Lefkás (Lefkáda)

The shingle spit at the northern tip of the island was pierced in ancient times by the Corinthians to provide a channel for shipping, and, like the spit to the south of Lefkás town which came into being in the Middle Ages as a result of the establishment of salt-pans, allowed vessels of some size to pass through.

The earliest evidence of human settlement on the island dates from the Neolithic period.

In the seventh century B.C. the town of Leukas was founded by settlers from Corinth, who closed off the south end of the lagoon, opposite the fort of Áyios Yeóryios, by a 600m/650yd long mole, remains of which are still visible under water. They cut a channel through the spit of shingle at the north end of the lagoon, opposite the fort of Santa Maura (Ayía Mávra) - though by the time of the Peloponnesian War, in which Leukas was allied with Sparta, the channel had silted up. In the time of the Achaean League Leukas was the capital of Acarnania. It supported Philip II of Macedon against Rome, but was conquered in 197 B.C. by the Romans, who later built a bridge linking Leukas with the mainland.

In the Middle Ages the island belonged to the barons of Cefalonia and Zante and other Frankish dynasts. In 1479 it was taken by the Turks - the only one of the Ionian Islands to fall into Turkish hands - but was recovered for Venice by Morosini in 1684. After a brief interlude of French rule during the Napoleonic wars it was assigned in 1815 to Britain, which returned it to Greece, together with the other Ionian Islands, in 1864.

As a result of the vicissitudes of its history and of a series of earthquakes Lefkás has preserved very few old buildings.

The German archeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1853-1940), who worked on Lefkás and made his home there, believed that this island, and not the one now called Ithaca, was the Homeric Ithaca, the home of Odysseus. He based his theory mainly on topographical similarities between Lefkás and the Ithaca described in the "Odyssey", but this was contested by other archeologists, and Dörpfeld's excavations failed to produce convincing evidence in support of his theory.

According to Dörpfeld Homer's Zakynthos was the present-day island of that name, Doulichion was present-day Kefallónia, Same present-day Ithaca and Ithaca itself the island now known as Lefkás. He believed that Odysseus's city was in the western part of the Nydri plain; and excavations at many points in this area did in fact yield house walls and sherds of pottery (monochrome, with scratched decoration) at depths of between 4m/13ft and 6m/20ft which might be held to support Dörpfeld's theory.

In the south of the island are two inlets, Skydi Bay to the southwest and the narrow Sybota Bay to the south-east, with caves in the hillside along its shores. The latter, in Dörpfeld's view, was the cove of Phorkys, the Old Man of the Sea, where Odysseus was put ashore by the Phaeacians and hid his treasures in the Cave of the Nymphs ("Odyssey", 13, 345 ff.). From there he made his way up through the hills to the farm of the swineherd Eumaos, situated "far from the city" at the Spring of Arethusa, which Dörpfeld would identify as the spring at the village of Eàvyiros ("Odyssey", 13,404 ff.; 14, 6 and 399; 24, 150). Skyàdi Bay would then be the place where Telemachos landed ("Odyssey", 15, 495). On his return voyage from Pylos, warned by Athena, he escaped the ambush prepared for him by the suitors on the islet of Asteris - perhaps Arkoúdi (alt. 0-135m/0-445ft), south of Lefkás.

The island can be reached by road from the town of Vónitsa.