The history of Heraldion city is long and great, with many and varied sights bearing testimony to the special role it played throughout the centuries.
In Minoan times, Heraklion was a very small port that served as a harbour for the ships of Knossos, the great power of that time, and was not particularly important.
In the early Byzantine period, the island was overrun by pirate attacks and natural disasters. After repeated invasions, the Arabs conquered it in 824 AD. The small town is named Rabdh el Khandaq, i.e. the "city with the trench". In orderto protect the city, the Arabs built a wall around it, with a deep trench on the outside. This is how the city obtained the name Chandakas (Trench).
In 960 AD Nikiforos Fokas, a general and later Byzantine emperor, organized campaigns against the Arabs, and was eventually able to liberate the island. Chandakas, due to its strong fortifications, was able to resist, and was only liberated in 961, after many months under siege.
The city now called Kastro (Fortress), as well as Chandakas, flourished greatly until 1204. Byzantine imperial families settled in the city and took over its reconstruction. The walls were re-built, together with buildings, squares, fountains, public baths, water reservoirs, tombs, etc.
Another great period for the city's history began in 1210. After the fall of Constantinople, the island passed into the hands of the Venetians. The city was renamed Candia, i.e. Chandakas in Latin, and gave its name to the entire island, which was then called Regno di Candia, i.e. the Kingdom of Chandakas. The Cretans, tired of invasions,
torment and hardships, started to rebel and make the invaders' life difficult. At the same time, however, the Venetian civilization was so developed that culture and art flourished once again.
In the 15th century, the walls were reconstructed to include the city's suburbs. The new fortifications are a glorious sample of fortification architecture, and are one of the largest monuments in the Mediterranean. The walls were triangular, with 7 ramparts. The grave of N. Kazantzakis is currently located at one of those ramparts, Martinengo. The fortress had 4 gates, Molos on the north side, Lazaretto in the east, Chanioporta in the west and the Gate of Jesus (Pyli tou lissou) or New Gate in the south.
The imposing Koule fortress (named thus by the Turks) is located at the harbour gate. It is a two-storied fortress with storage rooms and a jail, in whose cells many Cretan revolutionaries were tortured. At its gates you can see the marble reliefs with the lion of Saint Mark, In the I 6th century, the city flourished artistically in architecture, sculpture, literature, painting, and names such as Domenikos Theotokopoulos (Ell Greco), Vincenzos Kornaros and M. Damaskinos confirm the area's intellectual richness. The Venetian cathedral of Saint Mark (the present-day Basilica of Agios Markos and the Municipal Art Gallery), the Loggia, i.e. the nobleman's club, and the city's current Town Hall are typical architectural examples, together with Venetian and Orthodox churches, fountains such as the Morosini fountain with the famous "Lions", and other monuments. In 1645, the Turks arrived and stigmatised the island. Chandakas-Candia resisted for 21 years, under a torturous siege that gradually eliminated its inhabitants. Hungry and exhausted, the inhabitants gave in to offers of money from the Turks. In 1669, the Italianborn engineer Andreas Barotsis revealed the city's weak spots, and the siege ended; Turkish domination, which was to last two-and-a-half centuries, began. Large-scale destruction and much carnage took place in Chandakas. The city's neighbourhoods were painted with the what is of the revolutionaries; their memory is honoured today with streets and squares named after them.
A great massacre took place in the area of
present-day 25th Avgoustou Street, where about 500 Christians were stop ed, together witF the British consul L. Kalokerinos and 17 British soldiers. The event moved the British crowr and the army amved to help liberate the islan( one year later, in 1898. Crete joined the res of Greece in 1913.