This book examines the history of the Aegean islands and the changing concepts of insularity in the late archaic and classical period, with particular emphasis on the 5th century and the period of Athenian imperial control over the Aegean world. The predominant presence of islands in the Aegean geographic landscape inevitably created a variety of different and sometimes even conflicting perceptions of insularity. Using the theoretical concept of network, the book examines the religious networks of the insular world of the Aegean (Calauria and Delos) and their later transformation into networks ... More

This book examines the history of the Aegean islands and the changing concepts of insularity in the late archaic and classical period, with particular emphasis on the 5th century and the period of Athenian imperial control over the Aegean world. The predominant presence of islands in the Aegean geographic landscape inevitably created a variety of different and sometimes even conflicting perceptions of insularity. Using the theoretical concept of network, the book examines the religious networks of the insular world of the Aegean (Calauria and Delos) and their later transformation into networks of imperial control for 5th-century Athens. Athenian control over the islands transformed the concept of insularity in Greek thought and even provided powerful imagery for Athenian self-representation, exemplified in the metaphor of the ‘island of Athens’. Imperial Athens may have strengthened some aspects of the concept of insularity, such as ‘weak island’ or ‘safe island’, but beyond imperial politics, there also lay a world of frequent interaction outside the sphere of mainstream political narrative. The book examines the cases of island-networking on a micro-political and economic level, as well the interaction between islands and their mainland dependencies, the peraiai.