Melos
- I Mēlĭus, a, um, adj., of Melos: Diagoras Melius, Cic. N. D. 1, 1, 2.—
- II Mēlĭnus, a, um, v. 4. Melinus.
MELOS (Μῆλος: Eth. Μήλιος: Milo), an island in the Aegean sea, and the most south-westerly of the Cyclades, whence it was called Zephyria by Aristotle (ap. Plin. 4.12. s. 23; comp. Steph. B. s. v.), and was even placed by Strabo in the Cretan sea (10. p. 484). The latter writer says (l. c.) that Melos was 700 stadia from the promontory Dictynnaeum in Crete, and the same distance from the promontory Scyllaeum in Argolis. The island is in reality 70 miles north of the coast of Crete, and 65 miles east of the coast of Peloponnesus. It is about 14 miles in length and 8 in breadth. Pliny and others describe it as perfectly round in shape ( insularum rotundissima,P lin. l. c.;Solin. 100.11; Isidor. Orig. 14.6); but it more resembles the form of a bow. On the northern side there is a deep bay, which forms an excellent harbour. The island is said to have borne several names in more ancient times. Besides that of Zephyria given to it by Aristotle, it was also called Memblis by Aristides, Mimallis by Callimachus, Siphis and Acyton by Heracleides (Plin. l. c.), and also Byblis by Stephanus B. (s. v. Μῆλος); the latter name is said to have been derived from its receiving a colony from the town of Bybls in Phoenicia. Other writers mention this Phoenician colony, and Festus derives the name of Melos from the founder of the colony. (Fest. s. v. Melos. ) Some connect the name with μῆλον, an apple, on account of the round shape of the island. The Phoenician settlement is probable; but we know that it was colonised at an early period by the Lacedaemonians, and that it continued to be inhabited by Dorians down to the time of the Peloponnesian War. According to the Melians themselves, the Lacedaemonians settled in the island 700 years before this war. (Hdt. 8.48; Thuc. 5.84, 112.) In the Peloponnesian War, the Melians remained faithful to their mother city. In B.C. 426, the Athenians made an unsuccessful attempt upon the island; but in 416 they captured the principal town, put all the adult males to death, sold the women and children into slavery, and colonised the island afresh by 500 Athenians. (Thuc. 5.84--116; Diod. 12.80; Strab. l. c.)
Melos is now called Milo. It is mountainous and of volcanic origin. Its warm springs, which are now used for bathing, are mentioned in ancient times. (Plin. Nat. 31.6. s. 23; Athen. 2. p. 43.) Pliny says that the best sulphur was found in Melos (35.15. s. 50); and among other products of the island he enumerates alum (35.15. s. 52), pummice-stone (36.21. s. 42), and a bright colour, called Melinum pigments (35.6. s. 19; comp.Vitr. 7.7; Diosc. 5.180; Plaut. Most. 1.3. 107). The mines of alum are on the eastern side of the island, near a height which emits smoke, and has every appearance of having been a volcano. In the south-western half of the island, the mountains are more rugged and lofty; the highest summit bears the name of St. Elias. The island produces good wine and olives, but there is not much care taken in the cultivation of the vine. In antiquity Melos was celebrated for its kids. (Athen, 1. p. 4.) One of its greatest deficiencies is want of water. The inhabitants of Kastron depend almost exclusively upon cisterns; and the only spring in the vicinity is to the westward of the ancient city, on the sea-side, where is a chapel of St. Nicolas.
In ancient times the chief town in the island was called Melos. It stood upon the great harbour. It is celebrated as the birthplace of Diagoras, surnamed the Atheist. [ Dict. of Biogr. art. DIAGORAS.] The town appears to have been small, since it is called by Thucydides a χωρίον, not πόλις; and of the 3000 men who originally composed the Athenian expedition, the smaller half was sufficient to besiege the place. (Thuc. 5.84, 114.) The present capital of Melos is named Kastron, and is situated upon a steep hill above the harbour. The former capital was in the interior, and was deserted on account of its unhealthy situation. Between Kastron and the northern shore of the harbour are the ruins of the ancient town, extending down to the water-side. On the highest part, which is immediately over-looked by the village, are some remains of polygonal walls, and others of regular masonry with round towers. The western wall of the city is traceable all the way down the hill from the summit to the sea: on the east it followed the ridge of some cliffs, but some foundations remain only in a few places( Leake). Within the enclosure there is a small hill, on which stand a church of St. Elias and a small monastery, and which perhaps served in antiquity as a kind of acropolis. Here several architectural fragments have boon found. On the southeastern side of the hill are some seats cut out of the rock in a semi-circular form, of which only four remained uncovered when Ross visited the island in 1843. They appear to have been the upper seats of a small theatre or odeum, which was perhaps more ancient than the large theatre mentioned below. In front of these seats is a quadrangular foundation of regular masonry, of which in one part four or five courses remain. About 40 steps eastward of this foundation are the remains of a temple or some other public building, consisting of fragments of a Corinthian capital and part of a cornice. About a hundred steps SW. is the larger theatre, which was cleared from its rubbish in 1836 by the king of Bavaria, then Crown Prince. The nine lowest rows of seats, of white marble, are for the most part still remaining, but the theatre, when entire, extended far up the hill. From the character of its architecture, it may safely be ascribed to the Roman period. There are no other remains of the ancient town worthy of notice.
Eastward of the ancient city is a village named Τρυπητή, from the tombs with which the hill is pierced in every part. Eastward of Τρυπητή is a narrow valley sloping to the sea, which also contains several sepulchral excavations. Some of them consist of two chambers, and contain niches for several bodies. There are, also, tombs in other parts of the island. In these tombs many works of art and other objects have been discovered; painted vases, gold ornaments, arms, and utensils of various kinds. Some very interesting Christian catacombs have also been discovered at Melos, of which Ross has given a description. (Tournefort, Voyage, vol. 1. p. 114, Engl. tr.; Tavernier, Voyage, vol. 1. p. 435; Olivier, Voyage, vol. 2. p. 217; Leake, Northern Greece vol. 3. p. 77; Prokesch, Denkwürdigkeiten, vol. 1. p. 531, vol. 2. p. 200; Fiedler, Reise, vol. 2. p. 369; Ross, Reisen auf den Griechischen Inseln, vol. iii. pp. 3, 145.) COIN OF MELOS.
MELOS (Μῆλος: Eth. Μήλιος), a village of Acarnania, mentioned only by Stephanus B. (s. v.)
(Μῆλος). An island in the Aegaean Sea, the most westerly of the Cyclades. It was first colonized by the Phoenicians, who called it Byblos or Byblis, and afterwards by the Lacedaemonians, or at least by Dorians. Hence, in the Peloponnesian War, it embraced the side of Sparta. In B.C. 416 it was taken by the Athenians, who killed all the adult males, sold the women and children as slaves, and peopled the island with an Athenian colony. The length of the island is about fourteen miles from east to west, and its breadth from north to south eight miles. In 1820, among the ruins of the ancient city of Melos near the theatre was found the exquisite statue usually called the Venus of Milo (Venere di Milo), now in the Louvre at Paris, having been purchased by the Marquis de Rivière, and by him presented to Louis XVIII. It is composed of two blocks of marble, which unite just above the garment which covers the legs. See illustration on p. 96; and Perry, Greek and Roman Sculpture, pp. 600-605 (London, 1882). Melos was the birthplace of Diagoras the Atheist, whence Aristophanes calls Socrates also “the Melian” (Nub. 830).
One of the islands in the Cyclades, constituted of a volcanic massif whose radius was probably an ancient crater. From the written tradition we know that the island was anciently inhabited by a Phoenician population. Excavation testifies to a flourishing prehistoric civilization. Thucydides (5.112,116) places the Doric invasion 700 years before the Athenian conquest, about the 13th c. B.C. The Athenians took Melos in 416 during the Peloponnesian War and subsequently lost it. It was liberated by Sparta, then fell under the Macedonians, was eventually conquered by Rome, and was abandoned in the 5th c. A.D.
In the W part of the island there are traces of prehistoric settlements. The remains of three such settlements have been found at Phylakopi, on a promontory dominating the sea. The first dates from the Ancient Minoan period (2600-2000), and was a center of commerce in obsidian. The second dates from the Middle Minoan I-III (ca. 2000-1700) and the Late Minoan I and II (1600-1500) and has houses decorated with frescoes, the most famous of which is of fish and is now at the National Museum in Athens. This settlement was destroyed by fire. The third (1500-1000) underwent Mycenaean influence and has a walled palace which represents the height of Cycladic civilization on Melos. It was destroyed by the Dorians who settled on the island. A vast necropolis, contemporary with the third settlement, has rock-cut tombs forming large niches, with double chambers and small dromoi. The hill of the Prophet Elias constituted the acropolis of ancient Melos, where there remain a few traces of ancient walls and of the city. The theater, now in a poor state of preservation, was rebuilt by the Romans. Adjacent to it there were walls belonging to either a stadium or a gymnasium. Near the port a portico has been uncovered on the site of the Sanctuary of Poseidon, where the famous statue of the god (mid 2d c. B.C.), now in the National Museum at Athens, was discovered. A sanctuary dedicated to Asklepios has been found, from which came a head of the god, now in the British Museum in London. Near the theater remains of catacombs include a large room with sarcophagi, from which open four smaller galleries with Christian tombs, including some ornamented by frescoes.
Production of the so-called Melian reliefs is attributed to the island of Melos. Over a hundred examples have been noted of these small reliefs in terracotta, dating from between 480 and 440-30 B.C., and coming largely from tombs. A single tablet was found in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Kos. The clay tablets were stamped in molds, and were probably reproductions of clay models. They have holes, which leads to the supposition that they were used as a covering, perhaps on wooden caskets. They are the modest work of artisans, important because they show the influence of Ionic art and of the great painters, particularly Polygnotos. After the middle of the 5th c. Attic influence is felt instead. The figurative cycle is composed of mythological scenes and scenes of daily life.
Klima, founded about 700 B.C., took up the role formerly held by Phylakopi until its destruction, after a hiatus of 4 c. The ancient remains are few, though in 1820 a Greek peasant found here, in pieces, the famous statue of Aphrodite in Parian marble that was bought by the French ambassador to Istanbul as a gift for Louis XVIII, and since 1821 has been on display at the Louvre. During excavations undertaken at Melos in 1828 a base was found with part of a signature (. . .andros), datable to about 100 B.C., which was tried as a support for the instable statue of Aphrodite.
Zephiria, today known as Paleokora, was a rather prosperous city served by two ports, one on the Bay of Haghia Triada, and the other on the Bay of Paleokora. Only traces of the ancient foundations have been found under successive constructions. In 1204 the Venetians occupied the island, holding it until the arrival of the Turks in 1537. Zephiria, because of its position, suffered numerous epidemics, and was finally abandoned in 1793.
BIBLIOGRAPHYC. Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland (1868-72) II 496ff; K. Ehrenburg, Die Inselgruppe von Milos (1899); Atkinson et al., Excavations at Philakopi in Melos, Suppl. Papers Soc.Prom.Hellenic Studies (1904) IV; Reports in Arch.Anz. (1928, 1930, 1939) c.263; P. Jacobstahl, “Die Melischen Reliefs” in Zeits.f.bild.Kunst, LVI, NS XXXII (1931) 94-104; id., JHS 59 (1939) 65ffI; G. M. Richter, Archaic Greek Art (1949) 30, 35, 95, 100; J. D. Beazley, AJA 45 (1941) 342; C. Karouzou, JHS 71 (1951) 104ff; J. W. Graham, AJA 62 (1958) 313; B. Shafton, BCH 82 (1958) 27ff; M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (1955) 159ff.
G. BERMOND MONTANARI- Menestheus goes to: and reigns as king in: Apollod. E.6.15
- islanders of Melos fight at Plataea: Paus. 5.23.2