Aegina - Attractions, Geography, Economy and Climate, History, Famous Aeginetans, Communities and villages, Historical population

pop (2000e) 12 000; area 83 km²/32 sq mi. One of the largest of the Saronic Islands, Greece, SW of Athens; chief town Aiyna; a popular resort; Doric Temple of Aphaia (c.5th-cBC).

Coordinates: 37°45′N 23°26′E

Aegina (Αίγινα)
Coordinates	37°45′ N 23°26′ E
Country	Greece
Periphery	Attica
Prefecture	Piraeus
Population	13,552 source (2001)
Area	87.41 km²
Population density	155 /km²
Elevation	19 m
Postal code	180 10
Area code	210
Website	www.aegina.gr

Aegina (Greek: Αίγινα (Egina)) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 31 miles (50 km) from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. The capital is the town of Aegina, situated at the northwestern end of the island, the summer residence of many Athenian merchants.

Attractions

Aegina is a famous tourist destination. It takes about 35 minutes to arrive in Aegina from the Piraus port.

Geography, Economy and Climate

In shape Aegina is triangular, eight miles (13 km) long from northwest to southeast, and six miles (15 km) broad, with an area of about 41 square miles (106 km²). Two thirds of Aegina constitute an extinct volcano. The northern and western side consist of stony but fertile plains, which are well cultivated and produce luxuriant crops of grain, with some cotton, vines, almonds, olives and figs, but the most characteristic crop of today (1990s) Aegina is the pistachio.

History

Prehistory

Prehistoric archaeological findings ofsettlements with obsidian tools points to an early inhabitation of the island.

Earliest history (2,000 - 7th century BC)

Mycenaean and Minoan influence

Aegina, according to Herodotus , was a colony of Epidaurus, to which state it was originally subject. The discovery in the island of a number of gold ornaments belonging to the latest period of Mycenaean art suggests the inference that the Mycenaean culture held its own in Aegina for some generations after the Dorian conquest of Argos and Lacedaemon . 8th century BC), which included, besides Aegina, Athens, the Minyan (Boeotian) Orchomenos, Troezen, Hermione, Nauplia and Prasiae, and was probably an organization of city-states that were still Mycenaean, for the purpose of suppressing piracy in the Aegean that arose as a result of the decay of the naval supremacy of the Mycenaean princes.

Aegina appears to have belonged to the Eretrian league during the Lelantine War;

The rise as a seapower (6th - 5th century BC)

It follows, therefore, that the maritime importance of the island dates back to pre-Dorian times. It is usually stated on the authority of Ephorus, that Pheidon of Argos established a mint in Aegina. Though this statement is probably to be rejected, it may be regarded as certain that Aegina was the first state of European Greece to coin money.

In the next century Aegina is one of the three principal states trading at the emporium of Naucratis, and it is the only state of European Greece that has a share in this factory (Herod. At the beginning of the 5th century it seems to have been an entrepot of the Pontic grain trade, at a later date an Athenian monopoly (Herod. Corinth, Chalcis, Eretria and Miletus, Aegina founded no colonies.

Rivalry with Athens (4th century BC)

The history of Aegina, as it has come down to us, is almost exclusively a history of its relations with the neighbouring state of Athens, which began to compete with the thalassocracy of Aegina at the beginning of the sixth century. The Epidaurians had been accustomed to make annual offerings to the Athenian deities Athena and Erechtheus in payment for the Athenian olive-wood of which the statues were made. of the kneeling posture of the images of Damia and Auxesia, of the use of native ware instead of Athenian in their worship, and of the change in women's dress at Athens from the Dorian to the Ionian style.

The account which Herodotus gives of the hostilities between the two states in the early years of the 5th century BC is to the following effect. Thebes, after the defeat by Athens about 507 BC, appealed to Aegina for assistance. The Athenians were preparing to make reprisals, in spite of the advice of the Delphic oracle that they should desist from attacking Aegina for thirty years, and content themselves meanwhile with dedicating a precinct to Aeacus, when their projects were interrupted by the Spartan intrigues for the restoration of Hippias. In 501 BC Aegina was one of the states which gave the symbols of submission (earth and water) to Persia. but, after the deposition of Demaratus, he visited the island a second time, accompanied by his new colleague Leotychides, seized ten of the leading citizens and deposited them at Athens as hostages. Thereupon the Athenians concerted a plot with Nicodromus, the leader of the democratic party in the island, for the betrayal of Aegina. Alf the incidents subsequent to the appeal of Athens to Sparta are expressly referred by Herodotus to the interval between the sending of the heralds in 491 BC and the invasion of Datis and Artaphernes in 490 BC (cf. (iii.) It is improbable that Athens would have sent twenty vessels to the aid of the Ionians in 499 BC if at the time she was at war with Aegina.

As the final victory of Athens over Aegina was in 458 B.C., the thirty years of the oracle would carry us back to the year 488 BC as the date of the dedication of the precinct and the outbreak of hostilities. It is probable, therefore, that Herodotus is in error both in tracing back the beginning of hostilities to an alliance between Thebes and Aegina (c. Overtures were unquestionably made by Thebes for an alliance with Aegina c. The refusal of Aegina was veiled under the diplomatic form of sending the Aeacidae. The real occasion of the outbreak of the war was the refusal of Athens to restore the hostages some twenty years later. Herodotus had no Athenian victories to record after the initial success, and the fact that Themistocles was able to carry his proposal to devote the surplus funds of the state to the building of so large a fleet seems to imply that the Athenians were themselves convinced that a supreme effort was necessary. It may be noted, in confirmation of this view, that the naval supremacy of Aegina is assigned by the ancient writers on chronology to precisely this period, i.e. It was to Aegina rather than Athens that the prize of valour at Salamis was awarded, and the destruction of the Persian fleet appears to have been as much the work of the Aeginetan contingent as of the Athenian (Herod. During the next twenty years the Philo-laconian policy of Cimon secured Aegina, as a member of the Spartan league, from attack. The change in Athenian foreign policy, which was consequent upon the ostracism of Cimon in 461, led to what is sometimes called the First Peloponnesian War, in which the brunt of the fighting fell upon Corinth and Aegina.

By the terms of the Thirty Years' Truce (445 BC) Athens covenanted to restore to Aegina her autonomy, but the clause remained a dead letter. In the first winter of the Peloponnesian War (431 BC) Athens expelled the Aeginetans, and established a cleruchy in their island. At the end of the Peloponnesian War Lysander restored the scattered remnants of the old inhabitants to the island, which was used by the Spartans as a base for operations against Athens in the Corinthian War.

Economic decline

It would be a mistake to attribute the fall of Aegina solely to the development of the Athenian navy. It is probable that the power of Aegina had steadily declined during the twenty years after Salamis, and that it had declined absolutely, as well as relatively, to that of Athens. Commerce was the source of Aegina's greatness, and her trade, which appears to have been principally with the Levant, must have suffered seriously from the war with Persia. In this respect the history of Aegina does but anticipate the history of Greece as a whole. The constitutional history of Aegina is unusually simple.

Pericles called Aegina the eye-sore (leme) of the Peiraeus.

Roman rule

Aegina passed with the rest of Greece under the successive dominations of Macedon, the Aetolians, Attalus of Pergamum and Rome.

Byzantian Empire

Church construction activity in the 9th century AD provides evidence of a flourishing economy on the island before its eventual abandonment sometime in the second half of the ninth century as a consequence of Arab raids.

Famous Aeginetans

Paul of Aegina, the most respected medical scholar and physician of the Byzantine Empire Athanasia, saint who contributed in the building of three churches on the island in the early- to mid-ninth century, A.D.: one to the Theotokos, one to John the Baptist, and one to Nicholas of Myra Nikos Kazantzakis, 20th century Greek author

Communities and villages

Aegina the city Kipseli Agia Marina Anitseon Kontos Kypseli Marathon Mesagros Metochi Perdika Portes Souvala Vagia Vathy

Historical population

Year	Communal population	Change	Municipal/Island population	Change
1981	6,730	-	11,127	-
1991	6,373	-357/-5.20%	11,639	512/4.50%

There are no municipal boundaries in the island, it is encircled with the Saronic Gulf.

When Zeus abducted Aegina, he took her to Oenone, an island close to Attica. This island would later be called Aegina. Here, Aegina gave birth to Aeacus, who would later become king of Oenone; henceforth, the island's name Aegina.