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Modern Description: POROS Though small, the island has always had a certain strategic importance. In early antiquity the sanctuary of Poseidon on the island's central mountain was the focus of the Calaurian League, a confederation of important cities which included Athens and Aegina amongst others, all of whom were bound by a common need to pay due respect to the god of the waters on whom their life depended. The archaeologically explored area of Calauria and its sanctuary is still limited, but its panoramic setting is beautiful. 2,500 years later, Poros was again a maritime centre and home to the first naval headquarters of independent Greece. The wealth that maritime trade has brought to the island is reflected in its dignified architecture.
The island knew a period of growing prosperity after it was settled by Orthodox Albanians in the 17th century. In 1828, plenipotentiaries from France, Russia and Britain met on Poros to settle the terms and basis of the new kingdom of Greece in the so-called ‘Protocol of Poros'. Three years later, the independent islanders, under the leadership of Hydra, took up an attitude of open hostility to the government of Capodistrias and established a ‘Constitutional Committee'. The national fleet of Greece, including the frigate Hellas, its flagship, and the steamship Karteria, lay in Poros harbour. Capodistrias gave orders for them to be made ready to blockade Hydra; but Admiral Miaoulis, acting under the orders of the Hydriot government, preempted the move by seizing the fleet and the arsenal. On 1st August 1831, however, Miaoulis was overpowered by combined Russian and Greek forces. In the skirmish, he blew up the flagship Hellas, and the corvette, Hydra, rather than hand over the fleet to Russian Admiral, Pyotr Ivanovich Richord, as had been demanded.
Changes in the levels of water and land in what is a seismically very active area (witness the volcanic cone of Méthana visible to the northwest) have altered the geographical configuration of Poros. Today the island consists of two parts: the small, volcanic island of Sphairía (named after Sphaeros, the charioteer of Pelops) occupied by the town of Poros; and the main, mountainous body of the island, called Calauria in Antiquity, to its north. These are joined by a swampy isthmus today, but were separated by water in ancient times. The name ‘Poros' means ‘crossing' or ‘ford'. Sphairia, on the other hand, was originally joined to the Peloponnesian mainland until seismic subsidence in Late Antiquity sundered it and created the shallow channel (only 250-300m wide) between Galatás and Poros. The islet of Sphairia in effect ‘changed sides'. All this activity has resulted in a landscape of particular beauty, embellished by the simple, dignified architecture of 19th and early 20th centuries, set amidst pine-clad slopes and stretches of open water.
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalaureia
Wikidata ID: Q1443132
Trismegistos Geo: 971
Manto: 10214901
DARE: 41227

Info: McGilchrist's Greek Islands

(From McGilchrist’s Greek Islands, © Nigel McGilchrist 2010, excerpted with his gracious permission. Click for the books)

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