many hotels, restaurants and a number of nightclubs forming the town's "bar street". The seaside village of Kardamena is a popular resort for young holidaymakers (primarily from the United Kingdom and Scandinavia) and has a large number of bars and nightclubs. Farming is the second principal occupation, with the main crops being grapes, almonds, figs, olives, and tomatoes, along with wheat and corn. Cos lettuce (romaine lettuce) is named after the island, from where it is said to have originated. History Mycenaean Era In Homer's Iliad, a contingent of Koans fought for the Greeks in the Trojan War. In classical mythology the founder-king of Kos was Merops, hence "Meropian Kos" is included in the archaic Delian amphictyony listed in the 7th-century Homeric hymn to Delian Apollo; the island was visited by Heracles. Kos was said to be the birthplace of the goddess Leto; the mother of Apollo. Supposedly Leto's father Coeus was the first inhabitant of the island. The island was originally colonised by the Carians. The Dorians invaded it in the 11th century BC, establishing a Dorian colony with a large contingent of settlers from Epidaurus, whose Asclepius cult made their new home famous for its sanatoria. The other chief sources of the island's wealth lay in its wines and, in later days, in its silk manufacture. Archaic Era Its early history–as part of the religious-political amphictyonic league that included Lindos, Kamiros, Ialysos, Knidos and Halicarnassus, the Doric Hexapolis ( means 'six cities' in Greek),–is obscure. At the end of the 6th century, Kos fell under Achaemenid domination but rebelled after the Greek victory at the Battle of Mycale in 479. Archaeological finds have shown the existence of a small shrine to Hemera and Helios; gods of the day and the Sun respectively. Classical Era During the Greco-Persian Wars, before it twice expelled the Persians, it was ruled by Persian-appointed tyrants, but as a rule it seems to have been under oligarchic government. In the 5th century, it joined the Delian League, and, after the revolt of Rhodes, it served as the chief Athenian station in the south-eastern Aegean (411–407). In 366 BC, a democracy was instituted. In 366 BC, the capital was transferred from Astypalaea (at the west end of the island near the modern village of Kefalos) to the newly built town of Cos, laid out in a Hippodamian grid. After helping to weaken Athenian power, in