Mount Ithome

The path gives way to loose limestone, pale and sharp-edged, and it shifts a little under each step. Wild thyme and sage grow in the cracks. Crush a leaf between your fingers and the smell is warm and resinous. Below you, the plain of Messenia spreads out in olive green and dusty gold. Somewhere down there a goat bell rings, then stops. This is Mount Ithome — a lonely limestone height that the people of this land held onto for centuries.

The mountain rises to roughly eight hundred metres. That is modest by Greek standards. But Ithome stands almost alone above the surrounding lowland, and this matters. From the top, you can watch every road, every valley, every approach from the sea. For an ancient people who had to defend themselves against a far stronger neighbour, a height like this was more than a landmark. It was a fortress that nature had already half built.

That neighbour was Sparta. Its territory lay just beyond the long ridge of the Taygetos mountains, the jagged range you can see to the east on a clear day. In the early centuries of Greek history, Sparta fought a series of wars to conquer Messenia and its fertile farmland. Ancient writers called these the Messenian Wars. In the first of them, usually placed in the eighth century before Christ, the Messenians retreated to Ithome. They held out on this summit for many years.

The stories from that siege come to us mainly through the later travel writer Pausanias, who visited in the second century after Christ. They are part history, part legend, and it is wise to hear them that way. According to one tale, an oracle demanded a royal maiden as a sacrifice. A Messenian leader named Aristodemus is said to have offered his own daughter. Legend says that even this terrible act could not save the stronghold. In the end, Ithome fell, and the Messenians became subjects of Sparta.

For generations after that, many people of this land worked as helots. Helots were an enslaved farming class, bound to the soil and forced to hand over a share of each harvest to their Spartan masters. Then, in the fifth century before Christ, a great earthquake struck Sparta. The helots saw their chance and rose up. Once again, the rebels climbed to Ithome. Once again, the mountain became the heart of Messenian resistance.

Here is a detail that most visitors miss. This revolt on Ithome helped push Athens and Sparta toward open rivalry. Sparta could not take the mountain, so it asked its allies for help. Athens sent soldiers under the general Cimon. But the Spartans grew suspicious of the Athenians and sent them home. The Athenians took this as an insult. Ancient historians saw this moment as one step on the road to the long Peloponnesian War.

The siege ended with a truce, not a massacre. The rebels were allowed to leave the Peloponnese. The Athenians settled many of them at Naupaktos, a harbour town on the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth. So the defenders of this summit did not vanish. They carried the Messenian name with them into exile, and they kept it alive for generations, waiting.

The wait ended in the fourth century before Christ. In 371, the Theban general Epaminondas defeated Sparta in battle at Leuctra. Soon after, he helped the Messenians return home and found a new city at the foot of this mountain. They called it Messene. Its builders ran massive stone walls from the lowland right up the slopes of Ithome. The mountain was no longer a refuge of last resort. It became part of the city's defences.

If you look down from the slopes, you can trace parts of that circuit wall. It is built from large, carefully fitted blocks of grey limestone, with square towers placed along its length. Some stretches still stand to a good height. The Arcadian Gate, on the northern side of the ancient city, is one of the best preserved sections. These walls are among the finest surviving examples of Greek military building, and they show how seriously the returning Messenians took their safety.

The summit was also sacred. In antiquity, a sanctuary of Zeus stood here, and the god was worshipped under the title Zeus Ithomatas — Zeus of Ithome. Pausanias tells a local myth that the infant Zeus was cared for here by two nymphs, named Ithome and Neda. According to the tale, they bathed him in a spring down in the city, which is why that fountain was linked to the god. The Messenians held a festival in his honour each year.

Today the summit carries a different faith. Near the top stand the remains of the old Monastery of Voulkano, a Christian monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Its stone buildings sit where pagan worshippers once climbed to honour Zeus. A newer monastery of the same name stands lower down the mountainside. This layering is common in Greece. A place that felt holy to one age often stayed holy to the next, simply with new names and new prayers.

Take a moment to turn slowly in a full circle. To the south and west, the land falls away toward the Messenian Gulf and the open sea. To the east, the Taygetos ridge marks the old border with Sparta. Below, the village of Mavromati clings to the hillside above the excavated ruins of Messene. On a hazy afternoon the colours soften into blues and greys. On a clear morning, every field and road looks sharp and close.

The wind usually picks up near the top. It moves through the dry grass and the low, thorny shrubs, and it carries the sound of insects from the slopes below. Listen to it for a moment. The people who held this summit through hunger and siege heard this same wind. As you start back down, look again at the walls in the valley, and at the plain they guarded. This small mountain gave a whole people a place to stand.