Aegina, a triangular island in the Saronic Gulf of the Aegean Sea, twenty-three kilometers (fourteen miles) south of present Athens, settled since Late Neolithic times, was according to Herodotus, a colony of Epidaurus, to which state it was originally subject.

Its placement between Attica and the Peloponnesus made it a center of trade even earlier, and its earliest inhabitant came from Asia Minor.

Minoan ceramics have been found in contexts of around 2000 BCE.

The island is evidently occupied by Mycenaeans before about 1500.