le in Crete or the island city of Tyre. And for the same
reason China and India ceased to progress and became for centuries
mere backwaters of history.

It is worth noting also that the Mediterranean, leading westwards
from the early developed nations of Asia Minor and Egypt, opened
a westward course to the advance of discovery and colonization,
and this trend continued as the Pillars of Hercules led to the
Atlantic and eventually to the new world. For every nation that
bordered the Mediterranean illimitable highways opened out for
expansion, provided it possessed the stamina and the skill to win
them. And in those days they were practically the only highways.
Frail as the early ships were and great as were the perils they
had to face, communications by water were far centuries faster
and safer than communications by land. Hence civilization followed
the path of the sea. Even in these early beginnings it is easy
to see that sea-borne commerce leads to the founding of colonies
and the formation of an empire whose parts are linked together
by trade routes, and finally, that the preservation of such an
empire depends an the naval control of sea. This was as true of
Crete and Phoenicia as it was later true of Venice, Holland, and
England.

REFERENCES

THE SEA KINGS OF CRETE, J. Baikie, 1910.
PHoeNICIA, Story of the Nations Series, George Rawlinson, 1895.
THE SAILING SHIP, E. Keble Chatterton, 1909.
SHIPS AND THEIR WAYS OF OTHER DAYS, E. Keble Chatterton, 1913.
ANCIENT SHIPS, Cecil Torr, 1894.
ARCHEOLOGIE NAVALE, Auguste Jal, 1840.
THE PREHISTORIC NAVAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE NORTH OF EUROPE,
G. H. Buhmer, in Report of the U. S. National Museum, 1893.
This article contains a complete bibliography on the subject of
ancient ships.
SEA POWER AND FREEDOM (chap. 2), Gerard Fiennes, 1918.

CHAPTER II

ATHENS AS A SEA POWER

1. THE PERSIAN WAR

In determining to crush the independence of the Greek cities of
the west, Darius was influenced not only by the desire to destroy a
dangerous rival on the sea and an obstacle to further advances by the
Persian empire, but also to tighten his hold on the Greek colonies of
Asia Minor. Helped by the Phoenician fleet and the treachery of the
Lesbians and Samians, he had succeeded in putting down a formidable
rebellion in 500 B.C. In this rebellion the Asiatic Greeks had
received help from their Athenian brethren on the other side of
the AEgean; indeed just so long as Greek