Cape Colias

Cape Colias was the site of a temple dedicated to Aphrodite Colias. Associated with her were the Genetyllides, minor goddesses or spirits of childbirth and procreation who were considered attendants of Aphrodite.{{cite book |last=Pausanias |author-link=Pausanias (geographer) |title=Description of Greece |volume=1 |chapter=1.5 |translator-last=Jones |translator-first=W.H.S. |date=1918 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+1.1.5&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160}} Pausanias suggested that these deities were the same as the Gennaïdes worshipped by the Phocaeans in Ionia.

The cult was particularly important to women. The playwright Aristophanes mentions the cult in The Clouds,{{cite book |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=William |title=Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology |year=1870 |entry=Colias |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=colias-bio-1 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |location=Boston}} where it is humorously referred to as a "foreign" religion, possibly hinting at an Eastern influence, such as the cult of Astarte.{{sfn|Hadzisteliou-Price|1978|p=127}}

According to the historian Herodotus, the wrecks of the Persian ships from their defeat at the Battle of Salamis (480 BC) were carried by the current and washed up on the shores of Cape Colias.{{cite book |last=Herodotus |author-link=Herodotus |title=The Histories |volume=8 |chapter=96 |translator-last=Godley |translator-first=A. D. |date=1920 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+8.96&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126}} This event was seen by the Athenians as a fulfillment of an oracle by a certain Lysistratus, which had predicted that "the Colian women shall cook their food with oars."

Plutarch, in his Life of Solon, recounts a stratagem employed by the Athenian statesman Solon to defeat the Megarians. Having learned that Megarian ships were sailing to Colias to capture Athenian women during a festival, Solon had a group of beardless young men dress in the women's clothes. They danced on the shore, luring the Megarians to disembark, at which point the disguised Athenians slaughtered them.{{cite web |last=TheCollector |title=Solon: The Athenian Lawmaker Who Shaped Ancient Democracy |url=https://www.thecollector.com/solon-athenian-lawmaker-shaped-ancient-democracy/ |website=TheCollector |date=6 June 2024 |access-date=28 June 2024}}{{better source|date=June 2025}}

Pausanias, in his Description of Greece (2nd century AD), describes the cape:

Twenty stades away is the promontory called Colias; on to it, when the Persian fleet was destroyed, the wrecks were carried down by the waves. There is here an image of the Coliad Aphrodite, with the goddesses Genetyllides, as they are called. And I am of opinion that the goddesses of the Phocaeans in Ionia, whom they call Gennaides, are the same as those at Colias.

Strabo also mentions the promontory in his Geographica, erroneously{{sfn|Lohmann|2006}} locating it near the deme of Anaphlystus.{{cite book |last=Strabo |author-link=Strabo |title=Geographica |volume=9 |chapter=1.21 |translator-last=Jones |translator-first=H. L. |date=1924 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/9A*.html}}

The ancient promontory of Colias is identified with the modern cape of Agios Kosmas (Cape Cosmas){{cite book |last=Talbert |first=Richard J. A. |title=Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World: Map-by-map Directory |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=2000-10-08 |isbn=978-0-691-04945-8 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Barrington_Atlas_of_the_Greek_and_Roman/x_FHmc_E2uQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=kolias |access-date=2025-06-28 |page=908}}{{sfn|Day|1932|p=2}} located near Elliniko in the southern suburbs of Athens since at least the late 19th century (P. Kastriotes).{{sfn|Archaeological Institute of America|1898|p=313}} Archaeological excavations at Agios Kosmas{{sfn|Mylonas|1959}} have revealed remains from the Early Bronze Age, though prominent remains of the temple of Aphrodite have not been definitively identified, it is suggested that the sanctuary stood where the church of Saint Cosmas is standing.{{sfn|Archaeological Institute of America|1898|p=313}} The location fits the geographical descriptions provided by ancient authors in relation to Phaleron and the surrounding coastline.

{{reflist}}

• {{cite journal |title=Miscellaneous | journal = The Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America |publisher=Macmillan Company |date=1898 | volume = II |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Journal_of_Archaeology/XIhJAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA313 |ref={{sfnref|Archaeological Institute of America|1898}} |access-date=2025-06-28|page=313}}
• {{cite journal |last=Day |first=John |title=Cape Colias Phalerum and the Phaleric Wall |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |publisher=Archaeological Institute of America |volume=36 |issue=1 |year=1932 |issn=00029114 |jstor=498263 |pages=1–11 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/498263 |access-date=2025-06-28}}
• {{cite book |last=Hadzisteliou-Price |first=Theodora |title=Kourotrophos: Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities |publisher=Brill Archive |date=1978 |isbn=978-90-04-05251-2 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Kourotrophos/_tMUAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 |access-date=2025-06-28}}
• {{cite web |first1=Hans |last1=Lohmann |title=Kolias akra | date=2006 |url=https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/NPOE/e618200.xml |website=Brill's New Pauly Online |publisher=Brill |access-date=28 June 2025 |doi=10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e618200}}
• {{cite book |last=Mylonas |first=George Emmanuel |title=Aghios Kosmas: An Early Bronze Age Settlement and Cemetery in Attica |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=1959 |isbn=978-0-598-84006-6 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Aghios_Kosmas/JTkEnQEACAAJ?hl=en |access-date=2025-06-28}}
• {{cite journal |last=Mylonas |first=George Emmanuel |title=Excavations at Haghios kosmas |journal=American Journal of Archaeology |publisher=Archaeological Institute of America |volume=38 |issue=2 |year=1934 |issn=00029114 |jstor=498080 |pages=258–279 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/498080 |access-date=2025-07-09|version=Preliminary Report}}

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Category:Ancient Greek geography

Category:Headlands of Greece

Category:Attica

Category:Ancient Greek religion

Category:Aphrodite