Why Byron could never ‘fill high the cup of Samian wine’

Samos remains unspoiled and a typical picture postcard Greek island ... and the El Greco taverna serves unique Samiot food (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Greece and Turkey are close to one another in the narrow Aegean waters that separate Samos and the Anatolian coastline, where the gap is only a mere kilometre. The nearest Greek island, Ikaria, is 15 km miles away, leaving Samos the most easterly of the Aegean islands and a natural continuation of the coastline of neighbouring Asia Minor. But, while the waters are narrow, the people have been separated by thousands of years of geological change and a political chasm that has narrowed only in recent years.

This area has been the interface between Europe and Asia since Xerxes and his Persian sea forces were ruined in the straits between Samos and Anatolia after the battles of Marathon and Plataea.

Staying in Kusadasi on the western Anatolian coast this week, I look out across to Samos from my balcony the first thing each morning, and each evening I watch the sun setting in the Aegean beside the island. And so, on Wednesday morning [26 August 2009], I took an early morning ferry across to Samos for my fourth visit to this Aegean island.

Samos is 475 sq km, has a coastline of 159 km, and a population of 40,000. There was no hint of the forest fires that devastated other parts of Greece until early this week, or of the heavy rain that has caused flooding in Thessaloniki. Water is abundant here, the hills are green with the trees that provide abundant crops of fruit and olives, and the wines of Samos are celebrated in literature throughout the world. It was this wine that came to mind when the poet Byron wrote:

In vain – in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup of Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio’s vine!

But Samos has charms beyond Byron’s wine that have been discovered only in recent years by the package holiday industry, centuries after it had been a holiday destination for Anthony and Cleopatra.

The island of Pythagoras

The island was said to be the birthplace of Hera, who was worshipped in Samos not as the wife of Zeus but as the goddess of nature and fertility. Samos was also the birthplace of Pythagoras (580-500 BC), the ascetic philosopher who taught us that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides of a right-angle triangle. It was the birthplace too of Epicurus, the philosopher who sought happiness as the chief human good through freedom from anxiety and fear, and of Callistratus, who produced the 24-letter Greek alphabet – the basis of all our modern European alphabets.

Samos was the home of early scientists and explorers, including Aristrachus, who, centuries before Galileo, taught that the world revolved on its own axis around the sun, and Kolaios, who was the first to sail safely to Egypt, to reach the Pillars of Hercules and to sail out into the Atlantic.

After the conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and the advancing Turks and after a series of devastating earthquakes, the entire population of Samos was evacuated to the neighbouring island Chios by the Genoese in the 15th century. For a hundred years, Samos remained isolated and deserted until 1562, when a Turkish admiral, Kilic Ali, invited the descendants of the original Samiots to return home.

In a rare decision for an Ottoman administrator, Turks were excluded from Kilic Ali’s initiative, and his re-colonisation of Samos attracted Greeks from all over the Sultan’s Empire. Along with the descendants of the original Samiots, the island also attracted Greeks from the neighbouring islands and from Asia Minor and the Peloponnese. Subsequent generations inherited a rich and varied heritage, reflected in the island’s folklore, folksongs, village names, and its unique Epiphany carols. The village of Pandrosos was known until recently as Arvanites, reflecting the Albanian ancestry of many of the villagers, while the village of Mytilini was settled by people from the island of Mytilini or Lesvos after an earthquake destroyed their homes.

Unique island crafts

The new settlers brought crafts no longer found in other parts of Greece. Potters in Mavratzaioi make the unique maskara bardak, a container with a series of holes on top; when liquid is poured in, some of the holes must be stopped with the fingers, but the liquid pours out on all sides if the wrong holes are closed. Another design, the dikia koupa, also known as the Pythagorean cup, has holes in the bottom and spills over if the liquid inside goes above a level marked on the side – making it impossible for Byron to fill high his cup of Samian wine. Today, Byron’s insights are often forgotten and the secrets of these vessels are now known only to a few, so that it may be a dying craft.

In the 18th century, Samos enjoyed a brief period of independence and Greek rule under the Laskaris family when the island was liberated by the Russians, but three years later in 1774 it was retaken by the Ottoman Turks. Kilic Ali’s enlightened settlement policies and the special privileges enjoyed by Samos from 1774 may have made the islanders more kindly disposed towards their Turkish overlords and neighbours.

However, the people of Samos joined the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s, and the island was part of the first modern independent Greek state for a few short years from 1828. Despite the objections of the Irish Philhellene, Sir Richard Church from Cork, the Great Powers forced the return of Samos to the Sultan in 1830.

The Lion Monument was erected in Pythagoras Square in Vathy in 1930 to mark the 100th anniversary of the uprising against the Turkish occupation of Samos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

During the third phase of Ottoman rule, Samos enjoyed a limited degree of autonomy for 80 years under Christian princes nominated in Constantinople and an elected parliament until the pro-Turkish Prince Kopasis was assassinated on 2 March 1912. The last Turks finally left Samos on 23 September 1912, and free elections were held a week later on 30 September. The new assembly met in the Church of Saint Spyridon in Vathy, the island declared independence on 11 November 1912, and reunion with Greece was confirmed on 2 March 1913, a year after Prince Kopasis was killed. A copy of the declaration of enosis still hangs on a pillar in the Church.

Inside a church in Vathy ... the events in 1912-1913 saved the people of Samos from the atrocities suffered by their neighbours in Smyrna and Asia Minor a decade later (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

That turn of events probably saved Samos from “ethnic cleansing” during the Greek-Turkish conflicts that erupted within a decade. With the deportations and exchanges of Greek and Turkish minorities in 1922 and 1923, refugees from Smyrna and other parts of Asia Minor settled on Samos, bringing new skills and crafts.

During World War II, the island was occupied by the Italians and later by the Germans. Samos was not saved from the economic blight that hit Greece after World War II and the Greek Civil War, and wholesale emigration saw the population of many villages dwindle to the point of disappearance within a generation.

Economic revival

Now the mountain villages are prospering again, and modern tourism has brought a welcome economic revival. Samos is no longer “the forgotten island,” but the people here have not forgotten their myths and ancient history, which still play key roles in the islanders’ self-consciousness and their perception of their island’s unique attractions.

Over half a century ago, Tigani – the island capital under Polykrates – changed its name to Pythagoreio to mark the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the world’s first school of philosophy by Pythagoras. The old name meant “frying pan” – a reference to the summer heat in the town; but today’s Pythagoreio is a picturesque fishing harbour with elegant, restored traditional houses and mansions and the island’s only marina.

The shape of the statue of Pythagoras by Nikolaos Ikaris in Pythagoreio is a reminder of the mathematical and philosophical genius of Samos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Out at the edge of the pier in Pythagoreio, the shape of the 1989 statue of Pythagoras by Nikolaos Ikaris is a reminder of the mathematical and philosophical genius of the island, who lived on Samos during the reign of Polykrates. Pythagoras, who was an ethical vegetarian, dissented from the tyrannical ways of Polykrates, and he was accused of atheism. But Pythagoreans believed in a superior divinity, the One, above all others, and it was Pythagoras who gave the word “cosmos” to the universe on the basis of his concepts of order and harmony which he believed govern all things.

The name of Polykrates is recalled in the charming seafront cafés of Pythagoreio (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

During the reign of Polykrates, Samos was at the height of its prosperity, with a lively artistic and cultural life. Polykrates commissioned the tunnel built by Eupalinus, a unique engineering achievement often described as the “eighth wonder” of the ancient world. The tunnel took ten years to build and is 1,350 meters long, and the tunnel builders, who started at opposite ends, met each other with a degree of accuracy that defies even modern engineering. Polykrates also built the Temple of Hera, described by Herodotus as “the largest and the richest of all the temples in Greece.” However, his reign came to an end when Oroites of Magnesia captured Polykrates and crucified him on a wooden cross in 522 B.C.

Early Christian visitors

In the fifth century BC, the power of Samos rivalled that of Athens, but it was often caught between the warring armies of Athens and Persia as it tried to maintain its independence and a floundering democracy. Later, Samiots would claim, the island was visited by both Christ and by Saint John the Divine, who spent his exile on neighbouring Patmos. Kantili on Mount Kerkis at the western end of the island takes its name (“Candle”) from the legend that John the Divine passed this way on his way to the Seven Churches of Asia, and that since then a sweet light has been seen from Kantitli at night, guiding sailors and fishermen off the coast.

Certainly Saint John’s concept of the cosmos can be traced to the original thinking of Pythagoras. But legends aside, we can be sure Samos was visited by the Apostle Paul around 58 AD. Ever since, the island has had a rich heritage of churches, monasteries and convents. Four years after the island was resettled by Greeks in the 16th century, two monks, Iocovos and Makarios, built the Monastery of the Panayia of Vrontiani, or Our Lady of Thunder, the oldest monastery on the island, 3 km from the village of Vourliotes. The Monastery of Our Lady of Spiliani was built over the cave that was once the home of the Samian sibyl Photo, while pillars from the classical city of Miletus in Anatolia were used to build Aghia Zoni, which has outstanding wall paintings.

The former convent still dominates the harbour front in Vathy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The monastery of Aghios Ioannis (Saint John) the Almoner, near the village of Paliohori, is an unusual ecclesiastical oddity, coming under the jurisdiction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

On Wednesday afternoon, above the port of Vathy, I visited the Church of Saint Theodoros in the quieter backstreets of Vathy. This is an unusual church, with both a double nave and a double iconostasis. But the pulpit only faces towards one half the church, and while each nave has a dome, only one is illustrated with the image of Christ Pantokrator surrounded by the 12 Disciples.

But perhaps the island’s most unusual monastic and religious community was to be found among the tiny minority of Roman Catholics. The nuns in this community founded an old people’s home, which is still flourishing. The nuns have abandoned their former convent, although the old building still dominates the harbour in Vathy, as it has since the Palace of the Princes was levelled and replaced by the Hotel Xenia.

A narrow laneway beside the convent leads to the island’s only Roman Catholic church, almost hidden and open only occasionally to serve the members of a dwindling minority and some tourists. Few of these tourists probably ponder Pythagoras and John the Divine or their insights on the wonders of the cosmos as they try to “fill high the cup of Samian wine” and watch it spill over the sides of the Pythagorean cup.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin

Smyrna: city of martyrs and massacres

Pasaport Quay in Izmir is urbane and relaxed today ... It is difficult to imagine that this was the scene of a major disaster in 1922 (Photograph: Dario Moreno)

Patrick Comerford

I’m spending this week in the Aegean, hoping for a few days of well-deserved Mediterranean sunshine in western Anatolia and on the island of Samos.

This is my third or fourth holiday in these parts of Greece and Turkey, based in Kuşadasi. Although, in many ways, it is a brash, modern resort, the facilities are good, and Kusadasi provides a good base for exploring some fascinating classical and biblical sites: both İzmir and Kuşadasi are within easy access of places such as Ephesus, Pergamum and Sardis, Pamukkale, Hierapolis and Laodecia, Priene, Miletus and Didyma.

I flew in early on Monday morning [24 August] to the very modern Adnan Menderes Airport in İzmir. With a population of over 2.6 million people, İzmir is Turkey’s third most populous city and the country’s largest port after Istanbul.

İzmir, which has almost 3,500 years of urban history, has been described by many writers as “the Pearl of the Aegean.” Victor Hugo once said: “Smyrne is a princess with her most beautiful small hat.” Although it was known to the Ottoman Turks as Gavur Izmir or “Infidel Izmir” and still suffers from what one author has described as the “sketchy understanding” of outsiders, many Turks today see it as one of their most progressive cities because of its modern values, the dynamic lifestyle, and the obvious gender equality among local people.

Sweet-smelling birthplace of Homer

According to local claims, Homer is said to have been born in Smyrna – although others say he was born on the nearby island of Chios. In classical Greece, this was Μύρρα (Mýrrha), and later Σμύρνα (Smýrna) or Σμύρνη (Smýrni). Some traditions link this name to Smyrna, an Amazon who seduced Theseus, leading him to name the city in her honour. Others link the name to the shrub or plant that gives us myrrh, the aromatic resin that was one of the gifts of the Magi to the Christ Child.

The Romans continued to use the name Smyrna. Other variants include Smirne (Italian), Esmirna (Spanish), Smyrne (French), and Izmir (Ladino). In English, the city was known as Smyrna until the 20th century. Today’s İzmir is simply a modern Turkish adaptation of the Armenian version of the same name.

The city is one of the oldest settlements in the Mediterranean basin. Recent excavations suggest this place may have been first inhabited some time between 6500 and 4000 BC, and the finds include several graves with artefacts from about 3000 BC. A place named Ti-smurna appears in Assyrian records from the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, although it is not certain whether this refers to İzmir, and by 1500 BC, the region had fallen under the influence of the Hittites.

The most important sanctuary in Old Smyrna was the Temple of Athena, dating from ca 640-580 BC. By then, Smyrna was an important urban, trading centre and Smyrna was added to the twelve Ionian cities, becoming the thirteenth city and one of the most prominent cultural and commercial centres in the Mediterranean basin.

Under the Romans, Smyrna vied with Ephesus for the title of First City of Asia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After Smyrna capitulated to the Lydians, the vengeful Persians subsequently destroyed old Smyrna, but Alexander the Great later rebuilt the city when he had defeated the Persians. Under later Roman rule, Smyrna enjoyed a second golden period. As one of the principal cities of Roman Asia, Smyrna vied with Ephesus and Pergamum for the title “First City of Asia.”

A suffering early Church

In New Testament times, Smyrna was one of seven churches of Asia addressed in the Book of Revelation. The Book of Revelation tells us the Church in Smyrna was poor and the Christians of Smyrna were suffering persecution (Revelation 2: 9). But – in contrast to the other six churches – nothing negative is said about the Church of Smyrna. But they were told their persecution would continue and they are urged: “Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2: 10) – the persecution continued into the 2nd century.

Tradition says Saint John the Divine appointed Polycarp as Bishop of Smyrna. Saint Ignatius of Antioch visited Smyrna and later wrote letters to, Polycarp, who was martyred in 153 or 155 AD. Saint Irenaeus, who heard Polycarp as a boy, was probably a native of Smyrna. In Polycarp’s days, Smyrna had a population of 100,000, but an earthquake razed the city to the ground in 178 AD, and imperial funds and support were needed to rebuild the city. Tertullian traced the Church in Smyrna to the Apostles, Saint John and Polycarp and counted the it as one of only two churches that had a recorded and historic apostolic succession.

The Turks first captured Smyrna in 1076 under the Seljuk commander Caka Bey, who used Smyrna as a base for naval raids. After his death in 1102, the city returned to Byzantine rule, but a century later it was captured by the Knights of Rhodes when Constantinople was conquered by the Crusaders in 1204. Until the 13th century, Smyrna remained one of the largest cities in our civilisation. It was recaptured in the early 14th century by the Turks under Umur Bey, who used the city as a base for naval raids. In 1344, the Genoese took back the castle, but Smyrna was captured by the Ottomans in 1389.

Fleeing the Spanish inquisition, Ladino-speaking Jews first arrived in Smyrna around 1492, and the city became one of their principal centres in the Ottoman Empire. The emergence of Smyrna as a major international port in the 17th century was helped by its attraction to foreigners and its European cultural attractions. In 1620, privileged trading conditions were granted to foreigners, foreign consulates and trade centres were established along the quays, and within time the city a large population that included French, English, Dutch and Italian merchants, living alongside large communities of Greeks, Armenians and Jews.

Massacre of Greek population

But Smyrna was a predominantly Greek city in the first three decades of the early 20th century, with Greek-speaking people making up perhaps 70% of the population. And so it seemed appropriate after Ottoman Turkey’s defeat in World War I that Smyrna – along with large parts of Anatolia and western Turkey – was placed under Greek rule according to the terms of the Treaty of Sevres, and on 15 May 1919 the Greek army moved into Smyrna, but the subsequent Greek expedition into central Anatolia turned into a disaster for both Greece and for the local Greek people in Turkey.

The Turkish army captured Smyrna on 9 September 1922, putting an end to the three-year war between Greece and Turkey. When the Turks took Smyrna, they proclaimed a jihad and the atrocities against the Greek and Armenian communities began immediately. The Orthodox Metropolitan Chrysostomos was murdered and as many as 100,000 Armenian and Greek Christians were slaughtered throughout the city.

The fire that broke out in Smyrna on 13 September 1922, four days after the capture of the city, is one of the greatest disasters in Greek and Turkish history. The city became the scene of the worst Turkish excesses against the Greek population of Anatolia, and most of the city was burned to the ground in a fire that raged for days. As thousands of Christians were murdered, allied ships in the harbour stood idly by and for three days refused the pleas for safe passage for a quarter of a million refugees huddled in terror on the quayside.

The New York Times, in a report on 18 September 1922 headed “Smyrna’s ravagers fired on Americans,” documented the relentless destruction of the Christian quarters of the city and the massacre of Christians by Turkish troops. US soldiers and volunteers were attacked when they tried to help Armenians and Greeks. Other contemporary reports put the death toll at over 100,000. In the Armenian quarter alone, the 25,000 residents were systematically butchered and then the streets and houses were set aflame to incinerate any lingering survivors.

In desparation, many jumped into the waters they escape their pursuers and drowned before the eyes of the very people who had the means to rescue them.

Waiting Greeks on the dockside were denied access to allied ships in the harbour ... many jumped into the water and drowned in a vain effort to escape the massacre (Photograph: Benaki Museum, Athens)

On board the British, French and US ships, military bands played loud music to drown out the screams of the huddled, pleading and drowning Greeks and Armenians. Eventually, when they allowed Christians on board, they excluded all males between the ages of 17 and 45 years old.

About 400,000 Greek and Armenian refugees from Smyrna and the surrounding area received Red Cross aid immediately after the destruction of the city. In all, about 1.5 million Greek refugees from the region arrived in Greece in the weeks that followed.

The 42-hectare Kültürpark was laid out on the ruins of the Greek quarter of Smyrna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Modern İzmir was built from scratch on the ashes of the despoiled and ravaged city, and the 30-hectare Kültürpark was laid out on the ruins of the Greek quarter in the heart of the city. Today’s city is predominantly Muslim, although İzmir is still home to Turkey’s second largest Jewish community. They are 2,500 strong, and there are nine synagogues in the city. The Levantines of İzmir, are mostly of Genoese, French and Venetian descent.

Surprisingly, İzmir has a tiny Greek minority today. The few thousand Greek Orthodox inhabitants are descendants of the handful of Greeks who held British or Italian passports in 1922 and decided to stay on. It is said too that the descendants of many of Smyrna’s exiled Greeks still legally hold the title to much of the land in prosperous suburbs such as Karşıyaka, once known as Peramos (Πέραμος). But most of Smyrna's Greeks settled in places that took names such as Nea Smyrna (Νέα Σμύρνη) in Athens.

A forgotten past?

Nothing is left of the Hellenistic and Roman cities that once stood here, apart from the Agora, dating from the 2nd century BC. The Agora of Smyrna is well preserved. However, other important historical remains are still buried under modern buildings, including the ancient theatre of Smyrna where Polycarp was martyred.

The Agora is all that survives of Classical Smyrna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Agora was closed to visitors since 2003 to facilitate a 25-year restoration programme. However, a few years ago the staff kindly showed me the basilica and the Western Stoa with its colonnade of 14 Corinthian columns, and they allowed me to wander through the site, where fresh water still runs through the ancient ducts and channels.

To the north of the Agora, in the heart of the city, the Kültürpark, which is the host next month to the İzmir International Fair, is a vast area of over 42 hectares in the heart of the city. It includes open-air theatres, a Painting and Sculpture Museum, art centres, an amusement park, a zoo and a parachute tower. But strolling around it today, there are no signs that this was once a thriving Greek city, with a Greek-speaking population whose story goes back to the days of Homer.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin