History History

The archaeological site of Maroulas, near the village of Loutra on the northeastern island of Kithnos, contains the earliest evidence of human settlement discovered to date in the Cyclades: traces of dwellings, paved floors and tombs uncovered in 2001-2003 and dated to between 8,800 and 8,600 BCThis is a recent settlement compared to that of mainland Greece, where Homo sapiens first attempted to settle 210,000 years ago, before settling permanently around 40,000 BC. However, the first inhabitants of the archipelago benefited from a considerable technological advance: coming from the Near East, they took advantage of the great inventions (agriculture, metallurgy, etc.) of the Fertile Crescent (the area between present-day Iran and Egypt). As a link between two worlds, the Cyclades gave birth to the first true European civilization.

A prehistoric society of farmers, sculptors, sailors and merchants, the Cycladic "culture" or "civilization" dominated the archipelago from the Bronze Age. Still poorly known, it has left no written testimony, but its traces can be found from Portugal to Serbia. It is especially famous for its refined sculptures: statuettes of white marble with emaciated features. Admire these idols in the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. The secret of their beauty lies in the volcanic nature of the archipelago. The Cyclades are home not only to exceptional marble quarries, as in Naxos and Paros, but also to obsidian, mainly in Milos. This extremely hard vitreous volcanic rock allows a perfect polishing of the marble. It has ensured the wealth of the Cyclades for thousands of years. The oldest Greek marble statuette, called the Fat Lady of Saliagos (circa 5,000 B.C.), which is on display in the Archaeological Museum of Paros, bears witness to this.

In the south of the Cyclades, towards Crete, Santorini offers landscapes of singular beauty which are the result of the break-up of the island during a volcanic eruption between 1628 and 1600 BC. For a long time, it was thought that the event had had enormous climatic repercussions in the Mediterranean, and that it would be at the origin of a collapse of the Cycladic civilization, and even of the Minoans and Mycenaeans (read below). This explosion would be even for some at the origin of myths like that of Atlantis. In fact, the eruption resulted in the burial of a large city south of Santorini for 3 500 years. Described as the "Greek Pompeii", the archaeological site of Akrotiri is today the most imposing vestige of Cycladic civilization, with its almost intact houses, workshops, furniture, complex urban organization and magnificent frescoes preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, which show a strong Minoan influence.

Once again, the Cyclades played the role of a link between two worlds: to the south, the Minoan civilization, which took off in Crete from 2,700 BC, and to the north, the Mycenaean civilization, born in the Peloponnese around 1,650 BC. Was the archipelago subjugated by these two powers? In any case, there was no sudden change in the occupation of the sites, but rather a cultural penetration. The inhabitants of the Cyclades abandoned their famous polished obsidian idols, adopted the first Greek writing systems (linear A and B), new cults and arts, as demonstrated by the Minoan-influenced frescoes at Santorini or the Mycenaean-type tombs at Mykonos. The break comes around 1050 BC, when the first Greek civilizations suddenly seem to disappear. Invasion? Revolt? Cataclysm? Nobody knows what happened at the turn of the first millennium BC. But this date corresponds to the emergence of new Greek peoples, the Dorians and Ionians from present-day Turkey.

The collapse of the Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations led to upheavals in Greece for 400 years. This so-called "dark period" is reflected in the arrival of new Greek peoples (Ionians, Dorians ...), the loss of writing, the abandonment of cities, but also by the adoption of common beliefs and customs. The contemporaries, without explanation in front of the ruins of disappeared civilizations, invent myths like that of the labyrinth of Minos in the vestiges of Crete. In the Cyclades, Naxos is now associated with Ariadne abandoned by Theseus after the episode of the Minotaur. As for Delos, the birthplace of the gods Apollo and Artemis, it became the most important sanctuary island in Greece. The Greeks also renewed their ties with the East. Thanks to the Phoenicians, they developed the first complete alphabet (consonants and syllables) which would be used by poets, such as Homer, to set the founding stories of the new Greek cities.

The Golden Age of Ancient Greece began with the emergence of the concept of the polis, a city-state ruled by and for its citizens. In the Cyclades, the cities are organized into islands. The first are those of Andros and Kea. But, thanks to their resources, Sifnos (gold mines), Milos (obsidian), Syros (silver), Santorini (pumice) and, above all, Naxos (marble and agriculture) soon became established. The latter shines with its merchants and soldiers, but also with its artists who erected around 530 BC the temple of Sangri, dedicated to Demeter, which will serve as a model for the Parthenon in Athens. The Cyclades remained apart from the Greek colonization of the Mediterranean, with the exception of Santorini, which founded Cyrene, on the Libyan coast, in 631 BC. As for the sanctuary island of Delos, which derives its wealth from pilgrims and its huge slave market, it becomes the stake of struggles between cities of the Cyclades, before passing under the control of the Persians, then Athens.

The rebellion of the Greeks of Asia Minor (now Turkey) against the Persian Empire (now Iran) marks the beginning of the Medieval Wars (490-479 BC). The Cyclades were first subjugated by the Persians, but part of the archipelago revolted, allowing the Greeks to win. This victory is especially that of Athens, which then exercises its hegemony over half of the Greek world by founding the League of Delos (477 BC). The sanctuary island became the seat of an alliance of cities forced to provide armies and money to Athens. The latter attracted scholars, artists and philosophers, but also used the treasure of the league for its own purposes, in particular to build the Parthenon. The Athenian imperialism provokes the anger of a part of the Greeks. Thus, the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) broke out and shook the Mediterranean. It resulted in the victory of Sparta, the end of Athenian democracy and a weakening of the Greek cities.

This poet, jurist and philosopher from Milos is considered the first thinker of atheism. A critic of the beliefs that were the foundation of ancient Greek society, he was a disciple of Democritus, who was the first to describe the universe as made up of atoms. In particular, Diagoras denounced the deception of one of the oldest Greek esoteric cults, the Eleusian Mysteries, which were dear to the Athenians. The latter condemned him for impiety in 416 B.C. It was above all a pretext to discredit the man who, after the Peloponnesian War, had set himself up against the return of Athenian hegemony. Diagoras had pleaded in favor of his island which refused to pay tribute to Athens. In vain: in 415 BC, the inhabitants of Milos were massacred or reduced to slavery. As for Diagoras, he died a few years later in exile.

The last phase of Greek Antiquity was marked by an immense spread of Greek culture, but also by the end of the independence of the cities. Threatened on all sides after the Peloponnesian War, the Cyclades found protection in Macedonia. This northern Greek kingdom increased its territory, first under the reign of Philip II (359-336 BC), then under that of his son, Alexander the Great. When Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C., his empire extended to the gates of India. But his diadochos (generals) were torn apart and established three great kingdoms in Greece, Egypt and Asia. The Cyclades found themselves torn between these Hellenistic dynasties, while in the west Rome emerged and finally subdued Greek Egypt after the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC. Nevertheless, the archipelago shines by its dynamism. The famous statue of Aphrodite sculpted in Milos around 150 BC and exhibited in the Louvre since 1821 under the name of Venus of Milo bears witness to this.

From its earliest days, Rome was fascinated by Greek culture, from the adoption of the Olympian gods to the massive importation of marble from the Cyclades. After the conquest of the archipelago in 167 BC, it was keen to restore the autonomy of Delos, its main trading partner. The islands prospered during the Pax Romana (1st-2nd centuries) and Christianity took root quite early, as can be seen in the catacombs of Trypiti, in Milos (3rd century). When Rome faltered, the emperor Constantine moved the capital to the East, considered safer, in 330, to the Greek city of Byzantium, soon renamed Constantinople. It is thus without rupture that the Cyclades are attached to the Eastern Roman Empire, called Byzantine. This long Roman period was however marked by the abandonment of the ancient temples, the plundering of the Goths (376), the civil war born of the theological quarrel of iconoclasm (8th century) and by Arab raids (9th and 11th centuries). The latter led to a change in the habitat with the creation of villages sheltered within the islands.

In 1204, the Catholic armies of the Fourth Crusade sacked and seized Constantinople. True, since the Schism of 1054, the Churches of East and West were separated, but nothing, except the lure of gain, justified the bloody capture of the rich Byzantine capital, especially since the crusades had originally been designed to support the Christians of the East against the advance of Islam. However, the Byzantine Empire disappeared briefly - it was re-established in 1261 - and the Crusaders shared Greece. The Venetians took over the Cyclades and founded the Duchy of Naxos. They appropriated the land and established an unequal feudal system dominated by Italian families and the Catholic clergy. In the 15th century, some islands were returned to the Byzantines, but the archipelago was targeted by Catholic pirates. From this period of Frankokratia ("sovereignty of the Franks"), the Cyclades retained the highest proportion of Catholics in Greece: about 15% of the population, especially on Tinos, the only island to remain Venetian until 1715.

After the decline of the Venetian era, the Cyclades were reborn under the Ottomans. This Turkish Muslim dynasty, at war with the Arabs and Byzantines since 1299, was fascinated by the Roman heritage and eventually took Constantinople in 1453. But it had little interest in things of the sea. And it is late, in 1537-1538, that the Greek-Turkish corsair Barbarossa captures the Cyclades for the account of Soliman the Magnificent. However, the Ottoman presence remained very weak: a few Turkish settlers in Naxos, almost no military or administrator elsewhere. Some Italian nobles remain in place and power - especially fiscal - is delegated to the Greek Orthodox Church. Enjoying a large autonomy, the archipelago revives its Byzantine traditions. Despite the epidemics, it develops thanks to the shipowners who trade with Marseille and the European pirates established in Paros, Antiparos, Ios and Milos. Little affected by the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829), the Cyclades are the only large archipelago to join the new Kingdom of Greece in 1832.

For two centuries, the Cyclades have suffered the ills of Greece in a mitigated manner: constant over-indebtedness, corruption, civil wars (1917 and 1946-1949), coups d'état, rural exodus... Despite poverty, epidemics and the Great Famine orchestrated by the Nazis in 1941-1944 (300,000 deaths nationwide), the archipelago has maintained a stable population. It has only welcomed a few Greeks driven out of Asia Minor (1 million refugees) after the Great Catastrophe of 1922. But the Cyclades were the object of particular attention from dictators. The Metaxas regime (1936-1941) and that of the colonels (1967-1974) used the uninhabited islands of Gyaros and Makronissos as well as Amorgos and Anafi as places of exile for opponents. The juntas also turned the Cyclades into a tourist showcase, notably by imposing the colour white on houses. A questionable aesthetic: while for centuries the villages blended into the landscape to escape pirates, islands like Mykonos and Santorini are now suffering from "white measles", an architectural symptom of devastating overtourism.

Born in Naxos, this non-communist left-wing activist was the author of the first act of Greek resistance against the German occupiers: on 30 May 1941, Manolis Glezos removed the Nazi flag flying over the Acropolis. Committed against the dictatorship of Metaxas since high school, he is an opponent of fascism, then the pro-British regime and the junta of the colonels. This led to a death sentence, 11 years in prison and 5 years in exile. Elected several times as a member of parliament, including when he was imprisoned, he joined Pasok in 1984, promoted local democracy in his Naxal village of Apiranthos, sat as an MEP, and then became the leader of the radical left, soon renamed Syriza. Opposed to austerity measures after the 2009 crisis, he was the most comfortably elected MP in the country's history in 2014. In 2015, he left Syriza, which had just come to power, and led the new left-wing opposition until his death at 97.

In October 2009, Prime Minister George Papandreou revealed the true extent of the country's deficit. Placed under supervision, Greece obtained new loans with draconian conditions. If the state is saved, the economy collapses. The crisis is also moral and political. In 2015, for the first time, voters entrusted power to the left-wing party Syriza. But Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is forced to continue the policy of austerity. Despite a return to a balanced budget (2017), Syriza was defeated in the 2019 elections, allowing Kyriakos Mitsotakis to become Prime Minister. But the government is facing new crises. On the tourism side, Greece's main income continues to grow. The year 2022 is shaping up to be the best in its history, surpassing the record numbers of 2019 before the Covid. Good news? Not for everyone. A growing number of Greeks are forced, because of inflation, to organize their vacations "abroad" - meaning in cheaper countries like Albania or Bulgaria. And the rest of the year, it is not much better: in tourist islands like Santorini, it becomes impossible to find accommodation because of the housing reserved for certain platforms. To address these issues, since 2023 campaigns want to focus on a more sustainable tourism, spread over more seasons and especially in more islands. After all, there are officially 124 islands to visit in the country..