Ikaria

The island of Icaria (aka Ikaria) and the surrounding sea took their name from Icarus.  Icarus was Daedalus’ son the Athenian who built the Labyrinth in Crete.  When Daedalus revealed Labyrinth secret design to Ariadne and her lover Theseus, King Minos imprisoned him and his son.  Daedalus conceived to escape by building wings from feathers and wax.  Although he warned his son not to fly high, Icarus overwhelmed by the thrill of flying, flew close to the sun whereupon the wax melt and he fell into the sea.  Icarus body carried to the island and was buried by Hercules in a rocky promontory.   Hercules named the island and the surrounding sea for the fallen first aviator.

Ikaria has been inhabited since at least 7000 BC, by proto-Hellenes called Pelasgians.  Around 750 BC, Greeks from Miletus colonized the island and established a settlement, which later became the capital city of Oenoe.  In the 2nd century the Tauropolion, a magnificent temple of Atremis was built at Oenoe. 

After the period of classical antiquity the Byzantines controlled the island and latter the Knights of St. John until 1521, at which time the Ottomans occupied it. The Icarians hanged the first Turkish tax collector but managed to escape punishment, as none would identify the guilty one and the Turks determined that it was not honorable to punish the entire population.  The Ottomans imposed a very loose administration, and did not send any officials to Icaria for several centuries, although in later years they would appoint groups of locals in each village of the island to act as tax collectors for the empire.   The best account we have of the island during the early years of the Ottoman rule is from 1677 when the island had 1,000 hardy, long-lived inhabitants, who were the poorest people in the Aegean.  Without a decent port (the locals destroyed the island's ports in order to protect themselves from pirate raids), the island depended on itself for its and from its very limited interaction with the outside world. 

The island is mountainous with villages nestled near the coast. Many parts of the island, especially the ravines, are covered fir trees and bushes, making the landscape lush with green.  Small herds of goats graze the ravines and provide milk, cheese and yogurt for daily consumption and enough meat for major holidays only. 

Icarians are known for their longevity something that has been studied and reported in a New York Times article “the island wherepeople forget to die.”  It may be attributed to their diet, lay back life style moderate wine drinking and also their genes.  Their diet is the Mediterranean diet as they use locally grown vegetables, olive oil and the catch from the sea.

The island was also the birthplace of Dionysius the God of wine and merry making. Icaria has a tradition in the production of strong red wine, which is not exported but consumed locally.  It is kept in terracotta barrels called pithoi sunk to their rims in earth.

Etienne Cabet’s novel Voyage en Icarie, portraits Icaria as “a truly second Promised Land, an Eden, an Elysium, a new Earthly Paradise”.  His novel imitates More’s Utopia and reflects Rousseau’s French romanticism i.e. return to a simpler, primitive economy where private property and the selfishness inherent in it never existed.  He also subscribed to the golden rule: Love your neighbor as yourself; do not unto others the harm you would not have others do to you; do to others the good that you wish for yourself.