This article argues that it is possible to distinguish certain stages of development of the contact between Cyprus and Crete, from Early Bronze Age up to the LBA/EIA transition period. To thoroughly do that, areas in which the connections are most clearly expressed: written sources, pottery, copper trade and cult practice influences are discussed. Possible sea routes between two islands, direct and as a part of a major route between Aegean, Levant and Egypt are described. Discussed written sources include possible place-names connected with Cyprus/Alasia in linear scripts and usage of the so-called ‘Cypro-Minoan’writing. Examples of pots and sherds both Cypriot found in Crete and Cretan found in Cyprus are examined and possible copper trade (including lead isotope analysis) is considered. Further, alleged Minoan cult practice influences are thoroughly discussed. Finally all the above are chronologically reviewed and a course of development of contacts between Crete and Cyprus is proposed.

Described most exhaustively in Herodotus’ Histories, the navy commanded by tyrant Polycrates of Samos was allegedly one of the greatest in archaic Greece, but the extant sources provide conflicting information about its history of use, structure and role in Polycrates’grand strategy. The paper analyses the available evidence to throw light on selected unknowns regarding Polycrates’naval power. Considered matters include numbers and types of ships found in Polycrates’ navy: penteconters, triremes and samainae, the invention of the latter type traditionally ascribed to Polycrates. Relevantly to this article, the Greek historiographic tradition frequently ascribes famous inventions to famous personages: within this text, I attempt to untangle this association to test whether it holds true for Polycrates. Finally, I examine how the tyrant obtained funds to maintain his sizeable fleet, investigating whether Polycrates might have resorted to pillaging and privateering to pay for his navy’s upkeep.

This article examines the role played by the sea in the policy of the tyrants of Pherae. Although it has often been emphasised that control over the port in Pagasae and the profits from the maritime trade were closely linked to the city’s increasing importance in the late 5th and first half of the 4th century, these issues are yet to be the subject of a more detailed analysis. This article is the first part of a comprehensive study on the maritime activity of the Pheraean tyrants in the period from Jason’s first documented political move to the end of the reigns of Lycophron and Peitholaus. It focuses on political moves, and especially on relations with Athens, as the largest maritime power of the period. One of the most important instruments of maritime policy was maintaining a fleet. The article considers the circumstances of its building, its size and its use.

This article concerns the degree of direct involvement in the Athenian foreign policy in the 4th century BC. One of main questions debated by scholars is whether the Second Athenian Sea League was gradually evolving into an arche, to eventually resemble the league of the previous century. The following text contributes to the scholarly debate through a case study of relations between Athens and poleis on the island of Keos in 360s. Despite its small size, Keos included four settlements having the status of polis: Karthaia, Poiessa, Koresia and Ioulis, all members of the Second Athenian League. Around year 363/2 (according to the Attic calendar),anti-Athenian riots, usually described as revolts, erupted on Keos, to be quickly quelled by the strategos Chabrias. It is commonly assumed that the Athenians used the uprising to interfere directly in internal affairs on the island, enforcing the dissolution of the local federation of poleis. However, my analysis of selected sources suggests that such an interpretation cannot be readily defended: in fact, the federation on Keos could have broken up earlier, possibly without any external intervention. In result, it appears that the Athenians did not interfere in the local affairs to such a degree as it is often accepted.

Ptolemy I, the founder of the Lagid dynasty, heavily invested in the navy and thus established the Ptolemies as a formidable sea power, his work continued by his successor Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who employed his fleet to pressure lesser powers of the Mediterranean. The following article examines the activity of Ptolemy II’s fleet in the Aegean Sea. At the end of the 270s, Ptolemy II sent a naval expedition to the Black Sea; the operation helped him establish a political relationship with Byzantion and demonstrated that maintaining a naval presence on foreign waters could influence other rulers to favor the Ptolemies. The Ptolemaic fleet under Ptolemy II Philadelphus operated in the Aegean during two major international conflicts, the Chremonidean War and the Second Syrian War. In this article I argue that the surviving evidence on the Chremonidean War indicates that Ptolemy II’s aim was not to subdue Greece or even Macedonia but to maintain the Ptolemaic hold over the Aegean with Egypt’s relatively small naval force under Patroclus. In turn, the outcome of the Second Syrian War led to a considerable weakening of the Lagids’ position in the Aegean. Ptolemy II adroitly cultivated international relations through diplomacy, propaganda, international euergetism and spreading his dynastic cult; sending the Ptolemaic fleet to patrol foreign seas constituted one crucial instrument Philadelphus could employ to shift the Mediterranean balance of power in his favor.

In the perspective of a complete external prosopography of the Pisidians in progress, this article presents a commented catalogue of 61 persons who lived on the island of Rhodos and in its Carian Peraia from the 3rd century BCE to the beginning of the Roman Imperial period. Concerning those slaves, mercenaries, artists, craftsmen or merchants, a historical context is provided, then remarks on their juristic, social and economical status. The evoked documentation is based on inscribed monuments—mainly funerary—and amphora stamps.

Theophanes and Potamon of Mytilene, two Greek euergetes who sought to serve their home polis in a rapidly changing political landscape of the late Roman Republic and early Principate, took an active interest in the politics of the day and sought to lobby Roman elites on Mytilene’s behalf. Theophanes befriended and advised Pompey, contributing to Pompey’s decision to pardon and liberate Mytilene after the city’s ignominious participation in the Asiatic Vespers, whereas Potamon served as Mytilene’s ambassador in Rome, adroitly championing its city’s interests. Two politicians bettered Mytilene’s political status in the tumultuous period of transformation from a republic to an autocracy and ensured that the city maintained its freedom until the times of the Flavians.

This article is devoted to the rarely addressed problem of Roman stereotypes and associations connected with the Aegean Sea and its islands in the works of Roman authors in the first three centuries of the Empire. The image of the Aegean islands in the Roman literature was somewhat incongruously compressed into contradictory visions: islands of plenty, desolate prisons, always located far from Italy, surrounded by the terrifying marine element. The positive associations stemmed from previous cultural contacts between the Aegean and Rome: the Romans admired the supposedly more developed Greek civilisation (their awe sometimes underpinned by ostensible disparagement), whereas their elites enjoyed their Aegean tours and reminisced about past glories of Rhodes and Athens. The negative associations came from the islands’desolation and insignificance; the imperial authors, associating the Aegean islets with exile spots, borrowed such motifs from classical and Hellenistic Greek predecessors. The Aegean Sea, ever-present in the rich Greek mythical imaginarium, inspired writers interested in myth and folklore; other writers associated islands with excellent crops and products, renowned and valued across the Empire.