History of the Cyclades

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. 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. The oldest inhabited places are the islet of Saliagos between Paros and Antiparos, Kephala, Kea, and perhaps the oldest strata are those at Grotta on Naxos. 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. Small-sized metal objects have been found on Naxos. The operation of silver mines on Siphnos may also date to this period. 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, At the same time, excavations in the cemetery of Aghios Kosmas in Attica have uncovered objects proving a strong Cycladic influence, due either to a high percentage of the population being Cycladic or to an actual colony originating in the islands. • 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. 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. At the time, wood was more abundant than today, allowing for the construction of house frames and boats. 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. 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. 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. Literary sources Thucydides writes that Minos expelled the archipelago's first inhabitants, the Carians, whose tombs were numerous on Delos. Herodotus specifies that the Carians were subjects of king Minos and went by the name Leleges at that time. 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. Cretan influence on Milos. 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. The principal proof of an evolution from one stage to the next is the disappearance of Cycladic idols from the tombs, 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 Linear A have been found. 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. Settlements were small villages of sailors and farmers, The houses, rectangular, of one to three rooms, were attached, of modest size and build, sometimes with an upper floor, more or less regularly organised into blocks separated by paved lanes. The explosion at Santorini (between the Late Minoan IA and the Late Minoan IB) buried and preserved an example of a habitat: Akrotiri. Excavations since 1967 have uncovered a built-up area covering one hectare, not counting the defensive wall. 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, At almost the same time, the site of Aghia Irini on Kea was also destroyed by an earthquake. Right around 1250 BC (Late Helladic III A-B1 or beginning of Late Cycladic III), Mycenaean influence was felt only on Delos, at Aghia Irini (on Kea), at Phylakopi (on Milos) and perhaps at Grotta (on Naxos). Certain buildings call to mind the continental palaces, without definite proof, but typically Mycenaean elements have been found in religious sanctuaries. During the time of troubles accompanied by destruction that the continental kingdoms experienced (Late Helladic III B), relations cooled, going so far as to stop (as indicated by the disappearance of Mycenaean objects from the corresponding strata on the islands). Moreover, some island sites built fortifications or improved their defenses (such as Phylakopi, but also Aghios Andreas on Siphnos and Koukounaries on Paros). Relations were resumed during Late Helladic III C. To the importation of objects (jars with handles decorated with squids) was also added the movement of peoples with migrations coming from the continent. A beehive tomb, characteristic of continental Mycenaean tombs, has been found on Mykonos. The Cyclades were continuously occupied until the Mycenaean civilisation began to decline. ==Geometric, Archaic and Classical Eras==

Ionian arrival The Ionians came from the continent around the 10th century BC, setting up the great religious sanctuary of Delos around three centuries later. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo (the first part of which may date to the 7th century BC) alludes to Ionian panegyrics (which included athletic competitions, songs and dances). Archaeological excavations have shown that a religious centre was built on the ruins of a settlement dating to the Middle Cycladic. Ceramics indicate the diversity of local production, 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. 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. 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). 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 Samos pillaged the island in 524 BC. At the end of the 6th century BC, Lygdamis, tyrant of Naxos, ruled some of the other islands for a time. Median Wars When Darius launched his expedition against Greece, he ordered Datis and Artaphernes to take the Cyclades. but on the eve of the Battle of Salamis, six or seven Cycladic ships (from Naxos, Kea, Kythnos, Serifos, Sifnos and Milos) would pass from the Greek side. 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. 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 and became the first allied city to be transformed into a subject state by Athens, following a siege. The treasury was transferred from Delos to the Acropolis of Athens around 454 BC. and Santorini were subjects of Athens. Thus, Thucydides writes that soldiers from Kea, Andros and Tinos participated in the Sicilian Expedition and that these islands were “tributary subjects”. 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. Hellenistic Era '', one of the most famous Hellenistic sculptures, a sign of the Cyclades' dynamism during this period. An archipelago disputed among the Hellenistic kingdoms According to Demosthenes and Diodorus of Siculus, 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, Antigonus I Monophthalmus created the Nesiotic League around Tinos and its renowned sanctuary of Poseidon and Amphitrite, less affected by politics than the Apollo's sanctuary on Delos. Around 308 BC, the Egyptian fleet of Ptolemy I Soter sailed around the archipelago during an expedition in the Peloponnese and “liberated” Andros. The Nesiotic League would slowly be raised to the level of a federal state in the service of the Antigonids, and Demetrius I relied on it during his naval campaigns. 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. But, defeated at the Battle of Andros sometime between 258 and 245 BC, 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 and was driven away from it by the Rhodians. before taking control and installing garrisons on Andros, Paros and Kythnos. After the Battle of Cynoscephalae, the islands passed to Rhodes 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; at the end of the 1st century BC, Milos had a large Jewish population. Whether the status of citizen should be maintained was debated. on Sifnos, where 66 were counted in 1991; and on Kea, where 27 were identified in 1956. Not all could have been observation towers, 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. The island then experienced a true commercial explosion, 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. It is estimated that in the 2nd century BC, Delos had a population of about 25,000. 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. 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. ==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 Illyria; the fight against Philip V of Macedon, whose naval policy troubled Rome and who had been an ally of Hannibal’s; or assistance to Macedon’s adversaries in the region (Pergamon, Rhodes and the Achaean League). After his victory at Battle of Cynoscephalae, Flaminius proclaimed the “liberation” of Greece. Neither were commercial interests absent as a factor in Rome's involvement. Delos became a free port under the Roman Republic's protection in 167 BC. Thus Italian merchants grew wealthier, more or less at the expense of Rhodes and Corinth (finally destroyed the same year as Carthage in 146 BC). The political system of the Greek city, on the continent and on the islands, was maintained, indeed developed, during the first centuries of the Roman Empire. According to certain historians, the Cyclades were included in the Roman province of Asia around 133-129 BC; others place them in the province of Achaea; at least, they were not divided between these two provinces. Definitive proof does not place the Cyclades in the province of Asia until the time of Vespasian and Domitian. In 88 BC, Mithridates VI of Pontus, after expelling the Romans from Asia Minor, took an interest in the Aegean. His general Archelaus took Delos and most of the Cyclades, which he entrusted to Athens due to their declaration of favour for Mithridates. Delos managed to return to the Roman fold. As a punishment, the island was devastated by Mithridates’ troops. Twenty years later, it was destroyed once again, raided by pirates taking advantage of regional instability. The Cyclades then experienced a difficult period. The defeat of Mithridates by Sulla, Lucullus and then Pompey returned the archipelago to Rome. In 67 BC, Pompey caused piracy, which had arisen during various conflicts, to disappear from the region. He divided the Mediterranean into different sectors led by lieutenants. Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus was put in charge of the Cyclades. Thus, Pompey brought back the possibility of a prosperous trade for the archipelago. However, it appears that a high cost of living, social inequalities and the concentration of wealth (and power) were the rule for the Cyclades during the Roman era, with their stream of abuse and discontent. the Cyclades became places of exile, chiefly Gyaros, Amorgos and Serifos. Vespasian organised the Cycladic archipelago into a Roman province. From the 4th century, the Cyclades again experienced the ravages of war. In 376, the Goths pillaged the archipelago. Conflicts and migrations among the islands 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. In 769, the islands were devastated by the Slavs. At the beginning of the 9th century, the Saracens, who controlled Crete from 829, threatened the Cyclades and sent raids there for more than a century. Naxos had to pay them a tribute. 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. ==Duchy of Naxos==

In 1204, the Fourth Crusade took Constantinople, and the conquerors divided the Byzantine Empire amongst themselves. Nominal sovereignty over the Cyclades fell to the Crusaders, except Andros and Tinos The islands were not occupied immediately, however, and for some time after an agreement was reached between the Venetians and the Latin Emperor, authorizing private citizens to conquer and hold the islands as long as they pledged allegiance to the Latin Empire for them. Numerous adventurers armed fleets at their own expense, among them a wealthy Venetian residing in Constantinople, Marco Sanudo, nephew of the Doge Enrico Dandolo. Without any difficulty, he took Naxos in 1205 and by 1207, he controlled the Cyclades, together with his comrades and relatives. In effect, from 1248, the Duke of Naxos became the vassal of William II of Villehardouin and thus from 1278 of Charles I of Naples. The feudal system was applied even for the smallest properties, which had the effect of creating an important local elite. The “Frankish" nobles reproduced the seigneurial lifestyle they had left behind; they built “châteaux” where they maintained courts. The links of marriage were added to those of vassalage. The fiefs circulated and were fragmented over the course of successive dowries and inheritances. Thus, in 1350, fifteen seigneurs, of whom eleven were of the Michieli family, held Kea (120 km2 in area and, at the time, numbering several dozen families). 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. In the 1260s and 1270s, admirals Alexios Doukas Philanthropenos and Licario launched an attempt to reconquer the Aegean on behalf of Michael VIII Palaiologos, the Byzantine Emperor. This failed to take Paros and Naxos, In 1292, Roger of Lauria devastated Andros, Tinos, Mykonos and Kythnos, perhaps as a consequence of the war then raging between Venice and Genoa. At the beginning of the 14th century, the Catalans made their appearance in the islands, shortly before the Turks. In effect, the decline of the Seljuks left the field open in Asia Minor to a certain number of Turkmen principalities, those of which were closest to the sea began launching raids on the archipelago from 1330 in which the islands were regularly pillaged and their inhabitants taken into slavery. Thus the Cyclades experienced a demographic decline. Even when the Ottomans began to impose themselves and unify Anatolia, the expeditions continued until the middle of the 15th century, in part because of the conflict between the Venetians and the Ottomans. The Duchy of Naxos temporarily passed under Venetian protection in 1499-1500 and 1511-1517. Around 1520, the ancient fiefs of the Ghisi (Tinos and Mykonos) passed under the direct control of the Republic of Venice. ==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. Moreover, the war it was conducting was against Venice, not against the other Western powers. Thus, as Sifnos belonged to a Bolognese family, the Gozzadini, and the Porte was not at war with Bologna, it allowed this family to govern the island. Giovanfrancesco Sommaripa, seigneur of Andros, made himself hated by his subjects. This was an additional reason for the absence of Ottoman administration. 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, Uluç Ali Reis, the new Kapudan Pasha, initiated a policy of repopulating the islands. For example, in 1579 the Orthodox priest Pothetos of Amorgos was authorised to settle colonists on Ios, a nearly deserted island. Kimolos, pillaged by Christian pirates in 1638, was repopulated with Sifniot colonists in 1646. Christian Albanians, who had already migrated toward the Peloponnese during the Despotate of the Morea period or who had been moved to Kythnos by the Venetians, were invited by the Ottoman Empire to come settle on Andros. 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. The Cyclades had limited resources and depended on imports for their food supply. 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. 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 wine of Santorini, the wood of Folegandros, the salt of Milos or the wheat of Sikinos circulated within the archipelago. Silkworms were raised on Andros and the raw material was spun on Tinos and Kea. Not all products were destined for the local market: Milos sent its millstone all the way to France and Sifnos’ straw hats (the production of which the Frankish seigneurs had introduced) also left for the West. In 1700, a very lean year, the port of Marseille received eleven boats and thirty-seven dinghies coming from the Cyclades. Also entering the city that year were 231,000 lbs of wheat; 150,000 lbs of oil; 58,660 lbs of silk from Tinos; 14,400 lbs of cheese; 7,635 lbs of wool; 5,019 lbs of rice; 2,833 lbs of lambskin; 2,235 lbs of cotton; 1,881 lbs of wax; 1,065 lbs of sponge. 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. 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, 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. 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. In the whole Empire, the Orthodox had been organised into a millet, but not the Catholics. 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. Only three had been founded during the Byzantine era: Panaghia Chozoviotissa on Amorgos (11th century), Panaghia Panachrantos on Andros (10th century) and Profitis Elias (1154) on Sifnos, all the rest belonging to the wave of Orthodox reconquest under Ottoman protection. 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. 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. They set up missions on Santorini (1642) and on Tinos (1670). A Franciscan mission was also founded in the 16th century on Naxos, and a Dominican friary was established on Santorini in 1595. 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. 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. , pirates' meeting place: map of the island and traditional women's costumes (Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, ''Voyage d'un botaniste''.). The principal objective was the commercial route between Egypt, its wheat and imposts (the Mamelukes’ tribute), and Constantinople. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 Black Sea and through it the Mediterranean; it knew how to put these Greek legends to good use. Thus, Catherine had named her grandson, due to succeed her, Constantine. . The Cyclades took part in various important uprisings, such as that of 1770-74 during the Orlov Revolt, which brought about a brief passage of Catherine II's Russians through the islands. The operations took place primarily in the Peloponnese, and fighters native to the Cyclades left their islands in order to join the battle. In 1770, the Russian navy pursued the Ottoman navy across the Aegean and defeated it at Chesma. It then went on to spend the winter in the bay of Naoussa, in the northern part of Paros. However, hit by an epidemic, it abandoned its allies and evacuated mainland Greece in 1771. Nevertheless, it seems the Russians remained in the Cyclades at some length: “in 1774, [the Russians] took over the islands of the Archipelago, which they occupied in part for four or five years”; Mykonos would remain under Russian occupation from 1770 to 1774; and Russian ships would stay at Naoussa until 1777. 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. 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. 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 Hydra or Spetses associated with famous shipowners. Andros took advantage of this situation by putting in place its own merchant fleet. The distant Ottoman domination was not unbearable, but the Ottomans were considered the enemies of Christianity in general. If revolution failed, the Turkish reprisals would be cruel, like after the passage of the Russians in the 1770s. However, if the revolution succeeded, the prospect of living in a fundamentally Orthodox state did not please the Catholic islanders. Moreover, on the islands “liberated” from the Ottoman Empire, the Greek commissioners put into place compelled the Catholics to pay them the imposts that until then had gone to the Turks. and Anafi placed their fleets in the service of the national cause. Mado Mavrogenis, the daughter of a Phanariote, used her fortune to supply “admiral” Emmanuel Tombazis with 22 ships and 132 cannons from Mykonos. The Orthodox Greeks of Naxos put together a troop of eight hundred men that fought the Ottomans. Paros sent a contingent to the Peloponnese that distinguished itself during the Siege of Tripolitsa led by Theodoros Kolokotronis. The vicissitudes of conflict on the continent had their repercussions in the Cyclades. The massacres of Chios and Psara (committed in July 1824 by the troops of Ibrahim Pasha) led to an influx of people into the Cyclades, the survivors in effect becoming refugees there. In 1825, when Ibrahim Pasha landed in the Peloponnese with his Egyptian troops, a great number of refugees flooded onto Syros. The ethno-religious composition of the island and its urban structure were totally transformed as a result. The Catholic island became ever more Orthodox. The Greeks using the Greek rite moved onto the coast in what would later become the very busy port of Ermoupoli, while the Latin-rite Greeks remained on the heights of the medieval city. 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. Later, in 1878, a “Société des Marbres de Paros” was created. 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. Ermoupolis was long Greece's largest port (Thessaloniki was still in the Ottoman Empire). It was also an important industrial centre. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 emery of Naxos, mined consistently since prehistory, was exploited chiefly for export. Sifnos, Serifos, Kythnos and Milos provided iron ore. Santorini provided pozzolana (volcanic ash); Milos, sulphur; and Antiparos and Sifnos, zinc in the form of calamine. Syros remained one of the country's export-oriented ports. The exhaustion of iron ore on Kythnos was one of the causes of significant emigration starting in the 1950s. 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. 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, in the bay of Tinos on 15 August 1940. The Italians wanted to create an Italian "Provincia delle Cicladi" after the war's end. A process of "Italianization" was started in summer 1941, mainly in the catholic areas: it was partially successful in the city of Ano Syros. 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. This delay allowed the islands to serve as a stopover for politicians heading to Egypt to continue the struggle. George Papandreou and Konstantinos Karamanlis thus stopped on Tinos before meeting in Alexandria. At the time, Churchill’s objective in the eastern Mediterranean was to take the Italian-occupied Dodecanese so as to pressure neutral Turkey and tip it over into the Allied camp. Thus, British troops took control of this archipelago little by little (see Dodecanese Campaign). The German counter-attack was spectacular. General Müller left continental Greece on 5 November 1943 and moved from island to island, occupying each, until he reached Leros on 12 November and fought off the British. Thus the Cyclades were, for the time being, under definitive German occupation. 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. 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. 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. A place of exile once again 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). Exile on the islands was the simplest solution. It avoided overcrowding prisons on the mainland and their presence on the islands allowed easier control over the prisoners: communication with the outside world was in essence limited. 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. 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. 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. In 1933, Mykonos received 2,150 holiday-goers and 200 foreigners visited Delos and the museum on Mykonos. Mass tourism to Greece only really took off starting in the 1950s. After 1957, the revenue it generated grew 20% a year. They soon rivalled the revenue obtained from the chief raw material for export, tobacco, and then surpassed it. 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 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. 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). 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. 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; 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. 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. 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). ==Image gallery==

Image:Fresco_of_a_fisherman,_Akrotiri,_Greece.jpg|Akrotiri, Santorini, the Fisherman. Image:1981 wurde das Archäologische Museum von Andros gegründet. 13.jpg|Hermes of Andros, Farnese type of Hermes. Image:Vue de la ville de Naxia - Choiseul-gouffier Gabriel Florent Auguste De - 1782.jpg|Naxos in the 18th century, drawn for Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce by Choiseul-Gouffier Image:Map Kea 1826.jpg|Map of Kea in 1826. Image:Lion Kea2.jpg|The Lion of Kea (1826). Image:Lion Kea.jpg|The Lion of Kea (1826) at another angle. Image:Delos1829.jpg|Delos in 1829 (A. Blouet, Morea expedition). Image:Milos1829.jpg|Milos in 1829 (A. Blouet, Morea expedition). Image:Naxos1829.jpg|Portara on Naxos in 1829 (Abel Blouet, Morea expedition). Image:Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann 001.jpg|Delos in 1847 (Carl Anton Joseph Rottmann) Image:Santorini1848.jpg|Map of Santorini in 1848. ==See also==