invention of coinage in Asia Minor by the Ionian Greeks or the Lydians (c. 630 BC), introduced coinage to the Western world. The fact that the Aeginetan standard of weights and measures (developed in the mid-7th century) was one of the two standards in general use in the Greek world (the other being the Euboic-Attic) is sufficient evidence of the early commercial importance of the island.
During the naval expansion of Aegina during the Archaic Period, Kydonia was an ideal maritime stop for Aegina's fleet on its way to other Mediterranean ports controlled by the emerging sea-power Aegina. During the next century Aegina was one of the three principal states trading at the emporium of Naucratis, and it was the only state of European Greece that had a share in this factory. At the beginning of the 5th century it seems to have been an entrepôt of the Pontic grain trade, which, at a later date, became an Athenian monopoly.
Unlike the other commercial states of the 7th and 6th centuries BC, such as Corinth, Chalcis, Eretria and Miletus, Aegina founded no colonies. The settlements to which Strabo refers (viii. 376) cannot be regarded as any realRivalry with Athens (5th century BC)
The history of Aegina, as it has come down to us, is almost exclusively a history of its relations with the neighbouring state of Athens, which began to compete with the thalassocracy of Aegina at the beginning of the sixth century. Solon passed laws limiting Aeginetan commerce in Attica. The legendary history of these relations, as recorded by Herodotus (v. 79-89; vi. 49-51, 73, 85-94), involves critical problems of some difficulty and interest. He traces the hostility of the two states back to a dispute about the images of the goddesses Damia and Auxesia, which the Aeginetes had carried off from Epidauros, their parent state.
The Epidaurians had been accustomed to make annual offerings to the Athenian deities Athena and Erechtheus in payment for the Athenian
