Sailing in the Aegeanwith History at the helm

© INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH / NATIONAL HELLENIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION

48 Vassileos Constantinou Ave., 116 35 Athens, GreeceT. +30.210.72.73.554 F. +30.210.72.46.212 E-mail : iie@eie.gr

ISBN 978-960-9538-31-2INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH / NHRF

ISBN 978-618-81781-1-3PIRAEUS PORT AUTHORITY

NATIONAL HELLENIC RESEARCH FOUNDATIONINSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH

PIRAEUS PORT AUTHORITY

Sailing in the Aegeanwith History at the helm

Edited by Eugenia Drakopoulou – Dimitris Dimitropoulos

Translated by Deborah Brown Kazazis

ATHENS 2015

CONTENTS

foreword Yiorgos Anomeritis, Chairman and CEO of Piraeus Port Authority SA ..... 9

foreword Taxiarchis Kolias, Director, Institute of Historical Research .................... 11

introductory note Eugenia Drakopoulou – Dimitris Dimitropoulos ...................................... 13

Angelos Chaniotis Piraeus. A Cypriot merchant arrives in Pericles’ Piraeus ............................ 17

Eftychia D. LiataNafplio. Fortress-state – painting, song, and history ................................... 31

Kostas G. Tsiknakis Chania. The dilemma ..................................................................................... 45

Eugenia Drakopoulou Rethymno. A late sixteenth-century painters’ workshop ............................ 59

Angeliki Panopoulou Heraklion. The Admiral ................................................................................. 71

Anna Michailidou Santorini. The dream of Epiphanes from Santorini ..................................... 83

Dimitris Dimitropoulos Mykonos. On Mykonos at the dawn of the 18th century ............................ 95

8 CONTENTS

Yiorgos Anomeritis Naxos. The arrival of the governor’s daughter in the port of Naxos and her marriage in the Castle ............................................................................ 105

Christos Loukos Syros. Days of revolt in Hermoupolis on Syros (1862) .............................. 119

Marina Loukaki Paros. The hermit woman ............................................................................ 133

Eugenia Drakopoulou Melos. Maritsa of Melos ............................................................................... 143

Efthymios Nikolaidis Rhodes. (Hi)story of a shipwreck ................................................................ 155

Harikleia Papageorgiadou Kos. Casa Romana ....................................................................................... 167

Zisis Melissakis Patmos. What thou seest, write in a book .................................................. 179

Katerina Dermitzaki Chios. Chiot reminiscences .......................................................................... 191

Panagiotis D. Michailaris Lesbos. The last of the Gattilusi remembers ............................................... 205

Dina Moustani Volos. The reception of the King .................................................................. 217 Anastasia Tourta Thessaloniki. Vignettes of Thessaloniki, mid-September 1353 ................. 229

The contributors to the volume .................................................................... 245

Forewordby the Chairman and CEO of Piraeus Port Authority SA

2015 is a significant year for the Port of Piraeus, the Greek port system, and for Greek shipping, a worldwide leader in the field. This is, first, because European Maritime Day will be celebrated this year in Piraeus, and secondly, because the General Assembly and annual Conference of the European Port Authorities (ESPO) will also be convening in Piraeus.

Ports are engines of development for every country’s economy, and they play an important role in the expansion of the European economy, given that 90% of third-country transport to and from Europe is by ship.

From ancient times, ports were places where a multitude of activities were conducted, and important cities rose up around them. It is no accident that the great cities in world history were built on the banks of rivers and on sixteen seacoasts, lending strength and power to cities and states through transport and trade.

But ports were also bearers of culture with multicultural characteristics, given that their operation and the ships they served were based on a mix of many ethnic groups, religions, and knowledge.

Ports were the open gates to the entrance and exit not only of goods, but also of ideas. Along with the development of mathematics and astronomy, naval technology, seafaring, and cartography were among the first scientific fields that boosted navigation.

Today, when the rules of competitiveness, transparency, environmental protection, security, and the quality of services reign preeminent in European port policies, in addition to corporate social responsibility and a respect for the local and regional authorities of port cities, it is our duty to promote culture and cultural activities within the land areas of our ports.

10 FOREWORD

In these volumes, entitled Sailing in the Aegean / Ionian with History at the Helm, which are being published on the occasion of the two above-noted events, the National Hellenic Research Foundation’s Institute of Historical Research has prepared with its usual high sense of responsibility a superb journey through myths and events in Greece’s ports, demonstrating once again their historical role in the country’s development and culture.

Yiorgos Anomeritis

Forewordby the Director of the Institute of Historical Research

The main part of the Greek mainland and the islands of the archipelago to the East and of the Ionian Islands to the West which surround it have many ports, ports which from antiquity down to the present play a critical role in the movement of people, goods, ideas and culture generally.

Dealing with the history of the Greek ports is at one and the same time the study of one of our oldest civilizations. A simple visit to Greece’s main-land or island ports is sufficient to stimulate an interest in investigating their past and following their development over the course of centuries.

The Institute of Historical Research, the chief body for carrying out organized and targeted historical research on Greece and which emerged from the uniting of three established institutes of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (Greek and Roman Antiquity, Byzantine Research, Modern Greek Research) two years ago, within the framework of its poli-cy of approaching the wider society, in parallel with and through its main work, gladly assumed the role of “helmsman” to this history of Greek ports.

Knowing that the Chairman and CEO of the Piraeus Port Authority, Mr. Yiorgos Anomeritis, is particularly interested in culture, our Institute pro-posed the publication of two volumes devoted to the ports of the Aegean Sea and Ionian Sea, respectively. Eugenia Drakopoulou, research director at the Institute of Historical Research –who had the initial idea– collaborated with her colleague and fellow Institute research director Dimitris Dimitropoulos to form a team of scholars –historians, philologists, and archaeologists– to write the texts. The fact that contributors came not only from the Institute of Historical Research, but from universities and Ephorates of Antiquities throughout Greece ensured both a broad chronological framework and multidisciplinarity. The texts, which combine documented historical

12 FOREWORD

knowledge with free narrative and literary inspiration, are addressed in an original and comprehensible way to the wider public visiting the Greek ports.

We hope that the present volume will become a travelers’ vade mecum.

Taxiarchis Kolias

Introductory note

History as it actually happened and fiction as History which might have happened are the protagonists in this volume. Thus, we have eighteen destinations and eighteen actual histories and fictions-as-history dealing with the ports of the Aegean. Today, these ports are reception centers for travelers, constituting open gateways to the Aegean’s natural beauty and to its products, culture, and history.

The Aegean Island region and its neighboring coasts form a geographic entity defined by the sea. The area’s main characteristic is its fragmentation into dozens of larger and smaller inhabited islands, and hundreds of islets or uninhabited skerries as well as towns and coastal settlements which rep-resent the termination of continental inland regions, among which com-munication was for centuries preferentially conducted by ship. The history of the Aegean’s residents is one of a continuous struggle to tame geography, to overcome the obstacles posed by the sea, and to transform difficulty into power, communication, and wealth.

Beyond the general features of insularity, the historical fortunes and par-ticular traits of each island –terrain, size, distance from neighboring main-land coasts– were constants in life which decisively influenced residential settings, social structures, and the economic framework for the functioning of island and coastal societies. Within this context, the ports –i.e., organized mooring installations in some large cities as well as small piers with make-shift warehouses, a few houses, and humble infrastructure, or even leeward bays where sailboats moored– formed an invisible but strong communica-tions and contacts network, and a key factor for economic development.

It was in searching out this history, not as a successive narrative of events and eras but as a flash of illumination on important or insignificant moments from the history of specific places, that we started this undertaking. As re-gards the style of writing and approach to various places, we attempted an ex-periment. Authors were asked to choose a topic anchored in a place and port,

14 INTRODUCTORY NOTE

and to tell a story, that is, to recreate an incident involving “major” or “minor” history as they themselves would consider it most attractive and appropriate –i.e., by employing traditional historiographical narrative or fiction– but with a commitment to scholarly validity and documentation.

Our decision to respect authors’ preferences not only as regarded style and the immediacy of the narrative, but also with respect to spelling and punctuation, method of bibliographical documentation, and illustration was deemed necessary, since this endeavor was for us all an experiment which required freedom of choice.

In any case, the ultimate objective of our effort was not so much for readers to enrich their encyclopedic knowledge as it was for them to catch a whiff of vibrant moments from the past, to absorb something of an era’s atmospheric quality, especially if the volume happens to be accompanying them during a tour of the Aegean. For this reason, we sought a chronologi-cal span for the texts hosted in the volume that would extend from prehis-toric times to more recent ones. As regards its spatial development, the volume follows that of the ports visited by today’s travelers.

Earlier we spoke of a publication experimental in its conception, and this increased the risks of an undertaking which in one way or another had its own idiosyncrasies. It required the participation of a large number of scholars coming from different specializations as well as collaboration by a public research institution with a major company on a shared program of mutual interest. We believe that the outstanding ensuing collaboration offers tangible proof that collaborations between research foundations and businesses are both feasible and productive even in the humanities, which are often (and with inexcusable levity) reproached as being economically unprofitable. And it is especially enterprises like the Piraeus Port Authority, which by virtue of their position and size play a crucial public role, which can assume the responsibility for interventions that while not directly prof-itable, represent an investment in longer-term interventions that can con-tribute generally to an improvement in the quality of services offered.

It is of course for readers to judge the final result. For our part, we feel the obligation to offer the many thanks owed to the many individuals whose contributions made this publication possible within a scant twelve months.

SAILING IN THE AEGEAN 15

First, we owe wholehearted thanks to the Chairman and CEO of the Piraeus Port Authority, SA, Mr. Yiorgos Anomeritis, who along with his long service in politics and the administration of large public and private organizations is a lover of history and has authored a large number of studies, particularly on his native Cyclades. His immediate acceptance of our proposal, rapid implementation and active though discreet participa-tion throughout the project were decisive factors for both its start and completion. Thanks are also owed the PPA’s administration and the head of its historical archive, Manolis Georgoudakis, for their first-rate coop-eration.

The project was also exceptionally well-received by our own organiza-tion, the Institute of Historical Research and National Hellenic Research Foundation. And so we first extend warm thanks to the Director of the Institute of Historical Research, Professor Taxiarchis Kolias, who embraced the project and included it among the Institute’s activities. Thanks are also due for their support to the Director and Chairman of the NHRF Board of Directors, Dr. Vasileios Gregoriou, and to the foundation’s administrative services, especially Central Administration Director Ioanna Petrohilou. We are grateful to our colleague Ourania Polycandrioti for her substantial con-tribution to this edition. Katerina Dede has supported us in multiple ways–moreover, the “history” about Katakolo which she spontaneously narrated to us one midday while we were improvising, in search of a guiding “com-pass” for Sailing in the Aegean/ Ionian, persuaded us to launch the project. Konstantina Simonetatou readily and patiently contributed to the edition’s typographical appearance in both Greek and English; Dimitra Pelekanou did the cover design, Filippa Chorozi provided secretarial support and Evi Delli edited the English edition; our thanks go to each of them. The texts’ parallel translation into English for foreign visitors to the Aegean Islands presented its own challenges. Deborah Brown Kazazis, an experienced translator of historical and archaeological texts, carried out this difficult task with especial enthusiasm. We thank her for an admirable collabora-tion, together with Fanis Rigas, who volunteered to assist us in comparing the Greek and English texts.

We also thank the National Art Gallery of Greece for granting publi-cation rights to the photo of Vasileios Chatzis’ painting, as well as local

16 INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Ephorates of Antiquities for their ever-willing response to our search for photographic material.

Special thanks are owed to Konstantinos Banis for the original drawing accompanying the “history” of Kos, and to Michalis Andrianakis, Dimitris Georgopoulos, Aristea Gratsea, Zisis Melissakis, Aspasia Papadaki, Grigoris Markakis, Machi Marouda, Lemonia Chanaki, and Athina Chatzidimitriou for their photos of Chania, Nafplio, Heraklion, Syros, Rethymno, Paros, Melos, and Mykonos.

In closing this introductory note, we express our heartfelt gratitude to the authors who entrusted us with their texts: Yiorgos Anomeritis, Katerina Dermitzaki, Eftychia Liata, Marina Loukaki, Christos Loukos, Zisis Melissakis (who willingly made available his large photographic ar-chive), Panagiotis Michailaris, Anna Michailidou, Dina Moustani, Thymios Nikolaidis, Angeliki Panopoulou, Harikleia Papageorgiadou, Anastasia Tourta, Kostas Tsiknakis, and Angelos Chaniotis. Each writer met the strict time constraints imposed by the contractual obligations of this sui generis project, working with pleasure, creativity, and imagination on a publishing venture which required us all to surpass (and at the same time, safeguard) scholarly rigor in our narrating of incidents, phenomena, ways of thinking and social conditions in Aegean ports in a manner reflected by our sources.

Eugenia Drakopoulou – Dimitris Dimitropoulos

What thou seest, write in a book (Revelation 1:11)

Two dedicatory notes written in manuscript codices belonging to the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos in the 12th century and a few leaves of a catalogue of books that were saved by chance thanks to an 18th century bookbinder form the starting-point for the following narrative.

In June of 1180 AD (or otherwise, 6688 according to the Byzantines, who took the Creation as the beginning of their dating system), the elderly scholar-monk Neilos, hegumen of the Monastery of Artamiti on Rhodes, offered the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos two manuscripts he had written himself. About a century had passed since the monas-tery on Patmos was founded by Hosios Christodoulos (1088 AD), and despite incursions –by Turks in the beginning, then by Saracens from Spain and various pirates– the brotherhood was strong and numbered around 150 monks. It enjoyed privileges and tax exemptions granted by the Byzantine emperor, and pre-sented significant intellectual and spiritual flowering, attested by its still very rich library.

The above incident, and the painstaking organization of this Byzantine library so famous for its splendid manuscripts –an or-ganization well known from its first years of existence– served as a catalyst for the reconstruction of some moments from the life of an educated monk, a copyist of codices. All the moments de-scribed unfold in a fortress monastery, and specifically: its main rooms, which remain almost the same today as they were then; the chapel of Hosios Christodoulos, built into the monastery’s main church, its katholikon, and erected after his death (1093 AD) to house his marble sarcophagus; the adjacent long, narrow

Patmos

180 ZISIS MELISSAKIS

trapeza, the dining hall, built in the same era, with its two mar-ble tables for the monks’ meals still in use today, and of course its library, whose core collection was Hosios Christodoulos’ own books. The library’s exact original location remains unknown, though from the 16th century until recently, it was above the narthex of the katholikon.

The final episode in our story dates to around 1750, the period of Turkish occupation, an age when the monastery’s possessions (its dependencies, called metochia) were found throughout the Aegean and Ionian and even further afield, in modern-day Romania and Georgia. Despite difficulties, the monastery prospered at times, and from 1713 contributed to education with the founding of the Patmias School, which is still in operation.

June 1180 BCJune dawns are sweeter; the sun emerges quite early on the clear horizon, illuminating all of God’s peaceful creation after the upheaval of spring, and granting peace to whomever is blessed to discover this magical mo-ment.

But Neilos was indifferent. He had turned his elderly back to the sunrise, and stood on the opposite side of the deck, gazing intently at the island’s mountain massif which had begun to appear through the mist. The monas-tery’s boat, laden with goods of every sort, had for some time been sailing near the coast of Patmos, and with dawn’s first light he could make out high up on the summit what he had long been looking forward to seeing: the imposing fortress of the monastery, with a few houses around it. The fortress which Hosios Christodoulos had begun constructing with so much zeal about a century ago to protect his foundation but he left it unfinished when he was forced to take refuge on Euboea (Evia) under pressure from an incursion by the Turks, and it was completed later.

“May God forgive you, Kyr Christodoulos”, he mumbled. You left your kastellion, your fortress, unfinished, and I left my catalogue. But you estab-lished a mighty monastery, while I have just these two small books I bring to dedicate to your foundation. You were holy, while I am but a sinner and

PATMOS 181

chorikographos1, even if they call me a hegumen –as they called you–and that at the Monastery of the son of thunder2.

In point of fact, Neilos was not just any monk. A calligrapher, though not one of those reputed in his times –anything but– he also possessed a re-markable education, and was of course the hegumen of the old Monastery of Saint John Artamiti on Rhodes, which itself possessed a not-inconsiderable library. And yet, as he now drew near the monastery of the beloved disciple3 on Patmos, he felt small and insignificant, as he had then, sixty years ago when he was still young and came here uprooted from Patara in Lykia (in Asia Minor). He had received the monk’s tonsure and remained here for more than a decade, serving the coenobium in various areas of service, chiefly as a sec-retary, but also on occasion as a an ergocheirarios4, and even as a calligrapher, though an unsuccessful one. That at least was how he felt, and it pained him.

About sixty years earlier — Neilos, this job can’t be postponed, but there’s no margin for sloppi-

ness. Our founder wrote clearly before he “slept”5 that the ecclesiarch must receive the books after they have first been recorded6, and we haven’t done anything yet. He made such an effort to bring them from Latros to Patmos –you know how hard it is to save books when you feel the Turks breath-ing down your neck7– and then he went to the trouble of recording them;

1. An inexperienced scribe.2. The Disciples of Christ James and John were characterized in the New Testament

(Mark 3:17) as “sons of thunder” due to their quick tempers.3. That is, the Evangelist John (John the Theologian), who in the New Testament (see

John 19:26) is characterized as the disciple whom Christ loved. Exiled from Ephesus, in 95 AD John arrived on Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation and converted the island’s residents to Christianity. To honor him, Hosios Christodoulos founded the Monas-tery of Saint John on the island in 1088.

4. Ergocheirarioi were monks who practiced a craft (ergocheiro) to earn money, which they turned over to their monastery.

5. That is, before he died.6. The ecclesiarch (similar to the sacristan of a Western monastery) was one of the most

important people in a Byzantine monastery.7. That is, at the moment the Turks are pursuing you. The reference is to raids by the

Seljuk Turks, who in the second half of the 11th century had expanded to many areas of Asia Minor, including Latros, and, apparently, Patara in Lykia.

182 ZISIS MELISSAKIS

now, however, there are a great many more. Besides, it’s been so many years since the books of the elder Josef Iasitis were added to the collection, not to mention those that had been scattered and were found in the cell of the former oikonomos, the steward, when he had completed the full measure of his life8 and we emptied it out. In those days, they wrote them down at random—and since then, nothing. We need a regular, orderly record in a well-written book, as befits a monastery like ours, one that’s attempting not just to survive but to become famous.

— Your blessing, Kyr Savvas; you are the ecclesiarch and know best. But if we left those already recorded aside, perhaps we could inventory the re-mainder more quickly…

— Do as you’re told! Messiness and cursive writing suit you scribes, who copy rapidly and for personal use those wise texts of yours, or even docu-ments. But if you want to be called –and become– a real calligrapher, you have to write the way our forebears wrote the Gospel books and other sa-cred texts – young people can’t do it like that anymore. Writing rapidly fights time, but calligraphy withstands time’s tests. So get started, and write a book containing all the books you see in the library.

Neilos couldn’t stop thinking about the ecclesiarch’s words as he left the library and headed for his small cell. And they kept him awake all night. Well, yes – like nearly every educated man of his time he was in the habit of writing rapidly and carelessly, though he was acquainted with the beautiful, round writing in the codices. But it was rapid writing that he loved. He wasn’t good at calligraphy, and never would be. Besides, in the monastery he was useful for his swift writing for everyday secretarial purposes – even if Savvas pressured him to practice the art of book copying, given that there were so few such ergocheirarioi, who could bring money to the monastery with their work. He’d prefer the ecclesiarch had assigned this task to one of them.

He fell asleep thinking of all this, and was still thinking about it when he awoke –it was still night– for Vespers in the katholikon. However, perhaps because he was doing more thinking than praying, or perhaps for some other reason –how it happened, he wasn’t exactly sure–he finally found himself not exactly in the katholikon, but beside it, in the small, dark chapel

8. When he died.

PATMOS 183

of the saint, where the fathers had placed his sarcophagus a few years previ-ous. Neilos remained there alone with his worries for a long time, looking for a reason to come to terms with reality. He failed.

The next day, after the mass and the meal, he found himself in the monas-tery’s library near the katholikon, where he was accustomed to spend a good part of his time. It was a small space, sheltered and without much light –some thought it was a storage area for the old parchment codices– but it was so de-lightful! There were a few pieces of wooden furniture equipped with shelves for the books to lie flat on their backs, and scrolls9, another for the monas-tery’s old documents, a table, and a chair. Human presence was a rare and fleeting occasion here, since most of those looking for a spiritually uplifting book normally loaned them out to their cells. And then, for the manuscripts used every day in the Liturgy, there was a cabinet for storing them in the

9. This is the older form of book, a single, very long sheet (consisting of many sheets joined together), and rolled, without pagination or binding.

The Library of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian as it is today (photo: Zisis Melissakis).

184 ZISIS MELISSAKIS

katholikon. The most important books were also kept in the chapels of the Virgin and the saint, and calligraphers searching for an antivolon10 to copy would take a book to their workspace. This place could captivate only the scholar thirsty for genuine study, for reading and note-taking, and Neilos was such a man. Except that he wasn’t there now to immerse himself in his beloved texts, but to record them—as if he didn’t know them all—and in cal-ligraphic script, no less. The job seemed pointless and boring to him, as if the books had suddenly lost all their words apart from their titles.

But so be it. Somewhat reluctantly, he removed a codex from its shelf and set it on the small lectern atop a table. He then folded in two four large sheets of parchment –the fine, polished sheets, the expensive ones the monastery’s boat brought from Constantinople for the calligraphers– and placing one inside the other, he formed a quire11. He exhaled, set the leaves on his knees, and after sharpening his reed with his pocket-knife, he dipped it in ink and made as if to begin writing.

But he stopped before finishing even the first word. The ecclesiarch wanted a complete, calligraphic catalogue of the books, but as a secretary, Neilos understood that the volumes needed to be recorded in some sort of order, not as they were, piled up at random on the shelves; otherwise, they would know the treasures they held forever, but it would be difficult to find what one was looking for each time. Because the titles of the codices might be written in ink at the intersection of their leaves according to common practice, but how many times had not even he as well as the other fathers who were fond of reading had to search through nearly all of them until they found what they were looking for?

“That’s not at all a bad idea”, he thought, and rose to put the books in order. The Old and New Testaments, the Church Fathers, one place for the liturgical books, another for the music books, the Canon law books in an-other place, and in yet another the “profane” books12—the ancient authors, the philosophers, the poets… And since quite a few had lost their titles –probably at the hand of some blessed restorer who had pruned the end of

10. Th e original from which the desired work would be copied.. The original from which the desired work would be copied.11. Th e commonest core unit of a manuscript book, which consisted of many such “. The commonest core unit of a manuscript book, which consisted of many such “te-

tradia” (quaterniones= Eng. quires) and corresponding to the modern printer’s “octavo”. 12. I.e., books of non-Christian, secular content.. I.e., books of non-Christian, secular content.

PATMOS 185

the leaves to spruce them up before rebinding– Neilos set out to open them one by one and page through them, to browse, and gradually the job began to acquire interest. Now the manuscripts seemed to find their words once again, as the scholarly monk studied longer and longer sections. He soon began noting his thoughts on the margins, for no one was able to put a halt to this “bad” habit, no matter how many maledictions the books’ indignant owners added to their pages.

This intellectual pleasure might have continued all day had it not been interrupted after several hours by the sudden entrance of Savvas, coming to ask how the job was progressing. What a disappointment! In place of the entries in a well-advanced, well-written catalogue, he saw only a half-finished boo-, and even that had been half-erased by Neilos’ small knife so that it could be corrected when he’d finished putting the codices in order.

“Good heavens! Is that all you managed to do all these hours?”The young monk’s explanations were not enough to appease him. Yes,

certainly the arrangement of the volumes was useful, but that wasn’t the point here. The recording of the books’ titles should have proceeded apace and been finished by now. Of course he was very familiar with Neilos’ pas-sion for study, and would not have in any way permitted it to become a reason for disobedience. Disobedience? Knowledge was good, but didn’t the soul come first? For a moment Savvas was puzzled.

It was late, and Vespers would begin soon. The two men emerged in si-lence from the library and made their way to the katholikon. Truly, neither knew what exactly he should banish from the day just passed, nor what to request for the day to follow.

Early next morning, the common meal was as always a chance for a host of conversations amidst the total silence, disturbed only by the long drawn-out voice of the reader. Through silent mouths, behind lowered faces and in the presence of the incredible stories of unique and holy men recounted by the reading, gazes met to exchange news, ideas, comments, feelings. The ecclesiarch, seated as was proper next to the hegumen, appeared to be in no mood for conversation with anyone other than himself. His habitual stern expression still concealed the doubts of the previous day. At the other end of the table, the young Neilos was struggling with his own doubts, though his battle concerned the day to come.

186 ZISIS MELISSAKIS

Work in the library overrode all his concerns. Having managed to com-plete a satisfactory arrangement of quite a few volumes, Neilos set out to-day without delay to record them. To yesterday’s page with its half-finished word, he prefixed a clear title in red ink: The Old Testament, books containing only the text – and began where he’d left off: Book… but really, which book? What could he say about the manuscript in front of him, set on the lectern atop the table? That it contained Joshua and Judges and the four books of Kings, but was this enough? And if there were other such books –and surely there were– how would people distinguish them from the book he had be-fore him? But he was only puzzled for a moment, since the ecclesiarch had been clear from the outset: Whatever you see, write it in a book.

And so he wrote: a book containing Joshua, Judges and the four books of Kings. He finished and rose to bring the next book. But in the end he returned with empty hands and remained for a while looking at his de-scription. Was that all he saw on the lectern? No, he also saw many leaves of parchment, written on, sewn together and mounted on the wooden boards of the covers. Nevertheless, the soul of the books was their text, and it was the soul that had value; all else was to be rejected as perishable. Every volume in this library –apart from the profane books, of course– wrote this, and every monk awaited his final release from his corporeal

View of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian (photo: Zisis Melissakis).

PATMOS 187

body in this belief. And yet, Neilos now felt the body of the books bind-ing him, just as the flesh binds man. For they weren’t all exactly the same, and if he wanted to distinguish them, he had to describe their material substance. On the other hand, “Am I to become like those professional copyists who only care about high-quality parchment, beautiful letter-ing and artistic binding, without understanding what they’re writing?” he thought.

The practical problem of recording the books’ titles now began to ac-quire something like theological dimensions, and though Neilos was a scholar, his restless spirit was always searching out new roads in texts both sacred and profane. Body or not, he couldn’t ignore the appearance of the codices. And so he hastily erased all he’d written up to then, and this time he wrote everything he saw: a somatoon book – that’s how they used to call parchment – containing Joshua…The “body” was right there in front of him and he could no longer ignore it. And indeed, he soon discovered that he saw other things he needed to write in his book: Another book, monokai-ron, that is, written in minuscule13, to distinguish it from others written in majuscule, like that very old book of Job containing a wealth of miniatures; a book, vamvakeron (of cotton)14, that is, of paper, because for many years now people had been bringing paper from the East, though few were us-ing it yet. A book … bound in leather, since its wooden covering boards were leather-bound, as was standard practice. And soon, the Old Testament codices gave way to those of the New Testament, like that old, extremely luxurious Gospel, with its sheets dyed in porphyra and its gold lettering – a genuine rarity. And later, he came to the volumes containing the works of the Church Fathers, of course not forgetting that of Gregory the Theologian with its striking decoration, which everyone in the monastery knew had been written in Calabria. A large book, which…

For two days, Neilos recorded books in full detail. He examined each one carefully and at length to be certain there was no chance of it being confused with another. But his reed followed its usual rapid rhythm, even though he

13. In contrast to older manuscripts, which were written in majuscule (capital letters).. In contrast to older manuscripts, which were written in majuscule (capital letters).14. Th at is, on . That is, on charta Bombycina, a paper with a soft, cotton texture. This was the oldest

type of paper in Byzantium, and came from the Arab world.

188 ZISIS MELISSAKIS

hadn’t progressed very far, since each volume demanded prodigious atten-tion. Of course he tried to write in a regular hand with beautiful letters, but he just couldn’t avoid his habit of frequently abbreviating15 syllables or even entire words. Besides, no one rejected abbreviations –they were employed by the best calligraphers– provided of course that everyone could understand them. But when Savvas arrived at the end of the second day’s work to see if the inventory was proceeding according to his specifications, these minor infrac-tions were merely added to a greater one –Neilos hadn’t even noticed it at the time– and they provoked a new outburst from the ecclesiarch.

“Neilos, God forgive me but these three sheets I see here – they’re a well-written inventory of the books? What sort of calligrapher will you be when you forget to rule your pages before you start? Just look at how skewed the lines you’ve written are, and how unequal the distance between them is. And with so many abbreviations –and those improvised and incomprehensible– not even you will be able to read them. It looks like your efforts have once again been spent doing other things, which there’s no need for me to go in to now”.

Silence, one of the greatest virtues of every monk, prevailed henceforth. The young monk lowered his head and the ecclesiarch left in disappoint-ment after taking the pages and putting them with other scrap paper which they occasionally cut into strips to use for minor repairs to worn codices. It was obvious that the inventory would not be continued.

11 June 1180 AD I, Neilos, the inexperienced scribe and sinner, dedicated this book written

by myself to the Monastery of Patmos 16.Neilos’ aged hand stopped writing and he laid the reed on the table. He

had also finished the dedication of the second codex containing hymns to the Virgin Mary and John the Theologian, and he remained a few moments gazing at it. Oh well, so be it, he thought. A tiny, handy Missal and a Hymnal were always useful in a monastery, even if they’re not the finest specimens

15. A basic characteristic of Greek writing (and later, of printing) until the early 19th . A basic characteristic of Greek writing (and later, of printing) until the early 19th century was its large number of standardized abbreviations, which frequently replaced let-ters, syllables, or even entire words.

16. Th e original Greek: . The original Greek: Το παρόν γραφέν παρ’ εμού του χωρικού και αμαρτωλού Νείλου αφιέρωσα εν τη μονή της Πάτμου.

PATMOS 189

in a so illustrious library. The hegumen –they were of an age, he remembered him from when they were young– had thanked him warmly for these gifts. You see, he knew well Neilos’ worth, as well as his bitterness at never having become a great calligrapher. Whatever had become of those half-finished pages? Instinctively he turned his gaze towards where they used to put the worthless parchment, but he saw nothing except another piece of furniture containing books. He smiled, took reed in hand once more, and completed the dedication:

Not that the monastery did not have a book like this. Besides, what other monastery has more scribes and manuscript copyists? 11 June in the year 6888 (= 1180 AD), 13th indiction17.

Around 1750 ADThere is a special sense of time in monasteries. You may never know those

who have passed by there before you, but you can feel their breath every day: whether you want to or not, you look at the stones they matched for building as long as you live; the icons they once venerated and unintentionally smudged with their candles, you too will venerate and smudge; you will eat food from the same earth they dug up to plant and be nourished by. And if you are lucky, one day you’ll come upon the few and insignificant things they wrote, and that no one ever dared erase or throw away, no matter how useless they were.

“Your blessing, Father Athanasios. This morning we were emptying out some old storerooms and among other things, we found these worthless leaves of parchment. They may be useful to you, who struggle to renovate both cheirisia and stambisia18 books.

Athanasios was the monastery’s ecclesiarch; no one had ever seen him sit-ting without being engaged in doing something. The obligations of his service to the monastery were manifold –there were its many metochia throughout the Aegean and Ionian– but he was always in search of more to do. Indeed, during the past ten years he’d set out to try to preserve the monastery’s old books. “The school has been in operation on the island since 171319, it’s been

17. Original Greek: . Original Greek: Ουχ ως μη έχουσα τοιούτον. Πού γαρ άλλη πλέον έχει και γραμματικούς και καλλιγράφους μονή; Μηνί Ιουνίω ιαʹ, ινδικτιώνος ιγʹ, έτους ςχπηʹ.

18. Th at is, manuscripts and printed books.. That is, manuscripts and printed books.19. Th is is the Patmias School.. This is the Patmias School.

190 ZISIS MELISSAKIS

nearly forty years now” he was in the habit of saying, “but there will always be a need for books”. And so of an evening he would go up to the large space above the narthex, where the books had been stored for more than a century now, and pass his time endeavoring to bind some extremely old manuscript, or patch the paper leaves of another which had been consumed by bugs, or reinforce the quires of a third that were on the verge of falling apart.

And so tonight he had laid out a parchment “Chrysostom”20 and was redoing its binding. He put the sheets the novice had brought to one side together with other scrap materials he collected, but he soon took hold of them again when he came to adding some fly leaves at the end of the vol-ume. He chose four sheets of old parchment that had been written on from the pile, of about the size he wanted. He folded them in two and began to sew them into the body of the codex. How was it he came to stop and gaze briefly at the illegible words written on them in red ink? Books of the Old Testament containing only the text… They’d be the notes of some former brother toiling to gain an education. He then turned to the end and with difficulty discerned a single graceless stroke21:

† Savvas the professedly humble monk and ecc…22. The rest had been erased by time.

Selected bibliography The notes of Neilos on the two codices he dedicated to the monastery

on Patmos are published in A. D. Komines, Facsimiles of Dated Patmian Codices. With an Introduction by D. A. Zakythinos. English version by M. Naoumides, Athens 1970, 26-27, plates 16, 17.

For the architecture, wall paintings and heirlooms of the Patmos monas-tery, see the brochure: Patmos. Treasures of the Monastery. General editor A. D. Kominis. Translation by D. A. Hardy, Athens (Ekdotike Athenon) 1988.

Zisis Melissakis

20. A manuscript with parchment leaves containing the works of Saint John Chrysostom.. A manuscript with parchment leaves containing the works of Saint John Chrysostom.21. A word, or entire phrase, with its letters joined (written with a single movement, . A word, or entire phrase, with its letters joined (written with a single movement,

kondylia [stroke] of the hand).22. . Ecc = Ecclesiarch. This is a typical form of signature for Byzantine monks.

AIGEO_Cover-EN_dps.1-814.Patmos eng