Abstract: The article is an attempt to find answers to the fundamental questions of which Roman province the individual islands belonged to and from when. The literature on the subject frequently presents the opinion that some of the Aegean Islands were incorporated into the province of Asia at the moment of its creation. The status of the other islands was, in turn, regulated by Augustus. After a meticulous analysis of sources, the author shows that such an image is oversimplified. The administrative affiliation of the individual islands changed depending on the political circumstances and the good or bad will of the Roman generals operating in the East. The efforts of the islanders themselves were also not without significance. The locations of the individual Aegean Islands were very different, and some of them formally became part of the Roman Empire only during the Flavian rule.

Key words: Aegean Islands in Roman times, Roman Greece, province of Asia.

In 1904 Victor Chapot published an extensive work on the history of the Roman province of Asia from the time of its creation to the Early Empire.1 In the fragment about the borders of the province, the historian concluded that it must have also included the islands situated in the direct vicinity of the western coast of Asia Minor. Although he rightly noted that literary sources do not give us information indicating that this was the case, this did not prevent him from concluding that the islands were closely connected with the coast and that their incorporation into the new province was a political and, first of all, economical necessity. Although Chapot's opinion was not received uncritically by later scholars, it is an incentive to analyse the changes in the formal and legal position of the Aegean Islands in the period between 129 BC, i.e. the creation of the province of Asia, and 294 AD, i.e. the creation of the provincia Insularum by Diocletian.

Writing about the islands which were supposed to be incorporated into the newly created province of Asia, Chapot made a general reference to a number of islands from Rhodes to Tenendos.