PAROS, or Paro, an island in the Aegean Sea, one of the largest of the group of the Cyclades, with a population of 8000. It lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about 6 miles broad, and with which it is now grouped together, in popular language, under the common name of Paronaxia. It is in 37° N. lat. and 25° 10' E. long. Its greatest length from north-east to south-west is 13 miles, and its greatest breadth 10 miles. It is formed of a single mountain about 2400 feet high, sloping evenly down on all sides to a maritime plain, which is broadest on the north-east and south-west sides. The island is composed of marble, though gneiss and mica-schist are to be found in a few places. Grey and bare rises the mountain, but on the level ground as well as on some of the lower slopes corn and vines are cultivated with success. A sweetish dark-red wine is exported in considerable quantities. The island is almost treeless; the olives, which formerly yielded abundance of oil, were cut down by the Venetians for firewood in the war of Candia. The capital, Paroikia or Parikia (Italian, Parechiaf situated on a bay on the northwest side of the island, occupies the site of the ancient capital Paros. Its harbour admits small vessels; the entrance is dangerous on account of rocks. Houses built in the Italian style with terraced roofs, shadowed by luxuriant vines, and surrounded by gardens of oranges and pomegranates, give to the town a picturesque and pleasing aspect. Here on a rock beside the sea are the remains of a mediaeval castle built almost entirely of ancient marble remains. Similar traces of antiquity in the shape of bas-reliefs, inscriptions, columns, &c., are numerous in the town. Outside the town is the church of Katapoliani (η l E l ...κατoντατrvλιανη), well known in the Archipelago. On the north side of the island is the bay of Naousa (Naussa) or Agoussa, forming a safe and roomy harbour. In ancient times it was closed by a chain or boom. Another good harbour is that of Drios on the south-east side, where the Turkish fleet used to anchor on its annual voyage through the Aegean. The three villages of Tragoulas, Marmora, and Kepidi (K^τr∕δι, pronounced Tschipidi), situated on an open plain on the eastern side of the island, and rich in remains of antiquity, probably occupy the site of an ancient town. They are known together as the “villages of Kephalos,” from the steep and lofty headland of Kephalos. On this headland stands an abandoned monastery of St Anthony, amidst the ruins of a mediaeval castle, which belonged to the Venetian family of the Venieri, and was gallantly though fruitlessly defended against the Turkish general Barbarossa in 1537. In antiquity the island contained a famous altar, the sides of which were said to be a stadium (606 feet) long. But the celebrated marble quarries are the real centre of interest of the island. They lie on the northern side of the mountain anciently known as Marpessa (afterwards Capresso), a little below a former convent of St Mina. The marble, which was employed by Phidias, Praxiteles, and other great Greek sculptors, was obtained by means of subterranean quarries driven horizon tally or at a descending angle into the rock, and the marble thus quarried by lamplight got the name of Lychnites, Lychneus (from lychnos, a lamp), or Lygdos (Plin., H. N., xxxvi. 5, 14; Plato, Eryxias, 400 D; Athen., v. 2050; Diod. Sic., 2, 52). Several of these tunnels are still to be seen. At the entrance to one of them is a celebrated bas-relief dedicated to the Nymphs by one Adamas, of the Thracian tribe of the Odrysae; it represents a festival of Silenus or Pan.
History.— Like the rest of the Cyclades, Paros seems to have been peopled at an early date by Carians (Herod., i. 171; Thue., i. 4)· —perhaps also by the Phoenicians, whom we know from the Greek historians to have occupied other islands in the Aegean, including the neighbouring Thera (Herod., ii. 44; iv. 147; compare Thue., i. 8). The institution of a form of sacrifice to the Graces, apparently peculiar to Paros, at which neither garlands nor flutes were made use of, was ascribed to Minos. The story that Paros was colonized by one Paros of Parrhasia, who brought with him a colony of Arcadians to the island (Heraclides, De Rebus Publicis, 8; Steph. Byz., s.v. ∏αpos), is one of those etymologizing fictions in which Greek legend abounds. Ancient names of the island are said to have been Plateia (or Pactia), Demetrias, Zacynthus, Hyria, Hyleessa, Minoa, and Cabarnis (Steph. Byz.). From Athens the island afterwards, received a colony of Ionians (Schob Dionys., Per., 525; comp. Herod., i. 171), under whom it attained a high degree of prosperity. It sent out colonies to Thasos (Thuc., iv. 104; Strabo, 487) and Parium on the Hellespont. In the former colony, which was planted in the'15th or 18th Olympiad, the poet Archilochus, a native of Paros, is said to have taken part. As late as 385 b.c. the Parians, in conjunction with Dionysius of Syracuse, founded a colony on the Illyrian island of Pharos (Diod. Sic., xv. 13). So high was the reputation of the Parians that they were chosen by the people of Miletus to arbitrate in a party dispute (Herod., v. 28 sq.'). Shortly before the Persian War Paros seems to have been a dependency of Naxos (Herod., v. 31). In the Persian War Paros sided with the Persians and sent a trireme to Marathon to support them. In retaliation, the capital Paros was besieged by an Athenian fleet under Miltiades, who demanded a fine of 100 talents. But the town offered a vigorous resistance, and the Athenians were obliged to sail away after a siege of twenty-six days, during which they had laid the island waste. It was at a temple of Demeter Thesmophorus in Paros that Miltiades received the hurt of which he afterwards died (Herod, vi. 133-136). By means of an inscription Ross was enabled to identify the site of the temple; it lies, in agreement with the description of Herodotus, on a low hill beyond the boundaries of the town. Paros also sided with Xerxes against Greece, but after the battle of Artemisium the Parian contingent remained in Cythnos watching the progress of events (Herod., viii. 67). For this unpatriotic conduct the islanders were punished by Themistocles, who exacted a heavy fine (Herod., viii. 112). Under the Athenian naval confederacy, Paros paid the highest tribute of all the islands subject to Athens,—30 talents annually, according to the assessment of Olymp. 88, 4 (429 B.C.). Little is known of the constitution of Paros, but inscriptions seem to show that it was democratic, with a senate (Boule) at the head of affairs (Corpus Inscript., 2376-2383; Ross, Pnscr. Ined., ii. 147,148). In 410 b.c. the Athenian general Theramenes found an oligarchy at Paros; he deposed it and restored the democracy (Diod. Sic., xiii. 47). Paros was included,in the new Athenian confederacy of 378 B.C., but afterwards, along with Chios, it renounced its connexion with Athens, probably about 357 b.c. Thenceforward the island lost its political importance. From the inscription of Adule we learn that the Cyclades, and consequently Paros, were subject to the Ptolemies of Egypt. Afterwards they passed under the rule of Rome. When the Latins made themselves masters of Constantinople, Paros, like the rest, became subject to Venice. In 1537 it was conquered by the Turks. The island now belongs to the kingdom of Greece.
See Tournefort, Voyage <lu Levant, vol. i. p. 232 sq., Lyons, 1717; Clarke, Travels, vol. iii., London, 1814; Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. ill. p. 84 sq., London, 1835; Prokesch, Denkwürdigkeiten, vol. ii. p. 19 sq., Stuttgart, 1836; Ross, Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln, vol. i. p. 44 sq., Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1840; Fiedler, Reise durch alle Theile des Königreiches Griechenland, vol. ii. p. 179 sq., Leipsic, 1841; Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland, vol. ii. p. 483 sq., Leipsic, 1872.
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