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Leros

Its strategic position in the southeast Aegean has given Leros a past rich in history. The first human traces on the island have been detected at Partheni and belong to Neolithic period. This was an entire settlement and has been dated from 8000 to 3000 BC.

During the 5th century Leros flowered intellectually. That was the period of the satirical poet Dimodikos and the historian Pherekydes.

After the Persian Wars Leros became part of the Athenian Alliance. The forces of Alexander the Great also passed through Leros. Funerary steles and coins from that period that were found on the island confirm this.

Plutarch also notes its important location for shipping, referring to the captivity of Julius Caesar on the island of Farmako next to Leros.

During Byzantine times magnificent Christian churches were built on the island. Constantine the Great incorporated Leros into the Theme of Samos. During that period the Castle and the Church of the Panayia (The Blessed Virgin) were built as well as the Castle of the Lepides, known today as Paliokastro.

The so-called "Cyclopean" walls have survived in the area. There are exceptional Byzantine monuments on the island such as the Early Christian church at Partheni the church of Ayia Varvara (St. Barbara), built with sections of marble, column capitals, stone slabs and other materials from the ruins of ancient Leros found there.

In 1314 the Knights of St. John of Rhodes occupied Leros and governed it tyrannically until 1523 when Turks took command of the entire Aegean and plundered the islands. Despite the difficult conditions of the Turkish occupation Leros did manage to preserve a kind of autonomy and later when the Greek Revolution of 1821 broke out Lerians were some of the first to rise up.

In 1830 the London Protocol called for all of Dodecanese to be handed over to Turkey. Then, during the period between 1912-1943, the Italians took it. The whole island was turned to arsenal. During World War II, the Greek "Sacred Battalion" liberated Leros after the Italian capitulation.

This was followed by two years of English occupation and then in March 1948, Leros, along with the rest of the Dodecanese, was united with Greece.

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