Editing Aegean Sea (section)

===Ancient Greece===
{{See also|Ancient Greece}}
[[File:Greek Galleys.jpg|200px|thumb|upright=1.25|A fleet of Athenian [[trireme]]]]
[[File:Celcius library.jpg|200px|thumb|upright=1.25|[[Library of Celsus]], a Roman structure in important sea port [[Ephesus]]]]
The [[Archaic Greece|Archaic period]] followed the Greek Dark Ages in the 8th century BC. Greece became divided into small self-governing communities, and adopted the [[Phoenician alphabet]], modifying it to create the [[Greek alphabet]]. By the 6th century BC several cities had emerged as dominant in Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, [[Corinth, Greece|Corinth]], and [[Thebes (Greece)|Thebes]], of which Athens, Sparta, and Corinth were closest to the Aegean Sea. Each of them had brought the surrounding rural areas and smaller towns under their control, and Athens and Corinth had become major maritime and mercantile powers as well. In the 8th and 7th centuries BC many Greeks migrated to form [[Colonies in antiquity|colonies]] in [[Magna Graecia]] ([[Southern Italy]] and [[Sicily]]), Asia Minor and further afield. The Aegean Sea was the setting for one of the most pivotal naval engagements in history, when, on 20 September 480 B.C., the Athenian fleet gained a decisive victory over the Persian fleet of the [[Xerxes II of Persia]] at the [[Battle of Salamis]]. Thus ending any further attempt of western expansion by the [[Achaemenid Empire]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herodotus |title=Histories. Book VIII |date=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |others=Bowie, Angus M. |isbn=978-0-521-57328-3 |location=Cambridge, UK |oclc=159628612 }}</ref>

The Aegean Sea would later come to be under the control, albeit briefly, of the [[Macedonia (ancient kingdom)|Kingdom of Macedonia]]. [[Philip II of Macedon|Philip II]] and his son [[Alexander the Great]] led a series of conquests that led not only to the unification of the Greek mainland and the control of the Aegean Sea under his rule, but also the destruction of the [[Achaemenid Empire]]. After Alexander the Great's death, his empire was divided among his generals. [[Cassander]] became king of the Hellenistic kingdom of Macedon, which held territory along the western coast of the Aegean, roughly corresponding to modern-day Greece. The Kingdom of [[Lysimachus]] had control over the sea's eastern coast. Greece had entered the [[Hellenistic period]].