Sounion
Cape Sounion (Modern Greek: Aκρωτήριο Σούνιο Akrotírio Soúnio [akroˈtirʝo ˈsuɲo]; Ancient Greek: Ἄκρον Σούνιον Άkron Soúnion, latinized Sunium; Venetian: Capo Colonne "Cape of Columns") is the promontory at the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula, 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) south of the town of Lavrio (ancient Thoricus), and 69.5 km (43.1 miles) southeast of Athens in the Athens Riviera.
The story recounts that as the various Greek commanders sailed back from Troy, the helmsman of the ship of King Menelaus of Sparta died at his post while rounding "Holy Sounion, Cape of Athens.
Herodotus (VI.87) mentions that in sixth century BC, the Athenians celebrated a quinquennial festival at Sounion, which involved Athens' leaders sailing to the cape in a sacred boat.
In the 2nd century BC, Sounion is still on record as a deme, but now considered part of the recently-introduced Attalid phyle (created in honour of Attalus I).
[5] Sounion was fortified in the nineteenth year of the Peloponnesian War (413 BCE) for the purpose of protecting the passage of the cornships to Athens,[6] and was regarded from that time as one of the principal fortresses of Attica.
The walls which are fortified with square towers, are of the most regular Hellenic masonry, and enclose a space of a little more than half a mile in circumference.
[12] After they defeated Xerxes in the naval Battle of Salamis, the Athenians placed an entire captured enemy trireme (warship with three banks of oars) at Sounion as a trophy dedicated to Poseidon.
It would have contained, at one end facing the entrance, the cult image, a colossal, ceiling-height (6 metres (20 ft)) bronze statue of Poseidon.
[21] The Temple of Poseidon was situated in the southeastern corner of the fortress, with the garrison quarters arranged along a main stream on the western slope of the hill.
The name Capo Colonne (graecicized Καβοκολώνες Kavokolones) is reported from the 17th century, for the reason that unusually, several columns of the temple of Poseidon had remained standing since antiquity.
[24] The inscribed name of George Lord Byron, carved into the base of one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon, possibly dates from his first visit to Greece, on his Grand Tour of Europe before he acquired fame.
In the strong sea breeze "these few standing columns were the strings of an invisible lyre, the song of which the far-seeing Delian god let resonate over the Cycladic world of islands".
He marvels at "the way that this single gesture of the land suggests the invisible nearness of the divine and dedicates to it every growth and every human work" (ibid.).
Cape Sounion remains a popular day-excursion for tourists from Athens, with the sunset over the Aegean Sea, as viewed from the ruins, a sought-after sight since the first development of modern tourism in the early 19th century.
[28] The project Arrangement of the Archaeological Site of Sounion (2011–2013) was co-financed by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports and the European Union (ERDF).
