Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some 215,000 km² (83,000 sq mi). In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn connects to the Black Sea, by the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, respectively. The Aegean Islands are located within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea reaches a maximum depth of 3,544 m (11,627 ft) to the east of Crete. The Thracian Sea and the Sea of Crete are main subdivisions of the Aegean.

Quotes

• Blown, all alone, o’er the watery miles;
  Lost, I was tossed on those grape-laden isles.
  • Anonymous, "Borne on the Blue Ægean" (c. 1900) in Poetica Erotica, ed. T. R. Smith (1922)

• The sea, autumn mildness, islands bathed in light, fine rain spreading a diaphanous veil over the immortal nakedness of Greece. Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean Sea. [...] To cleave that sea in the gentle autumnal season, murmuring the name of each islet, is to my mind the joy most apt to transport the heart of man into paradise.
  • Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek, Ch. 2 (Tr. Carl Wildman, 1952)

• The Ægean Sea waters two sides of Greece; first, the eastern side, extending from the promontory Sunium to the north as far as the Thermæan Gulf, and Thessalonica, a Macedonian city, which has, at present, the largest population in these parts. Then the southern side, which is a part of Macedonia, extending from Thessalonica to the Strymon.
  • Strabo, Geography, VI, vii, 4 (Tr. H. C. Hamilton, 1854)