AEGINA - HISTORY Aegina, according to Herodotus (v. 83), was a colony of Epidaurus, to which state it was originally subject. The dis covery of gold ornaments belonging to the latest period of Mycenaean art suggests the inference that the Mycenaean cul ture held its own in Aegina for some generations after the Dorian conquest of Argos and Lacedaemon. It is probable that the island was not Dorized before the 9th century B.C. One of the earliest facts known to us in its history is its membership in the League of Calauria, which included, besides Aegina, Athens, the Minyan (Boeotian) Orchomenus, Troezen, Hermione, Nauplia and Prasiae, and was probably an organization for the suppres sion of piracy. It follows that the maritime importance of the island dates back to pre-Dorian times. Aegina was the first state of European Greece to coin money (see PHEIDON). Within 4o years of the invention of coinage by the Lydians (c. 700 B.c.), the Aeginetans introduced the system to the western world. The fact that the Aeginetan scale of coins, weights, etc. was in general use in the Greek world is sufficient evidence of the commercial importance of the island. In the earlier half of the 7th century B.C. it appears to have belonged to the Eretrian league. In the next century Aegina is one of the three principal states, and the only state of European Greece trading at the emporium of Naucratis (q.v.; Herod. ii. 178). 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. vii. 147). Unlike the other commercial states of the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., Aegina founded no colonies.
The history of Aegina, as it has come down to us, is almost exclusively a history of its relations with Athens. The account which Herodotus (v. 79-80; vi. 73, gives of the relations between the two states is to the following effect. Thebes, of ter the defeat by Athens about 507 B.c., appealed to Aegina for assistance. The Aeginetans at first contented them selves with sending the images of the Aeacidae, the tutelary heroes of their island. Subsequently, however, they entered into an alliance, and ravaged the seaboard of Attica. The Athenians were preparing to make reprisals, in spite of the advice of the Delphic oracle that they should desist from attacking Aegina for 3o 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 491 B.C. Aegina was one of the states which gave the symbols of submis sion ("earth and water") to Persia. Athens at once appealed to Sparta to punish this act of Medism, and Cleomenes I. (q.v.), one of the Spartan kings, crossed over to the island, to arrest those who were responsible for it. His attempt was at first unsuccess ful; 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. After the death of Cleomenes and the refusal of the Athenians to restore the hostages to Leotychides, the Aeginetans retaliated by seizing a number of Athenians at a festival at Sunium. Thereupon the Athenians concerted a plot with Nico dromus, the leader of the democratic party in the island, for the betrayal of Aegina. He was to seize the old city, and they were to come to his aid with 7o vessels. The plot failed owing to the late arrival of the Athenian force. An engagement followed in which the Aeginetans were defeated. Subsequently, however, they succeeded in winning a victory over the Athenian fleet. The dates of these incidents are uncertain. It is unlikely that Athens was at war in 498 B.C. as she sent 20 ships to help the Ionians in revolt against Persia, and Herodotus nowhere suggests a peace earlier than 481 B.C. If we may regard the "3o years" of the Delphic oracle as fixed after the event, i.e., after the Athenian victory in B.C. we may assign the dedication of the shrine to Aeacus and the beginning of the war to 488 B.C. This is supported by the building of the great Athenian fleet—"f or the war against Aegina"—in 483 B.C. Overtures were unquestionably made by Thebes for an alliance with Aegina, c. 507 B.C., but they came to nothing. The refusal of Aegina was veiled under the diplomatic form of "sending the Aeacidae." The real occasion of the out break of the war was the refusal of Athens to restore the hostages some 20 years later. There was but one war, and it lasted from 488 to 481 B.c., when it was suspended owing to the invasion of Xerxes. That Athens had the worst of it in this war is certain. 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 them selves 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 pre cisely this period, i.e., the years B.C. In the repulse of Xerxes it is possible that the Aeginetans played a larger part than is conceded to them by Herodotus. The Athenian tradition, which he follows in the main, would naturally seek to obscure their services. The destruction of the Persian fleet appears to have been as much the work of the Aeginetan contingent as of the Athenian. It is difficult to credit the number of the vessels that is assigned to them by Herodotus (3o as against 18o Athe nian vessels : see GREECE, History, Bibliography).
During the next 20 years the philo-laconian policy of Cimon (q.v.) secured Aegina, as a member of the Spartan league, from attack. The change in Athenian foreign policy, which was conse quent upon the ostracism of Cimon in 461 B.C. led to war, in which the brunt of the fighting fell upon Corinth and Aegina. The latter state was forced to surrender to Athens after a siege, and to accept the position of a subject-ally (c. 456 B.c.). The tribute was fixed at 3o talents. By the terms of the Thirty Years' Truce (445 B.c.) Athens covenanted to restore to Aegina her autonomy, but the clause remained a dead letter. In the first winter of the Peloponnesian War (431 B.c.) Athens expelled the Aeginetans, and established a cleruchy in their island. The exiles were settled by Sparta in Thyreatis, on the frontiers of Laconia and Argolis. Even in their new home they were not safe from Athenian rancour. A force landed under Nicias in 424, and put most of them to the sword. At the end of the Peloponnesian War Lysander restored the scattered remnants of the old inhabi tants to the island. Its greatness, however, was at an end.
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 20 years after Salamis, and that it had declined absolutely, as well as relatively to that of Athens. Commerce was the source of Regina's great ness, and her trade, which appears to have been principally with the Levant, must have suffered seriously from the war with Persia. Her medism in 491 is to be explained by her commercial relations with the Persian Empire. She was forced into patriotism in spite of herself, and the glory won at Salamis was paid for by the loss of her trade and the decay of her marine. The complete ness of the ruin of so powerful a state finds an explanation in the economic conditions of the island, the prosperity of which rested upon a basis of slave-labour. It is clear, however, that the number of slaves must have been out of all proportion to that of the free inhabitants. 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. So long as the island retained its independence the government was an oligarchy. There is no trace of the heroic monarchy and no tradition of a tyrannis. The story of Nicodromus, while it proves the existence of a democratic party, suggests, at the same time, that it could count upor little support.