History of the Cyclades

Numerous authors considered, or still consider them as a sole entity, a unit. The insular group is indeed rather homogeneous from a geomorphological point of view; moreover, the islands are visible from each other's shores while being distinctly separate from the continents that surround them.^[1] The dryness of the climate and of the soil also suggests unity.^[2] Although these physical facts are undeniable, other components of this unity are more subjective. Thus, one can read certain authors who say that the islands’ population is, of all the regions of Greece, the only original one, and has not been subjected to external admixtures.^[3][4] However, the Cyclades have very often known different destinies.

Their natural resources and their potential role as trade-route stopovers has allowed them to be peopled since the

Commercial activities were pursued during the Roman and Byzantine Empires, yet they were sufficiently prosperous as to attract pirates' attention. The participants of the Fourth Crusade divided the Byzantine Empire among themselves and the Cyclades entered the Venetian orbit. Western feudal lords created a certain number of fiefs, of which the Duchy of Naxos was the most important. The Duchy was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, which allowed the islands a certain administrative and fiscal autonomy. Economic prosperity continued despite the pirates. The archipelago had an ambiguous attitude towards the war of independence. Having become Greek in the 1830s, the Cyclades have shared the history of Greece since that time. At first they went through a period of commercial prosperity, still due to their geographic position, before the trade routes and modes of transport changed. After suffering a rural exodus, renewal began with the influx of tourists. However, tourism is not the Cyclades' only resource today.

Prehistory

Neolithic era

The most ancient traces of activity (but not necessarily habitation) in the Cyclades were not discovered on the islands themselves, but on the continent, at Argolis, in Franchthi Cave. Research there uncovered, in a layer dating to the 11th millennium BC, obsidian originating from Milos.^[5] The volcanic island was thus exploited and inhabited, not necessarily in permanent fashion, and its inhabitants were capable of navigating and trading across a distance of at least 150 km.

A permanent settlement on the islands could only be established by a sedentary population that had at its disposal methods of agriculture and animal husbandry that could exploit the few fertile plains. Hunter-gatherers would have had much greater difficulties.^[5] At the Maroula site on Kythnos a bone fragment has been uncovered and dated, using Carbon-14, to 7,500-6,500 BC.^[6] The oldest inhabited places are the islet of Saliagos between Paros and Antiparos,^[5][7] Kephala, Kea, and perhaps the oldest strata are those at Grotta on Naxos.^[5] They date back to the 5th millennium BC.

On Saliagos (at that time connected to its two neighbours, Paros and Antiparos), houses of stone without mortar have been found, as well as Cycladic statuettes. Estimates based on excavations in the cemetery of Kephala put the number of inhabitants at between forty-five and eighty.^[5] Studies of skulls have revealed bone deformations, especially in the vertebrae. They have been attributed to arthritic conditions, which afflict sedentary societies. Osteoporosis, another sign of a sedentary lifestyle, is present, but more rarely than on the continent in the same period. Life expectancy has been estimated at twenty years, with maximum ages reaching twenty-eight to thirty. Women tended to live less than men.^[8]

A sexual division of labour seems to have existed. Women took care of children, harvesting, “light” agricultural duties, “small” livestock, spinning (spindle whorls have been found in women's tombs), basketry and pottery.^[8] Men busied themselves with “masculine” chores: more serious agricultural work, hunting, fishing, and work involving stone, bone, wood and metal.^[8] This sexual division of labour led to a first social differentiation: the richest tombs of those found in cists are those belonging to men.^[8] Pottery was made without a lathe, judging by the hand-modelled clay balls; pictures were applied to the pottery using brushes, while incisions were made with the fingernails. The vases were then baked in a pit or a grinding wheel—kilns were not used and only low temperatures of 700˚-800˚C were reached.^[9] Small-sized metal objects have been found on Naxos. The operation of silver mines on Siphnos may also date to this period.^[5]

Cycladic civilisation

At the end of the 19th century, following the earlier work of antiquaries such as Theodore Bent on Antiparos in 1884,^[10] the Greek archaeologist Christos Tsountas, having assembled various discoveries from numerous islands, suggested that the Cyclades were part of a cultural unit during the 3rd millennium BC: the Cycladic civilisation,^[7] dating back to the Bronze Age. It is famous for its marble idols, found as far as Portugal and the mouth of the Danube,^[7] which proves its dynamism.

It is slightly older than the

Three great periods have traditionally been designated (equivalent to those that divide the Helladic on the continent and the Minoan in Crete):[13]

• Early Cycladic I (EC I; 3200-2800 BC), also called the Grotta-Pelos culture
• Early Cycladic II (EC II; 2800-2300 BC), also called the Keros-Syros culture and often considered the apogee of Cycladic civilisation
• Early Cycladic III (EC III; 2300-2000 BC), also called the Phylakopi culture

The study of skeletons found in tombs, always in cists, shows an evolution from the Neolithic. Osteoporosis was less prevalent although arthritic diseases continued to be present. Thus, diet had improved. Life expectancy progressed: men lived up to forty or forty-five years, but women only thirty.^[14] The sexual division of labour remained the same as that identified for the Early Neolithic: women busied themselves with small domestic and agricultural tasks, while men took care of larger duties and crafts.^[14] Agriculture, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin, was based on grain (mainly barley, which needs less water than wheat), grapevines and olive trees. Animal husbandry was already primarily concerned with goats and sheep, as well as a few hogs, but very few bovines, the raising of which is still poorly developed on the islands. Fishing completed the diet base, due for example to the regular migration of tuna.^[15] At the time, wood was more abundant than today, allowing for the construction of house frames and boats.^[15]

The inhabitants of these islands, who lived mainly near the shore, were remarkable sailors and merchants, thanks to their islands’ geographic position. It seems that at the time, the Cyclades exported more merchandise than they imported,^[16] a rather unusual circumstance during their history. The ceramics found at various Cycladic sites (Phylakopi on Milos, Aghia Irini on Kea and Akrotiri on Santorini) prove the existence of commercial routes going from continental Greece to Crete while mainly passing by the Western Cyclades, up until the Late Cycladic. Excavations at these three sites have uncovered vases produced on the continent or on Crete and imported onto the islands.^[17]

It is known that there were specialised artisans: founders, blacksmiths, potters and sculptors, but it is impossible to say if they made a living off their work.^[14] Obsidian from Milos remained the dominant material for the production of tools, even after the development of metallurgy, for it was less expensive. Tools have been found that were made of a primitive bronze, an alloy of copper and arsenic. The copper came from Kythnos and already contained a high volume of arsenic. Tin, the provenance of which has not been determined, was only later introduced into the islands, after the end of the Cycladic civilisation. The oldest bronze containing tin was found at Kastri on Tinos (dating to the time of the Phylakopi Culture) and their composition proves they came from Troad, either as raw materials or as finished products.^[18] Therefore, commercial exchanges between the Troad and the Cyclades existed.

These tools were used to work marble, above all coming from Naxos and Paros, either for the celebrated Cycladic idols, or for marble vases. It appears that marble was not then, like today, extracted from mines, but was quarried in great quantities.^[18] The emery of Naxos also furnished material for polishing. Finally, the pumice stone of Santorini allowed for a perfect finish.^[18]

The pigments that can be found on statuettes, as well as in tombs, also originated on the islands, as well as the azurite for blue and the iron ore for red.^[18]

Eventually, the inhabitants left the seashore and moved toward the islands’ summits within fortified enclosures rounded out by round towers at the corners. It was at this time that piracy might first have made an appearance in the archipelago.^[13]

Minoans and Mycenaeans

The Cretans occupied the Cyclades during the 2nd millennium BC, then the Mycenaeans from 1450 BC and the Dorians from 1100 BC. The islands, due to their relatively small size, could not fight against these highly centralised powers.^[12]

Literary sources

Thucydides writes that Minos expelled the archipelago's first inhabitants, the Carians,^[19] whose tombs were numerous on Delos.^[20] Herodotus specifies that the Carians were subjects of king Minos and went by the name Leleges at that time.^[21] They were completely independent (“they paid no tribute”), but supplied sailors for Minos’ ships.

According to Herodotus, the Carians were the best warriors of their time and taught the Greeks to place plumes on their helmets, to represent insignia on their shields and to use straps to hold these.

Later, the Dorians would expel the Carians from the Cyclades; the former were followed by the Ionians, who turned the island of Delos into a great religious centre.^[22]

Cretan influence

Fifteen settlements from the Middle Cycladic (c. 2000-1600 BC) are known. The three best studied are Aghia Irini (IV and V) on Kea, Paroikia on Paros and Phylakopi (II) on Milos. The absence of a real break (despite a stratum of ruins) between Phylakopi I and Phylakopi II suggests that the transition between the two was not a brutal one.^[23] The principal proof of an evolution from one stage to the next is the disappearance of Cycladic idols from the tombs,^[23] which by contrast changed very little, having remained in cists since the Neolithic.^[24]

The Cyclades also underwent a cultural differentiation. One group in the north around Kea and Syros tended to approach the Northeast Aegean from a cultural point of view, while the Southern Cyclades seem to have been closer to the Cretan civilisation.^[23] Ancient tradition speaks of a Minoan maritime empire, a sweeping image that demands some nuance, but it is nevertheless undeniable that Crete ended up having influence over the entire Aegean. This began to be felt more strongly beginning with the Late Cycladic, or the Late Minoan (from 1700/1600 BC), especially with regard to influence by Knossos and Cydonia.^[25][26] During the Late Minoan, important contacts are attested at Kea, Milos and Santorini; Minoan pottery and architectural elements (polythyra, skylights, frescoes) as well as signs of

The great majority of bronze continued to be made with arsenic; tin progressed very slowly in the Cyclades, beginning in the northeast of the archipelago.[28]

Settlements were small villages of sailors and farmers,

Excavations since 1967 have uncovered a built-up area covering one hectare, not counting the defensive wall.[30] The layout ran in a straight line, with a more or less orthogonal network of paved streets fitted with drains. The buildings had two to three floors and lacked skylights and courtyards; openings onto the street provided air and light. The ground floor contained the staircase and rooms serving as stores or workshops; the rooms on the next floor, slightly larger, had a central pillar and were decorated with frescoes. The houses had terraced roofs placed on beams that had not been squared, covered up with a vegetable layer (seaweed or leaves) and then several layers of clay soil,^[30] a practice that continues in traditional societies to this day.

From the beginning of excavations in 1967, the Greek archaeologist Spiridon Marinatos noted that the city had undergone a first destruction, due to an earthquake, before the eruption, as some of the buried objects were ruins, whereas a volcano alone may have left them intact.^[31] At almost the same time, the site of Aghia Irini on Kea was also destroyed by an earthquake.^[25] One thing is certain: after the eruption, Minoan imports stopped coming into Aghia Irini (VIII), to be replaced by Mycenaean imports.^[25]

Late Cycladic: Mycenaean domination

Between the middle of the 15th century BC and the middle of the 11th century BC, relations between the Cyclades and the continent went through three phases.

It was between the 12th and the 8th centuries BC that the first Cycladic cities were built, including four on Kea (Ioulis, Korissia, Piessa and Karthaia) and Zagora on Andros, the houses of which were surrounded by a wall dated by archaeologists to 850 BC.[35] Ceramics indicate the diversity of local production,^[36] and thus the differences between the islands. Hence, it seems that Naxos, the islet of Donoussa and above all Andros had links with Euboea, while Milos and Santorini were in the Doric sphere of influence.^[37]

Zagora, one of the most important urban settlements of the era which it has been possible to study, reveals that the type of traditional buildings found there evolved little between the 9th century BC and the 19th century. The houses had flat roofs made of schist slabs covered up with clay and truncated corners designed to allow beasts of burden to pass by more easily.^[38]

A new apogee

From the 8th century BC, the Cyclades experienced an apogee linked in great part to their natural riches (obsidian from Milos and Sifnos, silver from Syros, pumice stone from Santorini and marble, chiefly from Paros).^[36] This prosperity can also be seen from the relatively weak participation of the islands in the movement of Greek colonisation, other than Santorini's establishment of Cyrene.^[39] Cycladic cities celebrated their prosperity through great sanctuaries: the treasury of Sifnos, the Naxian column at Delphi or the terrace of lions offered by Naxos to Delos.

Classical Era

The wealth of the Cycladic cities thus attracted the interest of their neighbours. Shortly after the treasury of Sifnos at Delphi was built, forces from

The Persians tried to take the Cyclades near the beginning of the 5th century BC. Aristagoras, nephew of Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, launched an expedition with Artaphernes, satrap of Lydia, against Naxos. He hoped to control the entire archipelago after taking this island. On the way there, Aristagoras quarreled with the admiral Megabetes, who betrayed the force by informing Naxos of the fleet's approach. The Persians temporarily renounced their ambitions in the Cyclades due to the Ionian revolt.^[41]

Median Wars

When

Themistocles, pursuing the Persian fleet across the archipelago, also sought to punish the islands most compromised with regard to the Persians, a prelude to Athenian domination.^[41]

In 479 BC, certain Cycladic cities (on Kea, Milos, Tinos, Naxos and Kythnos) were present beside other Greeks at the Battle of Plataea, as attested by the pedestal of the statue consecrated to Zeus the Olympian, described by Pausanias.^[43]

Delian Leagues

When the Median danger had been beaten back from the territory of continental Greece and combat was taking place in the islands and in Ionia (Asia Minor), the Cyclades entered into an alliance that would avenge Greece and pay back the damages caused by the Persians’ pillages of their possessions. This alliance was organised by Athens and is commonly called the first Delian League. From 478-477 BC, the cities in coalition provided either ships (for example Naxos) or especially a tribute of silver. The amount of treasure owed was fixed at four hundred talents, which were deposited in the sanctuary of Apollo on the sacred island of Delos.^[44]

Rather quickly, Athens began to behave in an authoritarian manner toward its allies, before bringing them under its total domination. Naxos revolted in 469 BC

At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, all the Cyclades except Milos^[47] and Santorini were subjects of Athens.^[48] Thus, Thucydides writes that soldiers from Kea, Andros and Tinos participated in the Sicilian Expedition and that these islands were “tributary subjects”.^[49]

The Cyclades paid a tribute until 404 BC. After that, they experienced a relative period of autonomy before entering the second Delian League and passing under Athenian control once again.

According to Quintus Curtius Rufus, after (or at the same time as) the Battle of Issus, a Persian counter-attack led by Pharnabazus led to an occupation of Andros and Sifnos.^[50]

Hellenistic Era

An archipelago disputed among the Hellenistic kingdoms

According to Demosthenes^[51] and Diodorus of Siculus,^[52] the Thessalian tyrant Alexander of Pherae led pirate expeditions in the Cyclades around 362-360 BC. His ships appear to have taken over several ships from the islands, among them Tinos, and brought back a large number of slaves. The Cyclades revolted during the Third Sacred War (357-355 BC), which saw the intervention of Philip II of Macedon against Phocis, allied with Pherae. Thus they began to pass into the orbit of Macedonia.

In their struggle for influence, the leaders of the Hellenistic kingdoms often proclaimed their desire to maintain the “liberty” of the Greek cities, in reality controlled by them and often occupied by garrisons.

Thus in 314 BC,

The islands then passed under Ptolemaic domination. During the Chremonidean War, mercenary garrisons had been set up on certain islands, among them Santorini, Andros and Kea.^[56] But, defeated at the Battle of Andros sometime between 258 and 245 BC,^[57] the Ptolemies ceded them to Macedon, then ruled by Antigonus II Gonatas. However, because of the revolt of Alexander, son of Craterus, the Macedonians were not able to exercise complete control over the archipelago, which entered a period of instability. Antigonus III Doson put the islands under control once again when he attacked Caria or when he destroyed the Spartan forces at Sellasia in 222 BC. Demetrius of Pharos then ravaged the archipelago^[58] and was driven away from it by the Rhodians.^[53]

Philip V of Macedon, after the Second Punic War, turned his attention to the Cyclades, which he ordered the Aetolian pirate Dicearchus to ravage^[59] before taking control and installing garrisons on Andros, Paros and Kythnos.^[60]

After the Battle of Cynoscephalae, the islands passed to Rhodes^[60] and then to the Romans. Rhodes would give new momentum to the Nesiotic League.^[53]

Hellenistic society

In his work on Tinos, Roland Étienne evokes a society dominated by an agrarian and patriarchal “aristocracy” marked by strong endogamy. These few families had many children and derived part of their resources from a financial exploitation of the land (sales, rents, etc.), characterised by Étienne as “rural racketeering”.^[53] This “real estate market” was dynamic due to the number of heirs and the division of inheritances at the time they were handed down. Only the purchase and sale of land could build up coherent holdings. Part of these financial resources could also be invested in commercial activities.^[53]

This endogamy might take place at the level of social class, but also at that of the entire body of citizens. It is known that the inhabitants of Delos, although living in a city with numerous foreigners—who sometimes outnumbered citizens—practiced a very strong form of civic endogamy throughout the Hellenistic period.^[61] Although it is not possible to say whether this phenomenon occurred systematically in all the Cyclades, Delos remains a good indicator of how society may have functioned on the other islands. In fact, populations circulated more widely in the Hellenistic period than in previous eras: of 128 soldiers quartered in the garrison at Santorini by the Ptolemies, the great majority came from Asia Minor;^[62] at the end of the 1st century BC, Milos had a large Jewish population.^[63] Whether the status of citizen should be maintained was debated.^[61]

The Hellenistic era left an imposing legacy for certain of the Cyclades: towers in large numbers—on Amorgos;^[64] on Sifnos, where 66 were counted in 1991;^[65] and on Kea, where 27 were identified in 1956.^[66] Not all could have been observation towers,^[66] as is often conjectured.^[64] Then great number of them on Sifnos was associated with the island's mineral riches, but this quality did not exist on Kea^[66] or Amorgos, which instead had other resources, such as agricultural products. Thus the towers appear to have reflected the islands’ prosperity during the Hellenistic era.^[66]

The commercial power of Delos

When Athens controlled it, Delos was solely a religious sanctuary. A local commerce existed and already, the “bank of Apollo” approved loans, principally to Cycladic cities.^[67] In 314 BC, the island obtained its independence, although its institutions were a facsimile of the Athenian ones. Its membership in the Nesiotic League placed it in the orbit of the Ptolemies until 245 BC.^[67] Banking and commercial activity (in wheat storehouses and slaves) developed rapidly. In 167 BC, Delos became a free port (customs were no longer charged) and passed under Athenian control again.^[68] The island then experienced a true commercial explosion,^[67] especially after 146 BC, when the Romans, Delos’ protectors, destroyed one of its great commercial rivals, Corinth.^[69] Foreign merchants from throughout the Mediterranean set up business there, as indicated by the terrace of foreign gods. Additionally, a synagogue is attested on Delos as of the middle of the 2nd century BC.^[70] It is estimated that in the 2nd century BC, Delos had a population of about 25,000.^[71]

The notorious “agora of the Italians” was an immense slave market. The wars between Hellenistic kingdoms were the main source of slaves, as well as pirates (who assumed the status of merchants when entering the port of Delos). When Strabo (XIV, 5, 2) refers to ten thousand slaves being sold each day, it is necessary to add nuance to this claim, as the number could be the author's way of saying “many”. Moreover, a number of these “slaves” were sometimes prisoners of war (or people kidnapped by pirates) whose ransom was immediately paid upon disembarking.^[72]

This prosperity provoked jealousy and new forms of “economic exchanges”: in 298 BC, Delos transferred at least 5,000 drachmae to Rhodes for its “protection against pirates”; in the middle of the 2nd century BC, Aetolian pirates launched an appeal for bids to the Aegean world to negotiate the fee to be paid in exchange for protection against their exactions.^[73]

Roman and Byzantine Empires

The Cyclades in Rome’s orbit

The reasons for Rome's intervention in Greece from the 3rd century BC are many: a call for help from the cities of

Vespasian organised the Cycladic archipelago into a Roman province.[81] Under Diocletian, there existed a “province of the islands” that included the Cyclades.^[84]

Christianisation seems to have occurred very early in the Cyclades. The catacombs at Trypiti on Milos, unique in the Aegean and in Greece, of very simple workmanship, as well as the very close baptismal fonts, confirms that a Christian community existed on the island at least from the 3rd or 4th century.^[85]

From the 4th century, the Cyclades again experienced the ravages of war. In 376, the Goths pillaged the archipelago.^[81]

Byzantine period

Administrative organisation

When the Roman Empire was divided, control over the Cyclades passed to the Byzantine Empire, which retained them until the 13th century.

At first, administrative organisation was based on small provinces. During the rule of

In 727, the islands revolted against the iconoclastic Emperor Leo the Isaurian. Cosmas, placed at the head of the rebellion, was proclaimed emperor, but perished during the siege of Constantinople. Leo brutally re-established his authority over the Cyclades by sending a fleet that used Greek fire.^[87]

In 769, the islands were devastated by the

At the beginning of the 9th century, the Saracens, who controlled Crete from 829,^[88] threatened the Cyclades and sent raids there for more than a century. Naxos had to pay them a tribute.^[89] The islands were therefore partly depopulated: the Life of Saint Theoktistos of Lesbos says that Paros was deserted in the 9th century and that one only encountered hunters there.^[84] The Saracen pirates of Crete, having taken it during a raid on Lesbos in 837, would stop at Paros on the return journey and there attempt to pillage the church of Panaghia Ekatontopiliani; Nicetas, in the service of Leo VI the Wise, recorded the damages.^[88] In 904, Andros, Naxos and others of the Cyclades were pillaged by an Arab fleet returning from Thessaloniki, which it had just sacked.^[88]

It was during this period of the Byzantine Empire that the villages left the edge of the sea to higher ground in the mountains: Lefkes rather than Paroikia on Paros or the plateau of Traghea on Naxos.^[90] This movement, due to a danger at the base, also had positive effects. On the largest islands, the interior plains were fertile and suitable for new development. Thus it was during the 11th century, when Palaiopoli was abandoned in favour of the plain of Messaria on Andros, that the breeding of silkworms, which ensured the island's wealth until the 19th century, was introduced.^[91]

Duchy of Naxos

In 1204, the

The customary law of the

However, this "Frankish" feudal system (the Greek term since the Crusades for everything that came from the West) was superimposed on the Byzantine administrative system, preserved by the new seigneurs; taxes and feudal corvées were applied based on Byzantine administrative divisions and the farming of fiefs continued according to Byzantine techniques.^[95] Byzantine property and marriage law also remained in effect for the local population of Greek origin.^[89] The same situation existed in the religious sphere: although the Catholic hierarchy was dominant, the Orthodox hierarchy endured and sometimes, when the Catholic priest was unavailable, mass would be celebrated by his Orthodox counterpart.^[95] The two cultures mixed tightly. One can see this in the motifs on the embroidery popular on the Cyclades; Italian and Venetian influences are markedly present there.^[96]

In the 1260s and 1270s, admirals

The Duchy of Naxos temporarily passed under Venetian protection in 1499-1500 and 1511-1517.[89] Around 1520, the ancient fiefs of the Ghisi (Tinos and Mykonos) passed under the direct control of the Republic of Venice.^[98]

Ottoman period

Conquest and administration of the islands

Hayreddin Barbarossa, Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy, took the islands for the Turks in two raids, in 1537 and 1538. The last to submit was Tinos, in Venetian hands since 1390, in 1715.^[95]

This

After Nasi died, several seigneurs of Naxos followed, more and more virtual in nature, and little by little, the islands slid under normal Ottoman administration. They were granted to the Kapudan Pasha (grand admiral of the Ottoman navy), which is to say that their income went to him.^[100] He only went there once a year, with his entire fleet, to receive the sum total of taxes owed to him. It was in the Bay of Drios, to the southeast of Paros, that he would drop anchor.

At the same time, the

Thus a specific local law came into being, a mixture of feudal customs, Byzantine traditions, Orthodox canon law and Ottoman demands, all adapted to the particular island's situation. This legal idiosyncrasy meant that only native-born authorities could untangle cases. Even the language of the documents issued was a mixture of Italian, Greek and Turkish.[101] This was an additional reason for the absence of Ottoman administration.^[102]

Population and economy

Economically and demographically, the Cyclades had suffered harshly from the exactions first of Turkmen and Barbary pirates, then later (in the 17th century) Christian pirates. After the defeat at Lepanto,

The regular passage of pirates, of whatever origin, had another consequence: quarantines were clearly not obeyed and epidemics would ravage the islands. Thus, the plague descended on Milos in 1687, 1688 and 1689, each time for more than three months. The epidemic of 1689 claimed 700 lives out of a total population of 4,000. The plague returned in 1704, accompanied by anthrax, and killed nearly all the island's children.^[105]

The absence of land distribution to Muslim settlers, along with the Turks’ lack of interest in the sea, not to mention the danger posed by Christian pirates, meant that very few Turks moved to the islands. Only Naxos received several Turkish families.^[106]

The Cyclades had limited resources and depended on imports for their food supply.^[107] The large islands (chiefly Naxos and Paros) were as a matter of course the most fertile due to their mountains, which retained water, and due to their coastal plains.^[108]

The little that was produced on the islands went, as it had since prehistory, toward an intense trade that allowed resources to be shared in common. The

The Cyclades were also the centre of a contraband wheat trade to the West. In years with good harvests, the profits were large, but in years of poor harvests, the activity depended on the good will of the Ottoman authorities, who desired either a larger share of the wealth or career advancement by making themselves noticed in a fight against this smuggling. These fluctuations were sufficiently important for Venice to follow closely the nominations of Ottoman “officers” in the Archipelago.[111]

Thus, commercial activity retained its importance for the Cyclades. Part of this activity was linked to piracy, not including contraband. Certain traders had specialised in the purchase of plunder and the supply of provisions. Others had developed a service economy oriented toward these pirates: it encompassed taverns and prostitutes. At the end of the 17th century, the islands where they wintered made a living only due to their presence: Milos, Mykonos and above all Kimolos,^[112] which owed its Latin name, Argentieri, as much to the colour of its beaches or its mythical silver mines as to the amounts spent by the pirates. This situation brought about a differentiation between the islands themselves: on the one hand the piratical islands (chiefly these three), and on the other, the law-abiding ones, headed by the devoutly Orthodox Sifnos, where the Cyclades’ first Greek school opened in 1687 and where women even covered their faces.^[105]

During the wars that pitted Venice against the Ottoman Empire for possession of Crete, the Venetians led a great counter-attack in 1656 that allowed them to close off the Dardanelles efficiently. Thus the Ottoman navy was unable to protect the Cyclades, which were systematically exploited by the Venetians for a dozen years. The Cycladic proverb, “Better to be massacred by the Turk than be given as fodder to the Venetian” seems to date to the period of these exactions. When the Ottoman navy managed to break the Venetian blockade and the Westerners were forced to retreat, the latter ravaged the islands; forests and olive groves were destroyed and all livestock was stolen.^[113] Once again the Cycladic economy began to suffer.

The Cyclades: a battleground between Orthodox and Catholics

The Sultan, like everywhere else in his Greek territories, favoured the Greek Orthodox Church. He considered the Ecumenical Patriarch as the leader of the Greeks within the Empire. The latter was responsible for Greeks’ good behaviour, and in exchange he was given extensive power over the Greek community as well as the privileges he had secured under the Byzantine Empire.^[114] In the whole Empire, the Orthodox had been organised into a millet, but not the Catholics.^[115] Moreover, in the Cyclades, Catholicism was the religion of the Venetian enemy. Orthodoxy thus took advantage of this protection to try and reconquer the terrain lost during the Latin occupation.^[102] In the rest of the Empire, the agricultural development of unoccupied land (the property of the Sultan) was often entrusted to religious orders and Muslim religious foundations. As the latter were absent on the islands, this function fell to the Orthodox monasteries.^[102] Tournefort, visiting the Cyclades in 1701, counted up these Orthodox monasteries: thirteen on Milos, six on Sifnos, at least one on Serifos, sixteen on Paros, at least seven on Naxos, one on Amorgos, several on Mykonos, five on Kea and at least three on Andros (information is missing for the remaining islands).^[116] Only three had been founded during the Byzantine era: Panaghia Chozoviotissa on Amorgos (11th century), Panaghia Panachrantos on Andros (10th century)^[117] and Profitis Elias (1154)^[118] on Sifnos, all the rest belonging to the wave of Orthodox reconquest under Ottoman protection.^[102] The numerous monasteries founded during the Ottoman period were privately established by individuals on their own lands. These establishments are proof of a social evolution on the islands. Certainly, in general, the great Catholic families converted little by little, but this is insufficient to explain the number of new monasteries. It must be concluded that a new Greek Orthodox elite emerged which took advantage of the weakening of society during the Ottoman conquest to acquire landed property. Their wealth was later cemented through the profits from commercial and naval enterprises.^[119] At the beginning of the 17th century, the Orthodox reconversion was practically complete. It is in this context that the Catholic counter-offensive is situated.^[119]

Catholic missionaries, for instance, envisioned the start of a crusade. Père Saulger, Superior of the Jesuits on Naxos, was a personal friend of

The Cyclades had six Catholic bishoprics: on Santorini, Syros, Naxos, Tinos, Andros and Milos. They were part of the policy of a Catholic presence, for the number of parishioners did not justify so many bishops. In the middle of the 17th century, the diocese of Andros contained fifty Catholics; that of Milos, thirteen.[120] Indeed, the Catholic Church showed itself to be very active in the islands during the 17th century, taking advantage of the fact that it was under the protection of the French and Venetian ambassadors at Constantinople, and of the wars between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, which weakened the Turks’ position in the archipelago. The Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the Catholic bishops and the Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries all tried to win over the Greek Orthodox inhabitants to the Catholic faith and at the same time to impose the Tridentine Mass on the existing Catholic community, to whom it had never been introduced.^[95]

The

Among their proselytizing activities, the Jesuits staged plays in which Jesuit priests and members of the particular island's Catholic high society performed. These plays were performed on Naxos, but also on Paros and Santorini, for more than a century. The subjects were religious and related to local culture:^[121] “to win more easily the heart of the Greeks and for this we presented the action in their vernacular and on the same day that the Greeks celebrate the feast of St. Chrysostom”.^[122]

By the 18th century, most of the Catholic missions had disappeared. The Catholic missionaries had failed to achieve their objectives, except on Syros, which to this day has a strong Catholic community. On Santorini, they merely managed to maintain the number of Catholics. On Naxos, despite a fall in the number of believers, a small Catholic core endured. Of course, Tinos, Venetian until 1715, remained a special case, with an important Catholic presence.^[120][123] Where they existed, the Catholic communities lived apart, well separated from the Orthodox: entirely Catholic villages on Naxos or a neighbourhood in the center of the island's main village. Thus, they too enjoyed a certain administrative autonomy, as they dealt directly with the Ottoman authorities, without passing through the Orthodox representatives of their island. For Catholics, this situation also created the feeling of being besieged by “the Orthodox enemy”. In 1800 and 1801, noteworthy Naxiot Catholics were attacked by part of the Orthodox population, led by Markos Politis.^[115]

Frankish piracy

When North Africa had been definitively integrated into the Ottoman Empire, and above all when the Cyclades passed to the Kapudan Pasha, there was no longer any question of the Barbary pirates continuing their raids there. Thus they were active in the western Mediterranean. In contrast, the Christians had been driven out of the Aegean after the Venetian defeats. As a result, they took the relay stations of the Muslim pirates in the Archipelago.^[124]

The principal objective was the commercial route between Egypt, its wheat and imposts (the Mamelukes’ tribute), and Constantinople.^[124] The pirates spent the winter (December–March) on Paros, Antiparos Ios or Milos. In spring, they set up in the vicinity of Samos; then, at the beginning of summer, in Cypriot waters; and at the end of summer on the coast of Syria. At Samos and Cyprus, they attacked ships, while in Syria, they landed ashore and kidnapped wealthy Muslims whom they freed for ransom. In this way they maximized their loot, which they then spent in the Cyclades, where they returned for the winter.^[124]

The two most famous pirates were the brothers Téméricourt, originally from Vexin. The younger, Téméricourt-Beninville, was a knight of Malta. In spring 1668, with four frigates, they entered Ios harbour. When the Ottoman fleet, then sailing toward Crete as part of the war against Venice, tried to throw them out that 2 May, they fought it off by inflicting serious damage to it and thus made their reputation.^[124] Hugues Creveliers, nicknamed “the Hercules of the seas”, began his career slightly earlier, with the help of the Knights of Malta. He rapidly made his fortune and organised Christian piracy in the Cyclades. He had between twelve and fifteen ships under his direct command and had awarded his villa to twenty shipowners who benefited from his protection and transferred a portion of their earnings to him. He kept the islands afraid of him.^[125]

Their career came to a rather abrupt end: Téméricourt-Beninville was decapitated at the age of 22 in 1673 during a celebration marking the circumcision of one of the Sultan's sons; Creveliers and his shipmates jumped into the bay of Astypalaia in 1678.^[124]

These pirates considered themselves to be corsairs, but their situation was more ambiguous. Of Livornese, Corsican or French origin, the great majority of them were Catholic and acted under the more or less unofficial protection either of a religious order (the Knights of Malta or the Order of Saint Stephen of Livorno) or of the Western powers that sought either to maintain or initiate a presence in the region (Venice, France, Tuscany, Savoy or Genoa). Thus they were nearly corsairs, but liable at any moment to repudiation by their secret protectors, they could become pirates once again.^[124] Hence, when Venice surrendered in Crete, it had to agree by treaty to fight against piracy in the Aegean.

Jean Chardin relates thus the arrival at Mykonos of two Venetian ships in 1672:
“They entered there during the night. The admiral, while dropping anchor, launched flares. […] This was to warn the Christian corsairs who might be in the port to withdraw before daybreak. At the time, there were two of them. They set sail the next morning. […] The Republic had committed itself in the Treaty of

The Chevalier d'Arvieux also reports the ambiguous attitude of France toward Téméricourt-Beninville, which he witnessed in 1671. This attitude, also shared by the marquis de Nointel, Ambassador of France at Constantinople several years later, was a means of applying quasi-diplomatic pressure when the subject of renegotiating the capitulations came up.^[124] Likewise, the marquis de Fleury, considered a pirate, came to settle in the Cyclades with financial backing from the Marseille Chamber of Commerce at a moment when the renewal of the capitulations was being negotiated. Certain Western traders (above all those evading bankruptcy) also put themselves in service of the pirates in the islands they frequented, buying their booty and providing them with equipment and supplies.^[124]

There were also very close links between Catholic piracy and the Catholic missions. The Capuchins of Paros protected Creveliers and had masses said for the repose of his soul. On numerous occasions, they also received generous alms from Corsican pirates like Angelo Maria Vitali or Giovanni Demarchi, who gave them 3,000 piastres to build their church.^[124] There seems to have been a sort of symbiosis between pirates and Catholic missionaries. The former protected the missions from the exactions of the Turks and the progress of the Orthodox Church. The monks supplied provisions and sometimes sanctuary.^[124] The presence of these privateer-pirates in the Cyclades at the end of the 17th century thus owed nothing to chance and formed part of a wider movement to try and return Westerners to the Archipelago.

At the beginning of the 18th century, the face of piracy in the Cyclades changed. The final loss by Venice of Crete diminished the Republic's interest in the region and thus its interventions. Louis XIV also changed his attitude.^[127] Western corsairs disappeared little by little and were replaced by natives who took part as much in piracy as in contraband or trade. Then the shipowners’ great fortunes slowly came into being.^[128]

Decline of the Ottoman Empire

Life under Ottoman domination had become difficult. With time, the advantages of Ottoman rather than Latin suzerainty vanished. When the old masters had been forgotten, the shortcomings of the new became ever clearer. The ahdname of 1580 granted administrative and fiscal liberties, as well as wide-ranging religious freedom: Greek Orthodox could build and repair their churches and above all, they had the right to ring the bells of their churches, a privilege not enjoyed by other Greek lands under Ottoman rule.^[129] The ideas of the Enlightenment also touched the Cyclades, brought by the traders who entered into contact with Western ideas during their voyages. At times, some of them sent their sons to study in Western universities.^[130] Moreover, a number of popular legends regarding the liberation of the Greeks and the reconquest of Constantinople circulated during the 17th and 18th centuries.

These stories told of God, his warrior saints and the last Emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, who would awaken and leave the cave where angels had carried him and transformed him into marble. These heavenly powers would lead Greek soldiers to Constantinople. In this battle, they would also be accompanied by a xanthos genos, a blond race of liberators come from the North.^[131] It was for this reason that the Greeks turned to the Russians, the only Orthodox not to have been conquered by the Turks, to help them recover their freedom.

Russia, which was seeking a warm-water port, regularly confronted the Ottoman Empire in its attempt to access the

The Cyclades took part in various important uprisings, such as that of 1770-74 during the

A new Russo-Turkish war (1787-1792) that ended in the Treaty of Jassy once again saw operations in the Cyclades. Lambros Katsonis, a Greek officer in the Russian navy, operated with a Greco-Russian flotilla from the island of Kea, whence he attacked Ottoman ships.^[137] A Turkish-Algerian fleet finished by defeating him off Andros on 18 May 1790 (OS). Katsonis managed to flee with just two ships toward Milos. He had lost 565 men; the Turks, over 3,000.^[138]

However, not all was lost for the Greeks, for the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) allowed the islands to develop their commerce under Russian protection. Moreover, the islands were relatively unaffected by the Ottomans’ retributive exactions.

The Cyclades in 19th- and 20th-century Greece

The Cyclades during the war of independence

The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 ensured the general prosperity of the Greek islands, well beyond those like

The national insurrection was launched in March 1821 with the mythical appeal of Germanos, Metropolitan of Patras. Kapetanoi (commanders, war chiefs) spread the revolt across Greece, principally in the Peloponnese and in Epirus.

This ambivalence explains the differences in attitude in the Archipelago at the moment of the War of Independence. This situation was aggravated by the consequences of the war: a renewal piracy under a patriotic pretext, a “revolutionary tax” demanded by the war chiefs, the disappearance of local institutions, the settling of old scores by those who took advantage of the anarchy to bring about social (poor against rich) or religious (Greek against Latin) upheaval.^[134] The French flag flew above the Catholic churches of Naxos throughout the conflict; this protected them from the resentment of the Orthodox, who called the Catholics “Turk-lovers”.^[115]

Hence, the Cyclades took part in the conflict only sporadically. Like Hydra or Spetses, Andros,

From the beginning of the insurrection, Milos was occupied by the Russians and the French, who wished to observe what was happening in the Peloponnese.[146]

At the end of the War of Independence, the Cyclades were given to the young Greek kingdom of Otto in 1832. However, their allocation to Greece was not automatic. The Ottoman Empire had no particular wish to keep them (they had never brought it much), but France showed great interest in their acquisition in the name of protecting Catholics.^[146]

Economy and society

Fluctuating prosperity in the 19th century

The marble quarries of Paros, abandoned for several centuries, were put back into service in 1844 for a very specific order: that of

Syros played a fundamental role in the trade, transport and economy of Greece in the latter half of the 19th century. The island had a certain number of advantages at the end of the War of Independence. It had been protected by the relative neutrality of the Cyclades and by the French, who had taken the Catholics of Syros under their wing (and thus the island as a whole). Moreover, it no longer had rivals: shipowners’ islands like Hydra and Spetses had been so deeply involved in the conflict that it ruined them.[148] Ermoupolis was long Greece's largest port (Thessaloniki was still in the Ottoman Empire). It was also an important industrial centre.^[145] In 1872, the first steam engines began to appear in Greece; in the Piraeus and at Ermoupolis, gas-powered plants were also set up.^[149] At Ermoupolis, the first strike in Greece's social history broke out: 400 tannery and naval shipyard employees stopped working in 1879, demanding salary increases.^[150]

When the Corinth Canal was inaugurated in 1893, Syros, and the Cyclades in general, began to collapse. The advent of steamships rendered them even less indispensable as a maritime stopover. The railroad, vector of the industrial revolution, was essentially unable to reach them, which also proved fatal.^[145] A similar situation occurred with the triumph of the automobile and of road transportation in the 20th century.

The illness that decimated silkworms during the 19th century also dealt a very heavy blow to the economy of Andros neighboring Tinos.^[91]

Meanwhile, starting in this period, certain islands experienced an important rural exodus. The inhabitants of Anafi left in such great numbers for Athens during and after Otto's reign that the neighbourhood they built, in their traditional architecture, at the foot of the Acropolis still bears the name of Anafiotika.^[151]

Population movements

The shifting fortunes of the Megali Idea during the 19th century continued to change the islands’ ethnic and social composition. The failure of the Cretan insurrection of 1866-67 brought numerous refugees to Milos, who moved, like the Peloponnesians on Syros a few years earlier, onto the coast and there created, at the foot of the old medieval village of the Frank seigneurs, a new port, that of Adamas.^[145]

The censuses of 1889 and 1896 show the evolution in the Cyclades’ population. The total number of inhabitants rose 2.4%, from 131,500 to 134,750. This growth was the weakest in all of Greece (+11% on average, +21% for Attica). At the same time, the city of Ermoupolis lost 8,000 people (-27%), falling from over 30,000 to 22,000 dwellers. It was already suffering the effects of the Corinth Canal's opening and the development of the Piraeus.^[152]

In 1922, after the Greek defeat in Asia Minor and above all the capture, massacres and fire at Smyrna, the region's Greek population fled in makeshift crafts. A good part of them first found refuge in the Cyclades, before being directed toward Macedonia and Thrace.^[153] Thus the islands too felt, if in lesser measure, the impact of the “Great Catastrophe”.

The 1950s were a period of great change for Greece. The urban share of the population went from 37% to 56% between 1951 and 1961, with Athens absorbing 62% of the total urban growth. From 1956 to 1961, 220,000 people left the countryside for Athens while another 600,000 migrated abroad.^[154] Between 1951 and 1962, 417 Pariots left their island for Athens due to what they considered deplorable living conditions and in the hope of finding work in Athens.^[155]

20th-century economic transformations (besides tourism)

In the mid-1930s, the Cyclades’ population density was between 40 and 50 inhabitants per km², on par with the national average of 47.^[156]

In an overview article on the Greek economy written in the mid-1930s, the author, an American economist, cited very little data about the Cyclades. For agriculture, he noted the wine production of Santorini, but said nothing concerning the fishing industry. His chapter devoted to industry cited basketry workshops on Santorini and for Syros, activity in basketry and tannery. However, the Cyclades did appear for their mineral resources. The

Important bauxite deposits were found in the limestone layers of the islands’ substrata, chiefly on Amorgos, Naxos, Milos, Kimolos and Serifos. The resources of Amorgos were already being exploited in 1940. In 1946, Greek reserves were estimated at 60 million tons.^[157]

The exhaustion of iron ore on Kythnos was one of the causes of significant emigration starting in the 1950s.^[158]

Andros was one of the rare shipowners’ islands that managed to operate steam engines (for example, the source of the Goulandris’ fortune) and until the 1960s-1970s, it supplied the Hellenic Navy with numerous sailors.^[91]

To this day, a certain number of natural resources offer the Cyclades occupations other than tourism. On certain islands, agriculture is still an activity of paramount importance, indeed so developed that the island could do without the presence of tourists (this is the case for Naxos). The Cyclades produce but above all export wine (Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Paros, Naxos, Sikinos and Santorini), figs (Syros, Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Naxos and Sikinos), olive oil (Syros, Sifnos, Naxos and Ios), citrus fruits (Andros, Sifnos and Naxos), vegetables (Syros, Tinos, Sifnos, Ios and Santorini), among which is the famous Naxos potato. Sheep, goats and a few cows are raised (Sifnos, Paros and Naxos). Mineral resources are also present: marble (Paros, Tinos and Naxos) and marble dust for cement (Paros), emery (Naxos), manganese (Mykonos), and iron as well as bauxite (Serifos). Milos is dotted with huge open air mines producing sulphur, alum, barium, perlite, kaolin, bentonite and, as has been true throughout its history, obsidian. Syros still has naval shipyards, metallurgic industry and tanneries.^[159]

World War II: famine and guerrilla war

The Italian attack on Greece had been preceded by the torpedoing of the cruiser Elli, a symbolic ship for Greece,^[160] in the bay of Tinos on 15 August 1940.^[161] The Italians wanted to create an Italian "Provincia delle Cicladi" after the war's end.^[162] A process of "Italianization" was started in summer 1941, mainly in the catholic areas: it was partially successful in the city of Ano Syros.^[163]

The German attack of April 1941 led to a total defeat and the occupation of Greece from the end of that month. However, the Cyclades were occupied late and more by Italian than by German troops. The first occupation forces appeared on 9 May 1941: Syros, Andros, Tinos and Kythnos were occupied by Italians and Germans took Milos.

Like the rest of the country, the Cyclades would suffer from the Great Famine organised by the German occupier. Moreover, on the islands, caïques no longer had authorization to go out and fish.^[168] Thus, on Tinos, it is considered that 327 persons in the town of Tinos and around 900 in the region of Panormos died of hunger during the conflict.^[165] Pre-war Naxos depended on Athens for a third of its supplies, transported by six caiques. During the war, as people were dying of hunger in the capital, the island could no longer depend on this contribution and four of its ships had been sunk by the Germans.^[168] On Syros, the number of deaths went from 435 in 1939 to 2,290 in 1942, and a birth deficit was also noticeable: 52 excess births in 1939, 964 excess births in 1942.^[168]

During the various dictatorships of the 20th century, the Cyclades, first Gyaros and later Amorgos and Anafi, regained their former role as places of exile.

Starting in 1918, royalists were deported there in the context of the Ethnikos Dikhasmos (National Schism).

The exiles had to put in place a form of social organisation in order to survive. This organisation was perfectly in place when the Italians or the Germans took the Greek police's place during World War II.[170] Thus they had the possibility of applying in practice the principles that they were defending politically. “Communes” were put into place, headed by an “executive committee” including, among others, a treasurer, a thrift officer and a secretary tasked with organising debates and study groups. The communes had very strict regulations regarding relations between commune members and islanders, with whom they had continual contact for rent payment (on houses, then during the war on land where the exiles cultivated or let their flocks pasture) or food purchase. Work was done in common. The various household chores were divided and performed by each one in turn. The communes forbade their members, the great majority of them men, any sexual relations with the women of the islands, so as to maintain good understanding and perhaps thereby win over the islanders to the deportees’ political ideas. Likewise, exiled doctors not only attended to members of their commune, but also to the natives.^[170] The main effect that the exiles’ presence had on the local population was to reveal to the islanders how various governments thought of their island: as a deserted, inhospitable place where no one lived willingly.^[170] Some islanders joked that they could have whatever political opinions they wished, for the government had no other place to deport them.^[170]

In 1968, 5,400 opponents of the

The refusal of governments in the 1950s and ‘60s to improve port and road infrastructure on certain small islands of the Cyclades was interpreted by the inhabitants as a wish on the part of the state to preserve places of exile still sufficiently cut off from the world, which did not endear Athens to the islanders.[170] Thus, Amorgos was only electrified in the 1980s and the road linking the two principal villages was not paved until 1991.^[172] This situation hindered the Cyclades’ tourist development.

19th- and 20th-century tourist development

Greece has been a tourist destination for a very long time. It was already part of the itinerary of the first tourists, the inventors of the word: the British of the Grand Tour.

At the start of the 20th century, the main tourist interest in the Cyclades was Delos, the ancient importance of which had nourished the “tourists’” studies. The Baedeker Guide mentioned only Syros, Mykonos and Delos. Syros was the main port that all ships touched; Mykonos was the obligatory stopover before the visit to Delos. Syros featured two hotels worthy of their name (Hôtel de la ville and Hôtel d'Angleterre). On Mykonos, one had to content oneself with Konsolina “house” or rely on the Epistates (police official) of the Antiquities, in which case the competition between potential visitors to Delos must have been rough.^[173] The Guide Joanne of 1911 also insisted on Delos (treating it in 12 of 22 pages devoted to the Cyclades), but all the other important islands were mentioned, if only in a single paragraph. Meanwhile, tourist development was already noticeable on these other islands: Mykonos had a hotel at the time (Kalymnios) and two boarding houses; other than that of Mme Konsolina (which was well established), there was also that of Mme Malamatenia.^[174]

In 1933, Mykonos received 2,150 holiday-goers and 200 foreigners visited Delos and the museum on Mykonos.^[175]

Mass tourism to Greece only really took off starting in the 1950s. After 1957, the revenue it generated grew 20% a year.^[176] They soon rivalled the revenue obtained from the chief raw material for export, tobacco, and then surpassed it.^[177]

Today, tourism in the Cyclades is a contrasting phenomenon. Certain islands, like Naxos with its important agricultural and mining resources, or Syros, which still plays a commercial and administrative role, do not depend solely on tourism for their survival. This is less true for small, infertile rocks like Anafi^[178] or Donoussa, which numbers (2001) 120 inhabitants and six pupils in its primary school but 120 rooms for rent, two travel agencies and a bakery open only during summer.^[179]

In 2005, there were 909 hotels in the Cyclades, with 21,000 rooms and 40,000 places. The main tourist destinations are Santorini (240 hotels, of which 6 have five stars) and Mykonos (160 hotels, with 8 five-star ones), followed by Paros (145 hotels, just one being five-star) and Naxos (105 hotels). All other islands offer less than 50 hotels. At the other extreme, Schoinoussa and Sikinos each have only one two-star hotel. The chief type of lodging in the Cyclades is the two-star hotel (404 establishments).^[180] In 1997, the tourist load was measured: the Cyclades had 32 beds per km², or 0.75 beds per inhabitant. On Mykonos, Paros, Ios and Santorini (from north to south), the tourist load is strongest, not only for the Cyclades, but for all the Aegean islands, with over 1.5 beds per inhabitant. However, at the archipelago level, the tourist load is heavier in the Dodecanese.^[181] This is due to the fact that the islands of the Cyclades are smaller and less populated than the other islands, so the load on an individual island is stronger than for the archipelago as a whole.

In the 2006 season, the Cyclades received 310,000 visitors of 11.3 million coming to Greece as a whole;^[182] the Cyclades had 1.1 million overnight stays while the country had 49.2 million—an occupancy rate of 61%, equivalent to the national average.^[183] The figure of 1.1 million overnight stays has remained stable for several years (as of 2007), while the number of tourists visiting Greece has fallen: the Cyclades still attract the same numbers while Greece has brought in fewer.^[184][185]

A tendency beginning in the 2000s (decade) is for foreign tourism to be replaced little by little with domestic Greek tourism. In 2006, 60% of tourists to Santorini were of Greek origin, and they did not differ fundamentally from foreign tourists (average stay: 6.5 nights for a Greek and 6.1 nights for a foreigner; average spending for a Greek: 725 € and 770 € for a foreigner). The only differences are that the Greeks prepare their stay later (20 days before) than the foreigners (45 days before) and return (by 2007, 50% of Greeks had made more than two trips, as against 20% of foreign tourists).^[186]

Image gallery

• 
  Akrotiri, Santorini, the Fisherman.
• 
  Andros-Farnese type of Hermes.
• 
  Naxos in the 18th century, drawn for Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce by Choiseul-Gouffier
• 
  Map of Kea in 1826.
• 
  The Lion of Kea (1826).
• 
  The Lion of Kea (1826) at another angle.
• 
  Delos in 1829 (A. Blouet, Morea expedition).
• 
  Milos in 1829 (A. Blouet, Morea expedition).
• 
  Portara on

  Naxos in 1829 (Abel Blouet

  , Morea expedition).
• 
  Delos in 1847 (Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann)
• 
  Map of Santorini in 1848.

See also

• Cyclades
• Cycladic civilization
• Duchy of the Archipelago
• Mosaics of Delos

Notes

References

Bibliography

Older sources

Karl Baedeker, Greece. Handbook for Travellers., Baedeker, Leipzig, 1894. James Theodore Bent, The Cyclades, or Life among the Insular Greeks., Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1885. (in French) Pierre Daru, Histoire de la République de Venise., Firmin Didot, 1820. (in French) Hervé Duchêne, Le Voyage en Grèce., coll. Bouquins, Robert Laffont, 2003. ISBN 2-221-08460-8

(in French) Gustave Fougères, La Grèce, Guide Joanne, Hachette, 1911. (in French) André Grasset de Saint-Sauveur, Voyage historique, littéraire et pittoresque dans les isles et possessions ci-devant vénitiennes du Levant..., Tavernier, 1799. Read on Gallica (in French) Louis Lacroix, Îles de la Grèce., Firmin Didot, 1853. ( ISBN 2-7196-0012-1 for the modern facsimile reissue) (in French) Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Voyage d'un botaniste., vol. 1 L'Archipel grec., François Maspero, La Découverte, Paris, 1982.

Modern works and articles

General works

An Index of Events in the military History of the Greek Nation, Hellenic Army General Staff, Army History Directorate, 1998. ISBN 960-7897-27-7 Robin Barber, Greece, Blue Guide, London, 1988. ISBN 0-7136-2771-9 Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece., Cambridge U.P., 1992. ISBN 0-521-37830-3 (in French) Georges Contogeorgis, Histoire de la Grèce, Coll. Nations d’Europe, Hatier, 1992. ISBN 2-218-03841-2 (in French) Yiannis Desypris, 777 superbes îles grecques., Toubi's, Athens, 1995. (in French) Georgios K. Giagakis, Tinos d'hier et aujourd'hui., Toubis, Athens, 1995. ISBN 960-7504-23-2

(in French) Guide Bleu. Îles grecques., Hachette, 1998. ISBN 2-01-242640-9 (in French) Vasso Kourtara, Mykonos. Délos.,Toubi's, Athens, 1995. ISBN 960-7504-26-7 J. L. Myres, "The Islands of the Aegean.", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 97, No. 3, March 1941. (in French) Constantin Tsoucalas, La Grèce de l'indépendance aux colonels., Maspero, Paris, 1970 ISBN 0-14-052277-8 (for the original version in English). (in French) Apostolis Vacalopoulos, Histoire de la Grèce moderne., Horvath, 1975. ISBN 2-7171-0057-1 C. M. Woodhouse, Modern Greece. A Short History., Faber and Faber, 1991. ISBN 0-571-19794-9 .

Prehistory

• John F. Cherry et Jack L. Davis, "The Cyclades and the Greek Mainland in Late Cycladic I : the Evidence of the Pottery." in American Journal of Archaeology., vol. 26, no. 3, July 1982.
• J. Lesley Fitton, Cycladic Art., British Museum Press, 1989.
  ISBN 0-7141-2160-6
• (in French) René Treuil, Pascal Darcque, Jean-Claude Poursat, Gilles Touchais, Les Civilisations égéennes du Néolithique à l'Âge du Bronze., Nouvelle Clio, PUF, 1989.
  ISBN 2-13-042280-2

Antiquity

(in French) Marie-Claire Amouretti and Françoise Ruzé, Le Monde grec antique., Hachette, 1985. ISBN 2-01-007497-1 (in French) Claude Baurain, Les Grecs et la Méditerranée orientale. Des siècles obscurs à la fin de l'époque archaïque., Nouvelle Clio, PUF, 1997. ISBN 2-13-047993-6 (in French) Philippe Bruneau, Michèle Brunet, ISBN 2-271-05423-0 Gary Reger, "The Public Purchase of Grain on Independent Delos", Classical Antiquity, vol. 12, no. 2, October 1993.

(in French) Andrew Erskine (ed.), Le Monde hellénistique. Espaces, sociétés, cultures. 323-31 av. J.-C., PUR, 2004. ISBN 2-86847-875-1 (in French) Roland Étienne, Ténos II. Ténos et les Cyclades du milieu du IVe siècle avant J.C. au milieu du IIIe siècle après J.C., BEFAR, De Boccard, 1990. (in French) Claude Mossé, La Grèce archaïque d'Homère à Eschyle., Points Seuil, 1984. ISBN 2-02-006944-X (in French) Yves Perrin et Thomas Bauzou, De la Cité à l'Empire : histoire de Rome., Ellipses, Universités - Histoire, 2004. ISBN 2-7298-1743-3

Byzantium and the Duchy of Naxos

"Naxos" and "Paros" articles in Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium., Oxford U.P, 1991. The work contains no references for "Cyclades" or for the other islands. Charles A. Frazee, The Island Princes of Greece. The Dukes of the Archipelago., Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam, 1988. ISBN 90-256-0948-1 Paul Hetherington, The Greek Islands. Guide to the Byzantine and Medieval Buildings and their Art, London, 2001. ISBN 1-899163-68-9 (in French) Jean Longnon, L'Empire latin de Constantinople et la Principauté de Morée., Payot, 1949.

(in French) Élisabeth Malamut, Les îles de l'Empire byzantin, VIIIe-XIIe siècles, Byzantina Sorbonensia 8, Paris, 1988. ISBN 2-85944-164-6 Miles, George C. (1964). "Byzantium and the Arabs: Relations in Crete and the Aegean Area". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 18: 1–32. JSTOR 1291204 . (in French) J. Slot, Archipelagus Turbatus. Les Cyclades entre colonisation latine et occupation ottomane. c.1500-1718., Publications de l'Institut historique-archéologique néerlandais de Stamboul, 1982. ISBN 90-6258-051-3 (in French) Stéphane Yerasimos, « Introduction » to J. Pitton de Tournefort's Voyage d'un botaniste., Maspero, 1982. ISBN 2-7071-1324-7

Ottoman Empire and modern Greece

(in French) Cédric Boissière, « Les Femmes de l'Égée vues par les voyageurs britanniques aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. », in L'Orient des femmes., Marie-Élise Palmier-Chatelain and Pauline Lavagne d'Ortigue, eds., ENS Éditions, 2002. ISBN 2-902126-93-X (in French) Cédric Boissière, « Mal de mer, pirates et cafards : les voyageurs britanniques dans l'Égée au XIXe siècle. », Actes du Colloque Seuils et Traverses II : Seuils et Traverses : Enjeux de l'écriture de voyage., 2002. ISBN 2-901737-55-2 (in French) ISBN 2-200-37225-6 James E. Collier, "Aluminum Industry of Europe", in Economic Geography, Vol. 22, No. 2, April 1946.

Charles A. Frazee, "The Greek Catholic Islanders and the Revolution of 1821", East European Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 3, 1979. Margaret E. Kenna, "The Social Organization of Exile: The Everyday Life of Political Exiles in the Cyclades in the 1930s", Journal of Modern Greek Studies., vol. 9, no. 1, May 1991. Margaret E. Kenna, "Return Migrants and Tourism Development: An Example from the Cyclades", Journal of Modern Greek Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, May 1993. Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece. The Experience of Occupation. 1941-44., Yale U.P, 1993. ISBN 0-300-06552-3 Joseph Slabey Roucek, « Economic Geography of Greece », Economic Geography, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 1935.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of the Cyclades.

• The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean, Dartmouth College
• (in French) Illustrations for Tournefort’s Voyage d'un botaniste on Gallica
• (in German) Peter Oluf Bröndsted, Reisen und Untersuchungen in Griechenland : Über die Insel Keos, Paris, 1826