A History of Sea Power. Allan F. Westcott
contrast with these early sea explorers and sea fighters stand the peoples of China and India. Having reached a high state of culture at an early period, they nevertheless, sought no contact with the world outside and became stagnant for thousands of years. Indeed, among the Hindus the crossing of the sea was a crime to be expiated only by the most agonizing penance. Hence these peoples of Asia, the most numerous in the world, exercised no influence on the development of civilization compared with a mere handful of people 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 Phœnicia as it was later true of Venice, Holland, and England.
REFERENCES
The Sea Kings of Crete, J. Baikie, 1910.
Phœnicia, 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 Phœnician 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 Ægean; indeed just so long as Greek independence flourished anywhere there would always be the threat of revolt in the Greek colonies of Persia. Darius perceived rightly that the prestige and the future power of his empire depended on his conquering Greece.
In 492 he dispatched Mardonius with an army of invasion to subdue Attica and Eretria, and at the same time sent forth a great fleet to conquer the independent island communities of the Ægean. Mardonius succeeded in overcoming the tribes of Thrace and Macedonia, but the fleet, after taking the island of Thasus, was struck by a storm that wrecked three hundred triremes with a loss of 20,000 lives. As the broken remnants of the fleet returned to Asia, leaving Mardonius with no sea communications, and harassed by increasing opposition, he was compelled to retreat also. In 490 Darius sent out another army under Mardonius, this time embarking it on a fleet of 600 triremes which succeeded in arriving safely at the coast of Attica in the bay of Marathon. While the army was disembarking it was attacked by Miltiades and utterly defeated. The second expedition, therefore, came to nothing. But Marathon can hardly be called a decisive battle because it merely postponed the invasion; it affected in no way the communications of the Persians and it did not weaken seriously their military resources.
The great savior of Greece at this crisis was the Athenian, Themistocles. He foresaw the renewed efforts of the Persian king to destroy Greece, and realized also that the most vital point in the coming conflict would be the control of the sea. Accordingly he urged upon the Athenians the necessity of building a powerful fleet. In this policy he was aided by one of those futile wars so characteristic of Greek history, a war between Athens and the island of Ægina. In order to overcome the Æginetans, who had a large fleet, the Athenians were compelled to build a larger one, and by the time this purpose was accomplished rumors came that the Persian king was getting ready another invasion of Greece.
Campaign of Salamis
The third attempt was undertaken ten years after the second, in the year 480, under Xerxes, the successor to Darius. This time the very immensity of the forces employed was to overcome all opposition and all misfortunes. An army, variously estimated at from one to five million men, crossed the Hellespont on a bridge of boats to invade the peninsula from the north, while a fleet of 1200 triremes was assembled to insure the command of the sea.
Against the unlimited resources of the Persian empire and the unity of plan represented by Xerxes and his generals, the Greeks had little to offer. They possessed the two advantages of the defensive, knowledge of the terrain and interior lines,[1] but their resources were small and their spirit divided. Greece in those days was, as was later said of Italy, "merely a geographical expression." The various cities were mutually jealous and hostile, and it took a great common danger to bring them even into a semblance of coöperation. Even during this desperate crisis the cities of western Greece, counting themselves reasonably safe from invasion, declined to send a ship or a man for the common cause.
[Footnote 1: "'Interior Lines' conveys the meaning that from a central position one can assemble more rapidly on either of two opposite fronts than the enemy can, and therefore utilize force more effectively." NAVAL STRATEGY, A. T. Mahan, p. 32.]
 |
| ROUTE OF XERXES' FLEET TO BATTLE OF SALAMIS |
The Persian army advanced without opposition as far as the pass of Thermopylæ, which guarded the only road into the rest of Greece. Twelve days after the army had started on its march the great fleet crossed the Ægean to establish contact with the army and bring supplies. The army was checked by the valor of Leonidas, and the Persian fleet was intercepted by a Greek fleet which stood guard over the channel leading to the Gulf of Lamia, thus protecting the sea flank of Leonidas. The Persian fleet, after crossing the open sea safely, made its base at Sepias preparatory to the attack on the Greek fleet. The latter numbered only about 380 vessels to some 1200 of their enemy and the prospects for the Persian cause looked bright indeed. But as the very number of the Persian ships made it impossible to beach all of them for the night a large proportion of them were anchored, lying in eight lines, prows toward the sea. At dawn a northeast gale fell upon them, and, according to the Greek accounts, wrecked 400 triremes, together with an uncounted number of transports. Meanwhile the Greek ships had taken refuge under the lee of the island of Eubœa, and the news of the Persian disaster was signaled to them by the watchers on the heights.
 |
| SCENE OF PRELIMINARY NAVAL OPERATIONS, CAMPAIGN OF SALAMIS |
As soon as the weather moderated the Greeks returned to their position in the straits near Artemisium, and during the next three days the two fleets fought stubbornly but without advantage to either side. During the second day a southerly gale caught a flying