Ios in 218 B.C.

Ios — Spring 218 BC · Keeper of Homer’s Grave.

A small Cycladic island south of Naxos, cherished above all as the burial-place of Homer. The islanders hold that the poet’s mother was a woman of Ios, and that he died here on a voyage between Samos and Athens; they show his tomb on the island, and pilgrims come to honour it. For the rest it is a modest place — one small polis above a good harbour, with vines and pasture on the hills and a few ships on the sea. In this age of the islands’ freedom Ios keeps its own affairs, while the fleets of Egypt, Macedon and Rhodes watch the lanes that pass it by.

Of all the small Cyclades, Ios is the one the Greeks remember, and they remember it for a grave. The islanders say that the mother of Homer was born here, and that the poet himself, sailing from Samos toward Athens, fell sick and died on Ios, and was buried by the shore; the tomb is shown to visitors, and travellers turn aside to pay it reverence. Beyond that fame the island lives quietly — a single town above its harbour, terraces of vines, flocks on the slopes — one of the independent island poleis of this age, too small to be courted and too poor to be plundered, watching the war-fleets of the great kingdoms cross the sea-roads to its north and south.