| 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 wasn'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. |