Knidos: Where love came first

by İlknur Taş

photos/research: Recep Peker Tanıtkan

The coasts of the Aegean and Mediterranean have bid farewell to the last of their summer visitors. The days have shortened and the rains will come.  It is time for a favourite story - half-true, half-legend - to refresh summer memories, and warm the heart. A tale of ancient cities, courageous peoples and beautiful goddesses: the chronicle of Knidos.

“When still, greener than moss/Blue at every stroke.” So wrote poet Can Yücel of the waters of his beloved Datça peninsula, a narrow ridge which splits the Mediterranean to the South from the Aegean to the North. Aphrodite too swam here, the local people say, and who would argue? Shoreline and sea play out their eternal harmonies in curving bays to left and right of the ancient road. Turquoise depths, white foam and silver fish compete in perfect, ever-changing compositions.

At the end of the road, on the tip of the peninsula, is Knidos, sheltering in its ruins a host of legends and traces of all Western Anatolian history. At its peak, this now-crumbling but still impressive city may have been home to 80,000 souls. Its twin harbours facing opposite seas – and perhaps linked by a canal – provided services and shelter for all vessels in all weather. The winds which now cool the brows of tourists climbing the steep hillsides were the source and scourge of a thriving sea trade.

Famous citizens

Ceramics from the 13th and 14th centuries BCE have been found in the vicinity. But Knidos as such was originally established in the eighth century, at the point now known as ‘Old Knidos’, by Dorian migrants, who had started to arrive from the West via Rhodes and Simi some four centuries before. Its founders are reputed to have been the Spartan Triopias and Hippotas.

Documents dating from the seventh century onwards suggest that the city was developed, populous and rich. Illustrious citizens were to include the famous mathematician, astronomer and philosopher Eudoksos, sculptors Skopas and Bryaksis from Faros and Sostrates, the architect of the Alexandria Lighthouse.

The six great cities of the period convened around the cult of Apollo to form the Hexapolis. Halikarnassos withdrew; Knidos, Kos, Lindos, Kamiros and Lalysos remained.

The lion and the goddess

The first systematic excavations began thanks to Sir Charles Newton, who was working in Bodrum on behalf of the British Museum. Ottoman disinterest enabled the Museum to acquire some of the early findings, including a three-metre sculpture of a lion, which once decorated a tomb. The statue and other Knidos artefacts continue to amaze visitors to London. But the statue of a goddess known as the “naked Aphrodite” and referred to by Roman author Plinius, has yet to be found. Only its copies are extant.

The legend begins in the 4th century BCE, when famous sculptor Praxiteles receives an order from Kos for a statue of the goddess. Praxiteles presents two marble sculptures, of which one shows Aphrodite completely naked. Until then, sculptures of gods had depicted them naked, but goddesses had always been represented with a part of their bodies draped in cloth. The naked Aphrodite merely has one hand over her crotch; the other hand holds a cloth, but she is holding it away from her body. Kos opts for the classic statue, and poorer Knidos offers to buy the naked one. The eye-catching image is placed in the temple, where it can be seen from all directions – even from the decks of ships approaching the harbour.

Controversial excavations

The statue became the symbol of a port which made its living from selling goods and services to the ships and sailors that came and went – and from meeting their sexual requirements. Knidos became famous throughout its region as the “City of Love”. Erotic souvenirs were sold in the city in ancient times and can be seen in museums today.

The search for the elusive goddess led to controversy in 1977, when the permission toe excavate granted to American archaeologist Iris C. Love ten years earlier was cancelled, due to the allegation that other ruins had been destroyed in the search for the statue.

Love’s excavations brought to light the terraces in some parts of the city, residential areas, the “Circular Temple” – perhaps Aphrodite’s original setting – and the remains known as the Horses of Apollo and the Hellenistic Villa. Since 1996, excavations have been carried out in by Konya Selçuk University Lecturer Prof. Ramazan Özgan with support and backing from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Datça district governorate, the British Museum and Frankfurt University.

Seeing the sights

Knidos is still the first – or final - harbour in which small boats take shelter from storms when sailing to and fro between today’s Greek islands and the Anatolian coast. Nowadays, it can also be reached quite comfortably by road between almond orchards, olive groves and the ancient stones of its Necropolis. Do not rush to climb the steep terraces, but stop from time to time to take the sea view and inhale the sea air.

Like all ancient cities, Knidos has its own amphitheatre near the harbour - in fact it once had at least two. But the acoustics of the whole site are remarkable: sitting by the harbour wall, you can hear the voices of people sitting and talking way above.

The site includes four kilometres of city walls, 3-6 metres thick and built at various times over the past 2,400 years, over forty towers and turrets, various ancient streets and water works, several ancient temples as well as early Christian churches, the remains of a stoa said to be by Sostrates, a propylon gate and a bouleuterion or council hall complete with sundial. The statues, friezes, coins and other objects found at the site are not all in London: many can also be viewed in Marmaris museum.

Love or money

“Real democracy is in Knidos,” Aristotle would tell his students. Knidos’s wealth did not last for ever. The people of Knidos became poor and were forced to borrow from neighbouring states. Food was in short supply. And then the King of Bythnia made an offer. He would extend a helping hand, provide money and food and pay their debts. In return he asked for only one thing: their beloved goddess, Aphrodite.

Hungry and desperate, the people of Knidos were dismayed by the offer and split into two camps. A referendum would be held. Even today, there are few countries in which the people are directly asked their opinion on vital issues. But democracy had been introduced in Knidos before 300 BCE. And notwithstanding their economic woes, the people of this proud settlement, caressed by the sea and warmed by the sun, voted to retain their goddess and their honour.

(DIPLOMAT  -  November 2005  -  Ankara)