Patmos in 218 B.C.

Patmos — Spring 218 BC · A Rock on the Eastern Sea-Road.

A small, rocky, sparsely-peopled island off the coast of Caria, on the eastern fringe of the islands near Samos. It is a out-of-the-way isle of the eastern sea-lanes — broken hills and three natural harbours where the bays bite deep into the rock — with a sanctuary of Artemis on its height and a modest fortified town below. Too poor and too far east to be a prize, it lives by its little fields and its fishing, a dependent neighbour of the greater islands while the fleets of Egypt, Macedon and Rhodes contest the seas around it.

Patmos lies at the edge of the Greek sea, hard against the Carian coast and within sight of the lands of Asia. It is a rocky, indented island, little and thinly peopled, its worth lying less in its barren soil than in the harbours that notch its coast — havens for ships coasting the eastern lanes between Samos and the southern islands. On its height stands a sanctuary of Artemis, the island’s goddess, and below it a small walled town. In this age of the islands’ freedom Patmos keeps its own small affairs, but it is a minor isle leaning on its larger neighbours, watching squadrons of the great powers pass along its shores.