Rhodes

Rhodes is situated 363 km (226 mi) east-southeast from the Greek mainland, and 18 km (11 mi) from the southern shore of Turkey. Mount Attavyros, at 1,216 m (3,990 ft), is the island's highest point of elevation.

Flora

The interior of the island is mountainous, sparsely inhabited and covered with forests of

Fauna

The Rhodian population of fallow deer was found to be genetically distinct in 2005, and to be of urgent conservation concern.^[14] In Petaloudes Valley (Greek for "Valley of the Butterflies"), large numbers of tiger moths gather during the summer months.

Earthquakes

Earthquakes include the 226 BC earthquake that destroyed the Colossus of Rhodes; one on 3 May 1481 which destroyed much of the city of Rhodes;^[15] and one on 26 June 1926.^[16]

On 15 July 2008, Rhodes was struck by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, causing minor damage to a few old buildings and one death.^[17]

Climate

Rhodes has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa in the Köppen climate classification) with mild winters and hot summers. The South East of the island experiences a significantly warmer climate with Lindos registering for the period 2010-2019 a mean annual temperature of 21.9 °C (71.4 °F),^[18] making it the warmest area in Greece.^[19][20] Moreover, according to the Hellenic National Meteorological Service, South East Rhodes records the highest mean annual sunshine in Greece with over 3,100 hours.^[21]

History

Prehistory

The island was inhabited in the Neolithic period although little remains of this culture.

Minoan Era

In the 16th century BC, the Minoans came to Rhodes. Later Greek mythology recalled a Rhodian race called the Telchines and associated the island of Rhodes with Danaus; it was sometimes nicknamed Telchinis.

Mycenaean Era

In the 15th century BC,

In Greek legend, Rhodes was claimed to have participated in the Trojan War under the leadership of Tlepolemus.^[32]

Archaic Era

In the 8th century BC, the island's settlements started to form, with the coming of the

In

The Persians invaded and overran the island, but they were in turn defeated by forces from Athens in 478 BC. The Rhodian cities joined the Athenian League. When the Peloponnesian War broke out in 431 BC, Rhodes remained largely neutral, although it remained a member of the League. The war lasted until 404 BC, but by this time Rhodes had withdrawn entirely from the conflict and decided to go their own way.

Being the eastern gate to the Aegean Sea, Rhodes was an important stopping point for

In 357 BC, the island was conquered by the king Mausolus of Caria; then it fell again to the Persians in 340 BC. Their rule was also short.

Hellenistic and Roman periods

Rhodes then became a part of the growing empire of Alexander the Great in 332 BC, after he defeated the Persians.

Following the death of Alexander, his generals (Diadochi) vied for control of the kingdom. Three — Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus — succeeded in dividing the kingdom among themselves. Rhodes formed strong commercial and cultural ties with the Ptolemies in Alexandria, and together formed the Rhodo-Egyptian alliance that controlled trade throughout the Aegean in the 3rd century BC.^[36]

The city developed into a maritime, commercial and cultural center; its coins circulated nearly everywhere in the Mediterranean. Its famous schools of philosophy, science, literature and

Throughout the 3rd century BC, Rhodes attempted to secure her independence and her commerce, most especially her virtual control over the grain trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Both of these goals were dependent upon no one of the three great Hellenistic states achieving dominance, and consequently the Rhodians pursued a policy of maintaining a balance of power among the Antigonids, Seleucids and Ptolemies, even if that meant going to war with her traditional ally, Egypt. To this end they employed as leverage their economy and their excellent navy, which was manned by proverbially the finest sailors in the Mediterranean world: "If we have ten Rhodians, we have ten ships."^[39]

The Rhodians also established their dominance on the shores of Caria across from their island, which became known as the "Rhodian Peraia". It extended roughly from the modern city of Muğla (ancient Mobolla) in the north and Kaunos bordering Lycia in the south, near the present-day Dalyan, Turkey.

Rhodes successfully carried on this policy through the course of the third century BC, an impressive achievement for what was essentially a democratic state. By the end of that period, however, the balance of power was crumbling, as declining Ptolemaic power made Egypt an attractive target for Seleucid ambitions. In 203/2 BC the young and dynamic kings of Antigonid Macedon and Seleucid Asia,

Despite being exhausted by the

The Romans withdrew from Greece after the end of the conflict, but the resulting power vacuum quickly drew in Antiochus III and subsequently the Romans. The

Those good graces soon evaporated in the wake of the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC). In 169 BC, during the war against Perseus, Rhodes sent Agepolis as ambassador to the consul Quintus Marcius Philippus, and then to Rome in the following year, hoping to turn the Senate against the war.^[43]

Rhodes remained scrupulously neutral during the war, but in the view of hostile elements in the Senate she had been a bit too friendly with the defeated King Perseus. Some actually proposed declaring war on the island republic, but this was averted. In 164 BC, Rhodes became a "permanent ally" of Rome, which was essentially a reduction to client state of nominal but meaningless independence. It was said that the Romans ultimately turned against the Rhodians because the islanders were the only people they had encountered who were more arrogant than themselves.

After surrendering its independence, Rhodes became a cultural and educational center for Roman noble families. It was especially noted for its teachers of rhetoric, such as Hermagoras and the unknown author of Rhetorica ad Herennium. At first, the state was an important ally of Rome and enjoyed numerous privileges, but these were later lost in various machinations of Roman politics. Cassius eventually invaded the island and sacked the city. In the early Imperial period Rhodes became a favorite place for political exiles.^[44]

In the 1st century AD, the Emperor Tiberius spent a brief term of exile on Rhodes. By tradition, Paul the Apostle evangelized and helped establish an early Christian church on the island during the first century.^[45]

In ancient times there was a Roman saying: "

Byzantine period

In 395 with the division of the

From the early 8th to the 12th centuries, Rhodes belonged to the Cibyrrhaeot Theme of the Byzantine Empire, and was a centre for shipbuilding and commerce.^[46] In c. 1090, it was occupied by the forces of the Seljuk Turks, after the long period of chaos resulting from the Battle of Manzikert.^[53] Rhodes was recaptured by the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos during the First Crusade.

As Byzantine central power weakened under the

In 1306–1310, the Byzantine era of the island's history came to an end when the island was occupied by the Knights Hospitaller.^[46] Under the rule of the newly named "Knights of Rhodes", the city was rebuilt into a model of the European medieval ideal. Many of the city's famous monuments, including the Palace of the Grand Master, were built during this period.

The strong walls which the knights had built withstood the attacks of the

Rhodes was thereafter a possession of the Ottoman Empire (see Sanjak of Rhodes) for nearly four centuries.

Modern history

In the 19th century the island was populated by ethnic groups from the surrounding nations, including Jews, whose presence goes back 2,300 years.^[55] Under Ottoman rule, they generally did fairly well, but discrimination and bigotry occasionally arose. In February 1840, the Jews of Rhodes were falsely accused by the Greek Orthodox community of ritually murdering a Christian boy. This became known as the Rhodes blood libel.

Austria opened a post-office at RHODUS (Venetian name) before 1864,^[56] as witnessed by stamps with Franz Joseph's head.

In 1912, Italy seized Rhodes from the Ottomans during the

Thousands of

After September 1943, the Jews were sent to concentration camps. However, the Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen succeeded, at considerable risk to himself and his family, in saving 42 Jewish families, about 200 persons in total, who had Turkish citizenship or were members of Turkish citizens' families.

On 8 May 1945, the Germans under Otto Wagener surrendered Rhodes as well as the Dodecanese as a whole to the British, who soon after then occupied the islands as a military protectorate.^[58]

At the Paris Peace Treaties, Rhodes, together with the other islands of the Dodecanese, was united with Greece in February 1947. 6,000 Italian colonists were forced to abandon the island and returned to Italy.

Contemporary period

In 1949, Rhodes was the venue for negotiations between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, concluding with the 1949 Armistice Agreements. ^[59]

In 2023, the island was hit by the 2023 Greece wildfires, which forced the largest evacuations in the history of Greece. Nearly 19,000 people had to evacuate.^[60]

Archaeology

The Colossus of Rhodes was considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This giant bronze statue was documented as once standing at the harbour. It was completed in 280 BC and destroyed in an earthquake in 226 BC. No trace of the statue remains today.

Historical sites on the island of Rhodes include the

Christianity

The predominant religion is

Rhodes has a Turkish Muslim minority, which includes Greek Muslims whose ancestors from Crete and the Dodecanese converted to Islam in the Ottoman period. Although a remnant from Ottoman Turkish times they were not required in the population exchange of 1923–24 to resettle in Turkey like the Turkish, Greek, and other Muslim communities living mainly in Macedonia and other parts of Northern Greece because unlike these areas the Dodecanese Islands were under Italian administration at the time. They are organized around the Turkish Association of Rhodes (Turkish: Rodos Türk Derneği), which gives the figure 3,500 for the population they bring together and represent for the island.^[63] The number of the Turks in Rhodes could be as many as 4,000.^[64][65][66]

Judaism

The Jewish community of Rhodes^[67] goes back 2,300 years.^[55] Kahal Shalom Synagogue, established in 1557, during the Ottoman era, is the oldest synagogue in Greece and still stands in the Jewish quarter (La Juderia) of the old town of Rhodes. At its peak in the 1920s, the Jewish community was one-third of the town's total population.^[68] In the 1940s, there were about 2000 Jews of various ethnic backgrounds. The Nazis deported and killed most of the community during the Holocaust. Kahal Shalom has been renovated with the help of foreign donors but few Jews live year-round in Rhodes today, so services are not held on a regular basis.^[69]

The Jewish Museum of Rhodes was established in 1997 to preserve the Jewish history and culture of the Jews of Rhodes. It is adjacent to the Kahal Shalom Synagogue.

The Congolese businessman and politician, and former governor of Katanga,

The present municipality Rhodes was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 10 former municipalities, that became municipal units (constituent communities in parentheses):^[2]

• Afantou (Afantou, Archipoli)
• Archangelos (Archangelos, Malonas, Masari)
• Attavyros (Embonas, Kritinia, Monolithos, Siana, Agios Isidoros)
• Ialysos
• Kallithea (Kalythies, Koskinou, Psinthos)
• Kameiros (Soroni, Apollona, Dimylia, Kalavarda, Platania, Salakos, Fanes)
• Lindos (Lindos, Kalathos, Laerma, Lardos, Pylona)
• Petaloudes (Kremasti, Pastida, Maritsa, Paradeisi, Theologos, Damatria)
• Rhodes
• South Rhodes (Gennadi, Apolakkia, Arnitha, Asklipieio, Vati, Istrios, Kattavia, Lachania,^[71] Mesanagros, Profilia)

The municipality has an area of 1400.681 km².^{[72][failed verification]} It covers the island of Rhodes and a few uninhabited offshore islets. Rhodes city was the capital of the former Dodecanese Prefecture. Rhodes is the most populated island of the South Aegean Region.^{[citation needed]}

Towns and villages

Rhodes has 43 towns and villages:

Economy

The economy is tourist-oriented, and the most developed sector is service. Tourism has elevated Rhodes economically, compared to the rest of Greece.^[73]

Small industries process imported raw materials for local retail, though other industry includes agricultural goods production, stockbreeding, fishery and winery.

Transportation

Air

Rhodes has two airports, but only one is public.

Rhodes has five ports, three of them in

• Central Port: located in the city of Rhodes serves exclusively international traffic consisting of scheduled services to/from Turkey, cruise ships and yachts. Since Summer 2012, the port is also a homeport for Costa Cruises during the summer period.
• Kolona Port: opposite and north of the central port, serves intra-Dodecanese traffic and all sizes yachts.
• Akandia Port: the new port of the island, south and next to the central port, being built since the 1960s, for domestic, cargo and general purpose traffic. Since 2017 summer a passenger terminal is finally in use hosting a cafe and waiting lounges.[74]
• Mandraki Port: the oldest port of the island, in the center of Rhodes city. Many cruise boats begin their daily trips to Symi island or to the southern east coast until Lindos.^[75]
• Kamiros Skala Dock: 30 km (19 mi) south west of the city near
  Ancient Kamiros ruins serves mainly the island of Halki
  .
• Lardos Dock: formerly servicing local industries, now under development as an alternative port for times when the central port is inaccessible due to weather conditions. It is situated in a rocky shore near the village of Lardos in south east Rhodes.

• Blue Guide
• Marmaris Lines
• Fethiye Lines
• Marmaris Rodos
• Odek Lines

Road network

The road network of the island is mostly paved and consists of 3 national roads plus one planned, 40 provincial and numerous local. These are the four major island arteries:

• Kamiros.^{[citation needed}
  ]
• Rhodes-Lindos National Avenue (Greek National Road 95): Four and two lane, runs mainly inland north to south and connects Rhodes City with Lindos.^{[citation needed]} Part from Rhodes Town until Kolympia is now 4 lanes, the rest until Lindos is 2 lanes.
• Rhodes-Kallithea-Faliraki Province Avenue 4: Two lanes, runs through the east coast north to south and connects Rhodes City with Kallithea monument and Faliraki Resort.^{[citation needed]}
• Tsairi-Airport National Avenue (Greek National Road 100): Four and two lane, runs inland east to west and connects the east coast with the west and the airport.^{[citation needed]}
• Lindos-Katavia Province Road 1: Two lane, begins just before Lindos and though villages and resorts leads to Katavia village, the southernmost of the island, from where a further deviation leads to Prasonissi.^{[citation needed]}
• Rhodes Town
  Ring Road
  (Phase 1): Beginning from the new marina and ending to Rhodes-Kallithea province avenue is a four lane expressway.

Future roads:^{[citation needed]}

• Further widening of Rhodes-Lindos National Avenue (Greek National Road 95) from Kolympia to Lindos. This is to be four lane with a jersey barrier in the middle. A tender is expected to take place by end of 2019 so as constructions can begin.
• Ring Road phases 2, 3, and 4 pending; phase 2 will extend the expressway to Greek National Road 95 and then to Rhodes General Hospital where it supposedly will connect to also planned new Rhodes City-Airport expressway. In June 2018 Rhodes municipality stated that plans for the final 700 meters of the ring road leading to Akandia Port are pending approval.^[76] Phases 3 and 4 which plan to run the ring road from hospital hill down to Ixia and then through Kritika back to the town will most probably never occur.
• Plans also exist for a new four lane express road connecting Rhodes Town with
  Diagoras Airport. The road, recognised as National back in 2014,^[77]
  will follow existing Provincial Road 3 routing with a total length of 8.6 km and including 3 main junctions and is intended to relieve congestion on the coastal west avenue. The so-called Leoforos Mesogeion is vastly anticipated and is a top priority for local authorities.

Bus services are handled by two operators:[78]

• RODA: Municipal bus company that serves Rhodes city as well suburban areas (Koskinou, Faliraki, Ialysos, Kremasti, Airport, Pastida, Maritsa, Paradeisi) and the west coast of the island
• KTEL: Limited liability private transport company that serve villages and resorts in the east coast of the island

Cars and motorbikes

Families in Rhodes often own more than one car, along with a motorbike. Traffic jams are common particularly in the summer months as vehicles more than double while parking spots downtown and around the old town are limited and can't cope with demand. Moreover, the island is served by 450 taxis and some 200 public and private buses adding to the traffic burden.

Sports

• Football:
  AS Rodos competed in 1st tier of the local league and ranking 1st achieved promotion and returned after one year to (Gamma Ethniki) which from 2019 to 2020 season became tier 4. Local football leagues (organized at the prefecture-level) contain three divisions with more than 50 teams.^[79] Many stadiums are grass-covered.^[80]
• Basketball:
  Colossus BC sponsors professional basketball and after more than a decade of presence in the top-level Greek Basket League was relegated to Greek A2 Basket League. The local league includes a single division with two groups, one for Rhodes and the other for the other islands, with 7 and 5 teams respectively.^[81] Three indoor courts exist in Rhodes City, and one each in Ialysos, Kremasti, and Faliraki. Archangelos town will also get an indoor court according to Rhodes municipality planned works and regional government's approved funds.^[82]
• Volleyball: Rodion Athlisis managed to escape local obscurity and until 2018–19 season competed at the national level second-tier failing to achieve promotion to the first level in playoffs for three consecutive seasons.[83] This unlucky streak caused team sponsors to withdraw from the men's team and focus solely on developing youth academies.^[84]
• Water polo: mostly amateur-based. There is not any single public indoor pool on the island.
• Rugby: introduced in 2007. Teams compete at the national level.^{[citation needed]}
• Tennis: Rhodes Tennis Club (Ροδιακός Όμιλος Αντισφαίρισης) promotes officially tennis since 1949. Club operates on two separate locations, one downtown next to the casino and one next to Kallipateira National Athletic Centre.^[85]
• Sailing: Island has competed at the international level^{[citation needed]}
• Cycling: For a long period of time Rhodes had the only velodrome in Greece. For the moment, the island is the seat of the Dodecanissos Local Cycling Committee. Most notable cycling clubs are
  UCI Europe Tour
  Cycling Calendar, is annually organized.
• Rhodes competed in the bi-annual Island Games, which it hosted in 2007.^[86] Since 2019 is suspended from competition.

Cuisine

Rhodian tradition in cuisine is rich. Koriantolino and Souma (colorless alcoholic beverage produced from grape distillation) are the main alcoholic drinks of Rhodes. Local foods include:

• Escharitis, type of bread
• Pitaroudia
• Milla and Tsiriggia, meat fat
• Pougia pie
• Lakani, goat meat with chickpeas
• Lópia (beans) with goat
• Matsi, hand made pasta used to make Koulouría, a traditional recipe
• Synoro, traditional cheese
• Tahinopita
• Zvigoi, type of
  loukoumades
• Melekouni
• Fanouropita
• Takakia (Mantinades)
• Katimeria (tiganites, pancakes)
• Amygdalota, white almond cookies
• Moschopougia

Notable people

• Agesander (1st century BC), sculptor
• Marcus Tullius Cicero
• Apollonius (3rd century BC), epic poet
• Chares of Lindos (3rd century BC), sculptor
• Cleobulus of Lindos
  (6th century BC), philosopher and one of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece
• Diagoras (5th century BC), boxer, multiple Olympic winner
• Dinocrates (4th century BC), architect and technical adviser for Alexander the Great
• Hecato (c. 100 BC), Stoic philosopher
• Hieronymus, (c.290-c.230 BC), Peripatetic philosopher
• Hipparchus, (2nd century BC), astronomer, mathematician, geographer, founder of trigonometry
• Joannicius II of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
• Leonidas (2nd century BC), athlete
• Memnon (380–333 BC), commander of mercenary army
• mercenary soldier
  , brother of Memnon
• Panaetius (c. 185 – c. 110/109 BC), Stoic philosopher
• Timocreon (5th century BC), poet
• NRL
  premiership winner (ancestral ties to the island through his father, Petros ("Peter") Anastasakis)
• Lawrence Durrell, writer and poet, author of The Alexandria Quartet, resided on Rhodes 1945–1947. In 1953 his travel book about Rhodes – Reflections on a Marine Venus – was published.
• Stergos Felegakis
  , professional football player
• Republic of Turkey
• Nick Galis, basketball player, FIBA Hall of Fame and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame member (his father was born in a small village called Agios Isidoros
  )
• Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916–1993), Italian automobile designer, was stationed on the island as an air-force mechanic in WW2
• George Marshall (1781–1855) author and Master Gunner, United States Navy
• Murat Reiz Plaku Albanian Navy Commander
• Panagiotis Rodios, revolutionary and Hellenic Army officer
• Niki Xanthou, long jumper
• Ioannis Zigdis (1913–1997), politician and economist

Tourism

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Rhodes is one of the most attractive tourist destinations in Greece. After Crete, the island is the most visited destination in Greece, with arrivals standing at 1,785,305 in 2013. In 2014 they stood at 1,931,005, while in 2015 the arrival number reduced slightly and stood at 1,901,000.^{[citation needed]} The average length of stay is estimated at 8 days. Guests from Great Britain, Israel, France, Italy, Sweden and Norway are the ones that constitute the biggest portion in terms of the arrivals by country. In Rhodes, the supply of available rooms is high, since more than 550 hotels are operating in the island, the majority of which are two star hotels.

In popular culture

• "Hic Rhodus, hic salta!", a phrase from antiquity
• Movies shot on the island include The Guns of Navarone (1961), Kiss the Girls by Giannis Dalianidis (1965), and Escape to Athena (1979). Rhodes was also the setting of Agatha Christie's "Triangle at Rhodes".

Panoramas

See also

• 95th National Guard Higher Command (Greece)
• Ancient regions of Anatolia
• Brygindara
• Medieval Rose

Citations