Ancient history

In ancient times there were various explanations for the name "Aegean". It was said to have been named after the town of Aegae in Evia; Aegea, a queen of the Amazons who died in the sea; and Aegeus, the father of the hero Theseus, who drowned himself in the sea when he thought his son had died.

The Aegean was the site of the original democracies, and it allowed for contact between several diverse civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean.  The sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations - the Minoans of Crete, and Mycenaean Civilization of the Peloponnese. Later arose the city-states of Athens, Sparta among many others that constituted the Hellenic Civilization.

Medieval

The Aegean Sea was later occupied by Romans, the Byzantine Empire, the Venetians, the Seljuk Turks, and the Ottoman Empire.

Finally, the Aegean became part of the modern Greek state, after the succesful revolution against the Turks in 1821.  Yet, some parts of the Archipelago reunited with Greece much later, for example the Dodekanese became Greek only after WW2 in 1945 (it was under Italian rule until then).

more history  source: Wikipedia.com