Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/127

 13, 14] CORINTHIAN AND OTHER NAVIES II chiefly by land, had to pass through her territory in order to reach one another. Her wealth too was a source of power, as the ancient poets testify, who speak of ' Corinth the rich ^.' When navigation grew more common, the' Corinthians, having already acquired a fleet, were able to put down piracy ; they offered a market both by sea and land, and with the increase of riches the power of their city increased yet more. Later, in the time of Cyrus, the B.C. 559- first Persian king, and of Cambyses his son, the lonians ^^■ ° •'_ ' 01. 55, 2 - had a large navy ; they fought with Cyrus, and were for 624. > a time masters 'of the sea around their own coasts. Poly- B.C.529- -^ 522. crates, too, who was a tyrant of Samos in the reign ofoi. 62, 4- Cambyses, had a powerful navy and subdued several of ^'*' ^^ the islands, among them Rhenea, which he dedicated to the Dehan Apollo^'. And the Phocaeans, when they were colonising Massalia, defeated the Carthaginians on B.C. 600. ♦ u 01- 45- the sea. ^ These were the most powerful navies, and even these, 14 which came into existence many gene- <.. , /■ v -' ° bcaycttv of inreiiies. rations after the Trojan War, appear Smallness of the Athe- to have consisted chiefly of fifty-oared «'«« ««^' Aeginetan vessels and galleys of war, as in the -^"^'^' days of Troy; as yet triremes were not common. But a little before the Persian War and the death of Darius, B.C. 485. who succeeded Cambyses, the Sicilian tyrants and the • ''3' 4- Corcyraeans had them in considerable numbers. No other maritime powers of any consequence arose in Hellas before the expedition of Xerxes. The Aeginetans, Athe-^ nian.s, and a few more had small fleets, and these mostly I consisted of fifty-oared vessels. « Even the ships which the Athenians built quite recently at the instigation of Themistocles, when they were at war with the Aeginetans » II. ii. 570. ^ Cp. iii. 104 init. "= Or. ' It was quite at a recent period, when the Athenians were at war with the Aeginetans and in expectation of the Barbarian, that Themistocles persuaded them to build the ships with which they fought at Salamis ; and even these were not completelj' decked.'