Emmanuel Rhoides

Who was Emmanuel Rhoides?

Emmanuel Rhoides was a Greek writer and journalist. He is considered one of the most illustrious and reviving spirits of the Greek letters of his time.

Born in Hermoupolis, the capital of the island of Syros, to a family of rich aristocrats from Chios — who had fled the island after the massacre of its population by the Ottomans in 1822 — he spent much of his youth abroad. Rhoides was erudite and at a young age had mastered not only the languages of continental Europe, but also ancient Greek and Latin.

His early youth years he spent in Genoa, Italy in the times of the Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states and the Sack of Genoa. He studied history, literature and philosophy in Berlin, and later in Iași, Romania where his merchant father had transferred the centre of his business activities.

Obeying a parental wish, he moved to Athens, where he printed the translation of Chateaubriand's Itinéraires. In 1860, after a brief sojourn in Egypt, he decided to live and stay permanently in Athens.

Later in his life, he would become very poor, especially with the bankruptcy of the family business, and the subsequent suicide of his beloved brother Nicholas. He eked out his last years by working as a curator for the National Library of Greece. But, even from this position he was dismissed in 1902, when he got into a political dispute with the government.