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DAVID BRANSCOME

Florida State University

An island POLIS located in the Saronic Gulf (BA 58 F2), whose naval and mercantile might often brought her into conflict with nearby ATHENS. Herodotus’ treatment of Aegina falls into three main temporal units: the distant historical past; the outbreak of the PERSIAN WARS, when Aegina medized; and 481–479 BCE, when Aegina joined the HELLENIC LEAGUE to combat the invading Persians. Much of what Herodotus reports about Aegina seems to come from hostile (probably Athenian) sources. According to Herodotus, the “Aeginetans are DORIANS from Epidaurus” (8.46.1); while the island was originally named Oenone (8.46.1), it was later renamed after the eponymous nymph Aegina (5.80.1). Aegina’s ancestry as an Epidaurian colony factors into Herodotus’ aetiology for the long‐standing enmity between Aegina and Athens (5.82–88): Aegina had revolted from Epidaurian hegemony, looted from EPIDAURUS cult statues of the goddesses DAMIA AND AUXESIA made from Attic olive wood, and battled Athens, who wanted the statues back. This aetiology itself is used by Herodotus to explain Aegina’s readiness to aid THEBES in the latter’s struggle with Athens both by sending statues of the Aeacidae—sons of the Aeginetan mythic hero AEACUS—to Thebes and by ravaging the Attic coast with the Aeginetan fleet (5.80–81, 89; Haubold 2007; Hornblower 2013, 231–43).

In 491, the Aeginetans gave EARTH AND WATER to DARIUS I (6.49.1), an act of medizing that the Athenians took as an attack against themselves (6.49.2; see Baragwanath 2008, 135, 173). Although Athens called upon SPARTA to intervene, the Spartan king CLEOMENES was driven from Aegina before he could arrest leading Aeginetans, including CRIUS (6.50, 61.1, 64). Later that year, Cleomenes, joined by his new co‐king LEOTYCHIDES II, returned to Aegina, arrested Crius and nine other Aeginetan leaders, and delivered them as HOSTAGES to Athens (6.73). Upon Cleomenes’ death in 490, Leotychides acting on the Aeginetans’ behalf failed to convince the Athenians to release these hostages (6.85–86). When the Aeginetans retaliated by capturing some Athenian prisoners of their own, the Athenians mounted an unsuccessful naval assault on Aegina (6.87–93); Herodotus notes that the Athenian navy at this time was no match for that of the Aeginetans (6.89). The Athenians’ purported (Scott 2005, 323) naval inferiority was remedied decisively by THEMISTOCLES, who urged (around 483) that the recent windfall from the SILVER mines at LAURIUM be used to build two hundred TRIREMES for the war against Aegina (7.144.1); this war, says Herodotus, “saved Greece” (7.144.2) since these ships would actually be used to defend Greece from the Persian invasion.

At a Panhellenic conference held at the ISTHMUS of CORINTH (7.145.1, cf. 172.1) in 481, Aegina, Athens, and several other Greek states—the so‐called Hellenic League—agreed to temporarily set aside their differences in order to meet the Persian threat. In 480 Aegina provided eighteen triremes for ARTEMISIUM (8.1.2) and thirty for SALAMIS (8.46.1). On a scout ship captured by the Persians prior to the battle at Artemisium, the Aeginetan marine Pytheas fought so bravely, despite his extensive wounds, that the Persians kept him alive as an honored trophy (7.181). Before the battle at Salamis, the Greeks prayed to the gods and sent a ship to Aegina to fetch statues of Aeacus and of the Aeacidae (8.64), and the Aeginetans would later say that this ship was the first to attack the Persians at Salamis (8.84.2; see Irwin 2011a, 405–10). During the course of the battle, the Aeginetan POLYCRITUS—son of the Crius captured by Cleomenes—taunted Themistocles about the Aeginetans’ (supposed) medizing, as Polycritus’ ship rammed an enemy Sidonian ship; held upon the latter was Pytheas, who now managed to return to Aegina (8.92). Greeks recognized that the most distinguished in the victory at Salamis were not only Aeginetans in general, but also Polycritus (and two Athenians) in particular (8.93.1). Nevertheless, the Delphic ORACLE demanded that the Aeginetans’ prize for valor from Salamis be offered to complement their insufficient tithe to APOLLO (8.122). In 479 five hundred Aeginetan soldiers were sent to fight at PLATAEA (9.28.6), but Herodotus implies (apparently wrongly: Irwin 2011a, 418–21) that the Aeginetans were absent from the actual fighting since their tomb at Plataea was merely an empty cenotaph (9.85.3). More of Herodotus’ bias against Aegina (Flower and Marincola 2002, 244, 249, 256) is shown in his claim that the Aeginetans’ WEALTH was founded on GOLD they cheated out of the HELOTS after Plataea (9.80.3). Contradicting Herodotus’ claim are his several notices about Aegina’s earlier, sixth‐century prosperity: the Aeginetan merchant SOSTRATUS was the richest of men (4.152.3), while the Aeginetans built a temple to ZEUS at NAUCRATIS (2.178.3) and paid the doctor DEMOCEDES one TALENT (3.131.2; see Irwin 2011b, 432–44).

SEE ALSO: Aegina daughter of Asopus; Medize; Naval Warfare; Panhellenism; Pytheas son of Ischenous; Sources for Herodotus