Idée #310 – Visiting the antique sites of Rhodes Island
Rhodes is the biggest Greek island of the Dodecanese. Lined in the northwest by the Aegean Sea and in the southeast by the Mediterranean Sea, she is situated between the island of Karpathos and the Turkish coast, in 17,7 km of the latter. The god Hélios is the first one to see the island taking out waters; finding her strangely beautiful, he decides to take her under his protection. Shortly after, a called nymph Rhodé gives seven sons and a girl to Hélios. Kerkafos, the second son, becomes father of three boys, Kamiros, Ialissos and Lindos, who create the first three cities of the island. Dorics invaded the island from the oldest times, assimilating Lélèges and Pélasges which are mentioned there before. The island knew a period of prosperity and power from the archaic period. The classic arts called the island Atabyria, in a time when Zeus is nicknamed Atabyrios on the island, the oldest divinity of which it is. According to the Catalog of Vessels, the city of Lindos supplies nine ships in Achéens during the Trojan War. In 408 or 407 av. J.-C., these three cities united to form the city – state of Rhodes, maybe under the supervision of Hippodamos. In the death of Alexander the Great in 322 av. J.-C., the island found its autonomy by expelling its Macedonian garrison, then maintained narrow business connections with the Egyptian kingdom of Ptolémées. During the wars of Diadoques, the island resisted a famous seat by Démétrios Poliorcète 305, victory which it commemorated by the construction of the Giant, one of the seven world wonders, destroyed by an earthquake in 226. Let’s go, we take ours book of archaeology…
Where is it ?
Rhodes, Dodecanese, Greece