Some traditions related that at the time when Aeacus was born, Aegina was not yet inhabited, and that Zeus changed the ants () of the island into men ( Myrmidons ) over whom Aeacus ruled, or that he made men grow up out of the earth.

Ovid, on the other hand, supposes that the island was not uninhabited at the time of the birth of Aeacus, and states that, in the reign of Aeacus, Hera, jealous of Aegina, ravaged the island bearing the name of the latter by sending a plague or a fearful dragon into it, by which nearly all its inhabitants were carried off, and that Zeus restored the population by changing the ants into men.

Aeacus had sanctuaries both at Athens and in Aegina, and the Aeginetans regarded him as the tutelary deity of their island.

In 1890 and 1893, Staes cleared out certain less rich tholos-tombs at Thoricus in Attica ; and other graves, either rock-cut " bee-hives " or chambers, were found at Spata and Aphidna in Attica, in Aegina and Salamis, at the Argive Heraeum and Nauplia in the Argolid, near Thebes and Delphi, and not far from the Thessalian Larissa.

The capital is the town of Aegina, situated at the northwestern end of the island.

During the next century Aegina was one of the three principal states trading at the emporium of Naucratis, and it was the only state of European Greece that had a share in this factory.

The history of Aegina, as it has come down to us, is almost exclusively a history of its relations with the neighbouring state of Athens, which began to compete with the thalassocracy of Aegina at the beginning of the sixth century.

# It is improbable that Athens would have sent twenty vessels to the aid of the Ionians in 499 BC if at the time she were at war with Aegina.

It was to Aegina rather than Athens that the prize of valour at Salamis was awarded, and the destruction of the Persian fleet appears to have been as much the work of the Aeginetan contingent as of the Athenian ( Herod.

A Jewish community is believed to have been established in Aegina " at the end of the second and during the third century AD " by Jews fleeing the Barbarian Invasions of the time in Greece.

The Catalan Company seized control of Athens, and with it Aegina, in 1317, and in 1425 the island came under Venetian control, when Alioto Caopena, at that time ruler of Aegina, placed himself with treaty under the Republic's protection in order to escape the danger of a Turkish raid.

The number of the Athenians at that time exceeded 6000, the Albanians from the villages of Attica excluded, whilst in 1674 the population of Aegina did not seem to exceed 3000 inhabitants, 2 / 3 of which were women.

Zeus needed an elite army and at first thought that Aegina, which at the time did not have any villagers, was the perfect place.

Other temples of Apollo were located at Didyma on the coast of Asia Minor, at Corinth and Bassae in the Peloponnese, and at the islands of Delos and Aegina in the Aegean Sea.

According to Herodotus, after the Persian navy began its maneuvers, Aristides arrived at the Allied camp from Aegina.

However, perhaps tired of the Athenians pointing out their role at Salamis, and of their demands for the Allies to march north, the Allies awarded the prize for civic achievement to Aegina.

Athens was at that time embroiled in a conflict with the neighbouring island of Aegina, which possessed a formidable navy.

An extinct volcano constitutes two thirds of Aegina.

The Bailie ’ s authority extended over the rector of Aegina, whereas Kastri ( opposite Hydra ) had been granted to two families, the Palaiologoi and the Alberti.

Excavation of the earth of the altar yielded burnt stones, small animal ( cow and pig ) bones, tiny pottery fragments, iron knives, clay figures, coins from Aegina, a clay figure of a bird, and two small bronze tripods.

The two Spartan kings successfully capture the Persian collaborators in Aegina.

The Gulf boasts two particularly notable archaeological sites ; the ancient theatre at Epidaurus and nearby asclepieion and the The temple of Aphaia on Aegina.

The two kings successfully captured the Persian collaborators in Aegina.

The groundswell of the Philhellenic movement was result of two generations of intrepid artists and amateur treasure-seekers, from Stuart and Revett, who published their measured drawings as The Antiquities of Athens and culminating with the removal of sculptures from Aegina and the Parthenon ( the Elgin marbles ), works that ravished the British Philhellenes, many of whom, however, deplored their removal.

Apart from these two examples, the references in various writers to an opening of some kind in the roofs of temples dedicated to particular deities, and the statement of Vitruvius, which was doubtless based on the writings of Greek authors, that in decastyle or large temples the centre was open to the sky and without a roof ( medium autem sub diva est sine tecto ), render the existence of the hypaethros probable in some cases ; and therefore C. R. Cockerell's discovery in the temple at Aegina of two fragments of a coping-stone, in which there were sinkings on one side to receive the tiles and covering tiles, has been of great importance in the discussion of this subject.

Diogenes Laërtius also calls him " Onesicritus of Aegina ", and says that he came to Athens because his two adult sons, Androsthenes and Philiscus, were attracted to the philosophy of Diogenes the Cynic, whence Onesicritus also became an ardent disciple.

As archeologists excavated the site at Aegina, these two sets were discovered, and it was later theorized that the original temple was destroyed during the Peloponnesian War and another temple was erected shortly after in its place.

This Actor married Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus, and had several children, among them Menoetius.

Menoetius was a son of Actor, King of Opus in Locris by Aegina.

In 458 BC, the Athenians blockaded the island of Aegina, and simultaneously defended Megara from the Corinthians by sending out an army composed of those too young or old for regular military service.

He was born on the island of Oenone or Oenopia, to which Aegina had been carried by Zeus to secure her from the anger of her parents, and whence this island was afterwards called Aegina.

These legends seem to be a mythical account of the colonization of Aegina, which seems to have been originally inhabited by Pelasgians, and afterwards received colonists from Phthiotis, the seat of the Myrmidons, and from Phlius on the Asopus.

During the naval expansion of Aegina during the Archaic Period, Kydonia was an ideal maritime stop for Aegina's fleet on its way to other Mediterranean ports controlled by the emerging sea-power Aegina.

Thebes, after the defeat by Athens about 507 BC, appealed to Aegina for assistance.

The Athenians were preparing to make reprisals, in spite of the advice of the Delphic oracle that they should desist from attacking Aegina for thirty years, and content themselves meanwhile with dedicating a precinct to Aeacus, when their projects were interrupted by the Spartan intrigues for the restoration of Hippias.

This inference is supported by the date of the building of the 200 triremes for the war against Aegina on the advice of Themistocles, which is given in the Constitution of Athens as 483-482 BC.

Overtures were unquestionably made by Thebes for an alliance with Aegina c. 507 BC, but they came to nothing.

It may be noted, in confirmation of this view, that the naval supremacy of Aegina is assigned by the ancient writers on chronology to precisely this period, i. e. the years 490-480.

This is corroborated by Benedict of Peterborough's graphic account of Greece, as it was in 1191, where he states that many of the islands were uninhabited from fear of pirates and that Aegina, along with Salamis and Makronesos, were their strongholds.

After the dissolution and partition of the Byzantine Empire by the Fourth Crusade in 1204, Aegina was accorded to the Republic of Venice.

Aegina obtained money for her defences by the unwilling sacrifice of her cherished relic, the head of St. George, which had been carried there from Livadia by the Catalans.

On 12 November, it was transported from Aegina, by Vettore Cappello, the famous Venetian commander.

In 1533, three rectors of Aegina were punished for their acts of injustice and we have a graphic account of the reception given by the Aeginetans to the captain of Nauplia, who came to hold an enquiry into the administration of these delinquents.

And against the sack of Megara, she had to face the temporary capture of the castle of Aegina by Kemal Reis and the carrying off of 2000 Aeginetans.

Aegina in 1845, by Carl Rottmann.

In 1693 Morosini resumed command, but his only acts were to refortify the castle of Aegina, which he had demolished during the Cretan war in 1655, the cost of upkeep being paid as long as the war lasted, by the Athenians, and to place it and Salamis under Malipiero as Governor.

In 1699, thanks to English mediation, the war ended with the peace of Karlowitz by which Venice retained possession of the 7 Ionian islands, Butrinto and Parga, the Morea, Spinalonga and Suda, Tenos, Santa Maura and Aegina and ceased to pay a tribute for Zante, but restored Lepanto to the Ottoman sultan.