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 rare shipowners’ islands that managed to operate steam engines (for example, the source of the Goulandris’ fortune) and until the 1960s-1970s, it supplied the Hellenic Navy with numerous sailors. To this day, a certain number of natural resources offer the Cyclades occupations other than tourism. On certain islands, agriculture is still an activity of paramount importance, indeed so developed that the island could do without the presence of tourists (this is the case for Naxos). The Cyclades produce but above all export wine (Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Paros, Naxos, Sikinos and Santorini), figs (Syros, Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Naxos and Sikinos),