HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES OF EUROPE Jon Woronoff, Series ...

2 • AEGEAN SEA
Some reforms aiming at streamlining, introducing some meritocracy,
and information and digital technology have been—gradually
and reluctantly—put in place since the 1990s, with mixed results.
Public administration is one of Greece’s most serious, urgent, and
difficult problems to be solved today.
AEGEAN SEA. Named after Aegeas, king of Athens and father of
Theseas, the Aegean is the sea between mainland Greece and Asia
Minor. The Aegean has played a unique role in shaping Greece and
Greek culture. The Aegean is an archipelago of 8,000 islands, islets,
and rock formations of stunning beauty. Mild and green in the north,
dry and windy in the south, the Aegean has provided the ecosystem
for the development of maritime civilizations based on the sea and
sea trade.
Trade was facilitated by high winds, the short distances between
most Aegean islands, and the Aegean’s geostrategic position among
the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. From 3500 to
1100 BCE, the archaic Cycladic civilization in the Cycladic islands
flourished together with the Minoan civilization in Crete. In the
fifth century BCE, most of the Aegean Islands became part of the
Athenian hegemony. Later, the Aegean fell under the control of the
Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire. As imperial
control weakened, piracy thrived and Crete was briefly lost to the
Arabs in the 10th century CE. Following the Fourth Crusade, much
of the Aegean fell under the control of the northern Italian city-states
of Venice and Genoa. Under Venice, trade and culture grew. Today,
in a few Cycladic islands, some Catholic communities survive within
an otherwise overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox nation. Gradually,
the Ottomans, the previously reluctant navigators, managed to expel
the Venetians, but Crete was not seized until 1669 CE. During the
Napoleonic Wars, some islanders, especially in Hydra, Spetses, and
Psara, amassed great fortunes by breaking the British continental
embargo. Their wealth served as the basis of an emerging procapitalist,
moneyed economy and, after 1821, financed the Greek War of
Independence.
Modern Greece established its sovereignty over the Aegean in
the course of more than a century. In 1830, Greece incorporated the
small Saronic islands close to Athens, the Cyclades, and the Spo-
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