Description
"Ancient history Rhodes has been inhabited since the Stone Age. In prehistoric time the island was inhabited by Cretans, who where the first settlers on the island, the Phoenicians and Dorians who must have installed themselves on the island prior to the Trojan War. (1184 BC). After the Trojan war the rapid progress and development of the ancient civilization of Rhodes commences, examples of which can be seen nowadays in the antiquities of the three largest and most powerful cities of the island, Lindos, Ialyssos and Kamiros. At the end of 5th century BC these cities united into a single political force and founded Rhodes, which achieved its acme in the 3rd century BC. During that period, famous artists, philosophers and writers lived here. From 2000 BC it became an ally of Rome and was obliged to have the same friends and enemies as the Romans, but from the 1st century BC it began, slowly but surely, to go into decline. It was Diocletian who dealt its final blow into independence in 297 AD when he joined the Provincia insularum of the Roman Empire."--http://www.rhodesguide.com/rhodes/rhodes_greece_about.php.
