Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/75

 NAVAL, f 0^R OF ATHENS. 51 Of the particular points on which their rivalry turned, we are unfortunately little informed. But it is highly probable that one of them was, the important change of policy above alluded to, — the conversion of Athens from a land-power into a sea-power, — the development of this new and stirring element in the minds of the people. By all authorities, this change of policy is ascribed principally and specially to Themistokles :i on that ac- count, if for no other reason, Aristeides would probably be found opposed to it, — but it was, moreover, a change not in harmony with that old-fashioned Hellenism, undisturbed uniformity of life and narrow range of active duty and experience, which Aris- teides seems to have approved in common with the subsequent philosophers. The seaman was naturally more of a wanderer and cosmopolite than the heavy-armed soldier: the modern Greek seaman even at this moment is so to a remarkable degree, distinguished for the variety of his ideas and the quickness of his intelligence :2 the land-service was a type of steadiness and in- ^ See ]Ir. Gait's interesting account of the Hydriot sailors, Voyages and Travels in the Mediterranean, pp. 376-378 (London, 1802). " The city of Hydra originated in a small colony of boatmen belonging to the Morea, who took refuge in the island from the tyranny of the Turks. About forty years ago they had multiplied to a considerable number, their little village began to assume the appearance of a town, and they had cargoes that went as far as Constantinople. In their mercantile transac- tions, the Hydriots acquired the reputation of greater integrity than the other Greeks, as well as of being the most intrepid navigators in the Archi- pelago ; and they were of course regularly preferred. Their industry and honesty obtained its reward. The islands of Spezzia, Paros, Myconi, and Ipsara, resemble Hydra in their institutions, and possess the same charac- ter for commercial activity. In paying their sailors, Hydra and its sister islands have a peculiar custom. The whole amount of the freight is con- sidered as a common stock, from which the charges of victualing the ship are deducted. The remainder is then divided into two equal parts : one is allotted to the crew, and equally shared among them without reference to age or rank ; the other part is appropriated to the ship and captain. The capital of the cargo is a trust givea to the captain and crew on certain fixed conditions. The character and manners of the Hydriot sailors, from the moral effect of these customs, are much superior in regularity to the ideas that we are apt to entertain of sailors. They are sedate, well-dressed, well-bred, shrewd, informed, and speculative. They seem to form a class, in the orders of mankind, which has no existence among us. By their
 * Plutarch, Themist. c. 19.