THE SANCTUARY OF “APOLLON AEGILEAS” ON ANTIKYTHERA, GREECE PEOPLE AND MYTH ON THE CROSSROADS OF PIRACY AND CULT
THE SANCTUARY OF “APOLLON AEGILEAS” ON ANTIKYTHERA, GREECE PEOPLE AND MYTH ON THE CROSSROADS OF PIRACY AND CULT

Summary/Abstract: The sanctuary of “Apollon Aegileas” is located by the ancient port of the fortified Hellenistic city of Aegilia on Antikythera. The excavations of the last decade revealed the foundations of the Hellenistic temple, its altar, and the sanctuary’s peribolos. Several finds provide evidence about the history and cult of the island from the late 4th century BC into the 1st century BC. The sanctuary’s assemblage of pottery, coins, bronze and iron arrow heads, small statue fragments, roof tiles and fragments of colored wall-plaster throw light on the history and cultural associations of the sanctuary, particularly its close association with Crete. Here Apollo appears in his Cretan form as the god of sea rather than of sun, as well as an archer god of war rather than of music. The Cretan Apollo is peculiarly adapted to the life and world of a people who lived on the unstable margins of the Hellenistic and Roman world. For the people of Aegilia were pirates, like their compatriots on Crete during the Hellenistic period, and they would have had their own cultural world that moved in parallel to the kingdoms and republics of their time. On Antikythera, on a remote islet at the passage from the Aegean to the Western Mediterranean, myth is transformed through economy and the slavery trade, and Cretan pirates seem to connect Aegilia with the island of Delos and the cult of Delios Apollo.

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