all face towards the centre, but are broken up, as in other
early compositions, into a series of groups of two or three
figures each. A figure of Athena still occupies the centre
of each pediment, but is set farther forward than in the old
reconstruction. On each side of this, in the western pediment,
is a group of two combatants over a fallen warrior; in the
eastern pediment, a warrior whose opponent is falling into the
arms of a supporting figure; other figures also--the bowmen
especially---face towards the angles, and so give more variety
to the composition. The western pediment, which is more
conservative in type, represents the earlier expedition of
Heracles and Telamon against Troy; the eastern, which is bolder
and more advanced, probably refers to episodes in the Trojan
war. There are also remains of a third pediment, which may
have been produced in competition, but never placed on the
temple. For the character of the sculptures see GREEK ART. The
plan of the temple is chiefly remarkable for the unsymmetrically
placed door leading from the back of the cella into the
opisthodomus. This opisthodomus was completely fenced in
with bronze gratings; and the excavators believe it to have
been adapted for use as an adytum (shrine). It was disputed
in earlier times whether the temple was dedicated to Zeus or
Athena. Inscriptions found by the recent excavations seem to
prove that it must be identified as the shrine of the local goddess
Aphaea, identified by Pausanias with Britomartis and Dictynna.
The excavations have laid bare several other buildings,
including an altar, early propylaea, houses for the
priests and remains of an earlier temple. The present
temple probably dates from the time of the Persian wars.
In the town of Aegina itself are the remains of another
temple, dedicated to Aphrodite; one column of this still
remains standing, and its foundations are fairly preserved.
AUTHORITIES.--Antiquities of Ionia (London, 1797), ii. pl.
ii.-vii.; C. R. Cockerell, The Temples of Jupiter Panhellenius at
Aegina, &c. (London, 186O); Ch. Gareier, Le Temple de Jupiter
Panhellenien a Egine (Paris, 1884); Ad. Furtwangler and
others, Aegina, Heiligtum der App Munich, 1906), where
earlier authorities are collected and discussed. (E. GR.)
History.--(1) Ancient. Aegina, according to Herodotus (v.
83), 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 (see A. J. Evans, in Journal of Hellenic
Studies, vol. xiii. p. 195). 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 Cabauria, which included, besides Aegina,
Athens, the Minyan (Boeotian) Orchomenos, Troezen, Hermione,
Nauplia and Prasiae, and was probably an organization of states
which were still Mycenaean, for the oppression of the piracy
which had sprung up in the Aegean as a result of the decay
of the naval supremacy of the Mycenaean princes. 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 (q.v.) 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. Thus it was the Aeginetans
who, within thirty or forty years of the invention of coinage
by the Lydians (c. 700 B.C.), introduced to the western
world a system of such incalculable value to trade. The fact
that the Aeginetan scale of coins, weights and measures was
one of the two scales in general use in the Greek world is
sufficient evidence of the early commercial importance of the
island. It appears to have belonged to the Eretrian league;
hence, perhaps, we may explain the war with Samos, a leading
member of the rival Chalcidian league in the reign of King
Amphicrates (Herod. iii. 59), i.e. not later than the
earlier half of the 7th century B.C. In the next century
Aegina is one of the three principal states trading at the
emporium of Naucratis (q.v.), and it is the only state of
European Greece that has a share in this factory (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., e.g.
Corinth, Chalcis, Eretria and Miletus, Aegina founded no
colonies. The settlements to which Strabo refers (viii. 376)
cannot be regarded as any real exceptions to this statement.
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. The history of these relations, as recorded
by Herodotus (v. 79-89; vi. 49-51, 73, 85-94), involve
critical problems of some difficulty and interest. He
traces back the hostility of the two states to a dispute
about the images of the goddesses Damia and Auxesia, which
the Aeginetans had carried off from Epidaurus, their parent
state. 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. Upon the refusal of the Aeginetans to continue these
offerings, the Athenians endeavoured to carry away the images.
Their design was miraculously frustrated---according to the
Aeginetan version, the statues fell upon their knees---and only
a single survivor returned to Athens, there to fall a victim
to the fury of his comrades' widows, who pierced him with their
brooch-pins. No date is assigned by Herodotus for this ``old
feud''; recent writers, e.g. J. B. Bury and R. W. Macan,
suggest the period between Solon and Peisistratus, c. 570
B.C.. It may be questioned, however, whether the whole
episode is not mythical. A critical analysis of the narrative
seems to reveal little else than a series of aetiological
traditions (explanatory of cults and customs, e.g. 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. Thc account which Herodotus gives of the
hostilities between the two states in the early years of the
5th century B.C. is to the following effect. Thebes, after
the defeat by Athens about 507 B.C., appealed to Aegina for
assistance. The Aeginetans at first contented themselves
with sending the images of the Aeacidae, the tutelary heroes
of their island. Subsequently, however, they entered into an
alliance, and ravaged the sea-board 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 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 401 B.C. Aegina was one of the states which gave
the symbols of submission (``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 unsuccessful; 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 Nicodromus, 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 on the same day with
seventy vessels. The plot failed owing to the late arrival
of the Athenian force, when Nicodromus had already fled the
island. An engagement followed in which the Aeginetans were
defeated. Subsequently, however, they succeeded in winning
a victory over the Athenian fleet. 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 B.C. and the invasion of Datis and
Artaphernes in 490 B.C. (cf. Herod. vi. 49 with 94). There
are difficulties in this story, of which the following are
the principal:--(i.) Herodotus nowhere states or implies that
peace was concluded between the two states before 481 B.C.,
nor does he distinguish between different wars during this
period. Hence it would follow that the war lasted from
shortly after 507 B.C. down to the congress at the Isthmus
of Corinth in 481 B.C. (ii.) It is only for two years
(490 and 491) out of the twenty-five that any details are
given. It is the more remarkable that no incidents are
recorded in the period between Marathon and Sabamis, seeing
that at the time of the Isthmian Congress the war is described
as the most important one then being waged in Greece (Herod.
vii. 145). (iii.) It is improbable that Athens would have
sent twenty vessels to the aid of the Ionians in 498 B.C.
if at the time she was at war with Aegina. (iv.) There is
an incidental indication of time, which points to the period
after Marathon as the true date for the events which are
referred by Herodotus to the year before Marathon, viz. the
thirty years that were to elapse between the dedication of
the precinct to Aeacus and the final victory of Athens (Herod.
v. 89). 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 B.C. as the date of the dedication of the
precinct and the outbreak of hostilities. This inference
is supported by the date of the building of the 200 triremes
``for the war against Aegina'' on the advice of Themistocles,
which is given in the Constitutiom of Athens as 483-482
B.C. (Herod. vii. 144; Ath. Pol. r2. 7). 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. 507) and in putting the episode of Nicodromus before
Marathon. 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
outbreak of the war was the refusal of Athens to restore the
hostages some twenty years later. There was but one war, and
it lasted from 488 to 481. 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 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. the years 490-480 (Eusebius, Chron. Can. p. 337).
In the repulse of Xerxes it is possible that the Aeginetans
