ANCIENT SETTLEMENTS OF ZARAKA

In ancient times, the region of Zaraka in Laconia possessed two significant towns: Zarax at the mouth of the port of Geraka and Kyphanta in the modern town of Kyparissi.

The earliest recorded history of the territory in which these two towns reside documents that they were taken off Laconia (the Spartans) and given to Argos by Philip II (the father of Alexander the Great) after the battle of Chaironeia in 337 BC. Although the territory was attacked with some success by the Spartans under Kleonymos in 272 BC and Lykourgos in 219 BC, it seems to have remained Argive for many centuries after that. It was restored to Laconia by Augustus, at which time the towns became members of the Eleuthero-Laconian League.

The Ruins of Zarax
Zarax was situated on a beautiful site at the mouth of the port of Geraka, (see diagram 1 and photo on previous page). Even today, the entrance from the sea into the port is narrow and hemmed in by steep limestone cliffs, beyond which the harbour extends into a shallow lake bounded by olive groves: a strip of red alluvial soil at the further end offers a striking contrast to the greys and greens of the rocks and the blue of the sea.

By the 2nd century AD, when Pausanias travelled through the region, Zarax had fallen into ruins. Pausanias wrote that "... of all the towns of the free Laconians this is the most decayed ... there is nothing in Zarax but a temple of Apollo at the end of the harbour with an image holding a lute".

Although the two archaeologists Wace and Hasluck referred to the ruins in their 1905 paper as "remarkable", they have largely been ignored and forgotten. The important ruins lie on the northern side of the harbour mouth (at A in diagram 2) and are still intact today.

The exact position of the important Temple of Apollo that Pausanias mentioned could not be determined by Wace and Hasluck in 1905.

Earlier studies had determined that the temple was sited near a wall (at B in diagram 2), which they were unable to find. Instead, the two researches believed that the temple would more probably have been sited next to some large, worked limestone blocks (situated at C in diagram 2).

Kyphanta
The ancient town of Kyphanta is near the modern town of Kyparissi. Situated on a bay with good anchorage, Kyparissi (like the port of Geraka) is also in a beautiful location. Overlooking the town to the south are two Kastra: one is a Byzantine and the other a Greek acropolis. Half an hour inland by foot, in a small valley to the south, are the ruins of Kyphanta.

At the ruins, a fine spring gushes forth at the foot of a steep cliff. There are several ancient rock-cut basins, three terraces and a deep bath cut into the rock. The site is surrounded by a semi-circular wall that abuts on both ends on to the cliff. Amongst the ruins is the shrine of Asklepios, also mentioned by Pausanias in his second-century travels.

The stages by which the Albanians penetrated into Greece are well known. They appeared in force in Thessaly about 1350 and shortly after in the north-west provinces of Aetolia and Acarnania. They served as mercenaries under the despots of the Morea and, under pressure from the Turks, ten thousand of them were admitted into the Peloponnese by Theodore I. Palaeologus, settling on waste and upland sites. To the present day they form a considerable element in the population of Arcadia and Argolis.

The Albanians also settled extensively in Zaraka. According to Wace and Hasluck, writing in 1905:

"practically all the villages in the mountains, Hieraka (Geraka), Rhichea (Rihea), Pistamata, Charax (Haraka), Kyparissi ... are occupied by people of Albanian descent ... although in some villages ... they have been almost completely hellenized. But in the deme (municipality) of Zarax ... Albanian is commonly spoken by the people amongst themselves in preference to Greek ..."

It is almost certain therefore, that many people from Zaraka are actually of Albanian descent rather than Greek.