Why was it that Crete never recovered?

[CobaltKnight]

I find it reasonable that the Minoan civilization ultimately went extinct because of factors caused by the Thera Eruption; tidal waves, destruction of fleet, cooled temp affecting crops, lack of defense from Greek mainland, etc... What I've recently been wondering is why Crete didn't ever recover from the disasters that led to it's original cultures destruction? There's around 1000 years between the Eruption and the Greco-Persian Wars, when the Greek city states we all know really started interacting with the wider Mediterranean. But it looking for info on Crete during these times, the most I come by is that they developed the same city-state political system as the mainland, and then it jumps to the Roman Era.

So the question isn't "why didn't the Minoans survive," but rather, why did none of Crete's city-states come to much prominence during the classical age before the Romans?

 

[idomeneas]

I find it reasonable that the Minoan civilization ultimately went extinct because of factors caused by the Thera Eruption; tidal waves, destruction of fleet, cooled temp affecting crops, lack of defense from Greek mainland, etc... What I've recently been wondering is why Crete didn't ever recover from the disasters that led to it's original cultures destruction? There's around 1000 years between the Eruption and the Greco-Persian Wars, when the Greek city states we all know really started interacting with the wider Mediterranean. But it looking for info on Crete during these times, the most I come by is that they developed the same city-state political system as the mainland, and then it jumps to the Roman Era.

So the question isn't "why didn't the Minoans survive," but rather, why did none of Crete's city-states come to much prominence during the classical age before the Romans?

a) Because Crete is not fertile enough to support a large population
b) Great political division , Homer states 90 cities in Crete which means that most of them would have been fairly insignigiacat
c) Great internal conflicts (see for excaple the treate between Itanos and Ierapytna preserved in the Toplou monastery)
d) Culturalry not unified with large area never becoming assimilated to the Doric culture but preserving the Eteokretan one (ie Itanos)
e) contstant meddling from the mainland (many later spartan kings seemed to believe that Crete was their playground)

As you can see there are many reasons why there was a dominant Cretan state until the middle ages.

 

[Winnabago]

Mycenae became dominant, and once Greece got itself together, it stayed that way. Crete eventually became a pirate haven to contrast Greece, but the Romans take care of that pretty well, forcing Crete to remain a Greek mercantile frontier.