of Corcyra, modern Corfu, was especially prosperous. Its
active trade to the east and west, combined with its high
rainfall, led it to have the densest population of any area in
ancient Greece. Corcyra was the site of a vicious civil war
during the 430s b.c.e. that was one of the sparks which ig-
nited the confl ict between Athens and Sparta known as the
Peloponnesian War.
Th e other islands of this area share similar characteris-
tics. Th ey are rocky and good for grazing, with easy access to
the mainland, close by to the east. Ithaca was said to be home
of Homer’s hero Odysseus, though a precise identifi cation be-
tween the real island and its poetic counterpart is impossible.
Cephallenia was famous in antiquity for its pine forests, of
which nothing remains today.
THE AEGEAN ISLANDS
Th e islands of the Aegean were even more inviting to settle-
ment, combining the most attractive elements of the Mediter-
ranean climate, the diversity of mountains and coastal plains
in close proximity, with easy access abroad by sea. Aegina at
the mouth of the Saronic Gulf, controlling access to the Ar-
golid in the Peloponnese, Corinth on the Isthmus, and Meg-
ara and Attica on the mainland, was an early power until it
came under Athenian control in the sixth century b.c.e.
Th e long island of Euboea, very close off the eastern coast
of the mainland, was another early power in the Greek world.
During the eighth century b.c.e. the cities of Lefk andi and Er-
etria sent out trade and settlements as far as Asia Minor and
Sicily. By the Classical Period, however, Euboea had receded in
importance aft er the rise of cities like Athens and Th ebes.
Th e group of islands known as the Cyclades, because
they form an uneven circle at the south end of the Aegean,
is actually a continuation of the mountain range that runs
down Euboea and across Attica. Th e islands of Naxos, Páros,
Ándros, Delos, Syros, and Melos all possessed rich quarries
of stone (which could be transported by sea much more easily
than stone from landlocked quarries) as well as gold and sil-
ver. Th e islands’ position in the path of trade between Greece,
Asia, and Egypt ensured their prosperity.
Th e island of Th era (modern Santorini) was the site of
prosperous settlement during the Bronze Age but was largely
destroyed by a volcanic explosion during the 15th century
b.c.e., an event, with the inevitable earthquakes and tsuna-
mis radiating from it, to which many scholars point as the
cause of the decline of Minoan civilization.
South of the Peloponnese the islands of Cythera and
Anticythera form stepping stones from the Greek peninsula
to the large island of Crete. Ships sailing from Greece could
reach Crete without ever leaving sight of land, and Crete’s
coastline off ers many safe harbors on the north side. Th e
same is not true south of Crete; the island’s southern shore is
much less convoluted, and there are no islands for almost 200
miles southward toward the shores of Egypt and Libya.
Crete, then, was unifi ed with the Greek world not only
in climate but in culture and was the site of the earliest civili-
zation of people speaking a language recognizable as Greek.
Crete was legendary in antiquity as the home of King Minos,
who was said to have ruled over a maritime empire and ex-
tracted tribute from Athens. It was for Minos that the Athe-
nian inventor Daedalus built the labyrinth at Knossos.THE ISLANDS OF THE ASIAN COAST
East and north from Crete the islands of Kasos and Carpa-
t hus form t wo more stepping stones toward t he large island of
Rhodes, which is within sight of the mainland of Asia Minor,
near what is now southwestern Turkey, and was the territory
of Caria in antiquity. Caria, and the city of Halicarnassus,
was the birthplace of the historian Herodotus, who came to
Athens to compose his ethnographic account of the peoples
of the Greek world and the confl ict between the Greeks and
the Persians. Along the coast of Asia Minor, in the eastern Ae-
gean, were the large, prosperous, and oft en powerful islands
of Lesbos and Chios. Th ese were prosperous in agricultural
products and in culture, enjoying their ethnic relationship
with the Greeks of the mainland and constant contact with
the many peoples of Asia.
Th e deforestation noted in antiquity was not the only
signifi cant factor changing the ecology and environment of
the Greek world since antiquity. Under Byzantine and Turk-
ish rule, cultivation of both grapes and olives increased, since
these were valuable export crops during the period of Roman
rule and aft erward. Both of these crops have deep taproots
that do little to hold soil in place. Th e practice of polyculture,
planting other crops amid the vines and olive trees, held ero-
sion at bay for a time but increased grazing of goats among
vineyards and orchards led to the loss of a vast amount of
rich topsoil. Th e dry, rocky landscape of exposed limestone
evident in Greece today would have seemed very unfamiliar
to a Greek of the sixth century b.c.e.
Erosion also caused the silting up of the mouths of riv-
ers, and erosion from southern Russia, into the Black Sea and
thence into the Aegean, has altered coastlines. Th e city of
Pella, Alexander the Great’s capital in Macedonia, used to be
accessible by boat from the Mediterranean but today is shal-
low and choked with boulders. A modern visitor to Th ermo-
pylae, to take another example, might wonder why this place
was called a pass. Today the sea is several miles from the old
coastal road while in the fi ft h century b.c.e. waves would have
broken at the base of the roadbed.ROME
BY AMY HACKNEY BLACKWELL
Th e location of Rome combined a pleasant climate with good
soil and other important advantages. Th e city was built on
the Tiber River where it met with the smaller Anio (Aniene)
River. Situated near the center of the Italian peninsula and
close to the Adriatic coast, Rome was well placed to control
both the peninsula and, ultimately, the lands surrounding the
Mediterranean.260 climate and geography: Rome