{"id":30072,"date":"2026-08-13T20:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=30072"},"modified":"2026-08-13T20:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T17:25:11","slug":"delos-island-the-sacred-birthplace-of-apollo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=30072","title":{"rendered":"Delos Island – The Sacred Birthplace of Apollo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is not famous like Santorini nor fertile like Crete. It does not bustle with life in the summers like Crete and Corfu and once, the myth says, it was not even a regular island. It was the \u201cUnseen Island\u201d, the island that was not visible, because it sailed here and there, wandering around in the Aegean. And if it escaped this fate and acquired a glorious name, it owes it to one of the many misdeeds of the king of the gods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zeus fell in love with the goddess Leto and the result of this love was an episodic pregnancy and a painful labor that lasted nine days. When the time came for the birth, Hera did everything she could to prevent Leto from finding a place to give birth. Wherever she went, she was chased away for fear of Hera\u2019s reprisals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zeus then begged his brother, Poseidon, to give him the floating island he had in his possession, which was then called Asteria and Ortygia. In exchange, he gave him Calabria. Poseidon placed the floating rock in the center of the Aegean and stabilized it with four diamond chains, and from \u201cinvisible\u201d the island became \u201cDelos\u201d, that is, visible, while the islands that surround Delos were called the Cyclades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then on, Delos remained stable and did not move again, except once. When Datis, the commander-in-chief of Artaphernes, was going to attack Greece, he not only did not touch Delos, but he burned three hundred talents of incense in the temple of Delian Apollo! Only then did the island shake for the only time. All these stories about the moving island are due to the frequent seismic vibrations, says Pausanias. In his time, a part of the island was called \u201cTremon\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So on this island, in its sacred lake, under a palm tree, the hunted Leto gave birth to Artemis and Apollo after suffering for nine days. As soon as Apollo was born, the place was filled with flowers and light, nature woke up and Leto made sure that the island became rich and respected by the whole world, just as she had promised. Thus, the small, arid and barren Delos acquired the glory that accompanied it for many millennia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delos has an area of \u200b\u200bonly 3.43 square kilometers. It has a single mountain called Kynthos and is a little higher than 100 meters. It also has a single river, the Inopos, which is only 1200 meters long. The ancients said that it always flooded the same year as the Nile, as if it was connected to it by some mysterious undersea currents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dryopes, Minoans and Carians inhabited the island since prehistoric times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of the Trojan War, the king of Delos was Anios or Anion. His sons were Mykonos, Andros and Thasos, which means that the islands bearing these names had close relations with Delos since then. Anios also had three daughters named Sito, Oeno and Elais, whom the Achaeans took with them when sailing to Troy, to ensure their sustenance during the siege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we didn\u2019t like myths so much, we could say that the Achaeans simply loaded their ships with abundant supplies from Delos. And if that was the case, then Delos was a rich trading center from that time on. But we like myths and imagine the three Delian princesses in Troy training the soldiers in the production of food from wheat, olives and grapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, Theseus also stopped at Delos on his way back from Crete. After sacrificing to Apollo in thanks for his salvation from the Labyrinth and the terrifying Minotaur, he danced around the altar with the young men and women he had rescued, an impressive, intense dance called Geranos. From this incident arose the ancient proverb \u201cBad altar of Delos\u201d, for someone who danced or walked around doing similar movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the 8th century BC onwards, Delos was the conference center of the Ionian cities. The Ionians from the islands and coasts of Asia Minor gathered there, discussed the issues that concerned them and took part in the musical and gymnastic competitions organized in honor of the god Apollo. Later, the conference was moved to Ephesus.<\/p>\n\n\n

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When the Athenians ruled<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 6th century BC, the tyrant of Athens, Peisistratos, gained control of the island and took an unprecedented action. He ordered the tombs to be emptied and the bones to be transferred to the opposite islet, Rheneia. The manner of burial and the offerings found in these tombs prove that the ancestors of the Delians were Carians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delos remained unscathed from the Persian attacks due to its sacredness. After the expulsion of the Persians, it became the center of the Athenian League and its official treasury (until 454 BC when Pericles transferred the League’s treasury to the Acropolis of Athens).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, seeking relief from the devastation caused by the plague, the Athenians decided to carry out another cleansing of the sacred island. Once again, the tombs were emptied and the dead were transferred to Rheneia (formerly called Artemis and Keladousa).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then on, no one was allowed to be born or die on the sacred island, so those about to give birth and those about to die were transferred to Rheneia. As a result, the population of Rheneia increased and the area developed impressively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The neighboring Myconians raised horses, cattle and sheep there, while many came from various regions to offer their services to those who were about to be born and to those who were patiently awaiting death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the Athenians expelled the Delians from their land, because they had performed rituals while unclean. They fled to Adramytium, from where they were expelled a little later by Tissaphernes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Oracle of Delphi gives an oracle to the Athenians that they should bring the Delians back to their land. The Athenians invited them back and it was around this time that the Delian festival, the festival in honor of Apollo that took place every five years, was established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hellenistic and Roman era<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the campaign of Alexander the Great, Delos benefited greatly from the unification of East and West and the development of the economy. Delos is now an independent state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many buildings and works of art that have survived to this day belong to this period. The cities competed with each other to dedicate the most expensive, most elaborate gift to the sacred place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the Roman rule, Delos experienced another period of great economic prosperity. After the destruction of Corinth, the city’s merchants came to Delos, which was free from duties and taxes, and did golden jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the ships sailing from Italy and Greece to Asia stopped in the center of the Cyclades. Religious festivals were also a perpetual source of wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The luxury enjoyed by the island’s inhabitants at that time can be imagined today from the impressive mosaics of the houses that have been preserved in excellent condition. In addition to the marine motifs, Dionysian themes are common, revealing the joyful mood of the inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n

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At this time, all the deities lived here without any problems. Serapis, Isis, Dionysus, along with their hosts Apollo, Artemis and Leto and many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite its wealth and large population (about 30,000 during the Roman period), Delos was an unwalled island, without an army. It was easily captured by the king of Pontus, Mithridates. His general, Menophanes, massacred the inhabitants and visitors of Delos in 88 BC and captured the women and children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The island\u2019s treasures were plundered. According to one tradition, one of his soldiers threw the statue of Apollo into the sea and it washed up on the coast of Boeotia. That place was called Epidelion and the Boeotians Epidelians. I imagine this is today’s Delesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 69 BC Mithridates attempted a new plundering and sent his associate, the pirate Athenodorus. The destruction suffered by the island was irreparable. At the end of the 2nd century AD, only a small settlement remained on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Christian Tertullian cannot hide his joy at the fate of the sacred island: “And Samos is sand, and Delos is empty,” he writes with satisfaction. Delos was completely abandoned in the 6th century AD and remained a refuge for pirates for many centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a description from 1854 we read: \u201cit is completely abandoned, uninhabited and a den of robbers and pirates\u2026 and of the animals and birds there are many woodpeckers and partridges and scolopakas, and vipers and land crocodiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An immeasurable number of ruins and remains of those ancient, famous and magnificent buildings of Delos still survive, since they covered much of the island\u2019s excellent land, rendering it unsuitable for cultivation. And many inscriptions survive, especially on the pedestal of the statue of Apollo.\u201d*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 19th century, the French Archaeological School began excavations and Delos slowly revealed its beauties. Today, the entire island is an archaeological site designated as a World Heritage Site under the protection of UNESCO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is one of the things you absolutely must see. You can easily visit it by boat from Mykonos or Naxos, but you cannot stay there overnight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is not famous like Santorini nor fertile like Crete. It does not bustle with life in the summers like Crete and Corfu and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3002,2993,2999],"tags":[8312,8313,8314,8311,7196,1152,8315],"class_list":["post-30072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destinations","category-life","category-travel","tag-apollo","tag-birthplace","tag-delos","tag-delos-island","tag-island","tag-unesco","tag-zeus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30076,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30072\/revisions\/30076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}