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Isles of Refuge in the Early Byzantine Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Sinclair Hood
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Extract

Some years ago in an article offered in honour of my friend, Dr. Jírí Neustupný, I described three settlements on small off-shore islands round the coasts of South Greece, where some of the native population appear to have taken refuge during the period of the Slav invasions in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. (Fig. 1). In August 1969, when I was in Galaxidhi on the west side of the bay of Itea, Mrs. Lois Ventris told me about a group of islets there with traces of similar occupation. These island refuge settlements of the period of the Slav invasions are of some interest in themselves, and they open the door to what might be a fruitful line of inquiry as regards the problem of the Slav occupation of South Greece.

There are seven islets in all in the bay of Itea, and of these I was able to visit the three nearest to Galaxidhi, namely (1) Panayia, (2) Ayios Yeoryios, and (3) Apsifia (Figs. 2, 3). These three islands all had traces of habitation in the late Roman or early Byzantine period, including pottery assignable to the sixth or early seventh centuries A.D.: notably, fragments of amphorae with straight and wavy grooved decoration (Plate 14d, 4–6), and rims of dishes of fine red (Late Roman B) ware imported from North Africa. These rims (nos. 6–8, 12) belong to dishes of a type (Ant. 802) found in the Late Phase of the Late Roman period at Antioch, lasting from about the middle of the sixth century A.D. into the seventh. I recovered one or two fragments of clay lamps from (1) Panayia (Plate 14d, 1–2), but saw none on the other two islands which I visited. Some of the Roman pottery from (1) Panayia and (2) Ayios Yeoryios appears to date from a time before the Slav invasions. There are also traces of medieval or later occupation here.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 65 , November 1970 , pp. 37 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1970

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References

Acknowledgements

Mrs. Lois Ventris kindly brought these island refuge settlements to my notice in the first instance, and I am very grateful to her and to Mr. John Macrae for taking me to visit them. The evidence of occupation on the islands was immediately reported to the Antiquities Officer for the area, Dr. I. Petrakos, to whom I am deeply obliged for his support and interest. The sherds published here are now lodged in the museum at Delphi. Dr. John Hayes, to whom I sent drawings of the Roman and Byzantine pottery, has most generously given me his expert opinion on it and allowed me to quote him. I am greatly indebted to him for this, and for much other help and information, as will be seen. The maps and drawings are by Mrs. Patricia Clarke.

Abbreviations apart from those current in BSA:

Ant. = Waage, O., Antioch iv (1947)Google Scholar

Sborník = Sborník Národhního Musea v Praze (Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae) A: Historia

1 Sborník xx (1966) 165–71.

2 For the history of this controversial question see Vasiliev, A. A., History of the Byzantine Empire (1952) 176–9Google Scholar; Bon, A., Le Péloponnèse Byzantin (1951) ch. 2Google Scholar, with references; Charanis, P., ‘The Chronicle of Monemvasia and the Question of the Slavonic Settlements in Greece’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 5 (1950) 139–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘On the Slavic Settlement in the Peloponnesus’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift xlvi (1953) 91–103; Jenkins, R. J. H., ‘Byzantium and Byzantinism’, Lectures in Memory of Louise Taft Semple, Cinncinnati (1963)Google Scholar; Lemerle, P., ‘La Chronique improprement dite de Monemvasie’, Revue des Études Byzantines xxi (1963) 5–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

The basic problems at issue are the extent of the Slav occupation of South Greece, and the date when it began. The views of P. Charanis, expressed in a series of articles over the last twenty-five years, appear most convincing to me. Charanis accepts the evidence of the so-called Chronicle of Monemvasia, and sets the beginning of the Slav occupation of South Greece at the end of the sixth century—instead of in the middle of the seventh century or later, as argued by some others.

3 These are not closely datable, but they appear to be especially common in the fifth–sixth centuries A.D. Amphorae with a modified version of this type of decoration, however, were still being made many centuries later. Dr. John Hayes tells me that fragments of amphorae recovered from the cement of the harbour works at Anthedon, for instance, are assignable to the twelfth century A.D. (AA 1968, 86–7, fig. 88, except for the fragment middle row right with wavy grooved decoration, which is late Roman). This makes the Justinianic date suggested for these harbour works improbable.

4 Lerat, L. and Chamoux, F., ‘Voyage en Locride occidentale’, BCH lxxi (1947–1948) 50 ff.Google Scholar

5 Philippson, A., Die griech. Landschaften Band i, Teil ii (1951) 703Google Scholar, also remarks on these refuge sites on Ayios Dhimitrios and Apsifia.

6 BCH lxxi (1947–8) 48 f. Cf. Lerat, L., Les Locriens de l'Ouest i (1952) 158 ff.Google Scholar

7 Dor, L., Jannoray, J., van Effenterre, H. and van Effenterre, M., Kirrha (1960) 20–1Google Scholar, note the ‘vestiges misérables, mais nets’ of E.H. II here. For another E.H. I–II site near Galaxidhi see BCH lxxxviii (1964) 559–68.

8 Philippson, A., Die griech. Landschaften Band i, Teil ii (1951)Google Scholar marks Galaxidhi as having occupation from Mycenaean to Byzantine times. Two L.H. IIIC vases are listed by Simpson, R. Hope, A Gazetteer and Atlas of Myc. Sites (1965) 133Google Scholar, no. 450, as coming from the region of Nisaki c. 3 kilometres west of Galaxidhi.

9 Cf. R. Hope Simpson, loc. cit. 189, on the difficulty of distinguishing Mycenaean from Archaic sherds.

10 Lerat, L., Les Locriens de l'Ouest i (1952) 198 ff.Google Scholar, shows that Galaxidhi must be Chaleion, not Oiantheia as had been supposed since the eighteenth century.

11 Daly, L. W., ‘Echinos and Justinian's Fortifications in Greece’, AJA xlvi (1942) 500–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSchläger, H., Blackman, D. J. and Schäfer, J., ‘Der Hafen von Anthedon’, AA 1968, 89–98Google Scholar; but the harbour works here may be Medieval (see n. 3).

12 A detailed account of how the Byzantine population dispersed before the incoming Slavs is given by the ‘Chronicle of Monemvasia’. Lemerle, , Revue des Études Byzantines xxi (1963) 5–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has shown that the essential part of the Chronicle describing the Slav occupation of the Peloponnese was probably composed in the ninth century A.D.

13 Thompson, H. A., JRS xlix (1950) 70Google Scholar; Metcalf, D. M., ‘The Slavonic Threat to Greece circa 580: some Evidence from Athens’, Hesperia xxxi (1962) 134–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Scranton, R. L., Corinth xvi (1957) 27Google Scholar; Charanis, P., ‘The Significance of Coins as Evidence for the History of Athens and Corinth in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries’, Historia iv (1955) 163–72.Google Scholar

15 Metcalf, D. M., ‘The Aegean Coastlands under Threat’, BSA lvii (1962) 14–23.Google Scholar

16 Migne, , Patrologia Latina lxxxiii col. 1056 AGoogle Scholar, quoted in Bon, A., Le Péloponnèse Byzantin (1951) 36 n. 1.Google Scholar

17 Charanis, P., Historia iv (1955) 163.Google Scholar

18 In the sherd collection at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (information from Dr. John Hayes).

19 Cf. Hayes, J. W., Dumbarton Oaks Papers xxii (1968) 215Google Scholar; Radford, C. A. R., in Dark Age Britain: Studies Presented to E. T. Leeds (1956) 69.Google Scholar

20 Lewis, A. R., Naval Power and Trade in the Mediterranean, A.D. 500–1100 (1951) 31.Google Scholar

21 Sborník xx (1966) 165–71.

22 Ibid. 170–1, fig. 18 b 1.

23 Ibid. 171, fig. 18 b 2, 3. These rims are of the later, more developed type as Ant. 949 p–y, which were relatively uncommon in the Seventh-century Deposit at Sarachane, Istanbul (Hayes, J. W., Dumbarton Oaks Papers xxii (1968) 208Google Scholar, nos. 62–4, and 215).

24 Harding, A., Cadogan, G., Howell, R., BSA lxiv (1969) 139, 142.Google Scholar

25 Vasmer, M., Die Slawen in Griechenland (1941).Google Scholar

26 Archaeological Reports for 1959–60, 11; BCH lxxxiv (1960) 720; ADelt xvii (1961–2) Chronika 106.