Marmara Island () is a Turkish island in the Sea of Marmara. With an area of it is the largest island in the Sea of Marmara and is the second largest island of Turkey after Gökçeada (older name in Turkish: ; Imvros). It is the center of Marmara district in Balıkesir Province. Transportation is possible from Istanbul by ship and ferry, and by motorboat from Tekirdağ and Erdek. Marmara island is full of historical treasures which increase its attractiveness. The town of "Mermer Plaj"/Marble Beach takes its name from the marble for which the town is famous and which gives the island and the sea their name. Etymology In ancient times the island was called Proikonesos () or Prokonnesos (), Latinized as Proconnesus. The modern name "Marmara" is derived from the Greek (marmaron) and that from (mármaros), "crystalline rock", "shining stone", perhaps from the verb (marmaírō), "to flash, sparkle, gleam", because it was famous for the white marble quarried there. Under the name Proconnesus it is a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church (the see has been vacant since the death in 1963 of the most recent occupant), and of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Proconnesian marble is used extensively in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, and exclusively in the Herculean Sarcophagus of Genzano now in the British Museum. Additionally, it was used in the Basilica of Maxentius and the arch of Septime Severe in the Roman Forum (Marble is still the island's primary export). History Historical evidence of the first Hellenic presence on the island of Marmara (ancient Prokonnessos) came with the early colonization of Ionian Greeks in the 8th century BC. Stories and legends identify the island as a visiting place of Jason and the Argonauts and with the Hellenic expedition against Troy. In 493 BC it was burned by a Phoenician fleet fighting for Darius the Great. The island was ruled for the Achaemenid Empire under a Greek tyrant named Metrodorus. In 410 BC, Alcibiades conquered it for Athens. During the Diocletianic Persecution, the Emperor Diocletian ordered low-status Manichaeans to be executed while high-status Manichaeans were to be sent to work in the quarries of Proconnesus or the mines of Khirbat Faynan. During the reign of Constantine the Great in the 4th century, notable aristocracy from Constantinople first settled on the island. By 569, many Byzantine aristocrats had built palaces on the island that they had