Knidos: Colonies, exiles, and large jugs

Missy Bear is now laid up in Lakki for the summer, and her crew has arrived back in Italy, via two car-ferries.

Ancona was full up when we docked, due to a music festival. So, we drove west into the foothills of the Apennines, and found a farmhouse with modern rooms, near the little hilltop town of Santa Maria Nuova. Our charming host – the farmer’s wife - spoke no English, and we speak no Italian. I conversed a bit in French, otherwise we used our iPhones to translate.

It was July 1, and 35 degrees here in the evening, under the pan-European ‘heat-dome’. The landscape was parched, and harvest was in full-swing. Combines swept up and down the undulating landscape, followed by billowing clouds of chaff dust. And lorries hurtled around the winding, broken, twisted roads, carrying straw-bale mountains. We took evasive action, as they were in a hurry. The next day we would continue the short distance west to tour Tuscany.

Tuscany is named after the Etruscans, of course, who lived here from the 10^th-century BC, until subsumed by the Romans 900 years later. The Etruscans controlled their offshore islands, such as Elba, but also sailed south in an attempt to colonise other lands such as the Aeolian islands, north-east of Sicily.

Those islands were named after the Aeolians (one of the four ancient Greek-speaking tribes*), who had settled here much earlier. But, on the island of Lipari, the Etruscans were rebuffed by a different Greek-speaking people. The Dorians!

The Dorian’s distant ancestors had travelled south through the Balkans, to settle in the south-central Peloponnese, around Sparta. Like their fellow Greek-speakers - the Aeolians and Ionians - they had then sailed eastwards across the Aegean, and colonised the coast of Asia Minor (Anatolia), displacing the local mainlanders.

Greek-speakers colonise Asia Minor. (Knidos is on the mainland between Kos and Rhodes)

The Aeolians settled in the north (Mysia), the Ionians in the middle (Lydia), with the Dorians taking the south-western corner (Caria), including the islands from Leros to Rhodes. The Dorian conquests included the old Carian site of Knidos, which became one of its most important centres in Caria.

For some unknown reason, a group of these Dorians were exiled from Knidos and Rhodes. They decided to sail back west, but rather than stopping in the Peloponnese, they passed around it. The continued across the Ionian Sea, rounded the toe of ‘Italy’ and tried and failed to settle on Sicily. So, they continued north and eventually landed on the island of Lipari. It was these Dorian exiles from Knidian who had fended off the Etruscans.

Now, when Missy Bear had moored-up at Lipari in 2021, I hadn’t appreciated this specific Dorian connection at all. It was only when she anchored at Knidos three years later, that the existence and fate of these exiles was revealed.

Missy Bear anchored off Knidos

The history of Knidos and its inhabitants had been revealed in greater detail centuries before, thanks to some keen amateurs back in England. At that time, this part of the world was still firmly in the Ottoman empire, and a Greek nation state was still a far-off, Romantic dream.        

Now, I am very much an amateur interested in history. And Alix and I are lucky-enough to be able to afford to take a modern ‘Grand Tour’, around ancient Greece and Italy, onboard Missy Bear. BUT, I hardly think for a moment, that either would have been admitted to the ‘Society of Dilettanti’. Well, Alix wouldn’t as it was a gentlemen’s club. And I would not have been sufficiently titled or well-connected.

This society was formed in the early 18^th-century, and comprised wealthy gentleman, who had done the Grand Tour and who were interested in art and archaeology. They aimed “to correct and purify the public taste of the country [Great Britain].”

Their detractors accused them of being a bunch of rich, entitled drunkards. That may have been true, but the members were instrumental in establishing the Royal Academy of Arts, establishing student travel scholarships, and funding archaeological expeditions that influenced the growth of neo-classicism. One such expedition was to Knidos.

The initial research was led by a W. M. Leake, but the main excavations were performed later by a C. Newton on behalf of British Museum, to where many of the artifacts were moved. The earliest findings were of Bronze-age, Mycenaean origin - about the 15^th- century BC. But the evidence that the Knidians had a Dorian origin is from the use of Dorian dialect on inscriptions, up until the Roman conquest. These Dorians established an Hexapolis – a federation or league of six cities – on the mainland and adjacent islands of Kos and Rhodes. Knidos was the ‘cult-centre’ that league, commencing in the 6^th-century BC

Knidos has two parts; one on the end of the mainland peninsular; the other on the island of Cap Crio (Camel Neck Cape). The two were initially linked by a man-made bridge, but the gap was filled in naturally to become a low, physical causeway. This created two bays: the northern bay was naval, where triremes would have moored; whereas the southern bay was for commercial shipping.

A visualisation of ancient Knidos (from a museum in Marmaris). The commercial harbour is the one at the top.

The rugged, steep topography necessitated terracing, with building platforms for temples etc., supported by retaining walls. The city had a grid pattern (‘Hippodamic’) with the main streets running north-west to south-east (aligned to the setting summer sun, in my opinion), and then at right angles to that.

Knidos was advanced in science, art and architecture. For example, Sostratos - the architect of Lighthouse of Alexandria - lived here. The naked Aphrodite statue, sculpted by Praxiteles for Knidos in the 4^th-century BC, was a major attraction to the city. The statue was named as "Aphrodite Euiploia" which meant "Aphrodite greeting the sailors" and was placed on a hilltop, easily seen by all passing ship.

The theatre, overlooking the commercial (southern) harbour

It is almost certain that many of the mariners who landed in Knidos would have attended a performance at the small theatre. It had a capacity of 5,000, and was built overlooking the southern, commercial harbour, where Missy Bear had anchored. Although the building excavated is of Roman construction, it was built over the earlier Dorian version.

Knidos’ importance derived from its location on the north-bound sea routes, especially the grain route from Egypt. The city’s major influence was, consequently, more mundane: the manufacture of amphorae (large double handled jugs, if you like)! Knidian-stamped ceramic pots and amphorae were found in Alexandria, and Ptolemaic coins from the 3^rd- and 2^nd-centuries BC were found in Cap Crio, confirming the important trade links with Egypt.

The distinctive shape of a Knidian amphora

In fact, Knidos had trade relation with many centres in the Mediterranean basin, and even reaching Afghanistan. Most of the amphorae found in Athens, Alexandria and Delos were made in Knidos.

The amphorae would have transported various dry and wet goods, but Knidos wine was their main export, and a major source of income. Knidian amphorae contained about 40 litres in the 3^rd-century BC, but this reduced to 31 litres a century later. Large jugs by any standards.

The Knidians made wine amphorae right through the Roman period and up until the 7th-century AD. Perhaps they were used by the Romans to carry their own wine around the empire? Maybe wines from Tuscany sloshed around in them? Perhaps even the ‘brown’ wine, called Brunello?

Who knows? All I know is that we have now arrived in Pienza (in Sienna, Tuscany), that Montalcino is the next town, and that Brunello di Montalcino is one of my favourite red wines. I feel a wine tasting is required.  

* Aeolians, Achaeans, Dorians, and Ionians