Idée #311 – Visiting the Island of Symi
Symi is a Greek island of the Dodecanese, at sea Aegean Sea, to 41 km of Rhodes. According to the mythology, the island pulls its name of one of the wives of Poseidon, the nymph Syme. The island is also quoted as place of birth of Three Graces. In Antiquity, the island was called Aigli and Metapontis. Symi is also quoted in the Iliade d’ Homère, as the domain of king Nirée, which fights in the side of the Greeks in the Trojan War.
In 411 before J.C., Thucydide brings back the events of the battle of Symi, in the course of which Lacedaemonian boats commanded by the navarque Astyochos, come from Milet, rout a squadron of Athenian ships commanded by the strategist Charminos of Samos.
In 1373, Symi is conquered by the Knights of the order of Saint Jean of Jerusalem, which establish a castle there. Although taken by the Ottomans in 1522, the island maintains nevertheless a long period of prosperity as commercial platform of the Dodecanese, until the development of the railroad in the XIXth century. Let’s go, on boat, to the islands!
Some Pictures
Where is it ?
Symi, Dodecanese, Greece
