History

It is said that the fate of a city is determined by its geographical position. Fertile land, a protected natural harbour, a strategically important location are all factors that favour the establishment and development of a city. In the case of Iraklio, none of these factors apply, not even the basic ones like a water source or a fortified position.

It was, however, the nearest point on the coast to Minoan Knossos, and this is why the Knossians founded a seaside settlement and a small harbour here, which they called Iraklio, obviously because there was a Temple of Heracles here. The wealth and merchandise which were loaded and unloaded here were simply passing trade, to and from Knossos. The unfortunate Iraklio remained throughout ancient times a poor, insignificant settlement which concerned nobody; no historian wrote about it, no important event happened here, and it was always in the heavy shadow of Knossos and of its other harbour, Amnisos.
After the destruction of Knossos, Iraklio continued to be inhabited but it never exceeded the size of a poor settlement. Perhaps this was the reason why it seems not to have been in the sights of the very many pirates who existed all those ancient centuries until the end of the First Byzantine Period (824 AD). Even its ancient name was forgotten and in some unknown period, probably at the beginning of the first Byzantine period, the name Kastro predominated.
All this applies up to 824 AD. Because in that year, the Saracen Arabs, having conquered the whole of Crete, chose Kastro as their capital and base for their attacks, for what reason it is not known. They built a strong wall around the city and dug a deep trench on the outside. Their capital was named Rabdh el Khandak after this trench, as the words mean in Arabic 'The Castle with the Trench'. And so, totally unexpectedly, this tiny village which not even its neighbours knew became the most renowned centre of piracy in the whole Mediterranean. Tens of thousands of seamen and islanders who had been taken prisoners by the Saracens were sold into slavery in its slave market. Untold wealth accumulated in its treasuries and storehouses, the spoils of the greed of the bloodthirsty Saracens, who continued their robbing activities for 137 whole years!
In 961, after various unsuccessful attempts, the Byzantines, under their distinguished general Nikiforos Fokas, finally managed to free Crete from the Arabs and to corner them at the fortified Chandakas (as Rabdh el Khandak was called in the local language). The siege lasted for almost a year and ended in the triumphant entry of the besiegers, general slaughter of the besieged and total levelling of the city.
After his victory, Nikiforos Fokas decided arbitrarily to move the capital of now Byzantine Crete several kilometres to the south, to the safety of the hinterland. But the Cretans did not like the hill he chose and had started to build the new city on. As soon as Fokas returned to Constantinople, they returned to Chandaka, rebuilt it, repaired its walls and harbour ad persuaded the Byzantine colonists and the Administration to settle there themselves.
During the Second Byzantine Period (961-1204), Crete was a Thema (Byzantine province) and its governor had the title of Duke. The Byzantines made great attempts and actually managed to heal the wounds of the Arab conquest. Many Byzantine nobles came to settle in Chandaka (and throughout Crete); they made close ties with their new country and became the heads of the local Cretan aristocracy, acquiring enormous economic and political power as the years passed.
When the Crusaders overthrew the Byzantine Empire and divided up its lands (in 1204), Crete passed into the hands of the Venetians who appreciated the strategic position of Chandaka and there established the capital of the Kingdom of Crete, as they named their new province. Giacomo Tiepolo was appointed as the first Duke of Crete and his first job was to repair the Byzantine walls of Candaka, which was now called Candia, a name that soon prevailed throughout Crete. The biggest threat to the new rulers was the old Cretan aristocracy, which was not prepared to give up its privileges. When the Venetians pushed things very hard, the aristocracy stirred up the people to rebellion which was almost always successful. The Venetians then barricaded themselves inside Candia, negotiated peace terms (mainly the granting of privileges to the aristocrats) and life then continued normally.
Two hundred and fifty years passed in this way, during the course of which Candia became a big European city with splendid public buildings. The Palazzo Ducale was built at this time (the government house where the Duke and his Councillors were installed, based on the Venetian model) as were the Church of St Mark, and Loggia (the centre for the social events of the Venetian aristocracy), paved squares, fountains and much besides. Candia was called the Venice of the East and became the centre of the political, economic and artistic life of the Island. At the end of the sixteenth century, the Academy of Stravaganti was founded at Candia; this was a society of writers headed by Andreas Kornaros, who was possibly a relation of Vincenzo Kornaro who wrote the Erotokritos. Top artistic personalities of Candia were the painter Michael Damaskinos (the top representative of the Cretan school in iconography) and Dominicos Theotokopoulos, or El Greco, who was already a famous painter when he left his birthplace to work in Europe.
When the Turks appeared on the scene, however, and especially when they captured Constantinople, the Venetians realised that the threat was very serious and that the Turks would not be long in attacking Crete. Candia had already expanded a long way outside the Byzantine walls, which in any case were not capable of withstanding a serious siege. So they sent their best engineer, Michele Sanmicheli, who designed the most imposing and fortified walls ever built in any European city up to that date. Building of these walls began in 1402 and lasted for more than 100 years! To make possible the building of this gigantic wall, which was 3 kilometres long and had seven ramparts and four gates, all Cretans between 14 and 60 years of age who lived in the greater area of central Crete, worked like slaves for one week a year each, carrying stones from the quarry of Katsomba and also from the ruins of Knossos.
In 1645, the Turkish army landed in Crete (in the Chania area) and gradually captured the whole island except for the Capital. When they arrived in front of the mighty city walls, in May 1648, the Turks realised that it would not be an easy job to capture it, but they could never have imagined that they would have to struggle quite so hard; the siege lasted for 21 years without a break.
On the one side, i.e. on the castle battlements, were lined up the Venetians, the Cretans and every so often various European armies and individual volunteers who were driven by religious zeal to join the fight against Islam. Around the walls was lined up the large mass of the Turkish army which threw itself into a merciless war to bring glory to the name of Mohammed by conquering and violently converting to Islam as many people as possible. From the early years of the siege, the Turks built an outside wall around the wall of Candia. Protected behind this fortification, they bombarded the city and undertook frenzied attacks on the walls. The walls were of course very strong, but their defenders were few and without many supplies. Their calls for help took a long time to be heard, as the Venetian motherland was also exhausted and had very little margin.
In 1660, i.e. in the twelfth year of the siege, the King of France, Louis XIV sent an expeditionary force of 4,000 men, but this was diverted to Naxos and Paros where it busied itself with terrible plunder! When it at last arrived in Crete, it avoided clashing with the powerful Turkish army outside the besieged capital. It shot a few cannons near the castle of Chania just to look good and departed for France loaded with spoils from the plundered islands.
In the following year, 1661, the Venetians sent reinforcements of 3,000 men and a lot of supplies of armaments and food, and this raised the morale of the besieged people. In 1666, the Sultan furiously recalled the commanding general of besieging Forces, Hussein Pasha, and beheaded him for being responsible for the disgrace of the Turks in not being able to take the city all these years. In his place, he appointed his best general, Ahmed Kioprouli Pasha, but the Venetians also charged the defence to their best general, Francesco Morozini.
Kioprouli realised that he would never take the castle with his cannons alone, and that if he did not get results quickly, his head would also finish up on a stake because of the Sultan's anger. So he used the most effective weapon to have been invented until today - gold. "Since I cannot beat them with my cannons" thought the cunning Turk. "I shall buy their desertion and betrayal." Indeed, the wretched besieged people, who had on top of everything remained helpless, jumped from the walls one after the other, formed a queue outside Kioprouli's counting-house, took their reward and went their way! Some of them were seduced by the fat rewards which were offered for the giving of information (common betrayal) and revealed to the Turks where the weak spots in the wall were, where exactly to direct their cannons, etc. One of these, Andreas Barotsis, a colonel in the Engineers, became a permanent employee of the Turks and he was chiefly responsible for the final fall of the castle. Kioprouli spent money like water (around 700,000 gold coins!), but on 28 September 1669, he entered Candia in triumph. In a rare moment of magnanimity, he allowed the final remaining defenders to pack their bags and embark on the Venetian ships which had come to fetch them. The final blow, however, which did not come from the Turks was dealt by merciless Nature - a terrible storm sank most of the refugee ships with all hands, in the narrow strait between Crete and Kythira...
The Turks took possession of a ruined city without a living soul. Despite this, they decided to establish the capital of their new province there for the safety (tried and tested!) which the city's Venetian Walls would afford them. So their first job was to repair the damage to the wall; this work was done by - who else? - the wretched Cretans from the countryside. They later rebuilt the city based on the eastern concept of city planning, i.e. without any planning! The city, which was now called Megalo Kastro (Big Castle), was full of narrow alleyways and small houses clustered together and built in the way that suited each Turkish householder. Those churches which remained standing were converted straight away into mosques; anything Greek or Christian was frenziedly persecuted; anyone who persisted in resisting conversion to Islam ended up bound hand and foot in the squares where the executioners despatched them with various tormenting and degrading methods (they usually skinned them alive); and generally a thick darkness of misery covered the city where once arts and sciences had flowered. The first census taken by the Turks showed that only 800 Greeks lived in Megalo Castro.
When the 1821 Revolution broke out, the Turks replied with the mass slaughter of Christians, without discrimination as to age or sex, throughout Crete and of course in Megalo Kastro. The Great Slaughter however took place on 25 August 1898, i.e. in the last year of the Turkish occupation of Crete. On that fatal day, the Turks pulled out their yataghans (sabres), they spilled out into the streets of Megalo Kastro and indiscriminately killed all the Christians they could find. In their rush however they made the Big Mistake - they also killed 17 British soldiers and the British Consul on the island. Only then were the Christian British moved (up to that point and right throughout Turkish Rule in Crete they had followed with indifference the slaughters of the Christian Greeks) and at last turned their guns on the Turks, putting an end to the dark period of Turkish Rule in Crete. Right from the early years of the period of the Autonomous Cretan State, the remaining inhabitants made serious attempts to restore the life of the city to normal. For a start, they restored its ancient name. Iraklio, although it was no longer the capital, was the centre of the biggest trading activity and of the most important intellectual and artistic life on the island. The energetic 'Educational Society of Iraklio' started off the first archaeological researches in the Knossos area, tried to preserve as many treasures as it could and laid the foundation for the establishment of the Archaeological Museum. A prosperous urban class gradually developed in Iraklio, many jobs were created (mainly in factories) which attracted people from the poor countryside. The city became full of people and a serious housing problem was created which was dealt with by arbitrarily building on every square centimetre of available land within the walls. Neighbourhoods rapidly expanded over a large area, outside the walls as well, and already by 1940, Iraklio had a population of 40,000.
It was then that the last invaders appeared from the skies, the crack German parachutists of the 7th Division who took only a few hours to capture Iraklio, which had previously been mercilessly bombed by the Stukas. When they left after four years (which is nothing compared with 460 yeas of occupation by the Venetians and 230 years under the Turks), they left behind them many dead Cretans and great destruction. Fortunately however, they cut down the chaff with the wheat as the German bombs destroyed the arbitrary housing that had been strangling the city, creating many open spaces which today have become roads and squares
The city was rebuilt more carefully this time, but again it was impossible to avoid the ugliness of the big city - dense housing, few parks, even fewer parking areas, noise and crowds. Despite all this, Iraklio is a neat, clean city with quite a lot of pedestrian streets and many signs in both Greek and English, which is a great help to visitors. The street signs even have an explanatory legend beneath the names! Iraklio today is the fifth biggest city in Greece (with a population of 120,000) and since 1971, it has been again the capital of Crete.