The myth of Astypalaia is quite important. She is Europe’s sister, daughter of Phoenix who is at his turn son of Agenor, the father of the Phoenicians. Agenor’s parents are Neptune and Libya. About three thousand years ago, a desert island in the Aegean had been chosen by the Cares who came from Asia Minor. They called it Pilléa, then Astypalaia. The etymon might be divided into two words: ‘Asty’, that is ‘town’ and ‘paléo’, that is ‘ancient’. As a result, the meaning sounds something like ‘ancient town’ or ‘ancient gate’.
Ovid called it Stampalia in one of his ‘Metamorphosis’. Today it has another version, that is ‘Astropalia’ in New Greek. The island had always been appealed by all its neighborhoods for its strategic and geographic position and as a consequence, its inhabitants focused on keeping their independence.
Many peoples possessed it leaving their mark over the centuries - you can tell it by the indelible signs in the architecture, language, habits. Astypalaia succeeded in escaping the enemy attacks by strategic alliances with the Filo-Dorians, that is the Spartans; then it turned its back to those ones in order to enter into an alliance with its ex enemies, the Athenians, that is the Ionian. These alliances were fickle and sudden, expensive and risky and they didn’t always succeed. As a matter of facts, in the Fifth Century the Peloponnese Wars among Greek populations burst out and Athens was defeated. To Astypalaia it was a big loss, because it had to pay its economic share. However, Astypalaia could release from the heavy Athenian ward.
The gods Athena, Artemis, Zeus, Apollo and Dionysus were praised and its inhabitants built temples to honor them; unfortunately those temples do not exist any longer. At last Astypalaia started autarchy. The establishment was run by two main organs: the Senate and the Parliament, called ‘Vuli’. During the Hellenic Age the harbor was used to trade; the people used to plan Olympic Games and the athletes dedicated victories to the gods.
Then the Romans came. They decided not to subdue the island, provided that Astypalaia paid a huge sum, then they signed a treaty in 149 B.C. and let it have its own political autonomy. Pliny the Elder named it ‘libera’, that is ‘Free’. A so small island couldn’t resist to the continuous pirate attacks, so it had to subdue to the new strength of the Christian Age, Byzantium which compelled it to heavy levy.
In 1206 the Serenissima was engaged in the Fourth Crusade, but before arriving to the Holy Land it suddenly changed way and sacked some islands in the Aegean, among which Astypalaia, named then Stampalia. It became a feud of the Venetian family Quirini who, in order to show their power built the castle which can still be seen in Chora today. The quiet life in Astypalaia came to an end in 1453, a bad year for the European Christendom. Constantinople fell under the Turks and Venice had to abandon some of his most precious pearls.
Nearly five centuries of Turkish domination spoiled the island-,the governors exacted exasperating taxes; Greek was still the spoken language. The French Revolution was followed by the 1821 insurrection and Greece was one of the nations that needed freedom from the foreign bondage, but here is the paradox - Astypalaia, a Greek island didn't take part in the movement and stood apart until the Ottoman Empire came to an end. The Italians came back to the island in 1912 and used it as a military harbor during the World War I; then the Fascist Regime was imposed. The Ottoman Empire collapsed when the national states were being founded and the new Greek State claimed its own share. They obtained the Cyclades.
By the end of Second World War the other states acknowledged the Dodecanese to Greece. The Italians left Astypalaia and the island finally was given back to the ‘land of the gods’.
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