Cephalonia
Kefalonia or Cephalonia, formerly also known as Kefallinia or Kephallenia, is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece and the 6th-largest island in Greece after Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It is also a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region. It was a former Latin Catholic diocese Kefalonia–Zakynthos and short-lived titular see as just Kefalonia. The largest cities of Cephalonia are Argostoli and Lixouri.
History
Antiquity
Legend
An aition explaining the name of Cephallenia and reinforcing its cultural connections with Athens associates the island with the mythological figure of Cephalus, who helped Amphitryon of Mycenae in a war against the Taphians and Teleboans. He was rewarded with the island of Same, which thereafter came to be known as Cephallenia.Kefalonia has also been suggested as the Homeric Ithaca, the home of Odysseus, rather than the smaller island bearing this name today. Robert Bittlestone, in his book Odysseus Unbound, has suggested that Paliki, now a peninsula of Cephalonia, was a separate island during the late Bronze Age, and it may be this which Homer was referring to when he described Ithaca. A project that started in the summer of 2007 and lasted three years has examined this possibility.
Kefalonia is also in relation to the goddess Britomartis, as the location where she is said to have 'received divine honours from the inhabitants under the name of Laphria'.
Archaic and Classical Periods
From at least the 6th century BC, the island was dominated by four city-states : Pale, Cranii, Same and Pronnoi. All four minted their own coins, as well as building monumental temples and fortifications, both in the cities themselves and in the surrounding countryside. Ancient writers generally paid little attention to the island throughout antiquity, but there are some notable references, and it seems that the Kefalonian cities were involved in developments and events across the wider Greek world.A certain Melampous, from Kefalonia, won the Lyre and Song contest at the Pythian Games at Delphi in 582 BC. 200 hoplites from Pale fought alongside other Greeks against the Persians in the decisive battle at Plataea, and all four Kefalonian cities allied with Athens during the Peloponnesian War. The island was of strategic value to the Athenians, as it lies close to the entry to the Bay of Corinth. The Corinthians attempted, unsuccessfully, to attack Krane in 431 BC, and, 10 years later, Athens settled a group of Spartan deserters on the island. Finally, a group of Kefalonian soldiers were recruited by the Athenian general Demosthenes as part of the ill-fated Sicilian Expedition in 415-413 BC.
According to Strabo, on Mount Ainos there was a sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Ainesios. This temple was also mentioned by Hesiod, and German, French and English explorers in the 18th and 19th century found its remnants.
Hellenistic and Roman Periods
The Kefalonian cities retained close ties with Athens after the end of the Peloponnesian War, despite the Spartan victory. Athenian influence, including heavy direct taxation in the 4th century BC, may have been a stimulus for a new planned and fortified town at Same, which increasingly seems to have dominated the smaller polis of Pronnoi.The Kefalonian cities once again contributed troops and ships to broader Greek military events, this time Alexander the Great's invasion and conquest of the Persian Empire. In the subsequent centuries, the island was drawn ever close to the Aetolian League. As a result, it was invaded by the Macedonian king Philip V in 218 BC and then by the Roman republic in 189 BC, who conquered Same after a protracted siege. From then onwards, Kefalonia lost its strategic importance and so declined in social and economic terms. Archaeologically, the Roman period is dominated by lavish villas on the coasts, contrasted with little activity in the old towns. The ancient links to Athens seem to have remained strong, as the emperor Hadrian gifted the island to the city during his reign.
Middle Ages
In the late Roman Empire, Cephalonia was part of the Roman province of Achaea. Ecclesiastically it was a suffragan of the Metropolis of Nicopolis. The four ancient cities of the island survived into late antiquity, with Sami probably as the island's capital.Following the loss of the bulk of Italy and the expansion of the Muslims into the Western Mediterranean, the island became a strategically important base of operations for the Byzantine Empire in the area, blocking Muslim raids into the Adriatic and serving as a bridge for expeditions in Italy. Already from the 8th century, it was the centre of the namesake theme of Cephallenia. At the same time, the capital was moved to the Castle of Saint George, a more well-protected site in the island's interior. Mardaites were resettled in Cephalonia to serve as marines, and political prisoners were sometimes exiled there.
The loss of Byzantine Italy in 1071 diminished Cephalonia's importance, and its administration passed from a military strategos to a civilian judge. Its main city was besieged by the Italo-Normans in 1085, and the Venetians plundered the island in 1126. Cephalonia was captured during the Third Norman invasion of the Balkans in 1185, and it became part of the County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos under the Kingdom of Sicily and Venetian suzerainty, until its last Count Leonardo III Tocco was defeated and the island conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1479.
Venetian rule
Turkish rule lasted only until 1500, when Cephalonia was captured by a Spanish-Venetian army, a rare Venetian success in the Second Ottoman–Venetian War. In the aftermath of the Venetian conquest, the island received an influx of civilian and military refugees from the lost Venetian fortresses of Modon and Coron, as well as many colonists from the Venetian-ruled island of Crete.From then on, Cephalonia and Ithaca remained part of the Stato da Mar of the Venetian Republic until its very end, following the fate of the Ionian islands, completed by the capture of Lefkas from the Turks in 1684. The Treaty of Campoformio dismantling the Venetian Republic awarded the Ionian Islands to France, a French expeditionary force on ships captured in Venice, taking control of the islands in June 1797.
Because of the liberal situation on the island, the Venetian governor Marcantonio Giustinian printed Hebrew books and exported them to the whole eastern Mediterranean. In 1596, the Venetians built the Assos Castle, one of Cephalonia's main tourist attractions today. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, the island was one of the largest exporters of currants in the world, with Zakynthos, and owned a large shipping fleet, even commissioning ships from the Danzig shipyard. Its towns and villages were mostly built high on hilltops, to prevent attacks from raiding parties of pirates that sailed the Ionian Sea during the 1820s.
French, Ionian state period and British rule
Venice was conquered by France in 1797, and Cephalonia, along with the other Ionian Islands, became part of the French département of Ithaque.In the following year, 1798, the French were forced to yield the Ionian Islands to a combined Russian and Turkish fleet. From 1799 to 1807, Cephalonia was part of the Septinsular Republic, nominally under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, but protected by Russia.
By the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, the Ionian Islands were ceded back to France, which remained in control of Cephalonia until 1809. In 1809, the British established a blockade on the Ionian Islands as part of their conflict with France, and in September of that year, they hoisted the Union Flag above the castle of Zakynthos. Cephalonia and Ithaca soon surrendered, and the British installed provisional governments. The Treaty of Paris in 1815 recognised the United States of the Ionian Islands and decreed that it become a British protectorate. Colonel Charles Philippe de Bosset became provisional governor between 1810 and 1814. During this period, he was credited with achieving many public works, including the Drapano Bridge, which later became known as the De Bosset Bridge, over the bay of Argostoli.
A few years later, Greek nationalist groups started to form. Although their energy in the early years was directed to supporting the Greeks in the revolution against the Ottoman Empire, it soon started to turn towards the British. By 1848, calls for enosis with Greece were gaining strength, and there were rebellions against British rule in Argostoli and Lixouri, which led to some relaxation in the laws and to freedom of the press. Union with Greece was now a declared aim, and in 1849, as revolution was sweeping across Europe, a growing restlessness resulted in another rebellion against the British state, which was suppressed by the island's governor, Sir Henry George Ward when 21 people were hanged, several were shot and hundreds were flogged by the cat-o-nine-tails.
Cephalonia, along with the other islands, was transferred to Greece in 1864 as a gesture of goodwill when the British-supported Prince William of Denmark became King George the First of the Hellenes.
Union with Greece
In 1864, Cephalonia, together with all the other Ionian Islands, became a full member of the Greek state.World War II
In World War II, the island was occupied by Axis forces. Until late 1943, the occupying force was predominantly Italian, the 33rd Infantry Division Acqui plus Navy personnel totalled 12,000 men, but about 2,000 troops from Germany were also present. The island was largely spared the fighting until the armistice with Italy concluded by the Allies in September 1943. Confusion followed on the island, as the Italians were hoping to return home, but German forces did not want the Italians' munitions to be used eventually against them; Italian forces were hesitant to turn over weapons for the same reason. As German reinforcements headed to the island, the Italians dug in and, eventually, after a referendum among the soldiers as to surrender or battle, they fought against the new German invasion. The fighting came to a head at the siege of Argostoli, where the Italians held out. Ultimately, the Germans prevailed, taking full control of the island.Approximately five thousand of the nine thousand surviving Italian soldiers were executed in reprisal by the German forces. The book Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières, which was later made into a film, is based on this event. While the war ended in central Europe in 1945, Cephalonia remained in a state of conflict due to the Greek Civil War. Peace returned to Greece and the island in 1949.