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 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., It was to Aegina rather than Athens that the prize of valour at Salamis was awarded, and the destruction of the Persian fleet appears to have been as much the work of the Aeginetan contingent as of the Athenian (Herod. viii. 91). There are other indications, too, of the importance of the Aeginetan fleet in the Greek scheme of defence. In view of these considerations it becomes difficult to credit the number of the vessels that is assigned to them by Herodotus (30 as against 180 Athenian vessels, cf. Greek History, sect. Authorities). During the next twenty 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 consequent upon the ostracism of Cimon in 461, led to what is sometimes called the First Peloponnesian 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 30 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.[1] 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 inhabitants to the island, which was used by the Spartans as a base for operations against Athens in the Corinthian War. Its greatness, however, was at an end. The part which it plays henceforward is insignificant.
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 twenty years after Salamis, and that it had declined absolutely, as well as relatively, to that of Athens. Commerce was the source of Aegina’s greatness, 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 completeness of the ruin of so powerful a state—we should look in vain for an analogous case in the history of the modern world—finds an explanation in the economic conditions of the island, the prosperity of which rested upon a basis of slave-labour. It is impossible, indeed, to accept Aristotle’s (cf. Athenaeus vi. 272) estimate of 470,000 as the number of the slave-population; it is clear; however, that the number 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 upon little support.
(2) Modern.—Aegina passed with the rest of Greece under the successive domination’s of Macedon, the Aetolians, Attalus of Pergamum and Rome. In 1537 the island, then a prosperous Venetian colony, was overrun and ruined by the pirate Barbarossa (Khair-ed-Din). One of the last Venetian strongholds in the Levant, it was ceded by the treaty of Passarowitz (1718) to the Turks. In 1826–1828 the town became for a time the capital of Greece and the centre of a large commercial population (about 10,000), which has dwindled to about 4300.
Bibliography.—Herodotus loc. cit.; Thucydides i. 105, 108, ii. 27, iv. 56, 57. For the criticism of Herodotus’s account of the relations of Athens and Aegina, Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen, ii. 280-288, is indispensable. See also Macan, Herodotus iv.–vi., ii. 102-120. (E. M. W.)
AEGINETA, PAULUS, a celebrated surgeon of the island of Aegina, whence he derived his name. According to Le Clerc’s calculation, he lived in the 4th century of the Christian era; but Abulfaragius (Barhebraeus) places him with more probability in the 7th. The title of his most important work, as given by Suidas, is Ἐπιτομῆς Ἰατρικῆς Βιβλία Ἑπτά (Synopsis of Medicine in Seven Books), the 6th book of which, treating of operative surgery, is of special interest for surgical history. The whole work in the original Greek was published at Venice in 1528, and another edition appeared at Basel in 1538. Several Latin translations have been published, and an excellent English version, with commentary, by Dr F. Adams (1844–1848).
AEGIS (Gr. Aigis), in Homer, the shield or buckler of Zeus, fashioned for him by Hephaestus, furnished with tassels and bearing the Gorgon’s head in the centre. Originally symbolical of the storm-cloud, it is probably derived from ἀίσσω, signifying rapid, violent motion. When the god shakes it, Mount Ida is wrapped in clouds, the thunder rolls and men are smitten with fear. He sometimes lends it to Athene and (rarely) to Apollo. In the later story (Hyginus, Poet. Astronom. ii. 13) Zeus is said to have used the skin of the goat Amaltheia (αἰγίς＝goat-skin) which suckled him in Crete, as a buckler when he went forth to do battle against the giants. Another legend represents the aegis as a fire-breathing monster like the Chimaera, which was slain by Athene, who afterwards wore its skin as a cuirass (Diodorus Siculus iii. 70) It appears to have been really the goat’s skin used as a belt to support the shield. When so used it would generally be fastened on the right shoulder, and would partially envelop the chest as it passed obliquely round in front and behind to be attached to the shield under the left arm. Hence, by transference, it would be employed to denote at times the shield which it supported, and at other times a cuirass, the purpose of which it in part served. In accordance with this double meaning the aegis appears in works of art sometimes as an animal’s skin thrown over the shoulders and arms, sometimes as a cuirass, with a border of snakes corresponding to the tassels of Homer, usually with the Gorgon’s head in the centre. It is often represented on the statues of Roman emperors, heroes and warriors, and on cameos and vases.
See F. G. Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre (1857); L. Preller, Griechische Mythologie, i. (1887); articles in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des Antiquités, and Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (3rd ed., 1890).
AEGISTHUS, in Greek legend, was the son of Thyestes by his own daughter Pelopia. Having been exposed by his mother to conceal her shame, he was found by shepherds and suckled by a goat—whence his name. His uncle Atreus, who had married
- ↑ Pericles called Aegina the “eye-sore” (λήμη) of the Peiraeus.
