Rhodes (; ) is the largest of Greece's Dodecanese islands and their historical capital, as well as the ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, Rhodes constitutes a municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean administrative region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is the city of Rhodes, home to 50,636 inhabitants according to the 2011 census. By 2022, the island's population had grown to 125,113 people. Located northeast of Crete and southeast of Athens, Rhodes is referred to by several nicknames: "the Island of the Sun" after its patron sun god Helios; "the Pearl Island"; and "the Island of the Knights", a reference to the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522.
Historically, Rhodes was famous for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The medieval Old Town of the City of Rhodes has been declared a World Heritage Site. During the early 21st century the island was one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. It is often described as a party island, as it has more nightclubs and bars per capita than New York or Paris. Today, the island is completely overwhelmed by tourism. The sheer intensity of visitor activity routinely overwhelms its small population and limited infrastructure.
Name The island has been known as (Ródos) in Greek throughout its history. Similar-sounding (rhódon) in ancient Greek was the word for the rose, whilst in modern Greek the also similar-sounding ρόδι (ródi) or ρόιδο (róido) refers to the pomegranate. It was also called Lindos (). In addition, the island has been called in Italian, in Turkish, and or in Ladino.
Other ancient names were Ρόδη (Rodē), Τελχινίς (Telchinis) and Ηλιάς (Helias).
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville incorrectly reports that Rhodes was formerly called "Collosus", through a conflation of the Colossus of Rhodes and Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, which refers to Colossae.Anthony Bale, trans., The Book of Marvels and Travels, Oxford 2012, , [ p. 16] and footnote
The island's name might be derived from erod, Phoenician for snake, since the island was home to many snakes in antiquity.
History Prehistory During the Late Pleistocene, the island was inhabited by an unnamed species of dwarf elephant. The island has been inhabited by humans since at least the late Neolithic, as evidenced by remains found at Kalythies cave on the northeast of the island.Menelaou, S. (2 December 2021). Insular, marginal or multiconnected? Maritime interaction and connectivity in the East Aegean Islands during the Early Bronze Age through ceramic evidence. p. 137 European Islands Between Isolated and Interconnected Life Worlds: Interdisciplinary Long-Term Perspectives Tübingen University Press.
Early Bronze Age At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, during the Early Bronze Age, major urban settlements began to develop on Rhodes, such as Asomatos, which is the earliest known urban centre on the island. Duck shaped vases found at Asomatos suggest contact with Cyprus as well as elsewhere in the Aegean region during this time.T. MARKETOU, Rhodes and Cyprus in the Bronze Age: 3ld and new evidence of contacts and interactions, in V. KARAGEORGHIS – O. KOUKA (eds), Cyprus and the East Aegean, Intercultural contacts from 3000 to 500 BC. An international archaeological symposium held at Pythagoreion, Samos, October 17th-18th 2008, Nicosia 2009, 48-58.
Middle Bronze Age Minoan period
The Minoan Civilisation established a settlement at Tiranda on the northwest of the island during the 16th century BC, presumably to facilitate trade.
Late Bronze Age Mycenaean period
In the 15th century BC, Mycenaean Greeks settled. After the Bronze Age collapse, the first renewed outside contacts were with Cyprus.B. d'Agostino, "Funerary customs and society on Rhodes in the Geometric Period: some observations", in E. Herring and I. Lemos, eds. Across Frontiers: Etruscans, Greeks, Phoenicians and Cypriots. Studies in Honour of D. Ridgway and F.R. Serra Ridgway 2006:57–69.
In Greek legend, Rhodes was claimed to have participated in the Trojan War under the leadership of Tlepolemus.Iliad 2.653–654
Iron Age
In the 8th century BC, the island's settlements started to form, with the coming of the Dorians, who built the three important cities of Lindus, Ialysus and Camirus, which together with Kos, Cnidus and Halicarnassus (on the mainland) made up the so-called Dorian Hexapolis (Greek for six cities).
In Pindar's ode, the island was said to be born of the union of Helios the sun god and the nymph Rhodos, and the cities were named for their three sons. The rhoda is a pink hibiscus, native to the island. Diodorus Siculus added that Actis, one of the sons of Helios and Rhode, travelled to Egypt. He built the city of Heliopolis and taught the Egyptians astrology.
In the second half of the 8th century BC, the sanctuary of Athena received votive gifts that are markers for cultural contacts: small ivories from the Near East and bronze objects from Syria. At Kameiros on the northwest coast, a former Bronze Age site, At the site where the temple was established in the 8th century BC, archaeologists have identified an additional contemporaneous sequence of carved ivory figurines. The cemeteries of Kameiros and Ialyssos have also produced several notable examples of Orientalizing Rhodian jewelry, which are generally dated to the 7th and early 6th centuries BC.
Classical period
Being the eastern gate to the Aegean Sea, Rhodes was an important stopping point for Phoenician merchants, and prosperous trading colonies and Phoenician communities emerged there, some within the Greek cities.Giorgos Bourogiannis, The Phoenician presence in the Aegean during the Early Iron Age: Trade, settlement and cultural interaction, Rivista di Studi Fenici 46, 2018, pp. 43–88;
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.
In 408 BC, the cities united to form one territory. They built the city of Rhodes, a new capital on the northern end of the island. Its regular plan was, according to Strabo, superintended by the Athenian architect Hippodamus. 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. Rhodes then became a part of the growing empire of Alexander the Great in 332 BC, after he defeated the Persians.
Hellenistic period
Following the death of Alexander the Great, 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.A. Agelarakis"Demographic Dynamics and Funerary Rituals as Reflected from Rhodian Handra Urns", Archival Report, Archaeological and Historical Institute of Rhodes, 2005.
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 rhetoric shared masters with Alexandria: the Athenian rhetorician Aeschines, who formed a school at Rhodes; Apollonius of Rhodes, who wrote about Jason and Medea in the Argonautica; the observations and works of the astronomers Hipparchus and Geminus; and the rhetorician Dionysius Thrax. Its school of sculptors developed, under Pergamese influence, a rich, dramatic style that can be characterized as "Hellenistic Baroque". Agesander of Rhodes, with two other Rhodian sculptors, carved the famous Laocoön group, now in the Vatican Museums, and the large sculptures rediscovered at Sperlonga in the villa of Tiberius, probably in the early Imperial period.Boardman, pp. 199–201
In 305 BC, Antigonus directed his son, Demetrios Poliorketes, to besiege Rhodes in an attempt to break its alliance with Ptolemaic Egypt. Demetrius created huge siege engines, including a battering ram and a siege tower called Helepolis that weighed . Despite this engagement, in 304 BC after only one year, he relented and signed a peace agreement, leaving behind a huge store of military equipment. The Rhodians sold the equipment and used the money to erect a statue of their sun god, Helios, the statue since called the Colossus of Rhodes. The Rhodians celebrated in honour of Helios a grand festival, the Halieia.Smith, s. v. Halia , perseus.tufts.edu. Accessed 31 August 2022.
Throughout the 3rd century BC, Rhodes attempted to secure its independence and commerce, particularly its virtual control over the grain trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Both of these goals depended on none of the three great Hellenistic states achieving dominance. 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 its traditional ally, Ptolemaic Egypt. To this end, they employed their economy and their excellent navy as leverage, which was manned by proverbially the finest sailors in the Mediterranean world: "If we have ten Rhodians, we have ten ships.". This is a bragging proverb from Pseudo-Diogenes collected in
In a footnote they cite the adage in 'We [are] ten Rhodians, [we have] ten ships. On boasting.' in Michael Apostolius (ed. Daniel Heinsius). Paroemiae (Graece et latine.) IX, 85 (in Ancient Greek and Latin). Leiden: Elsevir, 1616, pg. 116.
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 Empire, Philip V and Antiochus III, agreed to accept—at least temporarily—their respective military ambitions: Philip's campaign in the Aegean and western Anatolia and Antiochus's plan for Egypt. Heading a coalition of small states, the Rhodians checked Philip's navy, but not his superior army. Without a third power to which to turn, the Rhodians (along with ambassadors from the kingdom of Pergamum, the Ptolemaic kingdom, and Athens) appealed in 201 BC to the Roman Republic.
Despite being exhausted by the Second Punic War against Hannibal (218–201 BC) the Romans agreed to intervene, still angry over the Macedonian alliance with Carthage that had led to the First Macedonian War from 214 to 205 BC. The Senate saw the appeal from Rhodes and her allies as the opportunity to pressure Philip. The result was the Second Macedonian War (200–196 BC), which Rome won and greatly reduced Macedon's power, prestige, and territory. Rhodian independence was preserved. Rhodian influence in the Aegean was cemented through the organization of the Cyclades into the Second Nesiotic League under Rhodian leadership.