Astypalaia in 218 B.C.

Astypalaia — Spring 218 BC · Island of the Boxer-Hero.

A butterfly-shaped island in the sea between the Cyclades and the Dodecanese, sacred to Asklepios and to the hero Kleomedes — the famous boxer Kleomedes of Astypalaia, who (the Greeks tell) in grief and fury pulled down the pillar of a schoolhouse upon the children, then hid himself in a chest and vanished utterly, and was declared a hero by the Delphic oracle and worshipped on the island. For the rest it is a modest place of one polis and good harbours, its narrow waist joining two wings of broken hill. A free island of this age, it sits astride the eastern sea-road while the fleets of Egypt, Macedon and Rhodes watch the waters around it.

Astypalaia lies on the sea-road that runs east from the Cyclades toward Rhodes and the Carian coast, a curious butterfly of an island whose two wings of hill are joined by a narrow waist of land between deep bays. Its harbours make it a useful call for ships on the eastern lanes; its fame rests on its cults — the healing god Asklepios, and above all the strange hero Kleomedes, the boxer whom Delphi itself commanded the islanders to honour. One small polis governs the island in this age of the islands’ freedom, keeping its own laws while the war-fleets of the great kingdoms cross the seas about it.