Sikinos in 218 B.C.

Sikinos — Spring 218 BC · The Old Wine-Isle.

A small, steep island between Ios and Pholegandros in the southern Cyclades, anciently called Oinoe, the "wine isle," for its vines — a remote, out-of-the-way place of one small community on its heights, with a shrine of Apollo. It lies among the independent isles that orbit sacred Delos, in seas watched by the fleets of Egypt, Macedon and Rhodes.

Sikinos is a steep, secluded island lying between Ios and Pholegandros in the southern reaches of the Cyclades. The old men still know it by its older name, Oinoe — the "wine isle" — for the vines that clothe its slopes. One small community lives high on its heights, about the shrine of Apollo, far from the great sea-roads and the quarrels of the powers. In this age of Delian independence the fleets pass these waters, but a place so steep, so small and so out of the way keeps to its vines and its god.