Rhodes – the New Town and areas outside the walls – Ancient Rhodes – outside tHe City Centre

Ancient Rhodes —outside the city centre
The ancient city of Rhodes , according to Strabo (Geog. XIV 2. 9), had been laid out on a plan drawn up by the ‘architect of the Piraeus’, namely Hippodamus of Miletus. It occupied a terrain which was neither steep nor confined by problematic geographical features, nor previously in habited to any significant degree. Because the territory was ample, the city was planned spaciously. Its original core stretched in a wide, sloping band west from the Commercial Harbour and Acandia Bay to the summit of the acropolis (today’s Mount Smith), which was crowned with large temples—to Apollo, Artemis, Zeus, Athena and other divinities. As the city rapidly grew in wealth and population it expanded both northwards in the direction of the point of the island and to the southeast, into the area occupied today by Zephyros. It was approximately 3km from the northern limit to the walls in the southeast. The 4th century southern walls run east along a course which cuts diagonally through the blocks south of today’s Konstantinou Palaeologou and Garivaldi Streets, across the junction of Plateia Epta Vaghies, and then follow Grigoriou Vth Street and Klaude Pepper Avenue down to the shore along the north side of the main modern cemetery. Beyond this line, to the south, extended the ancient cemeteries.
   In the area outside the mediaeval walled city, there are countless points where small elements of the Ancient break through the urban fabric of the Modern city. The most significant of these are mentioned below in two groups: the first in the area between the New Town and the ancient acropolis (Mount Smith); the second in the areas further to the south and east occupied predominantly by the ancient cemeteries. Most are of primarily academic interest, but three stand out as having a wider appeal: 1. the area of the upper acropolis and the nymphaea to its north; 2. the remains of the Early Christian basilica on Heimaras Street; and 3. the two decorated Hellenistic tombs—the so-called ‘Tomb of the Ptolemies’ and the ‘Monument of the Shield’.