Kos of the Hellenistic and Roman city.
Kos or Cos (Greek: Κως) is a Greek island in the south Sporades group of the Dodecanese, next to the Gulf of Gökova/Cos. It measures 40 kilometres (25 mi) by 8 kilometres ( mi), and is 4 kilometres ( mi) from the coast of Bodrum, Turkey and the ancient region of Caria. The island has both fertile plains and mountainous highlands with a population of 30,947. It comprises three municipalities: Kos, the administrative center and largest town (pop. 17,890), Dikaio, and Irakleides. A person from Kos is called a "Koan." The word is also a possessive, as in "Koan goods."[1] The island was originally colonised by the Carians. A contingent from Kos participated in the War of Troy[3] The Dorians invaded it in the 11th century BC, establishing a Dorian colony with a large contingent of settlers from Epidaurus who took with them their Asclepius cult and made their new home famous for its sanatoria. The other chief sources of the island's wealth lay in its wines, and in later days, in its silk manufacture.[4] Its early history as part of the religious-political amphictyony that included Lindos, Kamiros, Ialysos, Cnidus and Halicarnassus, the Dorian Hexapolis (Greek for six cities),[5] is obscure. At the end of the 6th century Kos fell under Achaemenid domination, but rebelled after the Greek victory at Cape Mykale in 479. During the Greco-Persian Wars, when it expelled the Persians twice, it was ruled by tyrants, but as a rule it seems to have been under oligarchic government. In the 5th century it joined the Delian League, and after the revolt of Rhodes served as the chief Athenian station in the south-eastern Aegean (411-407). In 366 BC, a democracy was instituted. After helping to weaken Athenian power, in the Social War (357-355 BC), it fell for a few years to the king Mausolus of Caria. In 366 BC, the capital was transferred from Astypalaia to the new-built town of Kos, laid out in a Hippodamian grid plan. wikipedia read
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Photo credit: © lugris / Alamy / Afripics
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Keywords: alis, dodecanese, greece, holiday, island, kos, lugris, lugris2, mediterranean, southern, sporades, summer, tourism, travel, vacation
