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Thassos

The tradition of an early Phoenician occupation, recounted by Herodotus (VI, 47), is not confirmed by excavation, though the Parian colonists of approximately 710-680 B.C. seems to have had commerce with Tyre. The Parians, among who was the poet Archilochos, excused the annexation of the island by calling it the command of Hercules, and the Phoenician myth probably dates from the time of Theogenes (mid-5th century), the boxer-politician who claimed Hercules his father. The colonists prospered by exploiting the Thassian gold mines and later took control of Skaptesyle on the mainland. Their zenith of prosperity was in the 6th century B.C.

Early in the 5th century Histiaios, tyrant of Miletus, unsuccessfully beseiged the island. In the Persian wars, despite the famous walls of their city, the Thassians submitted tamely to the invader. A dispute with Athens about the mainland mines led to the reduction of the island in 463, but in 466 Thassos seemed to have taken over again the mineral works of Galepsos. In 464 Thoucydides set out from Thassos on his unsuccessful attempt to break the Spartian siege of Amphipolis. Lysander massacred its Athenian partisans in 404, but Thassos again allied with Athens in 389 and became a permanent member of the second Athenian league. In about 360, the island was seized by Philip II and it remained Macedonian until the Romans arrived in 196 B.C. During this period it developed a flourishing export of wine, and Thassians merchants carried on the trade between Thrace and Southern Greece.

Thassos was the birthplace of Polygnotos, the painter, of the rhapsodist Stesimbrotos, and of Theogenes, son of Timoxenos, who said by Paysanias to have carried off no fewer than 1,400 athletic crowns. The physician Hippocrates leaved for three years in Thassos, whose climatic variations he recorded. Excavations since 1910 have been undertaken by the French School, which publishes an excellent detailed guide.

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