Rhodes - City of Greece

Rhodes is a Greek island approximately 18 kilometres southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population.

Historically, Rhodes was famous worldwide for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The medieval Old Town of the City of Rhodes has been declared a World Heritage Site. Today Rhodes is a tourist destination.

The island was inhabited in the Neolithic period, although little remains of this culture. In the 16th century BC the Minoans came to Rhodes, and later Greek mythology recalled a Rhodian race they called the Telchines, and associated Rhodes with Danaus; it was sometimes nicknamed Telchinis. In the 15th century BC the Achaeans invaded. It was, however, in the 11th century BC that the island started to flourish, with the coming of the Dorians. It was the Dorians who later built the three important cities of Lindos, Ialyssos and Kameiros, which together with Kos, Cnidus and Halicarnassus made up the so-called Dorian Hexapolis.

In the 1st century AD, the Emperor Tiberius spent a brief term of exile on Rhodes, and Saint Paul brought Christianity to the island. Rhodes reached her zenith in the third century, and was then by common consent the most civilized and beautiful city in Hellas. In 395, the long Byzantine Empire period began for Rhodes, when the Roman Empire was split and the eastern half gradually became a Greek empire. Although part of Byzantium for the next thousand years, Rhodes was nevertheless repeatedly attacked by various forces. It was first occupied by Muslim forces of Muawiyah I in 672. Much later, Rhodes was retrieved for the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus during the First Crusade.

The predominant religion is Greek Orthodox. There is a significant Catholic minority on the island, many of whom are descendants of Italians who remained after the end of the Italian occupation. Unlike many other Greek islands, Rhodes has a Muslim minority, a remnant from Ottoman Turkish times.

The Ladino-speaking Jewish community was mostly wiped out in the Holocaust. The main synagogue, Kahal Shalom, the oldest synagogue in Greece, is still standing in the Jewish quarter of the Old Town of Rhodes. It has been renovated with the help of foreign donors but there are very few Jews who live year-round in Rhodes today, and services are not held on a regular basis.


In ancient times there was a Roman saying: "Hic Rhodus, hic salta!" -- "Rhodes is here, here perform your jump", an admonition to prove one's idle boasts by deed rather than talk. It comes from an Aesop's fable called "The Boastful Athlete", and was cited by Hegel and Marx.

Many of the outdoor scenes of The Guns of Navarone and Escape to Athena were filmed on the Island of Rhodes.

In the Playstation 2 game God of War II, both Rhodes and the Colossus of Rhodes are featured at the start of the game, offering a mythological theory as to how the Colossus was destroyed.

Football: AS Rodos and Diagoras F.C., both Rhodes City based teams, compete professionally at the national level. Local football leagues contain three divisions with more than 50 teams. Many stadiums are grass covered.

Basketball: Colossus BC sponsors professional basketball and has joined the Greek A1 League. The local league includes two divisions with 14 teams. Two indoor courts exist in Rhodes City, and one each in Ialysos and Kremasti. Several other are planned for Rhodes City Pales De Sports, Faliraki, Afantou, and South Rhodes.