If this dominance was Cretan, it was short-lived. The
security of the island was apparently violated not long after
1500 B.C., the Cnossian palace was sacked and burned, and
Cretan art suffered an irreparable blow. As the comparatively
lifeless character which it possesses in the succeeding period
(III. 3) is coincident with a similar decadence all over the
Aegean area, we can hardly escape from the conclusion that
it was due to the invasion of all the Aegean lands (or at
least the Greek mainland and isles) by some less civilized
conquerors, who remained politically dominant, but, like
their forerunners, having no culture of their own, adopted,
while they spoiled, that which they found. Who these were
we cannot say; but the probability is that they too came from
the north, and were precursors of the later ``Hellenes.''
Under their rule peace was re-established, and art production
became again abundant among the subject population, though
of inferior quality. The Cnossian palace was re-occupied in
its northern part by chieftains WHO have left numerous rich
graves; and general commercial intercourse must have been
resumed, for the uniformity of the decadent Aegean products
and their wide distribution become more marked than ever.
About 1000 B.C. there happened a final catastrophe. The
palace at Cnossus was once more destroyed, and never rebuilt or
re-inhabited. Iron took the place of Bronze, and Aegean
art, as a living thing, ceased on the Greek mainland and
in the Aegean isles including Crete, together with Aegean
writing. In Cyprus, and perhaps on the south-west Anatolian
coasts, there is some reason to think that the cataclysm was
less complete, and Aegean art continued to languish, cut off
from its fountain-head. Such artistic faculty as survived
elsewhere issued in the lifeless geometric style which is
reminiscent of the later Aegean, but wholly unworthy of
it. Cremation took the place of burial of the dead. This
great disaster, which cleared the ground for a new growth
of local art, was probably due to yet another incursion of
northern tribes, more barbarous than their predecessors, but
possessed of superior iron weapons---those tribes which later
Greek tradition and Homer knew as the Dorians. They crushed
a civilization already hard hit; and it took two or three
centuries for the artistic spirit, instinct in the Aegean area,
and probably preserved in suspended animation by the survival
of Aegean racial elements, to blossom anew. On this conquest
seems to have ensued a long period of unrest and popular
movements, known to Greek tradition as the Ionian Migration
and the Aeolic and Dorian ``colonizations''; and when once more
we see the Aegean area clearly, it is dominated by Hellenes,
though it has not lost all memory of its earlier culture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Much of the evidence is contained in
archaeological periodicals, especially Annual of the British
School at Athens (1900--); Monumenti Antichi and Rendiconti
d. R. Ac. d. Lincei (1901--); Ephemeris Archaiologike
(1885- ); Journal of Hellenic Studies, Athenische
Mittheilungen, Bulletin de correspondance hellenique,
American Journal of Archaeology, &c. (all since about 1885).
SPECIAL WORKS: H. Schliemann's books (see SCHLIEMANN),
summarized by C. Schuchhardt, Schliemann's Excavations
(1891); Chr. Tsountas, Mukenai (1893); Chr. Tsountas and
J. I. Manatt, the Mycenaean Age (1897); G. Perrot and Ch.
Chipiez, Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquite, vol. vi.
(1895); W. Dorpfeld, Troja (1893) and Troja und Ilios
(1904); A. Furtwangler and G. Loschke, Mykenische
Vasen (1886); A. S. Murray, Excavations in Cyprus
(1900); W. Ridgeway, Early Age of Greece (1901 foll.);
H. R. Hall, The Oldest Civilization of Greece (1901);
A. J. Evans, ``Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult'' in Journ.
Hell. Studies (1901) and ``Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos,' in
Archaeologia (1905) F. Noack, Homerische Palaste (1903);
Excavations at Phylakopi, by members of the British School
at Athens (1904); Harriet A. Boyd (Mrs Hawes), Excavations
at Gournia (1901) . D. G. Hogarth, ``Aegean Religion'' in
Hastings' Dict. of Religions (1906) For a recent view of
the place of Aegean civilization in the history of Hellenic
culture see Die Hellenische Kultur by F. Baumgarten, &c.
(1905). Various summaries, controversial articles, &c., formerly
quoted, are now superseded by recent discoveries. See also
CRETE, MYCENAE, TROAD, CERAMICS, PLATE, &c. (D. G. H.)
AEGEAN SEA, a part of the Mediterranean Sea, being the
archipelago between Greece on the west and Asia Minor on the east,
bounded N. by European Turkey, and connected by the Dardanelles
with the Sea of Marmora, and so with the Black Sea. The name
Archipelago (q.v.) was formerly applied specifically to this
sea. The origin of the namo Aegean is uncertain. Various
derivations are given by the ancient grammarians--one from
the town of Aegae; another from Aegea, a queen of the Amazons
who perished in this sea; and a third from Aegeus, the father
of Theseus, who, supposing his son dead, drowned himself in
it. The following are the chief islands: Thasos, in the
extreme north, off the Macedonian coast; Samothrace, fronting
the Gulf of Saros; Imbros and Lemnos, in prolongation of the
peninsula of Gallipoli ( Thracian Chersonese); Euboea, the
largest of all, lying close along the east coast of Greece;
the Northern Sporades, including Sciathos, Scopelos and
Halonesos, running out from the southern extremity of the
Thessalian coast, and Scyros, with its satellites, north-east
of Euboea; Lesbos and Chios; Samos and Nikaria; Cos, with
Calymnos to the north; all off Asia Minor, with the many
other islands of the Sporades; and, finally, the great group
of the Cyclades, of which the largest are Andros and Tenos,
Naxos and Paros. Many of the Aegean islands, or chains of
islands, are actually prolongations of promontories of the
mainland. Two main chains extend right across the sea---the
one through Scyros and Psara (between which shallow banks
intervene) to Chios and the hammer-shaped promontory east of
it; and the other running from the southeastern promontory
of Euboea and continuing the axis of that island, in a
southward curve through Andros, Tenos, Myconos, Nikaria and
Samos. A third curve, from the south easternmost promontory
of the Peloponnese through Cerigo, Ctete, Carpathos and
Rhodes, marks off the outer deeps of the open Mediterranean
from the shallow seas of the archipelago, but the Cretan
Sea, in which depths occur over 1000 fathoms, intervenes,
north of the line, between it and the Aegean proper. The
Aegotu itself is naturally divided by the island-chains and
the ridges from which they rise into a series of basins or
troughs, the 8leepest of which is that in the north, extending
from the coast of Thessaly fo the Gulf of Saros, and demarcated
southward by the Northern Sporades, Lemnos, Imbros and the
peninsula of Gallipoli. The greater part of ths trough is
over 600 fathoms deep. The profusion of islands and their
usually bold elevation give beauty and picturesqueness to
the sea, but its navigation is difficult and dangerous,
notwithstanding the large number of safe and commodious gulfs and
bays. Many of the islands are of volcanic formation; and
a well-defined volcanic chain bounds the Cretan Sea on the
north, including Milo and foimolos, Santorin (Thera) and
Therasia, and extends to Nisyros. Others, such as Paros, are
mainly composed of marble, and iron ore occurs in some. The
larger islands have some fertile and well-watered valleys and
plains. The chief productions are wheat, wine, oil, mastic,
figs, raisins, honey, wax, cotton and silk. The people are
employed in fishing for coral and sponges, as well as for
bream, mullet and other fish. The men are hardy, well built
and handsome; and the women are noted for their beauty, the
ancient Greek type being well preserved. The Cyclades and
Northern Sporades, with Euboea and small islands under the
Greek shore, belong to Greece; the other islands to Turkey.
AEGEUS, in Greek legend, son of Pandion and grandson of Cecrops,
was king of Athens and the father of Theseus. He was deposed
by his nephews, but Theseus defeated them and reinstated his
father. When Theseus set out for Crete to deliver Athens from
the tribute to the Minotaur he promised Aegeus that, if he were
successful, he would change the black sail carried by his ship
for a white one. But, on his return, he forgot to hoist the
white sail, and his father, supposing that his son had lost his
life, threw himself from a high rock on which he was, keeping
watch into the sea, which was afterwards called the Aegean.
The Athenians honoured him with a statue and a shrine, and one
of the Attic demes was named after him. Plutarch, Theseus;
Pausanias i. 22; Hyginus, Fab. 43; Catullus lxiv. 207.
AEGINA (EGINA or ENGIA), an island of Greece in the Saronic
Gulf, 20 m. from the Peiraeus Tradition derives the name from
Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the
island. In Shape Aegina is triangular, 8 m. long from
N.W. to S.E., and 6 m. broad, with an area of about 41 sq.
m. The western side consists of stony but fertile plains,
which are well cultivated and produce luxuriant crops of
grain, with some cotton, vines, almonds and figs. The rest
of the island is rugged and mountainous. The southern end
rises in the conical Mount Oros, and the Panhellenian ridge
stretches northward with narrow fertile valleys on either
side. From the absence of marshes the climate is the most
healthy in Greece. The island forms part of the modern
Uomos of Attica and Boeotia, of which it forms an eparchy.
The sponge fisheries are of considerable importance. The
chief town is Aegina, situated at the north-west end of the
island, the summer residence of many Athenian merchants. Capo
d'Istria, to whom there is a statue in the principal square,
erected there a large building, intended for a barracks,
which was subsequently used as a museum, a library and a
school. The museum was the first institution of its kind in
Greece, but the collection was transferred to Athens in 1834.
Antiquities.--The archaeological interest of Aegina is
centred in the well-known temlple on the ridge near the northern
corner of the island. Excavations were made on its site in
1811 by Baron Haller von Hallerstein and the English architect
C. R. Cockerell, who discovered a considerable amount of
sculpture from the pediments, which was bought in 1812 by the
crown prince Louis of Bavaria; the groups were set up in the
Glyptothek at Munich after the figures had been restored by B.
Thorvaldsen. Their restoration was somewhat drastic, the ancient
parts being cut away to allow of additions in marble, and the
new parts treated in imitation of the ancient weathering.
Various conjectures were made as to the arrangement of the
figures. That according to which they were set up at Munich
was in the main suggested by Cockerell; in the middle of each
pediment was a figure of Athena, set well back, and a fallen
warrior at her feet; on each side were standing spearmen, kneel
ing spearmen and bowmen, all facing towards the centre of the
composition; the corners were filled with fallen warriors. In
1901 Professor Furtwangler began a more systematic excavation
of the site, and the new discoveries he then made, together
with a fresh and complete study of the figures and fragments
in Munich, have led to a rearrangement of the whole, which,
if not certain in all details, may be regarded as approaching
finality. According to this the figures of combatants do not
