Kythnos in 218 B.C.

Kythnos — Spring 218 BC · The Quiet Western Isle.

A modest island of the western Cyclades with a single chief polis, known for its iron and for a famous medicinal hot spring sought by the sick. A quiet, self-sufficient island of farmers and herders, one of the independent island poleis of the Aegean in 218 BC, its seas watched by the fleets of Egypt, Macedon and Rhodes as they orbit sacred Delos.

In the western Cyclades, between the great holy isle and the open sea, lies Kythnos — a plain, quiet island that asks little notice. It keeps a single chief polis and a population of farmers and herders who live off their fields, their flocks and the iron of their hills. Travellers come for one thing: a hot spring famous for healing, where the sick bathe in waters drawn up warm from the earth. Otherwise Kythnos goes its own modest way, one free island among the many that orbit sacred Delos.