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{{Short description|Unpopulated island in the Cyclades, Greece}}
{{Infobox islands
|name             = Gyaros
|native_name      = Γυάρος or Γιούρα
|native_name_lang = el
|image_name       = Gyaros Luftbild 01.jpg
|image_caption    = 
|coordinates      = {{coord|37|37|38|N|24|43|12|E}}
|map_image        = GR_Gyaros.PNG
|location         = 
|archipelago      = [[Cyclades]]
|total_islands    = 
|area_km2         = 23
|highest_mount    = Mt. Gyaros
|elevation_m      = 489
|country          = Greece
|country_admin_divisions_title   = [[Modern regions of Greece|Region]]
|country_admin_divisions         = [[Southern Aegean]]
|country_admin_divisions_title_1 = [[Regional units of Greece|Regional unit]]
|country_admin_divisions_1       = [[Syros]]
|country_admin_divisions_title_2 = Municipality
|country_admin_divisions_2       = 
|population       = 0
|population_as_of = 2001
|density_km2      = 
|postal_code      = 840 00
|area_code        = 228x0
|registration_plate = EM
|website          = 
}}
{{about|the island in the Cyclades, also called Gioura|the island in the Sporades|Gioura}}
'''Gyaros''' ({{langx|el|Γυάρος}} {{IPA|el|ˈʝaros|pron}}), also locally known as '''Gioura''' ({{langx|el|Γιούρα}}), is an [[arid]], unpopulated, and uninhabited [[Greece|Greek]] island in the northern [[Cyclades]] near the islands of [[Andros]] and [[Tinos]], with an area of {{convert|23|km2|0|abbr=out}}. It is a part of the municipality of [[Ano Syros]], which lies primarily on the island of [[Syros]]. This and other small islands of the [[Aegean Sea]] served as places of exile for important people in the early [[Roman Empire]]. The extremity of its desolation was proverbial among Roman authors, such as [[Tacitus]] and [[Juvenal]]. The island operated as a [[prison island]] and [[concentration camp]] for [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] political dissidents in Greece from 1948 until 1974. During that time, at least 22,000 people were exiled or imprisoned on the island.<ref>[http://newhistories.group.shef.ac.uk/wordpress/wordpress/?p=3315 Red Rocks of the Aegean: Greece's Prison Islands] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202212717/http://newhistories.group.shef.ac.uk/wordpress/wordpress/?p=3315 |date=2014-02-02 }}, ''New Histories'' March 15, 2012</ref> It is an island of great ecological importance as it hosts the largest population of [[Mediterranean monk seal|monk seals]] in the Mediterranean.<ref name=Karamanlidis2016>{{cite journal | author = Karamanlidis, A.A. | date = April 2016 | title = The Mediterranean monk seal ''Monachus monachus'': status, biology, threats, and conservation priorities | journal = Mammal Review | volume = 46 | issue = 2 | pages = 92–105 | doi = 10.1111/mam.12053|display-authors=etal| hdl = 11511/29839 | hdl-access = free }}</ref>

== Mythology and early history ==
The pseudo-Aristotelian work ''[[On Marvellous Things Heard]]'' (25) recounts the tale that on Gyaros the mice eat iron.

In the ''[[Aeneid]]'' of [[Virgil]], Gyaros and [[Mykonos]] are said to be the two islands to which the god [[Apollo]] tied the holy island of [[Delos]] to stop its wandering over the [[Aegean Sea]].<ref>{{col-begin}}
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<div style="font-size: 85%">
: Amid the sea a land is worshiped, a land most sacred
: to the mother of the [[Nereids]] and to Aegean [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]],
: which, the dutiful [[Apollo|bow-bearing god]] bound from [[Myconos]]
: and from steep Gyaros, as it wandered the shores and coasts,
: and he made it immobile and to have contempt for the winds.
</div>
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<div style="font-size: 85%">
: ''sacra mari colitur medio gratissima tellus''
: ''Nereidum matri et Neptuno Aegaeo,''
: ''quam pius arquitenens oras et litora circum''
: ''errantem Mycono e celsa Gyaroque reuinxit,''
: ''immotamque coli dedit et contemnere uentos.''
: Aeneid 3.73-77
</div>
{{col-end}}
</ref>  In his recounting of the myth of the war between [[Minos]] and [[Aegeus]], the king of Athens, the poet [[Ovid]] speaks of Gyaros as one island that refused to join the campaign of the Cretan king.<ref>{{col-begin}}
{{col-2}}
<div style="font-size: 85%">
: But Oliaros and Didyme and Tenos and Andros
: and Gyaros and Peparethos (bountiful in gleaming olives)
: did not assist the [[Knossos|Knossian]] fleet; ...
</div>
{{col-2}}
<div style="font-size: 85%">
: ''At non Oliaros Didymeque et Tenos et Andros''
: ''et Gyaros nitidaeque ferax Peparethos olivae''
: ''Cnosiacas iuvere rates; ...''
: Metamorphoses 7.469-71
</div>
{{col-end}}
</ref>

In 29 BC, the historian and geographer [[Strabo]] had an extended stay on the island, on his way to [[Corinth]]. 
 
In the 1st century AD, [[Pliny the Elder]] wrote in his [[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]] that the island, which had a city, was {{convert|15|mi|0|abbr=out}} in circumference and lay {{convert|62|mi|0|abbr=out}} from [[Andros]].<ref>''Gyara cum oppido, circuitu XV, abest ab Andro LXII, ab ea Syrnos LXXX'' (NH 4.69). These are Roman miles, but his geography is still considerably in error.</ref> He also records that the inhabitants of Gyaros were once put to flight by (a plague of) mice.<ref>''ex Gyara Cycladum insula incolas a muribus fugatos'' (NH 8.104).

The visitors of the island can see many small pieces of pottery on the ground mostly in the river bed of the northernmost and bigger mini valley where the prisoners camp and its headquarters were located. No archaeological excavations have been conducted up to the year 2007. There are remains of narrow terraces along the slopes of the eastern part of the island, proving that some rudimentary agriculture was driven in the past. Probably as back as the [[Prehistory|Prehistoric times]] used as refuge in times of raids by invading forces as well as the Roman times and later.</ref> The island is also mentioned by the Roman orator [[Cicero]], and other notable Latin authors, indicating a broad awareness of Gyaros among the educated elite of the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD.<ref>Letters to Atticus 5.12.1</ref>

== Exile island during the early Roman Empire ==

The island ({{langx|la|Gyaros or Gyara}}) also served as a place of exile during the early [[Roman Empire]]. Writing in the early 2nd century AD, the [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] historian [[Tacitus]] records that, when [[Gaius Junius Silanus|Silanus]], the [[proconsul]] of the [[Asia (Roman province)|province of Asia]], was accused of extortion and treason, and it had been proposed in the [[Roman Senate]] that he be exiled to Gyaros, the [[Roman Emperor]] [[Tiberius]] allowed him to be sent to the nearby island of [[Kythnos]] instead, since Gyaros was "harsh and devoid of human culture" (''Annales'' 3.68-69).<ref>... ''addidit insulam Gyarum immitem et sine cultu hominum esse:'' In the ''[[Annals (Tacitus)|Annales]]'', Tiberius is portrayed as extraordinarily cruel and vengeful, making his hesitance to exile a criminal to Gyaros particularly pointed.</ref> When confronted with another recommendation to exile a defendant to Gyaros, Tiberius once more declined, noting that the island was deficient in water, and that those granted their lives ought to be granted the means to live (4.30). The defendant was allowed to go into exile on [[Amorgos]] instead.<ref>''id quoque aspernatus est, egenam aquae utramque insulam referens dandosque vitae usus cui vita concederetur.''  Serenus, a son prosecuting his own father without justification, was accused of attempted [[parricide]], and the Senate recommended the old punishment of being thrown unto the [[Tiber]] river sewn in a bag with a snake, a dog, a rooster, and a monkey. Tiberius vetoed that proposal, and the Senate next proposed exile to Gyaros as a suitably terrible punishment.</ref> The Roman poet [[Juvenal]], a near-contemporary of Tacitus, mentions this island twice in his [[Satires of Juvenal|''Satires'']]: first as a place of exile for particularly vile criminals (1.73), and second as a symbol of claustrophobic imprisonment (10.170). In the second reference, Juvenal compares the restlessness of [[Alexander the Great]] to that of a man imprisoned:

{{col-begin}}
{{col-2}}
<div style="font-size: 85%">
: One globe was not enough for the youth from [[Pella]],
: He seethed within the narrow confines of the world,
: as if he were hemmed in by the cliffs of Gyara or by tiny [[Seriphos]].
</div>
{{col-2}}
<div style="font-size: 85%">
: ''unus Pellaeo iuueni non sufficit orbis,''
: ''aestuat infelix angusto limite mundi''
: ''ut Gyarae clausus scopulis paruaque Seripho;''
: (1.168-70)
</div>
{{col-end}}

Under emperor [[Nero]], the philosopher [[Musonius Rufus]] was found guilty for his participation in the [[Pisonian conspiracy]] and was banished to Gyara.<ref>Tacitus, Annals, xv. 71; Cassius Dio, lxii. 27; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll., vii. 16</ref>

== Exile on the island during the 20th century ==
{{See also|Internal exile in Greece}}
A red brick prison building held approximately 10,000 inmates between 1948 and 1953 for their participation in the [[Greek Resistance]] organization [[Ethniko Apeleftherotiko Metopo]] (EAM) or for their involvement in the [[Greek civil war|Greek Civil War]] (1945–1949). [[Jehovah's Witness]]es were also sentenced to exile on the island as Christian [[conscientious objector]]s.

The prison was used again by the [[Greek junta|Greek military junta]] during the years 1967 to 1974.

The structures on the island are decaying due to weathering and lack of maintenance. In four separate sites north of the prison building are also the ruins of camps where prisoners lived in tents, both summer and winter. Once a year, the men and women who are alive and in good health (most of them were born between the 1910s and 1930s) and who were formerly imprisoned on the island for their political views pay tribute by visiting the island and holding a ceremony in the cemetery of those who died on the island.

The Greek government used the island as a target range for the [[Hellenic Navy]] until the year 2000. The island is currently off-limits to the general public  except during commemorative events and approaching or fishing in close proximity is forbidden by the [[Hellenic Coast Guard]].

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120313111958/http://www.archive.worldpressphoto.org/search/layout/result/indeling/detailwpp/form/wpp/start/1/q/ishoofdafbeelding/true/trefwoord/photographer_formal/Ihrt%2C%20Fred?id=wpp%3Acol1%3Adat4218 Fred Ihrt's photos of the concentration camp on Gyaros in 1967]
*[http://www.365sterne.de/admirals_sailing/dokus/gyaros/doku.html Gyaros Documentation 2014]

{{Aegean Sea}}
{{The Cyclades}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Cyclades]]
[[Category:Internment camps]]
[[Category:Former populated places in Greece]]
[[Category:Uninhabited islands of Greece]]
[[Category:History of Greece (1949–1974)]]
[[Category:Landforms of Syros]]
[[Category:Islands of the South Aegean]]
[[Category:Islands of Greece]]
[[Category:Populated places in the ancient Aegean islands]]
[[Category:Prison islands of Greece]]
[[Category:Political repression in Greece]]
[[Category:Anti-communism in Greece]]