Old castle of Pythagoreion

The old castle of Pythagoreion stands as a coastal fortress in rather poor condition, on the shore southwest of the harbour at Pythagoreio on Samos. The site itself was inhabited from the late Neolithic period (around the end of the fourth millennium BC) and fortified at least from the Archaic era, with the palace of the tyrant Polycrates probably occupying this spot. The defences remained in use through Hellenistic and Roman times, and in the fifth century AD three Christian basilicas were raised here, one likely serving as the island's episcopal seat. The Byzantine castle proper was likely built near the end of the seventh century, a response to Arab pirate raids following the Byzantine defeat at the Battle of the Masts in 655. It saw frequent repairs, with the final medieval renovation undertaken by the Genoese Giustiniani family around the mid-fourteenth century. Abandoned in 1475 after the Ottoman conquest, when the island itself was deserted, the fortification found new life in the nineteenth century when Lykourgos Logothetis used it against the Turks, rebuilding one tower between 1824 and 1827 as his residence and administrative centre.