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Leto, the pregnant mistress of
Zeus, was pursued all over the world by his jealous wife Hera, until the
winds brought her to Delos. Poseidon struck the island with his
trident and anchored it with four columns of diamond, while Leto gave
birth to Artemis (goddess of war) and to Apollo (god of the sun).
The dry, barren island was to become one of the most sacred places in
Greece until the Athenians tricked the oracle at Delphi into ordering a
purification of Delos in 426 BC. It flourished again in the 3rd and
2nd centuries BC as a great trading center of the eastern
Mediterranean. Pirates plundered the island in 88 and 69 BC, killing
more than 20,000 people. Delos never recovered.
We took the Naxos Star Ferry to visit Delos and Mykonos. No one
lives on the island today. The excavations that started in 1877
continue to uncover monuments of the past.
I was interested to note that the statues on the Avenue of the Lions,
the most photographed vista on Delos, came from the marble quarries on
Naxos.
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