Template:Wp-Kythira-History

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Pre-classical and ancient

There are archaeological remains from the Helladic period, contemporary with the Minoans. There is archaeological evidence of Kythiran trade as far as Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Kythira had a Phoenician colony in the early archaic age; the sea-snail which produces Tyrian purple is native to the island. Xenophon refers to a Phoenician Bay in Kythira (Hellenica 4.8.7, probably Avlemonas Bay on the eastern side of the island). The archaic Greek city of Kythira was at Scandea on Avlemonas; its ruins have been excavated. Its acropolis, now Palicastro (Palaeocastron, "Old Fort"), has the temple of Aphrodite Ourania, who may well represent a Phoenician cult of Astarte.

In classical times, Kythira was part of the territory of several larger city-states. Sparta took the island from Argos early in the sixth century, and ruled it under a kytherodíkes (kυθηροδίκης, "judge on Kythira"), in Thucydides' time [4,53,3]; Athens occupied it three times when at war with Sparta (in 456 during her first war with Sparta and the Peloponnesians; from 426 to 410, through most of the great Peloponnesian War; and from 393 to 387/386, during the Corinthian War against Spartan dominance) and used it both to support her trade and to raid Laconia.

Kythira was independent, and issued her own coins in 195 after the Achaean defeat of Sparta. In Augustus' time, it was again subject to Sparta, being the property of Gaius Julius Eurycles, who was both a Spartan magnate and a Roman citizen.

By this time, the Greek cities were in practice subject to the Roman Empire. Kythira continued to exist under the Roman Empire and its Byzantine successor state for centuries. Christianity is attested from the fourth century AD, the time of Constantine; according to her legend, Saint Elessa came from Laconia to convert the island.

Medieval and modern

Kythira is not mentioned in the literary sources for centuries after its conversion; in the period of Byzantine weakness at the end of the seventh century, it might have been exposed to attacks from both the Slavic tribes who raided the mainland and from Arab pirates from the sea. Archaeological evidence suggests the island was abandoned about 700 AD.

When Saint Theodore of Cythera led a resettlement after the Byzantine reconquest of Crete in 962, he found the island occupied only by wandering bands of hunters. He established a great monastery at Paliochora; a town grew up around it, largely populated from Laconia.

When the Byzantine Empire was divided among the conquerors of the Fourth Crusade, the Republic of Venice took her share, three eighths of the whole, as the Greek islands, Kythira among them. She established a coast patrol on Kythira and Antikythera to protect her trade route to Constantinople; Kythira was one of the islands Venice continued to hold despite the Greek reconquest of Constantinople and the Turkish presence all over the Near East. During the Venetian domination the island was known as Cerigo.

Kythirans still talk about the destruction and looting of Paliochora by Barbarossa; it has become an intrinsic part of the Kytherian folklore. One can easily accept the stories of locals by noticing the number of monasteries embedded in the rocky hillsides to avoid destruction by the pirates.

Barbary pirates ranged across the Mediterranean waters, raiding ships, coasts and islands, taking booty and slaves for the Barbary slave trade. Kythira was at the mercy of Barbary pirates due to its strategic location in the Mediterrean. In order to intercept merchant vessels, islands along the trade routes were of course more interesting for pirates. In the 17th century the small islands like Sapientza (Kalamatas) south of Messinia (district in south-western part of the Peloponnese), Cerigo (Kythira) south of the south-eastern tip of the Peloponnese, and along the coast of Asia minor, the then deserted islands of Fourni southwest of Samos, and the island of Psara, west of Chios, were all pirate bases.

When Napoleon put an end to the Venetian Republic in 1797, Kythira was among the islands incorporated in that most distant départment of France, called Mer-Égée. Kythira shared a common destiny with the other Ionian islands during the turbulent Napoleonic era, and is still regarded as one of them; it was counted as one of the Cyclades in antiquity.

In 1799, the Ionian islands became the Septinsular Republic, nominally under Ottoman suzerainty, but in practice dominated by Imperial Russia. In 1807, the French recaptured the islands, before they were captured again by the British in 1809, who set up the United States of the Ionian Islands, a British protectorate. The British ruled over the islands for nearly half a century; under British rule, they were governed by a High Commissioner who was granted both legislative and executive powers. During the period of British rule, the city was known as Carigo or Cerigo, a name it had been acquired under Venetian control. After a long period of turbulence in the colony, which even eminent Commissioners as William Ewart Gladstone who served in the role for three weeks in the winter of 1859 failed to resolve, the British discussion whether they were a waste of money or a vital overseas possession ended with the cession of the Ionian Islands, including Kythira, to the new King George I of Greece, who was brother-in-law to the Prince of Wales.

The chief town of the island, Kythira (or Chora, "village") has the Historical Archives of Kythira, the second largest in the Ionian islands, after Corfu.