Rineia, or Rhenea (Ρήνεια), is a Greek

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

in the

Cyclades The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

. It lies just west of the island of Delos and further southwest of the island of Mykonos, of which it and Delos are administratively a part. Its area is . It had a small population until the 1980s, but is currently uninhabited. In ancient times, the island was known as Rheneia (), and was part of the

Delian League The Delian League was a confederacy of Polis, Greek city-states, numbering between 150 and 330, founded in 478 BC under the leadership (hegemony) of Classical Athens, Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Achaemenid Empire, Persian ...

. In the 6th century BC, it was subdued by the tyrant Polycrates of

Samos Samos (, also ; , ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese archipelago, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the Mycale Strait. It is also a separate reg ...

and dedicated to the Delian

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

. The southern half of Rheneia was the necropolis of Delos. In the sixth year of the

Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...

(426 BCE), the

Athenians Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

"purified" Delos by removing all its tombs and prohibiting burials there. Future births and deaths on Delos were prohibited—pregnant women and people close to death were to be carried over to Rheneia. Later, the island was incorporated into the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

References

Sources

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External links

Official website of Municipality of Mykonos
Islands of Greece Cyclades Landforms of Mykonos Islands of the South Aegean Populated places in the ancient Aegean islands Former populated places in Greece Populated places in Mykonos {{AncientAegean-geo-stub