Naxos, Greece: A Landscape Steeped in Gods and Myth

Verdant, fertile and prosperous since antiquity, Naxos is the largest island of the Cyclades and one of the most complete destinations in the Greek Aegean.

Its appeal lies in its extraordinary variety. Long sandy beaches edge the coastline, fertile valleys spread through the interior, and rugged mountains rise above villages where whitewashed houses, old churches and Venetian towers reveal centuries of history. Ancient temples stand among farmland; unfinished marble statues remain where sculptors abandoned them more than two thousand years ago, while mythology seems to follow the traveller from the harbour of Chora into the mountains.

Naxos has always possessed a character of its own.

At approximately 430 square kilometres, it is the largest of the Cycladic islands. Unlike some of its more arid neighbours, Naxos is remarkably fertile, with valleys and plains supporting olives, vines, fruit trees and agriculture. Above them rises Mount Zas, at 1,004 metres the highest mountain in the Cyclades.

Even the mountain belongs to myth.

According to Naxian tradition, Zeus was born in Crete but brought to Naxos as a child to escape his father Cronus. He was raised in a cave on Mount Zas until he was old enough to challenge the Titans and claim his place as ruler of the gods. Another legend tells that an eagle presented him with his thunderbolt on the summit. Ancient inscriptions found on the mountain confirm that Zeus was indeed worshipped there, giving the mythology a tantalising connection with the religious life of ancient Naxos.

But if Zeus watched over the mountains, it was Dionysus who became inseparably linked with the spirit of the island.

The god of wine, fertility and celebration was believed by the Naxians to have been raised on the island by nymphs. His connection with its vineyards was so strong that the people honoured him with festivals and maintained an important sanctuary dedicated to him at Yria, south of modern Chora. Archaeology has revealed religious activity there extending back to the Mycenaean period, with successive sacred buildings constructed on the site over many centuries.

Dionysus also appears in Naxos’s most famous myth, the story of Ariadne and Theseus.

After helping Theseus kill the Minotaur in the labyrinth of Crete, Ariadne fled with the Athenian hero across the Aegean. Their journey brought them to Naxos, where ancient tradition places them on the small rocky islet of Palatia beside what is now Chora.

Here the story takes its tragic, and then unexpected, turn.

Theseus sailed away without Ariadne. Ancient versions differ over why he abandoned her; in one Naxian tradition, Dionysus appeared to Theseus in a dream and ordered him to leave because Ariadne was destined for the god himself. Ariadne awoke to find Theseus gone, but Dionysus came to her and eventually made her his bride. One beautiful version of the myth tells that the jewelled crown associated with their marriage was placed among the stars, becoming the constellation Corona Borealis.

It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate myth for Naxos, where Dionysus, wine, and the fertility of the land have been linked for thousands of years.

Today Palatia is dominated by the Portara, the enormous marble doorway that has become the symbol of the island.

The Portara is the surviving monumental gateway of an ambitious temple begun around 530 BCE during the rule of the tyrant Lygdamis. Traditionally identified as a Temple of Apollo, the building was never completed. Its surviving doorway comprises four enormous pieces of Naxian marble, and the unfinished foundations surrounding it reveal the scale of the sanctuary that was intended to rise here.

The association with Ariadne belongs to Palatia itself rather than to the original purpose of the marble gate. Yet mythology and archaeology have become so entwined here that the distinction almost adds to the fascination. The Portara stands at the entrance to the harbour, greeting travellers arriving by sea, much as it has watched over this coast for more than 2,500 years.

Across the causeway lies Chora, or Naxos Town, the attractive capital of the island.

The area has an ancient history. Excavations at Grotta, close to the modern harbour, have uncovered part of a Mycenaean settlement dating to around 1300 BCE, while evidence elsewhere on Naxos reaches back much further into prehistory. During the third millennium BCE the island became an important centre of the Early Cycladic world, whose elegant marble figurines remain among the most recognisable works of prehistoric Aegean art.

Naxian marble would continue to shape the island’s history.

During the Archaic period, especially in the sixth century BCE, Naxos became wealthy and artistically ambitious. Its sculptors and architects worked on a monumental scale, and Naxian marble travelled beyond the island. Among the famous works connected with Naxos are the great Sphinx dedicated at Delphi and monuments erected on sacred Delos.

Centuries later, another architectural world would transform Chora.

Behind the busy waterfront, narrow lanes climb through the old town towards the medieval Kastro. Following the Fourth Crusade, the Venetian Marco Sanudo conquered Naxos around 1207 and established the Duchy of the Archipelago, with Naxos as its capital. The fortified citadel became the centre of a new Latin ruling elite whose influence remained deeply embedded in the island for centuries.

Entering the Kastro still feels like passing into another layer of Naxos.

Its narrow rising streets lead between stone mansions, internal courtyards and old religious buildings. Coats of arms survive above some doorways, reminders of the Venetian and Catholic families who lived within the fortified quarter. Only one of the towers traditionally believed to have guarded the Kastro survives substantially today, yet the medieval street plan remains remarkably intact, and the citadel continues to be inhabited.

Beyond Chora, however, another Naxos begins.

The interior is one of the great pleasures of the island. Terraced hillsides descend into fertile valleys, old paths connect mountain villages, and the landscape is punctuated by Byzantine churches, fortified monasteries, and Venetian tower houses.

Villages such as Filoti, Chalki and Apiranthos reveal a side of the Cyclades very different from the familiar image of beaches and whitewashed coastal settlements. Filoti spreads beneath Mount Zas, while Apiranthos lies high on the slopes of Mount Fanari, its old houses and marble-paved lanes giving the village a distinctive mountain character.

The fertility of this interior has been important since antiquity.

Near the village of Sangri, on a low hill overlooking agricultural land, stands one of Naxos’s most fascinating ancient monuments: the sanctuary usually known as the Temple of Demeter.

Worship at the site began in the eighth century BCE, when local communities honoured deities associated with nature and fertility. Around 530 BCE, during the age of Lygdamis, a remarkable marble temple was constructed there. Its unusual, almost square plan distinguishes it from the elongated form of many Greek temples, while its association with Demeter and Kore, or Persephone, seems entirely appropriate in this fertile landscape.

Demeter was the goddess of agriculture and the harvest, but her mythology also carried deeper themes of loss, renewal, and the changing seasons through the story of her daughter Persephone.

There is something particularly fitting about encountering their sanctuary among the fields of Naxos.

The temple was built from local marble and represents an important stage in the development of early Ionic architecture. During the early Christian period, centuries after the old cult had faded, a basilica was constructed on the site, adding yet another historical layer to a sacred place whose origins reached far back into antiquity.

Elsewhere on Naxos, the island’s ancient marble industry left behind something stranger.

In the ancient quarries of Melanes and Apollonas lie three enormous unfinished statues, abandoned before they could ever reach their intended destinations.

Near Melanes, two early sixth-century BCE kouroi remain close to the ancient quarrying areas of Flerio. These monumental representations of young men were roughly shaped before transportation, when the final stages of carving would normally have been completed. Both appear to have suffered damage during the difficult process of moving them downhill and were simply left behind.

They have remained there ever since.

The largest unfinished statue lies above the northern coastal village of Apollonas. Over ten metres long, it was carved directly from the marble of the ancient quarry during the sixth century BCE. Traditionally called the Kouros of Apollo, its identity remains debated; the bearded figure may instead represent Dionysus.

There is something wonderfully mysterious about these abandoned giants.

We can still see the ambition of the sculptors, yet the statues never became what their creators intended. They were never polished, erected in sanctuaries or admired in the places for which they had been commissioned. Instead, they remain in the landscape where their creation began, as though the ancient craftsmen had simply put down their tools and walked away.

The coastline provides another face of Naxos.

Long stretches of sand extend south from Chora through Agios Prokopios, Agia Anna and Plaka, while smaller settlements and fishing villages appear around the island. Naxos’s size means that the beaches never seem entirely separate from the mountains and agricultural interior; it is possible to move quickly from the Aegean coast into a landscape of olive groves, valleys and traditional villages.

This combination is what makes Naxos so complete.

It possesses the sea and beaches expected of the Cyclades, yet beyond them lies a substantial island with an identity built upon agriculture, marble, mountain communities and a history extending from prehistoric settlement through Classical Greece, Byzantium and the long Venetian presence.

Myth is never very far away either.

Zeus belongs to the mountain; Demeter to the fertile earth; Dionysus to the vineyards and to Ariadne, whose story still lingers beside the Portara.

Nikos Kazantzakis knew Naxos personally. As a young man, he spent time on the island and attended the School of Commerce within the Kastro. He later remembered Naxos for its “great sweetness and tranquillity”, a description that still seems remarkably appropriate.

For despite its long history and extraordinary collection of monuments, Naxos never feels overwhelmed by its past.

The ancient temples remain among fields; unfinished kouroi lie quietly in their quarries, while village life continues beneath the mountains.

Perhaps the unique allure of Naxos lies precisely there.

History, mythology, and the fabric of daily life have always been intertwined.

And amid them all, the island has somehow retained the sweetness and tranquillity that Kazantzakis recognised so many years ago.

View a selection of images of the Island of Naxos

All images, text and content © Steven Sklifas.