Aegina, Greece: Mythical Island of the Vanished Goddess

Across the blue waters of the Saronic Gulf, scarcely an hour from the great sprawl of Athens, lies an island that once dared to rival it.

Aegina today has an altogether gentler character. Fishing boats crowd its harbour, neoclassical buildings line the waterfront, pistachio trees cover parts of its interior, and pine-covered hills descend towards small beaches and coves. Yet beneath this relaxed island atmosphere lies a history of remarkable ambition, wealth, and maritime power.

Set between Attica and the Peloponnese, Aegina, or Aigina, belongs to the Saronic Islands, together with Salamis, Agistri, Poros, Hydra and Spetses. Their proximity to Athens has long made them favourite escapes from the capital, places where the city seems to fall away remarkably quickly once the ferry leaves Piraeus.

For Aegina, however, Athens has always been more than a neighbour across the sea. It was once its great rival.

An Island Born from Myth

Like so many places in Greece, Aegina emerges from mythology before it enters recorded history.

According to ancient tradition, the island was originally known as Oenone. Its later name came from Aegina, daughter of the river god Asopus, whom Zeus brought to the island. Here she gave birth to Aeacus, who became its legendary king and one of the most respected figures in Greek mythology.

The myths surrounding Aeacus became deeply entwined with the island’s identity. His descendants included some of the greatest heroes associated with the Trojan War, among them Ajax and Achilles, giving this relatively small island a prestigious place within the heroic imagination of ancient Greece.

Archaeology reveals an equally deep human presence. Aegina was inhabited from prehistoric times, and its position in the Saronic Gulf placed it naturally along maritime routes connecting mainland Greece, the Aegean, and the wider Mediterranean.

The Island That Rivalled Athens

By the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, Aegina had grown into one of the leading maritime and commercial powers of the Greek world.

Its merchants travelled widely, its ships moved through the Mediterranean, and its wealth was reflected in an extraordinary achievement: the production of some of the earliest and most influential silver coinage used by the Greeks.

The famous Aeginetan staters carried the image of a sea turtle, an immediately recognisable emblem for an island whose prosperity depended upon the sea. These heavy silver coins circulated far beyond Aegina itself and became an important currency in international trade long before the celebrated Athenian silver owls came to dominate Greek commerce.

For a time, Aegina possessed the naval strength, commercial wealth, and confidence to challenge Athens almost on its own doorstep.

The rivalry became increasingly bitter during the early 5th century BCE. Aegina fought with distinction against the invading Persians and played an important role at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE, but the growing naval empire of Athens eventually proved overwhelming.

By the middle of the century, Aegina had been defeated and brought under Athenian domination. At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE, the Athenians expelled the Aeginetan population and settled their own citizens on the island.

A maritime power that had once rivalled Athens had been broken, although Aegina itself would endure through the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and later periods.

Aegina Town and the Birth of Modern Greece

More than two thousand years later, Aegina again found itself at the centre of Greek history.

During the final years of the Greek War of Independence, the seat of the emerging Greek administration was transferred to Aegina in 1827. When Ioannis Kapodistrias arrived in January 1828 to take office as the first Governor of the new Greek state, Aegina became the centre from which he began the immense task of organising a country emerging from years of revolution and war.

Although the government was subsequently transferred to Nafplio, Aegina retains a special place in modern Greek history as the first capital and administrative centre of the independent state.

Today, Aegina Town gives little impression of such political upheaval. It is one of the most appealing harbour towns of the Saronic Gulf, its waterfront alive with fishing boats, ferries and pleasure craft. Neoclassical houses and public buildings face the sea, while tavernas, cafes, churches and narrow streets extend inland from the harbour.

Everywhere there are reminders of the island’s most famous modern product: the Aegina pistachio. Shops and market stands overflow with pistachios in every imaginable form: roasted, salted, sweetened, ground into pastes, and incorporated into pastries and desserts. The pistachio has become almost inseparable from the identity of the island.

Kolona and the Ancient City

Only a short walk from the harbour lies one of Aegina’s most important archaeological areas, the hill of Kolona.

The name, meaning simply “column”, refers to the solitary standing column that survives from the ancient Temple of Apollo. Yet the ruins scattered across the hill reveal a history reaching far deeper than the Classical period.

Kolona was occupied from prehistoric times and later formed part of the ancient city and its acropolis. Successive settlements, sanctuaries, and fortifications rose here over thousands of years, overlooking the sea routes that helped make Aegina prosperous.

Beside the ruins stands the Archaeological Museum of Kolona. Founded by Ioannis Kapodistrias in 1829, it has the distinction of having begun as the first National Archaeological Museum of the modern Greek state. Its collections reveal the long history of the island, from prehistoric settlement through the great age of ancient Aegina and into Late Antiquity.

There is something particularly evocative about Kolona at the edge of the modern town: fragments of one of Greece’s earliest maritime powers remain within sight of the ferries arriving from Athens, the ancient and modern worlds facing the same stretch of sea.

The Temple of Aphaia

The greatest surviving monument on Aegina stands away from the town, high among the pines of the island’s northeastern hills.

The Temple of Aphaia is one of the finest preserved temples of ancient Greece and perhaps the most beautiful expression of Aegina’s former wealth and confidence.

The sanctuary itself is considerably older than the surviving temple. Archaeological evidence indicates that the hill had been a place of worship since the Mycenaean period, associated with an ancient female divinity whose origins may have preceded the later Greek identification of her as Aphaia. An earlier Doric temple was constructed during the 6th century BCE before being destroyed by fire around 510 BCE. The magnificent temple visible today arose soon afterwards, around 500 to 490 BCE, when Aegina was approaching the height of its power.

Aphaia was a mysterious local goddess whose name is traditionally understood as “the unseen one”, “the invisible one”, or “she who disappeared.” Her identity became associated with Britomartis, a Cretan goddess or nymph closely connected with Artemis. According to ancient tradition, Britomartis was a daughter of Zeus and Carme who loved hunting and roaming the mountains and forests of Crete. When King Minos pursued her, she fled from him and eventually threw herself into the sea, where she became caught in the nets of fishermen. In Crete she consequently became known as Dictynna, the “Lady of the Nets”.

The legend continues that Britomartis eventually reached Aegina, where she escaped into a sacred grove and mysteriously vanished from sight. It was from this disappearance that the Aeginetans were said to have called her Aphaia, “she who disappeared”, and established her sanctuary on the wooded hill. The meaning of her name therefore seems particularly fitting for a goddess whose mythology is bound to concealment, escape, and disappearance into the landscape.

Built largely from local limestone, the Doric temple originally possessed thirty-two exterior columns, a remarkable number of which remain standing. Its proportions are beautifully balanced, while its elevated position allows sweeping views through the surrounding pines towards the Saronic Gulf.

The temple was once considerably more colourful than the pale stone monument seen today. Its architectural decoration included painted elements and magnificent marble pedimental sculptures portraying battles associated with Troy. Athena stood at the centre of the compositions, surrounded by warriors that included heroes connected through mythology with Aegina.

The sculptures were removed from the site in the early 19th century and eventually entered the collection of the Glyptothek in Munich, where they remain among its greatest treasures.

Much has also been made of Aphaia’s geographical relationship with other major sanctuaries of ancient Greece. Various geometric patterns and so-called sacred triangles have been drawn between the temples and sanctuaries in Attica and beyond. Whether these alignments reflect deliberate ancient planning or simply the human desire to find patterns in a landscape rich with sacred places remains uncertain.

Standing on the hill itself, surrounded by pines, stone and distant sea, the Temple of Aphaia requires little additional mystery. Its goddess was remembered as the one who disappeared, yet more than two thousand five hundred years later, her sanctuary remains dramatically visible above the Saronic Gulf.

Across the Saronic Sea

Part of Aegina’s enduring appeal lies in the contrast between its closeness to Athens and the sense of separation created by the sea.

Ferries leave Piraeus throughout the day, and the crossing can be remarkably brief, particularly aboard the faster vessels. Within a short time, the crowded avenues and apartment blocks of the capital have disappeared behind the wake of the ferry.

Ahead lies an island of fishing harbours, pistachio orchards, ancient sanctuaries and wooded hills.

Aegina may now be one of the most accessible island retreats from Athens, but its history reveals something far greater. This was once a proud maritime state whose ships travelled across the ancient Mediterranean, whose silver turtles passed through distant markets, and whose power was considerable enough to trouble Athens itself.

High above the Saronic Gulf, the columns of Aphaia still catch the changing Greek light, looking across the same waters that carried Aegina’s merchants, warriors, and rivals more than two thousand years ago.

View a selection of images of Aegina

All Images, Text and Content are Copyright Steven Sklifas