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 the archipelago and remained the principal source of obsidian; and Santorini played for Crete the same role Kea did for Attica. The great majority of bronze continued to be made with arsenic; tin progressed very slowly in the Cyclades, beginning in the northeast of the archipelago. Settlements were small villages of sailors and farmers, often tightly fortified. The houses, rectangular, of one to three rooms, were attached, of modest size and build, sometimes with an upper floor, more or less regularly organised into blocks separated by paved lanes. There were no palaces such as were found in Crete or on