Archaeological findings of prehistoric settlements with obsidian tools point to early habitation of the island.
Earliest history (20th–7th centuries BC)
Aegina, according to Herodotus, was a colony of Epidaurus, to which state it was originally subject. Its placement between Attica and the Peloponnesus made it a center of trade even earlier, and its earliest inhabitants came from Asia Minor. Minoan ceramics have been found in contexts of ca. 2000 BC. The discovery on the island of a number of gold ornaments belonging to the last period of Mycenaean art suggests that Mycenaean culture held its own in Aegina for some generations after the Dorian conquest of Argos and Lacedaemon. It is probable that the island was not doricized before the 9th century BC.
One of the earliest historical facts is its membership in the League of Calauria (Calaurian Amphictyony, ca. 8th century BC), which included, besides Aegina, Athens, the Minyan (Boeotian) Orchomenus, Troezen, Hermione, Nauplia and Prasiae, and was probably an organization of city-states that were still Mycenaean, for the purpose of suppressing piracy in the Aegean that arose as a result of the decay of the naval supremacy of the Mycenaean princes.
Aegina appears to have belonged to the Eretrian league during the Lelantine War; hence, perhaps, we may explain the war with Samos, a leading member of the rival Chalcidian league in the reign of King Amphicrates (Herod. iii. 59), i.e. not later than the earlier half of the 7th century BC.
Rise as a sea power (6th–5th centuries BC)
Its early history reveals that the maritime importance of the island dates back to pre-Dorian times. It is usually stated on the authority of Ephorus, that Pheidon of Argos established a mint in Aegina. From this mint's output Kydonia on Crete began minting coins by over-striking Aeginetan specimens. Thus it was the Aeginetans who, within 30 or 40 years of the
