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Milos (Municipality, Greece)

Μήλος

Flag of Milos - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 19 May 2014

Presentation of Milos
Flag of Milos

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Presentation of Milos

The municipality of Milos (4,977 inhabitants in 2011, 16,010 ha) is made of the island of Milos and of the uninhabited islands of Antimilos and Akradies. Milos is a volcanic island in the Aegean Sea, just north of the Sea of Crete. The harbour town is Adamantas (Αδάμαντας, 1,391 inh.); on the plateau above the harbour are Plaka (Πλάκα, 749 inh.), the chief town, and other villages.
The municipality was not changed in the 2011 local government reform.

Milos is famous for the statue of Aphrodite (the "Venus de Milo", now in the Louvre Museum, Paris), and also for statues of Asclepius (now in the British Museum, London) and Poseidon and an archaic Apollo (in Athens).
The obsidian in Milos made it an important centre of early Aegean civilization. The first settlement arose in the Age of Bronze, flourishing as the extraction of obsidian was in the decline. On the north-east coast, excavations by the British School of Archeology revealed a town wall and a Minoan palace with some important and interesting wall paintings. In historical times, the island was occupied by Dorians from Laconia. In 416 BCE, Athens attacked Milos for refusing to submit tribute and refusing to join Athens' alliance against Sparta. The invasion of Milos occurred during the second phase of the Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BCE). In the summer of 416 BCE the Athenians landed an army of over 3,000 soldiers on the island, led by the generals Cleomedes and Tisias. They sent diplomats to negotiate a surrender, offering to spare the Melians if they joined the Athenian-dominated Delian League and paid tribute to Athens. The Melians rejected the ultimatum. The Athenians laid siege to the city and withdrew most of their troops from the island to fight elsewhere. For months the Melians withstood the siege, but with reinforcements from Athens and the help of traitors within Melos, the Athenians took the city. The Athenians executed all the adult men they caught, and sold the women and children into slavery. They then settled 500 of their own colonists on the island. When Athens was defeated by Sparta at the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Melian survivors, who had been resettled by Sparta, were restored to their homes by the Spartan general Lysander.
During the Frankish period the island was part of the Duchy of Naxos, except for the few years (1341Ð1383) when it was a separate lordship under Marco Sanudo and his daughter. In 1566 the Venetians handed over the island to the Ottomans, who ruled Milos until 1830.

Olivier Touzeau, 19 May 2014

Flag of Milos

The flag of Milos (Kokkonis website) is white a large light blue border and the municipality's emblem and namein the middle.

Olivier Touzeau, 19 May 2014