AEGEAN SEA  Venetian government did not have the resources to support the active conquest of all the islands and ports. Th ey therefore gave individual adventurers the opportunity to bring territory into Venetian subjugation. For example, Marco Sanudo was among the commissioners who represented the government in the purchase of Crete from one of the Crusaders, Boniface of Montferrat. He also paid to equip eight galleys and hire enough sailors to conquer the island of Naxos. He then led the Venetian eff orts to con- quer the rest of the Archipelago, organizing it into a Duchy ruled by his family. Other adventurers followed suit and took control of other parts of the Aegean. For example, Catalan adventurers conquered and ruled Athens. Th e Italian and Iberian mariners carried many trade-goods through the Aegean, stopping at the islands and along the coast, mostly for the purposes of stocking up on water and waiting out weather. Th e Venetians eventually developed regular yearly fl eets that carried the most precious items, such as spices arriving in Constantinople from the Black Sea termini of the Silk Road. While the Venetians worked hard over the next few hundred years to completely control the Aegean Sea and trade routes, they were not ef- fective at preventing pirates from fl ourishing on the islands and preying on traffi c, nor at completely shutting their rivals out for example, Genoese adventurers took control of Chios to exploit its mineral reserves. Genoese, Catalan, and eventually Turkish pirates became such a threat to traffi c that the islanders eventually asked the Venetian govern- ment to exert more direct control. In the early years of the th century, Venice did actually buy or take over, by various means, many of the ports along the Adriatic coast, around the Peloponnesus and throughout the Aegean Sea, in an eff ort to prevent the spread of Ottoman Turkish control. In the long run, Venetian eff orts could not prevent the Ottomans from achieving hegemony throughout the Aegean. Th e fall of Constantinople in  fi nally gave them the key to the trade routes through the Aegean. Th rough the rest of the century, Ot- toman fl eets struggled with the Venetians, taking over the ports and water routes one by one. In , the bloody Battle of Coron, on the western coast of the Peloponnesus, spelled the end of Venetian dominance in the Aegean. Once more, the islands, shores, and routes were controlled by one force—this time the Islamic Ottoman Turks. While Venetians and other mariners continued to trade throughout the Aegean, once more the primary signifi cance of the region became as a transit zone that ships moved through, not remarkable for its individual achievements or places. Th is remained true until the th century, when the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of the countries of Greece and Turkey, and modern technological achievements made old transit routes much less important and led to the last transformation of the Aegean. It is once more important for its individual parts instead of the roads through it. Tourism in the th century has brought the individual islands back into prominence for their beauty and their historical remains. Eleanor Congdon
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