Modern Description:
Pharmakonísi takes its name from medicinal herbs which grow in abundance on the island: today—mostly borage, different kinds of sage, and the common culinary herbs. Pharmakousa's greatest claim to fame is that the young Julius Caesar was kidnapped by Cilician pirates here in 74 BC. The pirates were ignorant of whom they had seized, and when they demanded a ransom of 20 talents, he laughed at their request and offered them 50. It took 38 days to arrange the ransom, during which time the aspiring politician practised writing speeches and poems, which he tried out on his captors. Freed on receipt of the ransom, he returned to Miletus, commandeered a boat, pursued his former captors until he overtook them, and had them crucified, as he had laughingly promised them. The early 16th century Ottoman admiral, Piri Reis visited the island, and noted in particular a ‘grove of mastic trees'. N.B. Because of its sensitive frontier location, the whole island of Pharmakonísi is currently occupied by the Greek Military and is off-limits to civilian visits, except by prior permission of the Ministry of Defence. Pharmakonisi has a number of remains from Antiquity: vaulted 'tholoi', like those in Agathonisi, and the lower courses, with drafted corners, of two Hellenistic towers in late 4th century BC construction-technique stand near the hill-top church of Aghios Giorgios. There are the remains of a Byzantine church, some contemporaneous secular buildings, and traces of mosaic floor in the stretch between Thóli Bay and Paliómantra.
Wikidata ID: Q951667
Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands 
(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)
