It is striking that while ancient writers described the Cyclades largely in negative terms relating to their image of remoteness, the islands’ sanctuaries and churches were commonly ascribed as ‘worth seeing’. This suggests that religious places were successfully maintaining their own reputations irrespective of the impression of the islands’ declines as we have seen already in Strabo’s description of a lack of significant urban space on Tenos but having a well-visited sanctuary (Strabo (Geography, 10.5.11)). Study of the religious places of the Cyclades enables a range of insights into behaviours on a community level as well as within the wider Mediterranean world. Religion is persistent and permeates private and public life. It is cross-cultural while being a fundamental element of group identity. As such, it is an ideal aspect of society by which to understand the impact of socio-economic and political variations as well as resilience in the islands as a result of becoming part of the Roman Empire and later Christianization. The spread and establishment of cult, as well as the evidence of visitors through their offerings and dedications, is indicative of the vitality of the sanctuaries and the range of network connections the islands had over the diachronic period under discussion.

Before the last ice age, the islands of Andros, Tenos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Syros, Ios, Sikinos and Folegandros formed one large land mass; Keos, Kythnos, Seriphos, Siphnos and Melos were all separate islands (Map 1.1). The three largest mountains are on Naxos, Andros and Amorgos. In the case of Naxos and Andros, the mountains slope gently down to the plains, in parts at least. Amorgos, on the other hand, has high, steep coasts on the east side with small coastal plains on the west and some plateaus in the mountains. The underlying bedrock of the islands is primarily metamorphic rocks including mica shists and marbles (Gaki-Papanastassiou et al., 2010, 299). Thera, Therasia, Melos, Kimolos and Anaphe (Figure A.2) have volcanic soils while the remaining islands primarily have limestone soils, which do not provide much cover over the jagged bedrock. Although soil on the majority of islands is not luxurious, it was good enough to sustain barley, pulses and olives (Berg, 2007, 33). Some of the islands, like Naxos and Keos, had good ground water but others like Melos did not (Berg, 2007, 34). For all the islands, fishing was a staple resource along with the meat of wild and domesticated animals. The Cyclades have different natural resources, available at different periods, including silver (Siphnos and Seriphos), marble (Paros, Naxos, Tenos), alum and minerals (Melos and Kimolos) as well as good agricultural potential on some, such as Naxos, Andros and Thera.

The Cyclades were busy places with significant resident communities evidenced through the settlement and mortuary remains. Analysis of epigraphic data can provide insights into individuals and families; however, this material pertains primarily to elites rather than representing a wide swathe of the population. Visitors (long- and short-term) to the islands are visible through evidence both direct (epigraphic material) and indirect (imported material). A great deal of work has been undertaken on the epigraphy of the Cyclades, in part reflecting what has been accessible for analysis. Research by Nigdelis (1990), Kiourtzian (2000), Mendoni and Zoumbaki (2008), Raptopoulos (2014) and Le Quéré (2015a) has highlighted an energetic and varied population throughout the islands.

The Cyclades positively benefitted from the economic and religious successes of Delos (Figures A.7–A.8), enabling wider business opportunities across the islands due to phase transition, as evidenced by the names of Italian bankers and traders on islands such as Tenos (S27) and Melos (S16) (Mendoni and Zoumbaki, 2008, 36; 41–2). Additionally, individual islands exploited their own resources for marketing: for example, Parian and Naxian marble and Siphnian and Seriphian ores. The civil wars, attacks on and eventual collapse of Delos in the mid first century bce resulted in a significant depletion of visitors to the archipelago, with a resonating impact on the islands of the Cyclades. The result was a direct economic crash and an indirect one due to the break in religious traffic, which had brought with it its own income stream. These problems were further exacerbated by pirates, who took their opportunities to profit from a troubled region. As noted in Chapter 1, piracy was enough to create stress on the economy, as is evidenced by the island of Tenos, which was in debt to the banker L. Aufidius Bassus (IG XII 5, 860) (de Souza, 2002, 163) (TEN 6).

The Cycladic islands, which lie scattered in the centre of the Aegean (Map 1.1), have had periods of outstanding achievements, as in the Bronze Age and Hellenistic periods, which have put into sharp relief the supposed dispiriting lows in the Roman and Late Antique periods. Investigating the veracity of these assumed low periods is made challenging by a dearth of historical or literary evidence pertaining to the islands during these periods. When they are mentioned, it is largely in terms of their insularity – as havens for pirates, places of exile or targets for invasions. Islands are often the first to experience change and, while this can be both positive and negative, the positives tend to be overshadowed by the negatives. Furthermore, scholarship on the islands has commonly taken a top-down approach, in which they are viewed through a lens of passiveness and as pawns in wider machinations rather than as decision-making entities in themselves. However, as Baldacchino (2008) warned, it is important not to overcompensate in attempting to move away from the top-down approach to the islands and place too much emphasis on their roles and importance in the broader context of study.

The most significant impact on the Cyclades in the first century bce was the demise of Delos and, contrary to common view, the inclusion of the Cyclades in the Roman Empire provided opportunities for these resilient islands to recover and develop. The collapse of the Delian economic and religious networks reverberated around the Cyclades. Islands such as Tenos that had flourished through phase transition, with renowned sanctuaries and elites, bankers and traders, began to fall to the side lines. As new smaller networks grew out of the splintered Delian one, islands such as Melos and Thera, which had been out of the Delian sphere, began to come to the fore. Without exception, the islands show remarkable resilience in the face of significant external threats – from loss of income livelihood to attacks by pirates. It is through this diachronic perspective that the success of the Cyclades become obvious.