History of the Cyclades read certain authors who say that the islands’ population is, of all the regions of Greece, the only original one, and has not been subjected to external admixtures. However, the Cyclades have very often known different destinies. Their natural resources and their potential role as trade-route stopovers has allowed them to be peopled since the Neolithic. Thanks to these assets, they experienced a brilliant cultural flowering in the 3rd millennium BC: the Cycladic civilisation. The proto-historical powers, the Minoans and then the Mycenaeans, made their influence known there. The Cyclades had a new zenith in the Archaic period (8th –
History of the Cyclades lieutenants. Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus was put in charge of the Cyclades. Thus, Pompey brought back the possibility of a prosperous trade for the archipelago. However, it appears that a high cost of living, social inequalities and the concentration of wealth (and power) were the rule for the Cyclades during the Roman era, with their stream of abuse and discontent. Augustus, having decided that those whom he exiled could only reside on islands more than 400 stadia (50 km) from the continent, the Cyclades became places of exile, chiefly Gyaros, Amorgos and Serifos. Vespasian organised the Cycladic archipelago into a