Troas Tenedos. 550-470 BC.Hemiobol Axe. Ancient Greek

Description: Tenedos(Greek:,Tenedhos,Latin:Tenedus), orBozcaadainTurkish, is an island ofTurkeyin the northeastern part of theAegean Sea. Prehistory Archeological findings indicate that the first human settlement on the island dates back to theEarly Bronze Age II(ca. 30002700 BC). Archaeological evidence suggests the culture on the island had elements in common with the cultures of northwesternAnatoliaand theCycladic Islands.[16]Most settlement was on the small bays on the east side of the island which formed natural harbours. Settlement archaeological work was done quickly and thus did not find definitive evidence of grape cultivation on the island during this period. However, grape cultivation was common on neighboring islands and the nearby mainland during this time. According to a reconstruction, based on the myth of Tenes,Walter Leafstated that the first inhabitants of the island could bePelasgians, who were driven out of the Anatolian mainland by thePhrygians.According to the same author, there are possible traces ofMinoanandMycenaean Greekinfluence in the island. Neoptolemusstayed two days at Tenedos, following the advice ofThetis, before he go to the land of theMolossianstogether withHelenus. Neoptolemusstayed two days at Tenedos, following the advice ofThetis, before he go to the land of theMolossianstogether withHelenus. Ancient Tenedos is referred to in Greek and Roman mythology, and archaeologists have uncovered evidence of its settlement from the Bronze Age. It would stay prominent through the age of classical Greece, fading by the time of the dominance ofancient Rome. Although a small island, Tenedos's position in the straits and its two harbors made it important to theMediterraneanpowers over the centuries. For nine months of the year, the currents and the prevailing wind, theetesian, came, and still come, from theBlack Seahampering sailing vessels headed for Constantinople. They had to wait a week or more at Tenedos, waiting for the favorable southerly wind. Tenedos thus served as a shelter and way station for ships bound for theHellespont,Propontis,Bosphorus, and places farther on. Several of the regional powers captured or attacked the island, including theAthenians, the Persians, theMacedoniansunderAlexander the Great, theSeleucidsand theAttalids.MythologyEdit Homer mentionsApolloas the chief deity of Tenedos in his time. According to him, the island was captured byAchillesduring the siege ofTroy.[21]Nestorobtained his slaveHecamedethere during one of Achilles's raids. Nestor also sailed back from Troy stopping at Tenedos and island-hopping to Lesbos.[22]The Odysseymentions the Greeks leaving Troy after winning the war first traveled to nearby Tenedos, sacrificed there,[20]and then went to Lesbos before pausing to choose between alternative routes.[23] Homer, in theIliadmention that between Tenedos andImbrosthere was a wide cavern, in whichPoseidonstayed his horses.[24][25] Virgil, in theAeneid, described theAchaeanshiding their fleet at the bay of Tenedos, toward the end of the Trojan War, to trickTroyinto believing the war was over and allowing them to take theTrojan Horsewithin Troy's city walls. InAeneid, it is also the island from which twin serpents came to kill the Trojan priestLaoconand his sons as punishment for throwing a spear at the Trojan Horse.[26]According toPindar(Nemean Odes no. 11), the island was founded after the war by bronze-clad warriors fromAmyklai, traveling withOrestes.[27] According to myth,Teneswas the son ofCycnus, himself the son ofPoseidonand Calyce. Philonome, Cycnus's second wife and hence Tenes's stepmother, tried to seduce Tenes and was rejected. She then accused him of rape leading to his abandonment at sea along with his sister. They washed up on the island of Leucophrys where he was proclaimed king and the island renamed Tenedos in his honor. When Cycnus realized the lie behind the allegations he took a ship to apologize to his son. The myths differ on whether they reconciled.[28]According to one version, when the father landed on the island of Tenedos, Tenes cut the cord holding his boat. The phrase 'hatchet of Tenes' came to mean resentment that could not be soothed.[29]Another myth had Achilles landing on Tenedos, while sailing fromAulisto Troy. There his navy stormed the island, and Achilles fought Tenes, in this myth a son of Apollo, and killed him, not knowing Tenes's lineage and hence unaware of the danger of Apollo's revenge. Achilles would also later kill Tenes's father, Cycnus, at Troy.[30]InSophocles'sPhiloctetes, written in 409 BC, a serpent bit Philoctetes in the foot at Tenedos. According toHyginus, the goddessHera, upset with Philoctetes for helpingHercules, had sent the snake to punish him. His wound refused to heal, and the Greeks abandoned him, before going back to him for help later during the attack on Troy.[31]Athenaeusquoted Nymphodorus's remarks on the beauty of the women of Tenedos.[25] Callimachustalked of a myth in which Ino's son Melikertes washed up dead in Tenedos after being thrown into the sea by his mother, who killed herself too; the residents, Lelegians, built an altar for Melikertes and started a ritual of a woman sacrificing her infant child when the town's need was dire. The woman would then be blinded.[32]The myths also added that the custom was abolished when Orestes' descendants settled the place.[33] Neoptolemusstayed two days at Tenedos, following the advice ofThetis, before he go to the land of theMolossianstogether withHelenus.[34] Archaic period It was at Tenedos, along with Lesbos, that the first coins with Greek writing on them were minted.[35]Figures of bunches of grapes and wine vessels such asamphoraeandkantharoiwere stamped on coins.[36]The very first coins had a twin head of a male and a female on the obverse side.[37]The early coins were of silver and had a double-headed axe imprinted on them.Aristotleconsidered the axe as symbolizing the decapitation of those convicted of adultery, a Tenedian decree.[38]The axe-head was either a religious symbol or the seal of a trade unit of currency.[39]Apollo Smintheus, a god who both protected against and brought about plague, was worshipped in late Bronze Age Tenedos.[40]Strabo's Geography writes that Tenedos "contains anAeoliancity and has two harbours, and a temple of Apollo Smintheus" (Strabo's Geography, Vol. 13). The relationship between Tenedos and Apollo is mentioned in Book I of the Iliad where a priest calls to Apollo with the name "O god of the silver bow, that protectest Chryse and holy Cilla and rulest Tenedos with thy might"(IliadI).[41] During the later part of the Bronze Age and during theIron Age, the place served as a major point between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Homer'sIliadmentions the Tenedos of this era. The culture and artisanship of the area, as represented by pottery and metal vessels recovered from graves, matched that of the northeastern Aegean. Archaeologists have found no evidence to substantiate Herodotus's assertion Aeolians had settled in Tenedos by the Bronze Age. Homer mentions Tenedos as a base for the Achaean fleet during the Trojan war.[42] The Iron Age settlement of the northeast Aegean was once attributed to Aeolians, descendants ofOrestesand hence of theHouse of AtreusinMycenae, from across the Aegean fromThessaly,BoiotiaandAkhaia, all in mainland Greece.Pindar, in his 11th Nemean Ode, hints at a group ofPeloponnesians, the children of the fighters at Troy, occupying Tenedos, with Orestes, the son ofAgamemnon, landing straight on the island; specifically he refers to a Spartan Peisandros and his descendant Aristagoras, with Peisandaros having come over with Orestes.Straboplaces the start of the migration sixty years after the Trojan war, initiated by Orestes's son, Penthilos, with the colonization continuing onto Penthilos's grandson.[35] The archaeological record provides no supporting evidence for the theory of Aiolian occupation. During the pre-archaic period, adults in Lesbos were buried by placing them in large jars, and later clay coverings were used, similar to WesternAsia Minor. Still later, Tenedians began to both bury and cremate their adults in pits buttressed with stone along the walls. Children were still buried covered in jars. Some items buried with the person, such as pottery, gifts and safety-pin-like clasps, resemble what is found in Anatolia, in both style and drawings and pictures, more than they resemble burial items in mainland Greece.[35] While human, specifically infant, sacrifice has been mentioned in connection with Tenedos's ancient past, it is now considered mythical in nature. The hero Paleomon in Tenedos was worshipped by a cult in that island, and the sacrifices were attributed to the cult.[43]At Tenedos, people did sacrifice a newborn calf dressed inbuskins, after treating the cow like a pregnant women giving birth; the person who killed the calf was then stoned and driven out into a life on the sea.[33]According to Harold Willoughby, a belief in the calf as a ritual incarnation of God drove this practice.[44] Classical periodEdit From the Archaic to Classical period, the archaeological evidence of well-stocked graves establishes Tenedos's continuing affluence. Tall, broad-mouthed containers show grapes and olives were likely processed during this time. They were also used to bury dead infants. By the fourth century BC, grapes and wine had become relevant to the economy of the island. Tenedians likely exported surplus wine. Writings from this era talk of a shortage of agricultural land, indicating a booming settlement. A dispute with the neighboring island ofSigeumwas arbitrated by Periander ofCorinth, who handed over political control of a swath of the mainland to Tenedos. In the first century BC this territory was eventually incorporated intoAlexandria Troas.[45] According to some accounts,Thalesof Greece died in Tenedos.Cleostratus, an astronomer, lived and worked in Tenedos, though it is unknown whether he met Thales there. Cleostratus is one of the founders of Greek astronomy, influenced as it was by the reception of Babylonian knowledge.[46]Athens had a naval base on the island in the fifth and fourth century BC.DemosthenesmentionsApollodorus, atrierarchcommanding a ship, talking of buying food during a stopover at Tenedos where he would pass the trierarchy to Polycles.[20]In 493 BCE, the Persians overran Tenedos along with other Greek islands.[47]During his reign,Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, sent a Macedonian force sailing against the Persian fleet. Along with other Aegean islands such as Lesbos, Tenedos also rebelled against the Persian dominance at this time.[48]Athens seemingly augmented its naval base with a fleet at the island around 450 BC.[20] During the campaign of Alexander the Great against the Persians,Pharnabazus, the Persian commander, laid siege to Tenedos with a hundred ships and eventually captured it as Alexander could not send a fleet in time to save the island. The island's walls were demolished and the islanders had to accept the old treaty with the Persian emperorArtaxerxes II: the Peace of Antalcidas.[49]Later, Alexander's commanderHegelochus of Macedoncaptured the island from the Persians.[50]Alexander made an alliance with the people in Tenedos in order to limit the Persian naval power.[51]He also took on board 3000 Greek mercenaries and oarsmen from Tenedos in his army and navy.[52] The land was not suitable for large-scale grazing or extensive agriculture. Local grapes and wines were mentioned in inscriptions and on coins. But Pliny and other contemporary writers did not mention grapes and wines at the island. Most exports were via sea, and both necessities and luxuries had to imported, again by sea.[20]Unlike in Athens, it is unclear whether Tenedos ever had a democracy.[53]Marjoram(Oregano) from Tenedos was one of the relishes used in Greek cuisine.[54]The Tenedians punished adulterers by cutting off their heads with an axe.[55]Aristotle wrote about the social and political structure of Tenedos.[21]He found it notable a large part of the populace worked in occupations related to ferries, possibly hundreds in a population of thousands.[20]Pausaniasnoted some common proverbs in Greek originated from customs of the Tenedians. "He is a man of Tenedos" was used to allude to a person of unquestionable integrity, and "to cut with the Tenedian axe" was a full and final 'no'.[56]Lykophron, writing in the second century BC, referred to the deity Melikertes as the "baby-slayer".[32]Xenophondescribed theSpartans' sacking the place in 389 BC, but being beaten back by anAthenianfleet when trying again two years later.[20] InPeriplus of Pseudo-Scylaxwrites that the astronomer Kleostratos (Ancient Greek:) was from Tenedos Roman periodEdit During the Roman occupation of Greece, Tenedos too came under their rule. The island became a part of the Roman Republic in 133 BC, whenAttalus III, the king of Pergamon, died, leaving his territory to the Romans.[20]The Romans constructed a new port atAlexandria Troas, on the Dardanelle Strait. This led to Tenedos's decline.[59]Tenedos lost its importance during this period.Virgil, inAeneid, stated the harbour was deserted and ships could not moor in the bay during his time. Processing of grapes seems to have been abandoned. Olive cultivation and processing did possibly continue, though there was likely no surplus to export. Archaeological evidence indicates the settlement was mostly in the town, with only a few scattered sites in the countryside.[60] According toStrabothere was a kinship between the peoples of Tenedos andTenea(a town atCorinth).[61] According toCiceroa number of deified human beings were worshipped in Greece: in Tenedos there wasTenes.[62] Pausanias, mention at his workDescription of Greecethat Periklyto, who was from Tenedos, has dedicated some axes atDelphoi.[63] During theThird Mithridatic War, in around 73 BC, Tenedos was the site of a large naval battle between Roman commanderLucullusand the fleet of theking of Pontus,Mithridates, commanded by Neoptolemus. ThisBattle of Tenedoswas won decisively by the Romans.[64]Around 8175 BC,Verres, legate of the Governor ofCilicia, Gaius Dolabella, plundered the island, carrying off the statue of Tenes and some money.[20]Towards 6 BC, geographical change made the mainland port less useful, and Tenedos became relevant again.[59]According toDio ChrysostomandPlutarch, Tenedos was famous for its pottery ca AD 100.[65]Under Rome's protection, Tenedos restarted its mint after a break of more than a century. The mint continued with the old designs, improving on detail and precision.[66]Cicero, writing in this era, noted the temple built to honor Tenes, the founder whose name the island received, and of the harsh justice system of the populace.

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