Τhe
area of the first residential core of Hydra. Image courtesy of Spilios
Spiliotis.
My
latest in Cosmosphilly. The story of Hydra goes back, far back into antiquity,
in contrast to conventional wisdom and my own writing. There is evidence that
the name itself, connoting water on an island that is barren, rocky, and now
imports its water, concealed an ancient secret. Read more here. Once again, I
am indebted to Spilios Spiliotis for his brilliant work with the excavations in
the late 1990s and for bringing this to my attention. Τη παλιά και μυστική
ιστορία της Ύδρας. Ας αρχίσουμε με το όνομα του νησιού. Ένα νησί χωρίς νερό πως
πήρε το όνομα «Ύδρα» διαβάστε . . . . Και πάλι ένα θερμό ευχαριστώ στο
συμπατριώτη Σπήλιο Σπηλιώτη για τις συμμέτοχες του για το όμορφο νησί μας. (Alexander
Billinis)
How Hydra Got its Name, and other Riddles of a Glorious
Island
Από: cosmosphilly.com/how-hydra-got-its-name-and-other-riddles-of-a-glorious-island
It is hard not to fall in love with Hydra. We Hydriots are,
of course, biased, yet the island’s graphic beauty, sharp light, and proud
history, seasoned with the imprimatur of artists and celebrities, make the
place a heady mix. As we now celebrate the Bicentennial of Greece’s Revolution,
Hydra is a—if not the—center of gravity for this epic struggle of national and
personal agency. This history, though relatively recent in a land as archaic as
Greece, speaks eloquently for itself.
Other islands and parts of Greece often rightfully take
pride in their regions’ deep antiquity, whereas we Hydriots by necessity had to
focus on more recent glories. This had been the conventional wisdom; Hydra, in
spite of lying in the path of one of the world’s oldest sea lanes, remained, it
seemed, largely mute to history until making quite literal waves in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
I remember growing up on Hydra every summer, leaving Salt
Lake City to our home on my father’s native island. A history-obsessed youth
(not much has changed) I found it odd that the island was largely absent from
history whereas other Saronic Islands, such as Poros and Aegina, certainly were
not, and the Peloponnesus, a leisurely boat ride away, was the setting of at
least 4000 years of advanced civilization.
Most of the history books supported this thesis, but I could
not help wondering. My father talked about some sort of Byzantine settlement at
Episkopi, an escarpment in the mountains. Herodotus spoke of the island
changing hands between Samians and various other Saronic powers, and of course,
there was the name, connoting water on a rocky island with dry wells which now
needs to import its water. Hydra had plenty of modern history to celebrate, and
conventional wisdom made it clear that Hydra had been “absent” from history in
prior eras.
I left things at the verdict of the 1980s, as my trips
thereafter, even when we lived in Greece, were brief trips to escape Athens. I
had not the time, in the deep throes of a banking career, to contemplate a more
holistic story of Hydra, one that was being discovered, albeit with little
fanfare.
As often happens as one gets older, and in this era of
digital connection, my ties to Hydra were renewed, via the ubiquitous online
café of Facebook. I involved myself particularly in our island’s 2021 Committee
and celebrations, and this also dovetailed nicely with my extensive research of
the Greek Merchant Marine. Several of my articles about Hydra
commented—erroneously, I now know—on the relative lack of history prior to the
Revolutionary Era.
A fellow Hydriot gently corrected me.
In this frustrating era of digital proximity despite
physical distance, it is both easier and harder to get to know people. I did
not know Spilios Spiliotis when I summered in or visited Hydra, but his
presence in any forum regarding our beloved island was ubiquitous.
Every place should have a resident like Spilios—a person
dedicated to telling the stories of their place. Such people are invaluable to
preserving memory and history all too often forgotten or obscured. I recall
walking the high mountain paths of our island, and viewing the endless stone
structures, enclosures, and walls, and no doubt Spilios had done far more of
the same, for decades. Mute stone structures often cannot tell you their story
and era, but if you have the time and patience, together with a passion for
your subject, sometimes they do.
So it is with Hydra, where in the past thirty years a more
active glimpse into the mysterious past has begun, and it tells an altogether
different, more complete story. Such significant stories are often obscured by
more glamorous ones, but for a Hydriot, any story about Hydra is significant. |
Spilios Spiliotis, (second from the left), after the end of
the excavation in the area of Palamida, Hydra, 1999. Image courtesy of Spilios
Spiliotis. |
Like several learned archeologists, local Hydriot Spilios
was not content with the official story of Hydra as a virtual ghost through
most of Greece’s history. Spilios participated in several excavations, some
supported by the Niarchos Foundation, under the direction of Adonis Kyrou with
the assistance of Hydra’s ecological group. Thanks to their efforts, the
archeological record, and sometimes the naked stones, started to tell a
different narrative than the one we had heretofore accepted.
The name “Hydra” for example, connoting water on an island
which today needs a daily shipment from the mainland by tanker boat. Well,
perhaps there is another story because archeologists in the 1990s seemed to
have found a series of Mycenean era stone channels designed to catch, to
collect, and to keep potable water for boats plying the waters of the Aegean.
Evidence of such a collection system is particularly present at St. Nicholas
Bay on the southwestern tip of the island, at the edge of shipping lanes coming
out of the gulf of Nauplion. The roughly hewn and assembled stones easily pass
for those of another era, but the name of the island, and the location of the
stone trenches, suggest that the island was a provisioning site for potable
water and that the name stuck.
Herodotus, the eyewitness-traveler “Father of History” also
referred to the island and its changing hands between invaders from Samos and
more local rulers from the nearby Saronic islands and the Peloponnesian
mainland. Here too, for so long any classical traces were hard to come by, in a
Greece filled with the evidence of five millennia of history and a particular
love for artifacts and sites from the Classical era. A careful reading of
Herodotus and a concerted effort yielded results. Outside of the seaside hamlet
of Vlichos, favored by Hydriots and knowledgeable expats for its quiet beaches
and taverna, across a small, seasonal wash, there is an Ottoman-style bridge
which connects to a low hill.
I recall climbing this hill any number of times, as a child,
and I imagined it to have been a fortress from Classical or Byzantine times, as
its low summit was full of rocks both hewn and scattered. Turns out my
hunches—and Herodotus’ reports—were correct, as Samian coins corresponding to
the time of their occupation were found on this very hill, as well as Aegina
coins from their subsequent conquest. Herodotus, the “Father of History,” was
proven correct, as in so many cases when his history was dismissed as legend
and then proven by the archeological record. One more win for history’s father.
Then of course there is what lies beneath Hydra of today,
the picturesque town beloved of painters, and here too there is the varied
evidence of several periods of Greek history, particularly of a Byzantine-era
settlement on the escarpments in the current neighborhood of Kiafa. Much is
obscured by the current assemblage of houses from the 1800s, but an occasional
contractor’s shovel yields the humble evidence of a bygone era, before Hydra’s
glory days.
I am grateful to have been wrong when I wrote so many times
before that Hydra was basically absent from history. Perhaps our beloved island
did not participate with the roar she did in the Revolution, but the heart of the
island still beat, throughout the long, fascinating, glorious, and complicated
assemblage of history that is Greece. It is people like Spilios and any number
of others, whose granular sense of detail and patient love for their home,
these are the people who bring history to life.
Respect. Respect.
Alexander Billinis
Alexander Billinis is a Greek-American lawyer and author. He
lived and worked in Greece, the UK, and Serbia before returning with his family
to Chicago in 2013. His books, The Eagle has Two Faces: Journeys through
Byzantine Europe, and Hidden Mosaics: An Aegean Tale, are available from
Amazon.com.
