Rhodes in 218 B.C.

Rhodes — Spring 218 BC · Mistress of the Carpathian Sea.

In 218 BC Rhodes is the foremost free naval and commercial power of the Greek world: a democratic island republic, forged in 408 BC by the union of its three ancient Dorian cities, that has made itself mistress of the south-eastern Aegean. Her war-fleet polices the sea against pirates, her merchant marine and her grain-market make her a clearing-house of the eastern Mediterranean, and her sea-law governs the commerce of nations. Her power is layered outward — the home island, the lesser islands of her sea, and the Peraia on the Carian mainland — and her policy is to hold them all by playing the great kings against one another. The Colossus that once bestrode her harbour lies fallen, thrown down by the great earthquake nine years past, yet Rhodes stands richer and more honoured than ever.

No king rules at Rhodes. Two centuries since the three ancient Dorian cities — Lindos, Ialysos and Kameiros — joined in one commonwealth and raised their gleaming new capital on the island’s north-eastern cape, the Republic has made herself the first naval and commercial power of the Aegean. Her fleets sweep the Carpathian sea clear of pirates; her harbour dues and her grain entrepôt have made her a clearing-house of the eastern trade; and her law of the sea is honoured wherever Greek keels sail. The great earthquake of a few years past cast down her famous Colossus and her walls — yet the wealth of every king flowed in to raise her up, the surest measure of her standing. Now, fresh from her war upon Byzantium over the tolls of the Black Sea straits, she keeps her freedom as she has always kept it: by playing the great kings against one another.