| 1 | A Brief History |
| 2 | Prehistoric man in Asia Minor ( now modern Turkey ) or Greece could look out across the Aegean toward the horizon and see the faint silhouette of land . |
| 3 | Their curiosity pushed them to build vessels that were strong enough to ford the open seas and reach these islands , marking the start of the long legacy of Mediterranean seafaring . |
| 4 | Around 7000 b.c. , the Phoenicians set out from what is now Iran to explore their surroundings . |
| 5 | They eventually reached the islands , and founded colonies on the islands in the northernmost part of the Aegean Sea . |
| 6 | An important early material , obsidian , was discovered on the island of Milos . |
| 7 | Obsidian is a hard , vitreous volcanic rock , which could be fashioned into tools for cutting and stabbing . |
| 8 | The high quality of the seam on Milos ensured that the area remained popular with early travelers . |
| 9 | The basic elements of life in the Aegean began to come together as early as 5000 b.c. , and were already in place by the late Bronze Age ( c. 2700 b.c. ) . |
| 10 | The major changes were not to daily tasks and routines , but to the political power base , which changed regularly and not necessarily peacefully throughout the ages . |
| 11 | Cycladic Culture |
| 12 | At around 3500 b.c. , a sophisticated culture evolved in the Cyclades islands . |
| 13 | The distinctive , sculpted marble figures of the era are now being reproduced in vast quantities as souvenirs . |
| 14 | You will find original examples in the archaeological museums throughout the Cyclades , although one of the earliest examples is in the museum on Paros . |
| 15 | The people farmed and fished ; on the dawning of the Bronze Age in 2700 b.c. , they began to work with metals . |
| 16 | The Cycladic culture was influenced by societies in the east , importing the pottery wheel from Mesopotamia . |
| 17 | They also continued to trade in obsidian and the local marble . |
| 18 | The Minoans and the Myceneans |
| 19 | Farther south in Crete , the Minoan culture developed after 2000 b.c. into the most significant of its age , spreading its influence throughout the region by trade and diplomacy . |
| 20 | Santorini ( Thira ) , the next major island north , was heavily influenced by Crete , and the settlements of Thira and Akrotiri thrived at this time . |
| 21 | The magnificent frescoes and mosaics found at Akrotiri are in Athens at present , but the remains of the buildings at the site provide ample evidence of the sophistication of the culture here . |
| 22 | Around 1500 b.c. , a massive volcanic eruption at Santorini destroyed not only Akrotiri <ndash> under feet of ash and pumice <ndash> but the whole Minoan civilization . |
| 23 | Massive tidal waves swept over Crete , and other parts of the Mediterranean , smashing buildings and drowning many thousands of people . |
| 24 | In the wake of this tremendous natural upheaval , the Aegean Islands next came under the influence of the Mycenaeans ( at around 1300 b.c. ) , who had a base in the Peloponnese region of the Greek mainland . |
| 25 | The Mycenaeans were an acquisitive race who came to conquer , not to trade . |
| 26 | Their extensive military campaigns were later chronicled by Homer in his epic poems The Odyssey and The Iliad . |
| 27 | The Rise of Athens |
| 28 | The Dorians , who came over land from northern Europe , conquered the Mycenaeans . |
| 29 | They were a barbaric race , and their custody of the area brought about a dark period during which the written word was forgotten and art disappeared . |
| 30 | They held sway over islands off the northern Greek coast , but the Phoenicians kept control of the main sea routes ; south of the area , trade continued as usual . |
| 31 | At the same time , city - states began to grow in influence on the southern Greek mainland . |
| 32 | Athens became the most powerful , heralding the start of the classical Greek period . |
| 33 | However , Greece was not yet a country ; each city - state was self - governing and autonomous . |
| 34 | The new culture spread throughout the Mediterranean , helped by a huge increase in migration from the mainland to new settlements such as Carthage , a Greek city on the African coast of the Mediterranean . |
| 35 | Culture and the arts flourished once again . |
| 36 | Athletic prowess was admired and the Olympic games were constituted in 776 b.c. , to promote friendly competition . |
| 37 | Homer wrote his epic works on Chios ; and lyrical poetry was much admired , particularly the work of the poets Archilochos on Paros and Sappho on Lesvos . |
| 38 | The preeminent islands of this era were Delos , a sacred island and center of religion ruled by Athens ; Samos , ruled by the tyrant Polycrates ; and Naxos , whose ruler Lygdamis undertook some major building projects . |
| 39 | Archaeology shows that , during this time , societies lived mainly in coastal trading towns with little settlement inland . |
| 40 | The Persian Wars |
| 41 | As Athens rose in influence and power in the West , it was matched in the East by the rise of the Persian Empire . |
| 42 | From a power base in Anatolia , the Persians overran the eastern Aegean Islands and set their sights on the Cyclades . |
| 43 | In 490 b.c. , they captured sacred Delos and razed the settlements on Naxos . |
| 44 | The island communities were undecided about which side to back for a time . |
| 45 | Paros and Andros contributed to the Persian armory , while others supported Athens . |
| 46 | The two superpowers finally clashed at the epic battles of Marathon and Salamis in 480 b.c . |
| 47 | The Persians were defeated , and Athens duly punished the islands that had turned against it . |
| 48 | Following its victory , Athens introduced the concept of a mutual protection alliance ( a kind of NATO of the ancient world ) . |
| 49 | Several islands and Greek city - states agreed to work together , and created a treasury to fund their plans , which was held on the island of Delos . |
| 50 | The alliance became known as the Delian League . |
| 51 | Although there were minor internal wrangles , the league controlled the Aegean and the greater Athenian Empire for most of the fifth century b.c . |
| 52 | Later , in 454 b.c. , the treasury was transferred to Athens and its deposits were used to finance the construction of many of the major buildings and temples of the Classical Age . |
| 53 | In 431 b.c. , Athens began a war with its neighbor and league member Sparta . |
| 54 | Although the islands saw little action , as the war went on they could see that Athens was slowly losing its power . |
| 55 | Before the end of the war in 401 b.c. , many islands had already transferred their allegiance to the victors , who were led by Philip II of Macedon . |
| 56 | He was followed in 336 b.c. by his son Alexander the Great , one of the most remarkable leaders in history . |
| 57 | His rise to power ushered in the Hellenistic period . |
| 58 | Hellenistic and Roman Periods |
| 59 | When Alexander went on to conquer lands as far to the east as India , the Aegean became a crossroads for the long trading routes . |
| 60 | Delos became one of the largest marketplaces in the empire . |
| 61 | Following Alexander 's death , his lands were divided among his generals . |
| 62 | Much of the Aegean came under the rule of the Ptolemies , along with Egypt . |
| 63 | Cleopatra was a member of this famous ruling clan . |
| 64 | Although in 88 b.c. , Mithradates made a swift and successful raid from the East across Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands , the next major power change brought influence from the West . |
| 65 | The Greek Hellenistic Empire was gradually , and peacefully , absorbed into the Roman Empire . |
| 66 | The Byzantine Empire and the Coming of Christianity |
| 67 | The Romans ruled a pagan empire , but the Aegean had an important influence on the early development of Christianity . |
| 68 | In a.d. 95 , St. John arrived on Patmos , a small rocky island in the Dodecanese , as a political prisoner . |
| 69 | It was here that he wrote what was to become the final book of the New Testament , the Book of Revelation . |
| 70 | It was n't until a.d. 330 , however , when the newly converted Emperor Constantine made Byzantium , renamed Constantinople , capital of his Eastern Empire that Christianity was assured of its dominant role in future Greek life . |
| 71 | The Byzantine Empire had powerful and well - fortified cities , but the countryside and the outlying islands were ravaged by waves of invaders . |
| 72 | In an attempt to counter a threat from the Saracen Muslims , a new potent religious force from the East , the Byzantine army forcefully enlisted the men of the islands . |
| 73 | Disease took a further toll . |
| 74 | By the time of the Crusades , many of the Aegean islands had been practically depopulated . |
| 75 | As the Byzantine Empire weakened at the end of the first millennium , Crusader forces were sent from Western Europe to counter the Muslim forces and retake Jerusalem for the Christian faith . |
| 76 | Unfortunately , their zeal was not matched by their discrimination . |
| 77 | The crusaders swept through the land of Byzantium slaughtering Christians as well as Muslims , civilians as well as soldiers . |
| 78 | Constantinople was taken by Crusader forces in 1204 , and they stripped the city of many of its finest treasures <ndash> which now grace the public buildings of Venice <ndash> although a large consignment of books and manuscripts was transferred to the monastery at Patmos before the city fell . |
| 79 | While Byzantine land was being divided , there was no one in control of the seas , so pirates raided towns on many of the islands . |
| 80 | To counter this , the populations moved from their homes on the coast and built settlements inland , out of sight of the raiding parties . |
| 81 | This created a pattern seen today throughout the Aegean of a small port ( skala ) which serves an inland settlement or chora , making it easier to protect the island from attack . |
| 82 | The minor Aegean Islands were taken by various powerful European noblemen , many of whom were Genoese or Venetian , such as Marco Sanudo on Naxos . |
| 83 | The noblemen had free rein to create their own fiefdoms . |
| 84 | The Venetians fortified their main towns <ndash> Naxos Town and Antiparos Town are wonderful examples of this <ndash> creating labyrinths of narrow alleys and cul - de - sacs that were designed to confuse and to demoralize invaders . |
| 85 | The Genoese took control of the eastern Aegean Islands , which were considered the most valuable for agriculture and trade . |
| 86 | After a final bloody defeat by the Muslims in 1309 , Christian forces were forced from the Holy Land . |
| 87 | The Knights of St. John , a holy military force , made their way to Rhodes and Kos in the Dodecanese . |
| 88 | They began the process of building their strong citadels , and reinforcing the Christian faith on the islands . |
| 89 | However , they had not seen the last of their Muslim foe . |
| 90 | A force was gaining strength in the east to threaten their new bases . |
| 91 | The Coming of the Ottoman Turks |
| 92 | The Ottomans were roving invaders who came from the east , taking land in what is now Turkey . |
| 93 | By the end of the 13th century , they began their first raids on the Aegean Islands . |
| 94 | In 1453 , they took Constantinople , and immediately made it their capital , renaming it Istanbul . |
| 95 | They then set their sights on the islands of the Knights of St. John and , after an unsuccessful siege in 1480 , they finally ejected the knights from the Dodecanese in 1522 . |
| 96 | In 1566 , they wrested Chios from the Genoese , bolstering their hold on the eastern Aegean Islands , but the Cyclades remained in Venetian hands for another generation or more <ndash> Tinos was the last to fall in 1715 . |
| 97 | The Ottomans brought new influences to the islands that they controlled , forming a large empire that stretched around the eastern Mediterranean . |
| 98 | Toward Greek Independence |
| 99 | However , a movement was growing on the Greek peninsula against Ottoman rule and for an independent Greek state . |
| 100 | In 1770 , Russia came to aid the Greeks ( defined by their Orthodox religion rather than by historical geographical boundaries ) , declaring war on the Ottoman Empire and occupying several Aegean islands until 1774 . |
| 101 | Graffiti written by Russian soldiers can be seen in the caves of Antiparos . |
| 102 | Although this attempt was unsuccessful , the campaign for a Greek state continued into the 19th century and began to grow in strength . |
| 103 | The Aegean Islands played their part . |
| 104 | Lesvos , Chios , and Samos lay in the important shipping lanes , and patriots began disrupting Ottoman cargo traffic . |
| 105 | In return , the Turks violently put down every insurrection , including the massacre on Chios , when 22,000 people were slaughtered . |
| 106 | The Ottoman Empire was weakening , however , and in 1821 , the peoples of the Greek mainland achieved nationhood for the first time . |
| 107 | The Cyclades and the Sporades island chains were also included in this new state . |
| 108 | A new sense of identity enveloped Greek peoples throughout the Aegean , thus commencing a movement to expand Greece and unify the disparate Orthodox populations . |
| 109 | The Twentieth Century |
| 110 | A series of disastrous decisions at the beginning of the 20th century began to sound a death knell for the Ottoman Empire . |
| 111 | The Turks lost a short war with Italy , and were forced to relinquish the Dodecanese islands to the Italians . |
| 112 | Greece took this opportunity to absorb the islands of the northern and eastern Aegean and to add Macedonia to its mainland territories . |
| 113 | Following this debacle , the Ottomans then allied themselves to Germany in the World War I , losing more territory with the defeat of the Germans in that war . |
| 114 | Greece was handed a strip of land along the western coast of Asia Minor , which for over 2,000 years had had a substantial Greek population . |
| 115 | Greece moved in to administer the land , but a new influence upset any grand dreams of making this region a part of greater Greece . |
| 116 | In 1923 , Turkey broke away from the tired Ottoman rulers , and Kemal Ataturk rose to power on a wave of popular support . |
| 117 | He promised a modern state for his people , but as the situation became volatile , civil strife broke out in Turkish cities , and those considered Greek were victims of threats and violence . |
| 118 | Many had to leave their birthplaces , fleeing to Lesvos , Chios , and Samos , the Greek - ruled islands just offshore . |
| 119 | Thousands of people arrived with little more than the clothes they wore , putting great strain on the resources of the islands . |
| 120 | Finally , Greece was ousted from its new territory in Asia Minor , which became part of the new Turkish state . |
| 121 | Greece attempted to stay out of World War II , but Mussolini saw Greece as an ideal addition to his Italian empire . |
| 122 | His forces made a series of attacks from their bases in the Dodecanese islands , including sinking a Greek naval vessel in the harbor of Tinos Town , but they only succeeded in strengthening the resolve of the population against them . |
| 123 | Later the Germans came in force and occupied many of the islands . |
| 124 | After the war , in 1949 , the Dodecanese islands finally became part of the Greek nation . |
| 125 | But the country was politically fragmented , with arguments between monarchists and republicans , right and left , and tension escalated into civil war . |
| 126 | The struggle bypassed most of the islands , although there was fierce fighting on Samos . |
| 127 | Even after the fighting stopped more than a decade later , the country was not stable . |
| 128 | At the same time , the massive growth in air and road transport saw shipping decline in importance . |
| 129 | The Aegean Islands , which for centuries had been important ports on the trading routes , became the backwaters of this new transport network and the economies of several islands came close to collapse . |
| 130 | In 1967 , the military took the reins of power in Athens , and until 1974 , the “ Colonels ” held sway with a repressive and brutal regime . |
| 131 | Many Greek islanders chose to leave rather than live in poverty and terror , and many made new homes in the United States and Australia . |
| 132 | The expansion of air travel began the age of mass tourism , and Greece along with the Aegean Islands became exciting destinations for northern Europeans escaping their damp , cool summers . |
| 133 | In 1982 , Greece joined the European Common Market ( now the European Union ) . |
| 134 | Since this time , membership has been of great monetary benefit to the country . |
| 135 | The EU has given large subsidies to develop Greece 's infrastructure and grants to excavate and protect its ancient monuments . |
| 136 | Airfields have been constructed on a number of the islands , and road systems have been expanded and improved . |
| 137 | Private investment has even made an increasingly modern ferry fleet possible . |
| 138 | Politically , the 1990s have been relatively quiet times for the islands , although the divorce of Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou and his subsequent marriage to a much younger woman caused consternation within conservative Greek society . |
| 139 | As the Balkans flared to war once again , Greek nationalism has stirred , and there have been discussions in the Kafeneion about the land of Macedonia returning to the fold of its forefathers . |
| 140 | Whether this will ever happen remains to be seen , but perhaps the aid offered by Greece to Turkey after 1999 's devastating earthquake is a sign that the animosity between these two traditional enemies is beginning to diminish . |