Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea forms the easternmost arm of the Mediterranean. It runs some four hundred miles from north to south and about one hundred and seventy-five miles from east to west. Its waters are deep, falling to more than four thousand feet in many places, and to far greater depths north of Crete. Its shores and islands are governed chiefly by the Ottoman Empire, though Venetian power still holds important stations. Genoese merchants, houses and old privileges still linger in certain ports.

To the south lie Kythera, Crete, Kaso, Karpathos and Rhodes, forming a broken maritime threshold between the Aegean and the open eastern Mediterranean. The sea is crowded with islands, many of them lying in chains, as though they are the exposed crests of drowned ridges and sunken mountains. Most are reckoned among the Cyclades or the Sporades. The Cyclades form a close cluster southeast of Greece. The Sporades lie more loosely scattered: the southern islands stand east of the Cyclades, off the coast of Asia Minor, while the northern islands lie above Euboea.

In the northeastern sea stand several larger islands, valuable not only for anchorage and trade, but for the command they give over the sea roads between Greece, Asia Minor and the straits. The chief importance of the Aegean islands lies in their service to sailors, merchants and fighting fleets. Their people live by oar, sail, fishing net, vineyard, olive grove and small field. Many of the islands are fertile despite their rocky appearance, and the sea itself gives coral, sponges and fish.