ZOSTER
Attica, Greece.
From Strabo's description of the demes, capes, and islands between Peiraeus and Sounion (9.1.21), Zoster can be securely identified as the promontory that juts into the sea at
modern Vouliagmeni, in essence the S point of Hymettos. Of the three tongues that constitute the headland, only the central one, Mikro Kavouri, corresponds to Stephanos' precise description of Zoster as a peninsula
(s.v.
Ζωστήρ). Thus it appears that, although the name
Zoster was applied generally to the whole cape, as for
example by Herodotos (
8.107), it was also used in a
narrow sense to refer only to the projection that forms
the E side of the deep bay in front of Vouliagmeni. A
reason for this focus is not hard to find. According to
Pausanias (
1.31.1) it was at Zoster that Leto “loosened
her girdle with a view to her delivery,” and that there
was an Altar of Athena, Apollo, Artemis, and Leto.
Archaeological discoveries have confirmed the special
character of the central promontory. At the neck of the
peninsula, in the so-called Laimos where the spit of land
is so low that it is easily flooded, remains have been
recovered of a small sanctuary, dedicated, as is known
from several inscriptions, to Apollo of Zoster. The temple was originally built about 500 B.C. and consisted of a sekos only, later partitioned to make two rooms of unequal size, to which was added, no earlier than the second half of the 4th c., a peristyle of unfluted columns,
4 x 6, each set on its own base with no connecting stylobate. Within the front part of the cella were found three
marble bases, a table, a throne, and a fragment of a
votive fluted column preserving the beginning and end
of an inscribed distych in honor of golden-haired Apollo.
To the E of the temple on its axis are the foundations
of a large rectangular altar. As the inscriptions show,
the sanctuary was administered by the demesmen of
Halai (Aixonides).
One hundred and fifty m to the N of the sanctuary,
directly above the shore road, are the remains of a large
rectangular building that at the time of its construction,
about 500 B.C., contained a tower, gateroom, enclosed
courtyard, colonnade, and, behind, three rooms. By the
end of the 4th c., however, this spacious design had
gradually given way to one that involved the creation
of several additional small rooms, particularly at the expense of the colonnade. Because this building does not
seem to be part of a community, and because it is so
close in place and time to the sanctuary, it has been interpreted as the house for the priest and, after the remodeling, as a sort of katagogion for those visiting the sanctuary. Some of the finds made within the house can
also be used to suggest such an identification.
Immediately S of the Sanctuary of Apollo on the first
of the peninsula's several hills is the Astir resort with
its hotel and bungalows. Prior to its completion, emergency excavations had revealed the presence on this
wooded hill of houses of the Early Helladic period and
a fort with rubble walls strengthened by towers. It is
unlikely that the latter is prehistoric. More plausibly it
should be associated with coins of Ptolemy II also from
Cape Zoster, and be included among the several fortifications in Attika known to belong to the times of the Chremonidean War.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
K. Kourouniotes,
Τὸ Ἱερὸν τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος τοῦ Ζωστῆρος,
ArchDelt 11 (1927-28) 9-52; Ph. Stauropoullos,
Ἱερατικὴ οἰκία ἐν Ζωστῆρι τῆς Ἀττικῆς,
ArchEph
(1938) 1-31; E. Varoucha-Christodolopoulou,
Συμβαλή εἰς τὸν Χρεμωνίδειον πόλεμον 266/5-263/2 π. Χ ArchEph
(1953-54) 3.321-349; J. McCredie,
Fortified Military
Camps in Attica (
Hesperia, Suppl. XI [1966]) 30-32.
C.W.J. ELIOT