As any other place, Paros island too lived moments of great prosperity and decline. Its economic prosperity was based on trade and the extraction of the famous Parian marble, which was used for the construction of some of the most important works of art of the era.

During the Persian invasion in Greece, Paros sided with the Persians so as to be saved from destruction. Indeed it is quite possible that a Parian ship participated on their side in the battle of Marathon.

After the defeat of the Persians, Paros joined the Athenian League and being a relatively affluent island, it paid substantials sums of money. Soon Paros came under Macedonian rule and after the occupation of Greece by the Romans, it followedthe same fate.

Years later, the island took up Christianity and in the 4th century AD, when under Byzantine rule, the most important monument to date was created in Paros: Panagia (Mary) Ekatontapiliani.

From 1207 on, Paros became part of the Dukedom of the Aegean and remained under Venetian and Frankish occupation until 1537, when the notorious Barbarossa occupied and plundered the island. Since then Paros was part of the Ottoman Empire, until the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821. The island rose up along with the rest of Greece and from the first moment of the establishment of the New Greek state, Paros is an integral part.