Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/486

 454 HISTORY OF GREECE. upon them the necessity both of iwlitical harmony at home, and of prudence and persuasive agency in their mode of dealing with neighbors. That they were found equal to this necessity, ap- pears sufficiently attested by the few general statements trans- mitted in respect to them ; though their history in its details is unknown. Their city was strong by position, situated upon a promontory washed on three sides by the sea, well-fortified, and possessing a convenient harbor securely closed against enemies.^ The domain around it however appears not to have been large, nor did their population extend itself much into the interior. The land around was less adapted for corn than for the vine and the olive ; wine was supplied by the Massaliots throughout Gaul.'^ It was on shipboard that their courage and skill was chiefly displayed; it was by maritime enterprise that their power, their wealth, and their colonial expansion was obtained. In an age when piracy was common, the Massaliot ships and seamen were effiictive in attack and defence not less than in transport and comiuercial interchange ; while their numerous maritime successes were attested by many trophies adorning the temples.' The city contained docks and arsenals admirably pro- vided with provisions, stores, arms, and all the various muni- ments of naval war.* Except the Phenicians and Carthaginians, these Massaliots were the only enterprising mariners in the AVestern Mediterranean ; from the year 500 B. c. downward, after the energy of the Ionic Greeks had been crushed by inland potentates. The Iberian and Gallic tribes were essentially landsmen, not occupying permanent stations on the coast, nor having any vocation for the sea; but the Ligurians, though chiefly mountaineers, were annoying neighbors to Massalia as well by their piracies at sea as from their depredations by land.* To all these landsmen, however, depredators as they wei-e, the visit of the trader soon made itself felt as a want, both for import J Caesar, Bell. Gall. ii. 1 ; Strabo, iv. p. 179. " See Poseidonius ap. Athenseum, iv. p. 152. '■' Strabo, iv. p. 180. and Carthage; types of maritime cities highly and effectively organized
 * Strabo (xii. p. .575) places Massalia in the same rank as Kyzikus. Rhodes.
 * ■ Livy, xl. 18 ; Polybius xxx. 4.