Aegina Invasion

With the Lelantine War raging for trade routes between city-states. The island of Samos lead by King Amphicrates (Samos still under royalty at this time) built up a naval power and mounted an expedition against Aegina. He must of had help given the distance and with the allied city of Corinth very close by, it is conjected that it may be that they offered them assistance on the raids. Corinth who would rise to be a major naval power in Greece would have loved to see the naval force of Aegina weakened.

Aegina may have belonged to the Eretrian league during the Lelantine War, but they are not named in any ancient text; but it would better explain the war with Samos, a leading member of the rival Chalcidian league in the reign of King Amphicrates.

It seems though that even though Samos did do great damage to the island of Aegina, the two sides exhausted themselves in the battles and skirmishes as the Samos fleet incurred considerable damage.

This battle would lead to what Herodotus calls 'the ancient grudge' ^[1] in many years to come when the island of Aegina strikes for what the island of Samos had done, at the Battle for Cydonia.

The timing is interesting as it was the beginning of the tyranny age, where kings were being overthrown by powerful tyrants. It may be that with the decimation of the kings fleet, it lead to Amphicrates being overthrown on Samos as well.

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References:

*1 'Histories' by Herodotus; (5.81)

Ancient Greek thread

The word Europe is often associated with the mythical Greek woman Europa. However, delving deeper her mother Io who fell pregnant to Zeus involves her legendary trip from Greece to Asian Minor, to Egypt and back to Greece. Her trip, drawn out on a map would be a round circle, in Greek that word is 'γύρο' (in english euro or gyro). Io's daughter, when she was born was named Europa referring to her mother's adventure.

Contrary to what other web sites say, Europe is not named after Io's daughter Europa. But just like Europa, Europe comes from the root meaning 'γύρο' or in English 'round'. And 'opsus' referring generally to the face. 'The ancient Greeks were referred to themselves as 'people with round eyes', or 'Europeans'.
It only took on the term of Europe to mean the continent at a much later date.

The flag of the European Union carries on this tradition as their emblem has 12 stars and the dollar symbol are both based on a 'circle'.
Other english words that flow on from this are: gyro (euro in Greek)-referring to the meat that travel round, as it gets cooked. And other words with suffixes added to it such as gyro-copter, gyration etc.
The Greek word for circle is κυκλο (kyklo), the only thing we could think of where this has flowed on into english is the word Ku-Klux-Clan, or 'κυκλο clan' as in 'circle clan', referring to their method of forming a circle around a burning cross.