The Semeli Hotel Magazine - www.semelihotel.gr Semeli The Hotel - Magazine | Page 64

in Delos. That was when the island acquired great wealth
and power, which made the Athenians quite unhappy. In
454 BC, under the pretext of security, as the Peloponnesian
war was raging, the aforementioned decided to transfer the
treasury to the Acropolis. Subsequently, when the Delians
began claiming the treasury back, the answer they were
given was the island’s “catharsis”; the Athenians opened
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the tombs and transferred the bones and the funeral gifts
into a mass grave (known as the Purification pit) in the
neighboring Rhenia. They also banned births and deaths on
the sacred island, while in 422 BC they banished all popu-
lation from the island. Administration changed hands when
Antigonus established the League of Islanders in 314 BC,
which included Delos. Following the Chremonidean War
(267-261 BC), Delos became an independent polis (city-
state) for the next 150 years or so and was administered
by a religious council of hieropoioi (sacred treasures). In this
period, the island enjoyed the benevolent patronage of var-
ious Hellenistic kings. Subsequently, in 166 BC the Romans
declared Delos a free port, giving a boost to the trade and
practically inaugurating a second thriving period. Temples,
baths, palaestrae, markets, luxurious residencies and work-
shops were built at the valley of the Temple of Apollo, where
almost 30.000 people inhabited. The beginning of the end
started in 88 BC, when Mithridates, the king of Pontus,
plundered the Cycladic island. Worthy successors, the pi-
rates of Athenodoros invaded again in 69 BC, condemning
Delos to oblivion and darkness. Following the excavations
of the French Archaeological School of Athens, the golden
city with the columns and mosaics, statues, ancient theatre,
palaestrae and once wealthy neighborhoods came to light
again in 1873. This marked a new beginning for Mykonos
moreover, as wealthy European classical scholars, drawn
by the excavations to Delos, also discovered a nearby par-
adise of pristine beauty and authentic, cordial inhabitants.
In 1990 Delos was declared by UNESCO a global cul-
tural heritage site. Today you’ll feel history coming alive in
the archaeological site of Delos as you stroll through the
remarkably well preserved ancient arcades, markets, wor-
ship centers and temples. You will also admire the Theatre
district with the ancient theatre from the 3rd century BC
and the Terrace of the Lions. Those proud beasts are in
fact plaster-cast replicas. Their real, marble counterparts
are nowadays exhibited in the island’s museum and were
originally offered by the Naxians in the 7th century BC to
guard the sacred area.
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