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Rhodes  BEFORE 408 BC the island of Rhodes was divided among three independent cities, Kamiros on the west coast, Lindos on the east, and Ialysos to the north, each with its own territory, system of government and coinage (on three different weight standards). In 408 they formed a unifi ed state with as capital the new city of Rhodes on former Ialysian territory at the northern tip of the island. Most political and economic power fl owed to the new state, but the three old cities retained some local autonomy and, in particular, the prestige of their religious cults and of their leading families. The new state, endowed with excellent harbours at the new site, and a strategic position on east-west and north-south trade-routes, became one of the major commercial powers in the Greek world, particularly after the conquests of Alexander the Great had opened up Egypt and the East to Greek exploitation in the late fourth century BC. Her code of maritime law was incorporated by Augustus into the Roman legal code, and thence passed to Byzantium.


After antiquity the island’s most renowned period was under the Knights of St. John, who after the fall of Acre in 1291 went fi rst to Cyprus and then in 1306 to Rhodes; they remained until 1522, when, after a heroic resistance against overwhelming odds, they surrendered to Süleyman the Magnifi cent; after a brief sojourn on Crete, the survivors finally settled in Malta. Rhodes remained Turkish until 1912, when the Italians took over the Dodecanese. It was finally united with Greece only in 1948.


Most of the ancient city is covered by later buildings, but excavations have revealed its gridiron plan. The most extensive visible remains are on the acropolis (Monte Smith), a short taxi-ride to the south-west, and include the foundations of a temple of Apollo Pythios, a small concert-hall, a stadium and a gymnasium, much of them heavily restored by Italian archaeologists in the 1930s. The temple of Helios, the principal deity of the island, seems to have been a little to the west of the later Palace of the Grand Masters, and the Colossus may have stood there too: wherever the latter was located, it did not straddle the harbour at Mandraki, as modern myth has it (see further under Loryma).


However, the most impressive remains are those of the city of the Knights, a conveniently compact area south of the commercial harbour enclosed by well preserved defence walls, which also incorporate much of the old Turkish quarter with its mosques and hamam (there is still a sizeable Turkish-speaking community in the city). Not to be missed are the rich archaeological museum beautifully housed in the Knights’ hospital; the street of the Knights with its ‘Inns’ formerly housing the different ‘tongues’ (nationalities) of the knights; and the Palace of the Grand Masters at its top end. The Palace has a good display of mosaics from Kos incorporated into the fl oors by the Italian restorers, and in the basement an excellent exhibition illustrating the history of ancient Rhodes. A walk along the moat on the southern side of the city gives a good idea of how it must have looked to Süleyman’s besieging Janissaries.

WESTMINSTER CLASSIC TOURS