As a final word on the beginnings of navies, emphasis should be laid on the enormous importance of these early mariners, such as the Cretans and the Phoenicians, as builders of civilization. The venturesome explorer who brought his ship into some uncharted port not only opened up a new source of wealth but also established a reciprocal relation that quickened civilization at both ends of his route. The cargo ships that left the Nile delta distributed the arts of Egypt as well as its wheat, and the richest civilization of the ancient world, that of Greece, rose on foundation stones brought from Egypt, Assyria, and Phoenicia. It may be said of Phoenicia herself that she built-up her advanced culture on ideas borrowed almost wholly from her customers. But control of the seas for trade involved control of the seas for war, and behind the merchantman stood the trireme. It is significant and appropriate that a Phoenician coin that has come down to us bears the relief of a ship of war. In 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 Phoenicia as it was later true of Venice, Holland, and England. REFERENCES