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Zante history: Learn about the history of the famous island of Zante |
Zante
had inhabitants since the Neolithic Times; this has been proved by
various archaeological excavations. The famous lyric Greek poet, Homer, was the first to mention the island in his epopees, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and said that the first inhabitants of Zakynthos were the son of King Dardanos of Troy, called Zakynthos, and his men; he says that they came on the island around 1500-1600 BC. Then, Zante was taken by King Arkeisios of Kefalonia. The mythical Ulysses (Odysseus in Greek) from Ithaca was the next King to dominate the beautiful island. Later, a treaty was signed that gave to Zante its independence and a made it a democracy, the first in the Hellenic area, which lasted more than 650 years. |
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After the Macedonian Wars, Zante came
under Macedonian domination and then under the Roman; this last domination
was important for the island. The islanders were allowed to have their
own laws and their own municipality, parliament and coins. For Zante
and its inhabitants, the Roman domination was a period of great material
and cultural development and wealth.  A few centuries after the appearance of Christianity (from the first century) the island of Zante, with the other Ionian Islands, came under the rule of the Venetians, followed by the and Franks and then by the rule of the King of Naples and the Prince of Florence. |
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Zante and the other Ionian Islands helped the rest of Greece in their
Revolution for Independence against the Turkish yoke. Zante, along with the other Ionian Islands, was united to the rest of the newly built Greek State on the 21st of May, 1864.
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