The main aim of the article is to present the preserved literary tradition about connections between the Samian tyrant Polycrates and the poet Anakreon. The literary tradition is analyzed chronologically: from Herodotus to Himerius. The author makes an attempt to present various traditions (which are partially independent form Herodotus) concerning the tyrant and the poet.
 

At the end of the eighth century, Cyprus came under Assyrian control. For the following four centuries, the Cypriot monarchs were confronted with the power of the Near Eastern empires. This essay focuses on the relations between the Cypriot kings and the Near Eastern Great Kings from the eighth to the fourth century BC. To understand these relations, two theoretical concepts are applied: the centre-periphery model and the concept of suzerainty. From the central perspective of the Assyrian and Persian empires, Cyprus was situated on the western periphery. Therefore, the local governing traditions were respected by the Assyrian and Persian masters, as long as the petty kings fulfilled their duties by paying tributes and providing military support when requested to do so. The personal relationship between the Cypriot kings and their masters can best be described as one of suzerainty, where the rulers submitted to a superior ruler, but still retained some autonomy. This relationship was far from being stable, which could lead to manifold misunderstandings between centre and periphery. In this essay, the ways in which suzerainty worked are discussed using several examples of the relations between Cypriot kings and their masters.

 

In the first part of the contribution current interpretations of Cypriot kingship are critically discussed. In the second part, as far as epigraphical and literary evidence allows, some features of Cypriot royal rule, especially those regarding the kings’ power, are expounded with more or less certainty, and without trying to give a complete picture of Cypriot kingship.
 

The naval politics of Sparta in the period between the Corinthian and Boeotian Wars is a problem that barely features in modern studies on classical Greek history. The article tries to partially fill this gap, through analysis of the scant sources. The author argues that Sparta did not withdraw completely from maintaining its own presence in the Aegean Sea after conclusion of the King’s Peace. From the few testimonies, especially of Xenophon and Polyaenus, we can conclude that Sparta even kept a fleet (albeit small) in this period. This means that some kind of influence on insular poleis could have been exerted. Possible examples of Spartan actions, like on Thasos, are also disputed. However, all bridgeheads in the Aegean that Sparta probably had were lost in the first phase of the Boeotian War. This puts into question the quality of Lacedaemonian leadership, in terms of both political and military command. The article was prepared as a part of grant: The Aegean Islands 8th-4th c. BC – 4th c. AD. Centre or Periphery of the Greek World. Project ID: 2012/07/B/HS3/03455.
 

The article discusses the contacts between the kings of Pergamon and the Greek states of the Aegean Islands. The problem should be considered both in the context of the Attalids’ situation in Asia Minor and their policy in the Aegean as well as in the broader context of their policy concerning Greek poleis. Philhellenism, euergetism, and cultural patronage became an important part of the dynasty’s propaganda, and in the case of the Aegean Islands Delos became the centre of such activities. An important aspect of the Attalids’ political activity was war, and their participation in conflicts in the Aegean world and continental Greece was very active. This activity had to awaken the Attalids’ interest in the Aegean Islands both for strategic reasons and as a place for recruiting mercenaries for their army and navy. Therefore, we cannot explain all the activities undertaken by the kings of Pergamon in the Aegean Sea only in terms of propaganda and building their image. Attalos I entered the stage of great politics, exceeding the local problems of Asia Minor. He managed to mark his presence in the Aegean and win bases on the islands which could work as footholds for further political activity in the Greek and Macedonian world

The paper seeks to analyse some peculiar features in the manner in which the both rounds of Cretan grants of asylia to Teos (late 3rd and ca middle 2nd century BC) are formulated, by replacing them in their socio-economic as well as geographical context. In fact, the use or the absence of expression τὰ σώματα καὶ χρήματα in the safeguard clause may reflect a structural evolution of the slavery occurring on the island in the middle Hellenistic period, it means the transition from traditional and dominant serfdom to chattel slavery

This study assembles an island-wide context for the dossier of inscriptions revealed by excavations at the temple of Asklepios at Lissos in southwestern Crete, by examining the nature of the dossiers attested at and for sites sacred to Asklepios across the island. Such groups of inscriptions should be called “dossiers” rather than “archives,” given their subjective and selective nature; they were chosen to project the way a city and region represented itself rather than to preserve a complete epigraphic record (Cooley 2012b, 222). The ultimate goal is to determine just how characteristic or distinctive the dossier of Lissos is – geographically, chronologically, and by epigraphic genre – within Crete, where Lebena has long dominated the record

This paper explores the subject of wines from Cyprus and Cilicia during Antiquity, on the basis of literary and archaeological (amphoras) evidence. It focuses upon organoleptic characteristics of these wines as well as their exportation in the Mediterranean. The author attempts to estimate the scale of their consumption in three important centres in the Mediterranean (Alexandria, Ephesus and Rome) during the late Hellenistic and Roman Age

The article is an attempt to find answers to the fundamental questions of which Roman province the individual islands belonged to and from when. The literature on the subject frequently presents the opinion that some of the Aegean Islands were incorporated into the province of Asia at the moment of its creation. The status of the other islands was, in turn, regulated by Augustus. After a meticulous analysis of sources, the author shows that such an image is oversimplified. The administrative affiliation of the individual islands changed depending on the political circumstances and the good or bad will of the Roman generals operating in the East. The efforts of the islanders themselves were also not without significance. The locations of the individual Aegean Islands were very different, and some of them formally became part of the Roman Empire only during the Flavian rule