Andros, Greece

About

Andros (Greek: Άνδρος, pronounced [ˈanðros]) is the northernmost island of the Cyclades archipelago in Greece, about 10 km (6 mi) southeast of Euboea, and about 3 km (2 mi) north of Tinos. It is nearly 40 km (25 mi) long, and its greatest breadth is 16 km (10 mi). It is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and well-watered valleys. The municipality, which includes the island Andros and several small, uninhabited islands, has an area of 380 km2 (147 sq mi). The largest towns are Andros, Gavrio, Batsi, and Ormos Korthiou. Palaeopolis, the ancient capital, was built into a steep hillside, and the breakwater of its harbor can still be seen underwater. At the village of Apoikia, there is the notable spring of Sariza, where the water flows from a sculpted stone lion's head.

During the Final Neolithic, Andros had a fortified village on its west coast, which archaeologists call Strofilas, after the plateau on which it was built. Final Neolithic in the Cycladic area is now dated around 4500–4000 BC. Strofilas was related to the "Attica-Kephala" culture, coinciding with the beginning of the Cycladic culture of the Bronze Age.

Strofilas was the largest organized settlement of the Neolithic in the Cyclades. It was rather densely built, and stretches over 30 acres. The excavations were started in 1997 by a team of Greek archeologists headed by Christina Televantou. The settlement was an important maritime centre and one of the earliest examples of fortification in Greece. Its fortifications feature a gate and bastions. Strofilas is notable for rock carvings on its walls, which include animals such as jackals, goats, deer, fish and dolphins, as well as a depiction of a flotilla of ships. About 1km to the southeast along the coastline is Zagora, another ancient settlement of a later Geometric period. The settlement dates to the 10th-8th centuries BC. An impregnable wall, about 110 meters long, was constructed around it.

In ancient times, the island contained an Ionian population, perhaps with an admixture of Thracian ancestry. Though it has been proposed that Andros was originally dependent on Eretria, by the 7th century BC it had become sufficiently prosperous to send out several colonies, to Chalcidice (Acanthus, Stageira, Argilus, Sane). The ruins of Palaeopolis, the ancient capital, are on the west coast; the town possessed a famous temple, dedicated to Dionysus. In 480 BC, it supplied ships to Xerxes and was subsequently harried by the Greek fleet. Though enrolled in the Delian League, it remained disaffected towards Athens, and in 477 had to be coerced by the establishment of a cleruchy on the island; nevertheless, in 411 Andros proclaimed its freedom, and in 408 withstood an Athenian attack. As a member of the second Delian League, it was again controlled by a garrison and an archon. In the Hellenistic period, Andros was contended for as a frontier-post by the two naval powers of the Aegean Sea, Macedon and Ptolemaic Egypt. In 333, it received a Macedonian garrison from Antipater; in 308 it was freed by Ptolemy I of Egypt. In the Chremonidean War (266–263) it passed again to Macedon after a battle off its shores. The Ptolemaic empire was at its height, with a considerable fleet stationed at Andros. In 200, it was captured by a combined Roman, Pergamene and Rhodian fleet, and remained a possession of the Attalid kingdom until its dissolution in 133 BC, when it was granted to Rome.

Under Byzantine rule, Andros was relatively obscure. First part of the Province of the Islands (Provincia Insularum), it later became part of the Theme of the Aegean Sea (θέμα τοῦ Αἰγαίου Πελάγους). Like other Aegean islands, it suffered Saracen raids, but during the Komnenian period the island flourished due to its silk production, exporting gossamer and velvet fabrics to Western Europe. Andros was captured by the Fourth Crusade on its way to Constantinople in 1203. After the fall of Constantinople in 1204, the island was slated to come under control of the Republic of Venice according to the Partitio Romaniae; in 1207 it became part of the Duchy of the Archipelago under Marco I Sanudo, who in turn gave it to Marino Dandolo as a sub-fief. Probably sometime around 1239, Dandolo was expelled from the island by Geremia Ghisi, ruler of Skiathos, Skopelos, and Skyros. Dandolo died soon after and a case was brought before the Venetian courts against Ghisi by Dandolo's widow Felisa and his sister Maria Doro. Felisa was soon aided by the Venetian Jacopo Querini, who became her second husband. Although the Venetian court found in their favour in August 1243 and ordered the Ghisi brothers to give up Andros, this did not happen. The case dragged on until after Geremia's death, when Duke Angelo Sanudo took over the island. He eventually gave half of it, according to the feudal law current in Latin Greece, to Felisa. The case took on new life after Felisa died and no claimant made appearance. Duke Marco II Sanudo then reverted the entire island to the ducal domain, but just two days before the legal deadline of two years and two days had passed, Marino's grandson Nicholas Querini appeared in Naxos to claim his inheritance. The case was again brought before the courts of Venice, but Sanudo disputed the Republic's authority over his domain. The case was eventually settled through the mediation of Nicolò Giustinian, the Venetian bailo of Negroponte in 1291–93, whereby Querini renounced his claims in exchange for a cash payment of 5,000 pounds. Thus Andros remained in the hands of the Sanudo dukes, who henceforth styled themselves "Lords of the duchy of Naxos and Andros" and occasionally chose the castle of Andros as their residence. In 1292, Andros, along with other of the Cyclades, was raided by the Aragonese fleet under Roger de Lluria.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.