Month: June 2026

A luxurious residence from the Late Roman period (3rd–4th centuries CE) situated within a city block surrounded by streets. It was built on the remains of earlier Hellenistic houses. Through the central northern entrance, one enters the courtyard work area and the small peristyle (impluvium), and from there proceeds to the formal rooms, the andron and the large dining hall (triclinium) with the two bedrooms (cubicula) to its west.

The covered mosaic floor of the andron is decorated with the mythological scene of the dying god Adonis accompanied by the goddess Aphrodite. A smaller figure kisses the god’s hand. The scene depicts the wild boar that wounded the young god, the bandaged wound, and the red anemones that sprang from his blood, as recounted by Biões of Smyrna and Ovid.

The Stadium and the Gymnasium

The Stadium and the Gymnasium, located south of the Hierothyseion, are among the most impressive architectural complexes in terms of preservation. The northern horseshoe-shaped section of the Stadium comprises 18 tiers of seating with 18 rows of seats, separated by staircases. It is surrounded by Doric colonnades, most of whose columns remain in their original positions. The northern colonnade (10 m wide) is double, while the eastern and western ones are single (7 m wide). These housed the city’s Gymnasium, which formed a unified architectural complex with the Stadium.

The western colonnade does not extend to the end of the track but is interrupted over a length of 110 m and connects to a rectangular, Doric-style peristyle atrium (30 meters on each side) that housed the Palestra, along with the baths and the classrooms and living quarters for the adolescents during their three-year training. The importance of youth education and athletics for Messene’s society is evidenced, among other things, by the magnificent architectural complex of the Gymnasium, the Stadium, and the Palestra, which hosted the adolescent program—an institution that served members of the upper social classes of Messene as well as those from cities throughout the Messinian region: Asine, Kolonides, Methoni, Pylos, Kyparissia, and Thuria.

The gymnasiums were not intended solely for physical exercise; rather, they were, in general, the schools of the Greek world, where reading, writing, arithmetic, geometry, literature, and other subjects, in order to prepare young citizens physically and intellectually before they joined the ranks of adulthood. During the Hellenistic period, they became bustling centers of public life in the city and venues for exhibiting important works of art, as evidenced by recent findings from the Gymnasium of Messene. In addition to the aforementioned marble statues of gods and heroes—protectors of youth—a multitude of bronze statues, primarily of Gymnasium directors, benefactors of the city, and men of learning flanked the buildings, as the surviving inscribed pedestals inform us, set among the columns of the western portico, while numerous lists of adolescents recorded by tribe were found inscribed on the jambs and columns of the western portico of the Gymnasium and the Palaestra.

The inscriptions, architectural elements, and sculptures found undoubtedly belong to the deities who were the protectors of adolescence and the Gymnasium. The colossal cult statue of Heracles, although fragmented—likely by early Christians (5th–6th centuries AD)—which is also depicted on a coin from the time of Geta—preserves several characteristic fragments sufficient to classify it as belonging to the Farnese Hercules type, as well as a label bearing the names of its creators, Apollonius and his son Demetrius of Alexandria in Egypt, known from other signed works of theirs in Messene. A wide street leading from the Asclepieion to the western stoa of the Gymnasium ends at a monumental four-column Doric propylon. During the building’s final phase of use, in the 4th century AD, the stadium was used as an arena for gladiatorial combats and wild-beast fights—spectacles that were very popular in the Greek East, as well as in Rome.

The presence of 10 significant Hellenistic burial monuments at the Messene Gymnasium—each of a different architectural style—was certainly no coincidence. The adolescents’ exposure to the world of heroes and the dead—along with the traditions and obligations that define it—was deliberately cultivated during their time there, forming part of their initiation.

Funeral Monument K3

This is a monument from the 3rd century B.C., one of the best-preserved and restored monuments in Messene. Its form is unusual by Greek standards. The numerous surviving architectural elements of its superstructure, following study and documentation, indicate that it took the form of a square chamber with a double-curved conical roof, at the apex of which a Corinthian capital supporting a stone vase had been placed. Inside, eight coffin-shaped tombs have been preserved, arranged symmetrically around a square ossuary. The names of the first eight deceased individuals honored here—men and women—are inscribed on its eastern side. During the 1st century CE, members of a later family, related by marriage to the first, used it to bury their own dead and erected marble statues of two of their prominent members in a house in front of the monument.

This monument, which stands 14 meters tall, was restored almost entirely from scratch. It is an integral part of the Stadium, to which it is connected both architecturally and functionally. It takes the form of a Doric-style temple with four columns on the facade, constructed entirely of local limestone. It is located on the south side of the stadium, built on a rectangular base that protrudes from the wall like a bastion. The base appears stepped. It is faced with alternating courses of thicker poros stone blocks and thinner limestone blocks. The core is filled with small, irregular stones in a loose mixture of lime mortar.

The façade of the Heroon faces north, toward the interior of the stadium’s running track. Among the scattered massive architectural members of the Heroon are marble fragments belonging to a reclining sarcophagus, in the imago clipeata style from the time of Nero, featuring a relief bust of a man wearing a breastplate. Bases of funerary stelae and fragments of various sizes from funerary shrines were found scattered at various points along the sides of the podium. All the evidence points to the conclusion that this temple-like structure was a family hero-mausoleum, following in the tradition of similar examples from Asia Minor. This particular structure belonged to the politically and economically powerful Saithid family. Distinguished members of the family were buried here and received heroic honors from the time of its construction in the 1st century CE and thereafter, at least until the reign of Emperor Lucius Verus (161–169 CE).

To the right of the ancient road leading from the Arcadian Gate to the ancient triple bridge of Mavrozoumena lies a cluster of funerary monuments.

Burial monument 17 consists of two chambers of equal size, measuring 4.70 × 5.40 m, with a Doric portico in front of them. Inside each chamber, there are three rectangular niches in the middle of each of the three sides, as well as a slightly raised platform (2.70 × 1.45 m) on the axis of the entrance and closer to the rear northern wall for the placement of marble sarcophagi, several fragments of which have been unearthed. The portico, 14.50 m long and 3.80 m wide, originally featured ten Doric columns, four of which survive. It rests on a high podium with more than six steps rising from street level to the height of the column base. Funeral monuments similar in form to Monument 17 at Messene (wide-fronted with a double chamber and a portico on the façade) are not found elsewhere in Greece.

Inside the portico, along the base of the column, four pits were identified containing the remains of cremated infants, accompanied by a large number of fire-tanned vessels: single spherical bowls, cups with indentations around the body, incense burners of various sizes and types, and lamps. The Corinthian-style lamps from well-known workshops (Epitychanus, Lucius, Severus, etc.) from the 2nd century CE bear, for the most part, figurative depictions, such as gladiators, Artemis, and the head of Athena, while one depicts an interesting erotic scene. Some pits also contained charred fruits, such as pine cones, acorns, and figs, all in good condition. The group of pits with their abundant grave goods is of great interest. It attests to an unusual burial custom: the cremation of infants and the deposition of the cremated remains in pits in the gallery, that is, outside the main chambers of the funerary structure, within which only adult family members were buried in niches and marble sarcophagi. The relatively large number of infants could be an indication of a high mortality rate at these ages. Unless their deaths occurred simultaneously due to an epidemic—a possibility strongly supported by the nearly complete typological and chronological correspondence of the grave goods (vessels of similar types and shapes from the same time period, 2nd century AD). In the portico of burial structure 17, a hoard of approximately 1,400 bronze coins was found inside a clay vessel. The chambers of Structure 17, like the adjacent ones, had been used as burial and residential spaces during the early Christian period (5th–6th centuries AD).

The adjacent funerary monument 18, in contrast to 17, is not a wide-fronted structure but takes the form of a small shrine comprising a vestibule with a colonnade, with interior dimensions 2.70 × 5.30 m, and a wide chamber, measuring 5.40 × 6.70 m, with the entrance in the middle of its south side. Three rectangular niches are located in the center of the remaining sides; of these, the northern one is shallower than the others and at a higher level, while the remaining two, the eastern and western ones, are at floor level and were used for burials. A large number of fragments from at least two marble sarcophagi were found in the chamber’s fill. The earliest and best-preserved sarcophagus, likely dating to the time of Antoninus Severus, depicts a dramatic battle between horsemen and infantrymen in heroic nudity, apparently a scene from the Trojan War. On the second sarcophagus, likely dating to the early 3rd century CE, the use of the burin is particularly pronounced, and the style appears more advanced. This one also depicts battle scenes and other subjects. Both are creations of Neopattine workshops, which experienced a remarkable flourishing during the period between 150 and 250 CE, with their products being exported even to the most remote corners of the Roman Empire. The examples from Messene can be compared to the finest of their kind. According to the funerary inscriptions, both buildings 17 and 18 were used for many years by members of the city’s prominent families, among whom T(Itos) Flavius Polybius, namesake of the great historian, who is known (as are his ancestors and descendants) from other inscriptions not only in Messene (IG V1, 1456) but also in Olympia (IvO 449, 450, 486, 487).

A complex of burial enclosures containing box-shaped and tile-roofed tombs from the Imperial period was uncovered west of Building 17. Of particular note is a meticulously constructed box-shaped tomb in the form of a built sarcophagus.

Finally, two equally sized stepped pedestals for funerary monuments were uncovered between the north-east tower of the Arcadian Gate and burial structure 18. They are constructed entirely of spolia (half-columns, triglyphs, metopes) from earlier funerary monuments; they even bear masonry marks related to the reuse of the building material and its reconfiguration in the construction of the stepped pedestals.

Ithomi was the strongest natural and artificial fortress in Messenia, controlling the Stenyclarus Valley to the north and the Makaria Valley to the south. Strabo compares it, in terms of strategic importance, to Corinth. “Whoever conquered the two cities ruled the Peloponnese. Whoever held the two horns (Ithome and Acrocorinth) ruled the mountain,” as the Megalopolitan historian Polybius aptly observes (3.19, 9–11).

The outer wall of Messene was built with stone corbels up to the battlements without the use of rubble masonry for the superstructure, as was generally the custom in the construction of ancient fortifications: “I have not seen the walls of the Babylonians or the Memnon Colossi at Susa in Persia, nor have I heard of them from eyewitnesses; but of the walls of Ambrossus in Phocis, Byzantium, and Rhodes— cities that were excellently fortified—the walls of the Messenians are the strongest,” notes the traveler Pausanias with admiration (4.31, 4–6).

The wall of Messene is best preserved on the north-northwest side of the enclosure, on either side of the Arcadian Gate. Based on the surviving traces, its course can be precisely determined over a length of 9.5 km. Large rectangular limestone blocks were used, quarried on site from the rocky massif of Ithomi, where many locations with traces of quarrying remain, as well as on the opposite mountain of Eva (present-day Agios Vasilios). The summit of Ithomi was also fortified, where the acropolis and the sanctuary of Zeus Ithomatas were located near the now-abandoned old Vulcano Monastery with its main church dedicated to Panagia Vulkaniotissa. The towers are generally square, with the exception of one horseshoe-shaped tower and one with a circular plan.

The eastern Laconic Gate, also known as the Tegean Gate, no longer survives. It was destroyed during the construction of a road from the village to the new Voulkano Monastery as early as the 18th century. Embedded in the inner northeast corner of the monastery’s enclosure are a relief of Artemis and the lower legs of a marble male statue, fused with a brick. The western gate, the Arcadian Gate, is fairly well-preserved and has been the city’s hallmark since the time of the earliest travelers, who repeatedly depicted it in their engravings. It is a structure of monumental proportions, built with massive limestone blocks that inspire awe. It was in better condition when it was surveyed in 1828 by the French Mission of Moreau.  It is circular on the inside, with a spacious interior 21 m in diameter, and features two entrances: a simple exterior entrance without a door, and an inner double entrance that led to a street heading toward the city’s marketplace. In the inner circular space, there is one niche to the right and one to the left of the entrance, where Hermetic columns once stood. Pausanias, leaving the city of Messene through the Arcadian Gate and heading toward the bridge over the Balura River (note: Mavrozoumenas) and the northern Messinian plain of Stenyklaros, saw the Herm columns in their places and described them as works of Attic art (4.33, 3). Two square towers with guard quarters on the upper floor protected the outer entrance on the right and left. An impressive monolithic central lintel (now leaning at an angle and broken in two) divided the entrance into two gateways with deeply carved chariot-wheel grooves in their stone thresholds. In the southwestern section of the fortification, there was a pointed opening in the thickness of the wall that served as a stream bridge. It was in good condition when it was surveyed in 1828 by members of the French Mission to Morea.

Voulkanou Monastery

The Voulkanou Monastery, dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, is built on the summit of Mount Ithomi, where the sanctuary of Ithomata Zeus stood in ancient times. According to tradition, its founding is attributed to monks who took refuge there to escape the iconoclasts in the year 725, during the reign of Leo Isaurian. Another tradition dates the monastery’s construction to the time of Andronikos Palaiologos. The icon of the Virgin Mary is believed to have survived to this day and is considered miraculous. It bears the inscription “the Guide, known as such on Mount Vulcan” and is attributed to the Apostle Luke.

In 1638, the monastery’s main church was decorated with frescoes by the brothers Dimitrios and Georgios Moschos, renowned iconographers from Nafplio. The name Voulkanos or Vourkanos first appears in the hagiography of Saint Nikon the Penitent in the 10th century. According to one account, “Zeus built a city and a castle; it was called Velkia, which once stood and can still be seen in ruins at Vourkanon” (S. Lambros, N. Ellinomnemon 3, 1906, 140). In its surviving seals, the monastery bears the names Dorkanou (1583), Vourkanou (1630), and Voulkanou (1769 and 1798). On March 5, 1625, the monks, “unable to endure the main church” of the Voulkanou Monastery—apparently due to difficulties in access, water supply, and lodging on the mountaintop, purchased from “the father of Memetaga Efendi” of Androusa, for ten thousand five hundred grosia, a large, flat site on the site of an abandoned village, near a spring, to establish the New Voulkanos Monastery there. The deserted village bore the Albanian name Tzemi or Tzoumi and was located east of Agios Vasileios.

Today, the procession of the Holy Icon of Our Lady of Voulkaniotissa, held annually on September 20, connects the new holy monastery of Ithomi (ancient Messene) to the Island (new Messene) is a fundamental element of the region’s modern Greek identity, and its inclusion in the Ministry of Culture’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage has been proposed with the aim of preserving and further promotion.

Sanctuary of Zeus Ithomatas

The sanctuary of Zeus Ithomatas, located on the highest peak of Ithomi, is where the old monastery of Vourkanos was built. Further to the east, the foundations of the sanctuary of Zeus Ithomatas remain. The bronze leg of a votive tripod found near the monastery indicates that the worship of Ithomatas dates back at least to the Geometric period. According to Pausanias (4.31.2), in ancient times they also organized a music competition, as one can infer from the verses of Eumelus, a poet of the 6th century B.C. The sanctuary’s function, therefore, long before the founding of Messene in 369 B.C., must be considered a given.

The statue of Zeus depicted on Messene coins—holding a thunderbolt in his right hand and an eagle in his outstretched left—represents the form of Ithomatas. The annual eponymous priest kept the statue of the child Zeus in his home and led the procession (parade) of the cult image of Zeus Ithomatas. It appears that the type of Zeus striking with a thunderbolt constituted the cult statue, while the small statue of the Child Zeus, which had been crafted by the sculptor Ageladas (late 6th–early 5th century B.C.) for the Messenians of Naupactus, was brought to the sanctuary by the repatriated Messenians in 369 B.C. According to tradition, the Messinian general Aristomenes sacrificed three hundred prisoners to Ithomatas, including the Spartan king Theopompus (Clement, Exhortation 36P). This human sacrifice brings to mind similar ones performed for Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia. In honor of Ithomatas, games were held—the Ithomaia—organized by competition organizers. They took place at the Stadium.

Sanctuary of Demeter

The sanctuary is a small, four-columned Ionic temple without a portico, with an almost square cella and a shallow pronaos, measuring 7.60 x 5.00 m, dating to the early Hellenistic period. It is founded on a rocky outcrop, 300 meters northwest of the sanctuary of Limnatis and at an elevation of 560 meters. To the northwest of the Ionic temple, a sacrificial pit dating to the early Roman period was uncovered. Behind the temple, to the west, there are two rooms oriented east-west, partially built with reused material from the temple. Numismatic evidence dates their use to the Late Roman period, when the sanctuary was no longer in active use. They most likely belonged to pastoral facilities.

The study of the archaeological movable finds, together with evidence such as the sanctuary’s location, epigraphic records, ritual deposits, and animal bones, allows us to confidently identify the sanctuary with the cult of the goddess Demeter. The sanctuary’s location, its proximity to, and connection with the sanctuaries of Artemis Limnatis and Zeus Ithomatas, establish Mount Ithomi as a center of worship.

Sanctuary of Artemis Limnatis

The sanctuary was founded on a natural promontory, approximately 500 m above sea level, 800 m from the marketplace of the ancient city of Messene, and 600 m from the Laconian Gate. It was discovered in the early 19th century by Philip Le Bas, and its floor plan was published in 1888. The sanctuary has been reliably identified based on an inscription found inside the temple that mentions two priestesses of Limnatis (IG V, 1, 1442), while another inscription was found in the city’s marketplace and mentions “priestess of Limn[atidos] Artemis” (IG V, 1, 1458). Le Bas also uncovered three inscriptions commemorating manumissions, one of which preserves the name Limnatis (IG V, 1, 1470, 1471, 1472).

The main building is the temple, dating to the 2nd century B.C., a Corinthian-style distyle temple in the parastase order, with a deep pronaos and a wide cella with a pebble floor. The cult statue, which has not survived, stood in the center of the cella on a base. In front of the temple to the east, 15 meters away, stands a rectangular altar, and immediately to the south are four structures of varying dimensions. Limnatida may be identified with Lafria, the ancient pre-Hellenic deity of Nature, life, and death, the “mother of beasts.” Pausanias mentions only the epithet of Lafria, her statue as the work of Damophon, and the particularly striking ritual ceremonies that involved the burnt offerings of wild animals and birds and the burning of fruit. The Messenians accepted and adopted the cult of Lafria from the Calydonians during their stay in Naupactus.