Pholegandros in 218 B.C.

Pholegandros — Spring 218 BC · The Iron Isle.

A small, rugged, rocky island of the southern Cyclades, lying in the Cretan Sea between Melos, Sikinos and Sios. So harsh and stony is its ground that men call it the "iron" isle — a poor, thinly peopled corner of the Dorian Cyclades, home to a single small town set high above the coast. Its few farmers and fishermen live by goats, vines and the sea, free among the independent isles that orbit sacred Delos, in waters watched by the fleets of Egypt, Macedon and Rhodes.

Pholegandros is a small, steep rock in the southern reaches of the Cyclades, set in the Cretan Sea between Melos, Sikinos and Sios. Its ground is so hard and stony that it has earned the harsh name of the "iron" isle, and only a single small community clings to the heights above its shore. The people are Dorian islanders — farmers and fishermen who wring a thin living from goats, vines and the sea. In this age of Delian independence the great fleets pass these waters, but a place so poor, so rugged and so out of the way is left to its own quiet, far from the quarrels of kings.