Aegina (Aigina) Aíyina

Chief town: Aíyina

Boat and hydrofoil services several times daily between Athens (Piraeus) and the ports of Aíyina, Souvála and Ayía Marína, and between Méthana and Aíyina. Local boat services to Ankístri.

Aegina, lying in the Saronic Gulf some 19km/12mi southwest of Piraeus, is a hilly but fertile island of marly limestones and schists, with a few rounded hills of volcanic origin.

The coasts are mostly fringed by cliffs, with only a few sheltered coves. The inhabitants live by agriculture, producing and exporting excellent pistachio nuts. Other contributions are made to the island's economy by fishing, sponge-diving and the manufacture of pottery. The locally made kannatia (water-coolers) are wide-necked, two-handled jars of porous fabric which keep the water cool by evaporation. With its mild climate and low rainfall, Aegina has long been a favorite summer resort for prosperous Athenians, and in recent years it has become increasingly popular with foreign holidaymakers.

According to the ancient legend the progenitor of the Aeginetans was Aiakos, son of Zeus and Aigina and father of Peleus and Telamon, a wise and just ruler who became one of the judges of the Underworld along with Minos and Rhadamanthys. The oldest traces of Pelasgian settlement date back to the third millennium B.C. In the second millennium the island carried on a considerable trade in pottery and ointments, evidence of which has been found in the areas of Helladic, Cycladic and Minoan culture. Aegina first appears in history as a colony of the Dorian city of Epidauros, ruled in the seventh century B.C. by Phaidon of Argos. After breaking away from Epidauros in the sixth century it enjoyed a period of considerable prosperity, which brought it into competition with Corinth. The Aeginetans had trading posts in Umbria, on the Black Sea and in Egypt, and their shipowners became the wealthiest in the Greek world. The coins of Aegina, bearing the island's emblem of a turtle, were the earliest in Europe, and were already circulating widely by 656 B.C.; and Aeginetan weights and measures were used throughout the Greek world until Roman times. At the beginning of the Persian wars Aegina was at the peak of its power. After the battle of Salamis, to which the island sent 30 ships, an Aeginetan vessel was awarded the prize for the greatest display of valour. Against this was the fact that Aegina, with commercial interests in mind, offered earth and water to Darius's envoys in token of submission. As a result, after being called to account on a complaint by Sparta, it came into conflict with Athens, which saw the powerful island as an obstacle to the expansion of its naval power. After two Athenian naval victories in quick succession, at Kekryphaleia (Ankístri) and off Aegina, the island city was forced, after a nine-month-long siege, to surrender, and in 456 B.C. it was compelled to pull down its walls, hand over its warships and pay tribute to Athens. Finally at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, in 431, the Aeginetans were driven off their island and their land was distributed to Attic settlers. After the overthrow of Athens in 404 B.C. many of them were able to return, but the island's prosperity was gone for good. A series of military campaigns brought it again under the control of Athens, whose destinies it henceforth shared. Aegina was the capital of Greece from January 12 to October 3, 1828.