Prehistoric Beginnings
The earliest habitation on Kos dates to 3400 BC, at the Asprí Pétra cave; Kalymnian caverns hosted Neolithic man 2,000 years earlier. Early and Middle Bronze-Age settlers preferred Kos’s fertile plains, with the exception of a Minoan expedition which founded the Seraglio site near the only natural harbour. After Minoan civilisation collapsed around 1400 BC, Mycenean colonists took over Seraglio, staying until the arrival of the ‘Sea Peoples’ from beyond the Black Sea three centuries later.
The Seraglio was re-inhabited in about 900 BC by Argolid Dorians, who introduced the worship of Asklepios. Soon Kos entered history as a member of the Dorian Hexapolis, a federation of six cities on Rhodes, Kos and Anatolia opposite.
Persians to Romans
The Achaemenid Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great conquered Anatolia soon after 546 BC; Kos came briefly under Persian control, towards 500 BC. After Greek victories over the Persians at Plataea and Mykale in 479 BC, the island joined the Athenian-dominated Delian Confederacy. Kos got caught up in the Peloponnesian War of 431–404 BC, between Athens, Sparta and their respective allies; despite being Dorian, it did not join the Spartan side until 412 BC. Athens retaliated with a punitive expedition, but Kos again revolted in 407, before returning to the Athenian fold in 378. A civil war between pro-Spartan and pro-Athenian factions on Kos was only averted by the 366 BC founding of a new city, near Seraglio, and the political subservience or abandonment of other island towns.
Kos city, with its excellent harbour near the main Aegean sea-lane, prospered. After brief rule by Halikarnassos opposite, both cities were taken by Alexander the Great’s general, Ptolemy, in 333 BC, and for the next 150 years Kos had strong links to the Ptolemaic capital, Alexandria.
Kos supported Rome during its 215–190 BC campaigns on the Greek mainland to crush the last Macedonian kings, and became a prominent banking centre. In 88 BC, Mithridates of Pontus sacked Kos; in revenge Kos provided a fleet to Rome, and was thus conspicuously favoured under both the Roman Republic and Empire, when it served as a popular resort for cures at the Asklepion.
Fresco inside the Monastery of St John the Theologian, Pátmos
Mark Dubin
Hippokrates, Father of Medicine
Hippokrates (c.460–370 BC) is regarded as the father of scientific medicine, and still influences doctors today through the Hippocratic oath – which he probably didn’t compose, and scarcely resembles its original form. Hippokrates was definitely born on Kos, probably at ancient Astypalaia, but other details of his life are obscure. He was certainly a great healer who travelled throughout Classical Greece, but spent part of his career teaching and practising on his native island. Around seventy medical texts have been attributed to Hippokrates, only a few of which could he have personally written. Airs, Waters and Places, a treatise on the importance of environment for health from about 400 BC, is reckoned to be his, but most others were probably a compilation from a Kos library, which later surfaced in Ptolemean Alexandria during the second century BC. This emphasis on good air and water, and the holistic approach of ancient Greek medicine, seems positively modern. His native island duly honours him today, with a tree, a street, a park, a statue and an international medical institute named after him.
Byzantium and Christianity
The declining Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western empires. In 330 AD, eastern Emperor Constantine moved his capital to Byzantium, renaming it Constantinople (modern Istanbul) after him. While the last western emperor was deposed by Goths in 476, this eastern portion became the dominant east-Mediterranean power until 1025.
By 393, Christianity was the state religion; its liturgies and New Testament were written in koine Greek, based on Alexandria’s Hellenistic dialect. Byzantine authorities eradicated any traces of pagan Hellenism, most obviously by recycling temple masonry when building churches.
Christianity came early to the Dodecanese. Kos, plus many smaller islands, have ruined basilicas with elaborate floors, invariably from the fifth or sixth century, often built atop pagan temples; these basilicas were either levelled by a severe earthquake/tsunami in 554 AD, or by the Saracen raids of the following century.
The 600s saw Constantinople besieged by Persians and Arabs, but the Byzantine Empire survived, losing only Egypt. From the ninth through the early eleventh centuries, in the Byzantine heartland, Orthodox Byzantine faith exhibited a spiritual confidence, seeing Constantinople as a ‘new Jerusalem’ for the ‘chosen people’. This prompted disastrous diplomatic and ecclesiastical conflict with the Catholic West, culminating in the 1054 schism.
Meanwhile, the Dodecanese became a backwater subject to periodic pirate raids, figuring little in history except for the 1088 foundation of Agíou Ioánnou Theológou monastery on Pátmos, a previously insignificant island granted to Abbot Khristodoulos by the emperor.
Mehmet II’s troops laying siege to Constantinople in 1453
Getty Images
Crusader and Ottoman Conquest
In 1095, Norman crusaders raided the Dodecanese en route to Jerusalem. Worse followed in 1204, when Venetians, Franks and Germans diverted the Fourth Crusade, sacking and occupying Constantinople Latin princes and their followers divided up choice parts of the empire. Byzantium was reduced to four small peripheral kingdoms (despotates); none was based in the islands, though Rhodes and Kos were held by Leo Gabalas, a Byzantine aristocrat, for four decades.
In 1261, the Paleologos dynasty, provisionally based at Nicaea, recovered Constantinople but little of its former territory and power. Their only Latin allies were the Genoese, whose support came at a price: extensive commercial privileges in the capital, and the ceding, at various moments up to 1355, of many Aegean islands to assorted Genoese families.
Genoese adventurers had seized Rhodes and other Dodecanese islands by 1248, but in 1309 the crusading Knights Hospitallers of St John, expelled from Palestine and dissatisfied on Cyprus, conquered Rhodes. Genoese Kos fell to the Knights in 1314, after which their possession of most of the Dodecanese was guaranteed. Astypálea, Kárpathos and Kásos stayed Venetian, while Pátmos remained Orthodox monastic territory. Knightly citadels, either purpose-built or adapted Byzantine castles, appeared on most islands.
The Byzantines faced a much stronger threat than the crusaders in the expanding Ottoman Turkish Empire. Weakened by internal struggles, they proved no match for the Turks. On 29 May 1453, Constantinople fell to Sultan Mehmet II after a seven-week siege.
From their strongholds, the Knights engaged in both legitimate trade and piracy, constituting a major irritant to the expanding Ottoman Empire. Attempts to dislodge them from Kos in 1457 and 1477 failed; it took the six-month siege of Rhodes in 1522 by Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent to compel their surrender and cession of all the Dodecanese islands.
Under Ottoman rule, the Dodecanese lapsed into a conservative mode of village life. Only larger islands with flat, arable land, like Rhodes and Kos, attracted extensive Muslim colonisation and garrisoning, primarily in the largest towns, where non-Muslims were forbidden residence in the strategic central citadels. Taxes and discipline were imposed through imperial judges, tax collectors and military personnel, but local notables retained large enterprises or estates. Generally, insular Ottoman government was lackadaisical; 18th- and 19th-century travellers reported extensive neglect on Rhodes, including discarded weapons and unrepaired damage from the 1522 siege.
Calming effect of Kos
The Fourth Earl of Sandwich, doing his 1738 Grand Tour, noted that ‘the Turks of Kos are… endued with more affability than the mahometans in any other part of the Levant,’ while an 1815 visitor observed that ‘The Turks are by no means rigid or savage, and marry with the Greeks by civil contract.’
Greek identity was preserved through the Orthodox Church, which, despite occasional enforced conversion and intermarriage, suffered little interference from the Ottomans. All Orthodox peoples, Greek or otherwise, were considered one millet (subject nation), their patriarch responsible for his flock’s behaviour, tax collection and administering communal and inheritance law. Monasteries organised primary schooling – and on Pátmos, a distinguished secondary academy.
Smaller islands enjoyed significant autonomy and special concessions (particularly tax exemption) under Ottoman rule. These privileges were honoured even after the establishment of a Greek state in 1830, withdrawn incrementally only after 1874. Barren maritime Dodecanesian islands made fortunes either through sponge-diving, transporting Anatolian goods with their own fleets, or building boats on Turkish commission. Until the 18th century, the Ottomans never acquired much seamanship, relying instead on Aegean crews and shipyards.
Italian Rule and World War II
The Dodecanese were seized by Italy in a brief, spring 1912 campaign, part of an ongoing war to expel the Ottomans from Libya. At first Greek Orthodox islanders acclaimed the Italians as liberators, who promised not to outstay their welcome. Early in World War I, however, Italy remained neutral, and was only persuaded to join the Entente by being promised, among other things, that its sovereignty over the Dodecanese would be recognised. Between 1915 and 1923, international conferences agreed that (except for Rhodes) the Dodecanese would be given to Greece, but after the collapse of Greece’s Asia Minor invasion, and the rise of Italian Fascism, this became unlikely.
In 1923, Italy definitively annexed the Dodecanese as the Isole Italiane del’Egeo, embarking upon gradual, forced Latinisation. During the term of first Governor Mario Lago, land was expropriated for Italian colonists and intermarriage with local Greeks encouraged, though only Catholic ceremonies were valid. A puppet Orthodox archbishopric was set up, and when this failed (except for three collaborationist bishops), the Orthodox rite was suppressed completely. Italian was introduced as the compulsory language of public life in 1936, when ardently Fascist Cesare Maria de Vecchi replaced Lago and accelerated assimilationist measures. These provoked riots on Kálymnos (with stone-throwing women in the front line).
Italian architecture in Lakkí, Leros
Mark Dubin
The Dodecanese were never part of Italy: islanders were awarded en masse ‘lesser’ Italian nationality, with no obligation for military service (and no civic rights), while ‘major’ or full Italian citizenship was granted to those who collaborated conspicuously with the authorities. Emigration was possible on a ‘minor’ passport, and indeed by 1939 the Greek population of many islands had halved, which the Fascists probably intended. Expatriated Dodecanesians formed pressure groups in New York, Egypt, Australia and England to lobby any interested audience about the Greekness of the Dodecanese.
On larger islands, massive public works were undertaken to make them showcases of this ‘Italian Aegean Empire’; roads, monumental buildings and waterworks were constructed (often with forced Greek labour), sound and unsound archaeology engaged in, and accurate mapping done. The first hotels rose on Rhodes and Kos; the first tourists arrived by boat or seaplane. However, smaller islands, except for militarised Léros, were neglected.
Using a submarine dispatched from Léros, the Italians torpedoed the Greek cruiser Elli on 15 August 1940. This outrage went unanswered, as Greece was unprepared for war; but when Mussolini overran Albania, and on 28 October sent an ultimatum demanding passage for his troops through Greece, Greek dictator Metaxas responded to the Italian ambassador in Athens with the apocryphal “óhi” (no). (In fact, his answer, in mutually understood French, was “Alors, c’est la guerre” – a gesture still celebrated as a national holiday.)
Greece was defeated in April 1941 and a tripartite German-Bulgarian-Italian occupation imposed; little changed in the Dodecanese, except that Governor De Vecchi – hated even by many Italians – was replaced by Admiral Inigo Campioni.
When Italy capitulated on 8 September 1943, a brief free-for-all ensued on the Greek islands it had controlled. Churchill considered the Dodecanese easy pickings, but was denied assistance by the US, reluctant to endanger its precarious advance through Italy. The British occupied Kos and Léros, but insufficiently to repel German counterattacks; Kos fell on 3 October, Léros on 16 November, with considerable losses. German troops imprisoned and executed their erstwhile Italian allies, particularly on Rhodes, Léros and Kos.
The British gradually took the Dodecanese from September 1944 onwards, picking off islands one by one, though Rhodes, Kos and Léros were too strongly defended and only abandoned by the Germans after their May 1945 surrender to the Allies, signed on Dodecanesian Sými. Along with western Crete, these were the last territories they held.
Nazi tanks in Rhodes, August 1943
Corbis
The British stayed for 22 months from May 1945, causing considerable unease in the Greek government, which suspected that they meant to set up a Cyprus-style colony or (worse) hand some or all of the Dodecanese back to Turkey. However, the British claimed they intended to cede these islands to Greece once it became clear the central government would prevail against communist rebels on the mainland, and were also awaiting the outcome of the Italian-Greek peace treaty negotiations.
The negotiations’ main sticking points were Greek demands for war reparations versus Italian claims of compensation for ‘improvements’ to the Dodecanese (finally deemed to offset each other) and, more seriously, the fate of native Italians, and Greeks with ‘major’ Italian nationality. Metropolitan Italians, including those married to islanders, were given a year from February 1947 to choose between Greek or Italian nationality; if the latter, they were obliged to leave for Italy (a large number stayed). Native islanders who enjoyed ‘major’ Italian citizenship had their cases examined minutely; those who had adopted this status enthusiastically were also deported to Italy.
Once the treaty was ratified, the Greek Army assumed control on 31 March – a date responsible for the half-true assertion that the Dodecanese were united with Greece in 1947. A military governor presided over a ten-month lustration regime, evaluating the cases of ‘major’ Italian subjects, and winkling out any communists. Once this was completed, the Dodecanese were officially annexed by Greece on 9 January 1948, and the first civilian governor appointed.
Union with Greece: 1948 to the New Century
After nine years of war and civil war, a demoralised, impoverished Greece entered the American/NATO orbit during the 1950s. This and the next decade also saw wholesale emigration abroad or internally to larger cities. In the Dodecanese, many inhabitants of Kos and Kálymnos in particular headed off to Australia or Canada, both countries with labour shortages and less bothered about left-wing political affiliation than the US. As relations with neighbouring Turkey worsened after 1954, the resulting sense of insecurity on border islands accelerated depopulation.
Tourism saved some islands from complete desertion, though it began gradually. Kálymnos, Léros and Pátmos saw significant tourism only from the late 1980s onwards. The centre-left PASOK government, first elected in 1981 and in power almost uninterruptedly until 2004, tended to favour remote islands (which voted accordingly), and the infrastructure on Kos improved notably. Unusual continuity in local administration also helped, with an efficient mayor re-elected repeatedly.
The Bailout Years
After being in opposition since spring 2004, PASOK defeated centre-right Néa Dimokratía (ND) in early October 2009 elections, with George Papandreou becoming prime minister. He soon discovered that the outgoing ND government had minimised the extent of Greece’s national debt, and budget deficit. In April 2010 the first bailout from European and international lenders was solicited. It merely enabled Greece to continue making payments to creditors. By late 2011, despite imposition of the harshest austerity measures seen in post-1945 Europe, Greece’s economy and Papandreou’s position had both become untenable; Papandreou resigned on 11 November in favour of a six-month technocratic government of national unity.
Successive elections of May and June 2012 produced hung parliaments, with ND the top-finishing party in both. A coalition, expressly to impose more creditor-demanded austerity and manage a second bailout, was assembled from ND, PASOK and centre-left DIMAR, specifically excluding new upstart leftist party SYRIZA. By late 2014, the result was clear: a collapsing economy with droves of small and medium-sized businesses bankrupted, overall unemployment reaching 27 percent, a 57-percent youth unemployment rate, and massive emigration of young, skilled individuals.
ND Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ favoured candidate for president, elected by parliament, failed to secure a majority in December 2014. Constitutionally mandatory elections were set for 25 January 2015.
In these, SYRIZA, under charismatic leader Alexis Tsipras, gained a plurality but not a majority of parliamentary seats. Their platform had promised to square the circle of easing austerity while remaining within the eurozone. The only other party willing to enter into a coalition with SYRIZA was anti-EU, anti-bailout, far-right ANEL. In any case, the old ND-PASOK duopoly was finished.
Negotiations resumed with Greece’s creditors with a view to a third bailout. Bad faith, especially by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and his Greek counterpart Ioannis Varoufakis, were abundantly evident on both sides. Talks were suspended in late June, just before PM Tsipras announced a 5 July referendum on the terms of the bailout offered, and ordered Greece’s banks shut for three weeks and ATM withdrawal limits imposed to prevent them from collapsing.
The referendum went massively (61.3 percent) against accepting another bailout on the terms of the creditors, who had made it clear that their offer had already been withdrawn. Despite this, Tsipras soon caved in and accepted a third bailout even harsher than the one rejected. Battling rebels within his own party, he only secured approval of this €86 billion deal with opposition support. Added to existing debts of €317 billion, Greece would now owe over €400 billion with no hope of ever paying it off.
The rebels quickly formed their own party, and Tsipras resigned prior to elections held on 20 September. Defying predictions of deadlock with ND, these produced another resounding plurality for SYRIZA, which (to the consternation of many) renewed the coalition with ANEL. But Greece’s sovereignty has been sharply curtailed; all social and financial policies will be essentially dictated by an EU task force until further notice.