia. When he arrived in Sardis, Artaphernes directly accused him of fomenting the rebellion with Aristagoras: "I will tell you, Histiaeus, the truth of this business: it was you who stitched this shoe, and Aristagoras who put it on." Histiaeus fled that night to Chios and eventually made his way back to Miletus. However, having just got rid of one tyrant,

11448-512: Was spared from destruction by the Persians because of the Samian defection at Lade. Most of Caria now surrendered to the Persians, although some strongholds had to be captured through force. When Histiaeus heard of the fall of Miletus, he seems to have appointed himself as leader of the resistance against Persia. Setting out from Byzantium with his force of Lesbians, he sailed to Chios. The Chians refused to receive him, so he attacked and destroyed

11556-402: Was taken to Artaphernes instead, who, fully aware of Histiaeus's past treachery, impaled him and then sent his embalmed head to Darius. The Persian fleet and army wintered at Miletus, before setting out in 493 BC to finally stamp out the last embers of the revolt. They attacked and captured the islands of Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos . On each, they made a 'human-net' of troops and swept across

11664-401: Was the tyrants installed by the Persians. While Greek states had in the past often been ruled by tyrants, this was a form of government on the decline. Moreover, past tyrants had tended (and needed) to be strong and able leaders, whereas the rulers appointed by the Persians were simply the representatives of the Persians. Backed by Persian military might, these tyrants did not need the support of

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