the only ones who knew how to escape from the Labyrinth, Minos forbade them to leave Crete, to avoid the spreading of the Labyrinth’s plans.
Daedalus created wax wings for him and his son in order to fly away from the island.
Ikaros, ignoring the advices of his father, fled too close to the sun, because he believed that he could be as strong as the gods and fly as high as them.
His extreme pride made him careless and he got too close to the sun, his wings melted and he felt into the deep sea surrounding Ikaria, which was then named after him.
The island of Ikaria was inhabited since the 7th millennium BC. In the 6th century BC, Ikaria became one with Samos.
After the Persian War, Ikaria joined the Delian League and started flourishing to the point where temples such as the Temple of Artemis at Nas, were being built.
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At the end of the 5th century AD, Ikaria fell under the control of the Byzantine Empire.
But, by the end of the 12th century, the Byzantine Empire cut back its naval defence of the Aegean and the islands, among which Ikaria, which became a continuous pirate target, and the population moved inland, avoiding the coasts.
After the fall of Byzantium in 1204, Ikaria came under the rule of the Latin State in Constantinople.
During the 14th century, the island became a part of the Genoese Aegean Empire, after the fall of Chios to the Genoese.
Then it passed under the rule of the Knights of Saint John who had taken over the island of Rhodes and ruled over Ikaria until 1521, when the island was conquered by the Turks.
The inhabitants of Ikaria fought fiercely their oppressors. |
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It was the day of the Ikarian Independence, although because of the Balkan Wars, the island was unable to join the rest of the newly built Greek State until five months later.
On the 4th November 1912, Ikaria became officially liberated by the Greek Army and joined the rest of the free Greece. The inhabitants of Ikaria were dissatisfied with the Greek government which did not invest in its development.
They therefore cultivated self-sufficiency and turned to the Ikarians who had left their island to seek fortune in America for help.
Ikaria suffered during the World War II from the German and Italian occupation.
After the war, most of the inhabitants were sympathetic to communism and the right-wing government of Greece used the island to exile communists and other people who were against the dictatorship.
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