Discover Naxos

Greek mythology credits Naxos as the island where Zeus himself was raised in a cave on Mount Zas (the name echoes Zeus). It was here that Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus after helping him escape the Labyrinth - and where Dionysus, god of wine, found her and made her his bride. The island's association with Dionysus explains the ancient prosperity of its vineyards.

Naxos was the most powerful island of the Early Cycladic period (3300–2000 BC), famed for its white marble and emery quarries. Cycladic figurines - the stark, minimalist white marble statuettes now iconic in modern art - were carved here using Naxian emery to shape them. The island supplied marble to projects across the Aegean world.

In the 6th century BC Naxos was among the wealthiest cities in Greece, building the massive Portara (the marble gateway still standing on the islet of Palatia) as the entrance of a never-completed temple to Apollo. The island later fell to the Persians, joined the Delian League, and entered Byzantine rule in 395 AD, which brought the construction of its remarkable hilltop Kastro and dozens of tower houses.

After the Fourth Crusade (1204), Naxos became the capital of the Duchy of the Archipelago under Marco Sanudo - a Venetian state that shaped the island's Catholic tower-house architecture, still visible in the Kastro quarter of Chora. The Ottomans took formal control in 1566 but allowed a degree of local autonomy. The legacy of Venetian rule is why Naxos has an unusual number of Catholic families and a Latin bishopric alongside the Orthodox Church.