Ancient Greece, Early Archaic Period, Central Greece: Aegina, Euboea

Aegina (Capital: Aegina)

The island of Aegina lies centrally in the Saronic Gulf and its closeness to Attica meant that it had a great involvement with events of mainland Greece. Colonised in the third millennium BC, by the second millennium BC Aegina had already become an important trading post. Having undergone Mycenaean occupation, the island (according to Herodotus) was colonised during the tenth century BC by Dorians from Epidaurus. After 800 BC Aegina joined the Calaurian Amphictyony, a league of maritime cities on the Saronic and Argolic gulfs. It is possible that for a time Pheidon of Argos (seventh century BC?) controlled the island. Thereafter, however, Aegina avoided the tyranny that occurred in other cities, and developed an oligarchic, mercantile regime. Around 595 BC the island became the first Greek state to mint coins (Aeginetan Standard).

In 506 BC the Thebans took a Delphic oracle to mean that they should ally with Aegina against Athens. During these hostilities the Oracle advised Athens to hold off any war with Aegina for thirty years. The Athenians nevertheless made some attempts on Aegina – the ‘Heraldless War’, i.e. a conflict in which discussions with heralds coming from the enemy in order to negotiate truces were not entertained – but soon turned their attention to the Spartans and Persians.

Euboea (Chalcis, Eretria)

Euboea is the second largest Greek island (3670 km²) after Crete and runs nearly a hundred miles (≈160 km) parallel to the east coast of Central Greece, alongside the regions of east Locris, Boeotia and Attica. The narrowest section of the channel separating Euboea from the mainland is the Euripus Strait, near to the island’s capital Chalcis. 

In antiquity Chalcis and Eretria (to the south) were the chief cities. By 800 BC the two cities had founded the trading post at Al Mina at the mouth of the Orontes River in southern Turkey. They established colonies on the northwest shores of the Aegean, and in Italy and Sicily, and at some time between c.710 and c.650 BC they fought the Lelantine War for the possession of Euboea’s most fertile plain that lay between them.

In 506 BC Chalcis was totally defeated by the Athenians, who established 4000 Attic men on the Chalcidians’ richest lands. These settlers retained full Athenian citizenship and the community remained a political dependency of Athens. Athens thus created the cleruchy, a special kind of colony that was an extension of its home state and not a separate entity.