History of the Cyclades Roman province. Under Diocletian, there existed a “province of the islands” that included the Cyclades. Christianisation seems to have occurred very early in the Cyclades. The catacombs at Trypiti on Milos, unique in the Aegean and in Greece, of very simple workmanship, as well as the very close baptismal fonts, confirms that a Christian community existed on the island at least from the 3rd or 4th century. From the 4th century, the Cyclades again experienced the ravages of war. In 376, the Goths pillaged the archipelago. When the Roman Empire was divided, control over the Cyclades passed to the Byzantine
History of the Cyclades two cultures mixed tightly. One can see this in the motifs on the embroidery popular on the Cyclades; Italian and Venetian influences are markedly present there. In the 1260s and 1270s, admirals Alexios Doukas Philanthropenos and Licario launched an attempt to reconquer the Aegean on behalf of Michael VIII Palaiologos, the Byzantine Emperor. This failed to take Paros and Naxos, but certain islands were conquered and kept by the Byzantines between 1263 and 1278. In 1292, Roger of Lauria devastated Andros, Tinos, Mykonos and Kythnos, perhaps as a consequence of the war then raging between Venice and Genoa. At the