Summer races III, Porto Rafti Regatta

Porto Rafti is a bay on the east shore of the Attica peninsula.  Four islets (Rafti, Raftopoula, Praso, Circe) are inside while one (Koroni) is outside and slightly to the south of the bay.  Porto Rafti and the surrounding region belonged in the demoi (Δημοι)  Prasiae and Steiria, two of the 139 municipalities of Ancient Athens.  Pausanias tells us that Athenians built a temple of Apollo and erected a statue of Erichthonius at Prasiae.   Erichthonius, the son of Cecrops and an Attic hero, was also buried at Prasiae according to Pausanias(1,31,1).

It is not known whom the enigmatic statue on top of the Rafti islet honored and what was its purpose.  The colossal marble statue likely was sculpted during the Emperor Hadrian reign (78-138 AD).  Pausanias submits that it was Erichthonius while local folklore suggests it was a tailor as the word rafti means tailor in demotic Greek vernacular. Even a casual inspection of the statue convinces even the most uninitiated that the statue is a woman.  Therefore,  deities such as Athena, Artemis or Demeter or prominent women such as Hadrian’s wife Sabina or Herod Atticus’ wife Regilla are likely candidates.  Its purpose is also unknown but I strongly believe that it served as a lighthouse to assist ships returning at night from the Cyclades islands the nearest of which Kea is 20 miles away to Attica.  Two more reasons in support of my theory that its main function was that of a lighthouse are first that it is facing east towards the Aegean islands and Asia Minor and second one of its arms is raised where I would like to propose a metal cauldron was placed and used for the purpose of lighting a fire. Etching by Irish traveler E. Dodwell who visited Greece from 1801 to 1806. 

Porto Rafti Regatta is a three-day event with the first race run was from the starting line around the islets of Praso, Rafti and back to the finish line a length of approximately 5 nautical miles. The crew of Okyrhoe in day I was my brother Nikos, his wife Alexandra, our friend Kostas and myself.  

The course in the second race was similar to that of the first day and the crew of legendary Okyrhoe was Nikos, Kostas, Myrto a most able woman sailor, her daughter and our cinematographer Alecos.

In the third and last day of Porto Rafti Regatta my brother had an all women crew. It is interesting that Okyrhoe was first at the finish line in all three races. It was a most pleasant weekend and a great way for me to celebrate my 73rd birthday with relatives and dear friends. In closing, I would like to thank my friend Alexander Syris who was the cinematographer and producer of the three beautiful videos of Porto Rafti Regatta.

Porto Rafti and East Attica in Ancient Times

Mythology tells us that Attica had twelve small communities during the reign of king Cecrops (Κεκρωψ).   Those communities were later incorporated into the Athenian state during the reign of Theseus (Θησευς), the legendary king of Athens, known for the killing of Minotaur in the Labyrinth of the Knossos’ palace.  When Clisthenes established the Athenian democracy in the 5^th century BC, Attica was divided into one hundred municipalities (dēmoi, δῆμοι), and also into three large sectors: the city (ἄστυ), the coast (παράλια), and the area in between (ἐσωτερικό-μεσογαία).  In the picture, Cecrops on the left and Hephaestus on the right observe as Gaia (Earth) presents Erichthonius to Goddess Athena. (Dresden 1884)

In ancient times the bay of Porto Rafti was called Mesogaia Harbor (Λιμην Μεσογαιας) and belonged to the municipality of Steiria that was inhabited by the Pandionis tribe.  It served as major harbor and trading place throughout the historical antiquity and beyond. 

The island of Rafti, at the entrance of the bay, served as a landmark for mariners who were seeking a safe harbor in the eastern shores of Attica.  A statue of Goddess Artemis was erected on the top of the Rafti Island as the region extending from the fields of Marathon to Brauron was dedicated to her cult.  Weather and human intervention (vandalism) have taken their toll and what it remains from the statue has no likeness to the original.  In recent times the locals believed it represented a statute of a tailor (Rafti =Ραφτης in Greek means tailor) who was mending or making sails primarily for pirates who frequent the bay and terrorized the local population after the fall of the Roman Empire.

The sanctuary of Artemis at Vravron (Ancient Greek; Βραυρών) is the site where the cult Goddess was revered and worshiped.  Its surroundings are punctuated with vineyards, olive and fig tree groves, rocks and wild plants a landscape reminiscent to as Attica looked in ancient times.  Homer tells us that as the Greek fleet was preparing to sail to Troy they gather in Aulis near the Euripus strait, the sea in between Vravron and the island of Euboea.  While they waited for favorable winds, king Agamemnon of Mycenae killed a bull as offering to Gods.  As the stag was sacred to Artemis the act enraged the goddess who produced northerly winds, which were opposite to the desired ones.   Agamemnon responded to an omen that instructed the king to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia, in lieu of favorable winds, in the last moment Artemis provided a surrogate sacrifice through divine intervention.  The saved Iphigenia became a priestess of the goddess among the Tauri, the people living in the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea. Euripides writes that Iphigenia with the help of her brother Orestes returns and lands in the little bay of Brauron and becomes the priestess of Artemis, lived, died and was buried in the sanctuary.  During the Classical period Athenian girls aged between 5 to 10 served in the sanctuary. They were known as Αρκτοι "little bears" from the saffron-colored garments they wore, recalling a bear sacred to Artemis.  The sanctuary continued in use until the 3rd century BC when it was abandoned. 

At Drivlia, on the north shore of the Porto Rafti bay, a few structures remain from the late Roman and early Byzantine periods.  The word Drivlia is a corruption of the ancient Greek word Τριγλια, the name of a popular local fish that is called μπαρμπουνια in contemporary vernacular which is found in abundance in the bay. 

The majority of the graves in the Drivlia cemetery are of the cist type (Greek Κιστη), though several pit tile-covered graves were found.  Adjacent to the cemetery ruins of the Early Christian basilica of Αγια Κυριακή (Saint Sunday) exist.