The island of Ponza has been frequented since prehistoric times and later
stumbled upon the Phoenicians and the Greeks during their frequent
explorations .
There are several legends about the etymology of the name of the island of
Ponza : Homer gave perhaps the first name " eea ", from " eos " , from the
Latin "Aurora" , and later Apollio , Strabo and Virgil called it " Isle of
Circe " .
Ponza is then connected to the myth of the sorceress Circe, the sorceress
who , after killing her husband , moved to Ponza and traformò men into
animals and mermaids and women who tried to detain Ulysses and his troops.
With the arrival of the Romans came to Ponza their large villas and
aqueducts but also the exiles . Ponza it became the home of troublesome
people who had committed crimes against the state and Christianity , this
thing almost continuously to the present day , the fascists in fact there
bordered men adverse to their regimen .
The most important among the famous people on the island was definitely
relegated San Silverio , who was elected Pope in 536 , declared heretical by
Theodora , wife of Emperor Justinian and exiled to Ponza , where he died on
11 November 537 and became the patron saint of the island.
In the following centuries the island suffered numerous attacks by the
Saracens, who managed to conquer it in 845 AD and that they were defeated
and driven out only some time after the maritime republics of Gaeta and
Amalfi.
Over the centuries the island was depopulated slowly until, in 1734 , it
became a dominion of the King of Naples and his recovery was promising the
settlers faced the necessary infrastructure and the construction of major
public works (such as the Port of Ponza , which began in 1775) .
Initially there were no results , a good wave of immigrants came only in
1770. The first to arrive were the settler -farmers , also coming from the
lands bells affected by the eruption of Vesuvius in 1771 , to which were
added fishermen and sailors .
To this period belong the great military works and not as strong Pope ,
Gable and jail of Santo Stefano.
In the nineteenth century , after a brief Napoleonic and English , the
island returns to its usual and in 1861 was annexed to Italy and connected
to the mainland by a line SPAN .
The island always maintained the function of " place of confinement " for
the characters adverse to power, first to the crown , then to the fascist
regime. Among the many sent to the island , there was also the future
President Sandro Pertini and the same Benito Mussolini before being
transferred to the Gran Sasso .
The postwar period was hard but full of changes , in fact, the '60s saw a
significant increase in tourism on the island with a consequent rise
building and a sudden abandonment of agriculture.
