Historical Overview
19
their most noteworthy achievement. The coastline of
mainland Greece was fully included in the Ottoman state in
1470. Lemnos and the Sporades remained with Byzantium
until almost its very end.
The Ottomans soon obtained a battle-ready fleet, which
raided the islands from 1341, looting and capturing entire
populations. Later, from the 15th c., they started occupying
islands, an enterprise that encountered the obstinate
resistance of the Venetians but was concluded in 1669 with
the fall of Crete.
The radical decline of the Byzantine state after the reign of
Andronicus II gradually affected almost all Aegean conquests
and obliterated all remains of its former maritime power. In
1309 the Knights Hospitaller conquered Rhodes and the
surrounding islands. Towards the mid-14th c. the Genoese
took Chios and Samos under their control, while the Gattilusi
(also Genoese) took Lesbos. At the same time, the Ottomans
made a dynamic appearance and by the end of the 14th
c. had occupied all Byzantine territories on the Asia Minor
coastline, as they steadily gained ground on the Thracian
and Thessalian coasts, with the occupation of Thessalonica
