History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)Maspero, G. (Gaston)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12)
Maspero, G. (Gaston)
Civilization, Ancient; Egypt -- History -- To 640 A.D.; History, Ancient; Middle East -- History
the Mycenean states, they had to give up the stations and harbours of
refuge which they held in the other islands or on the continent.
* It is mentioned in the inscription of Baal of Lebanon, and
in the Assyrian inscriptions of the VII century B.C.
* This would appear to be the case, as far as Rhodes is
concerned, from the traditions which ascribed the final
expulsion of the Phoenicians to a Doric invasion from Argos.
The somewhat legendary accounts of the state of affairs
after the Hellenic conquest are in the fragments of Ergias
and Polyzelos.
They still continued, however, to pay visits to these
localities--sometimes in the guise of merchants and at others as
raiders, according to their ancient custom. They went from port to port
as of old, exposing their wares in the market-places, pillaging the
farms and villages, carrying into captivity the women and children whom
they could entice on board, or whom they might find defenceless on the
strand; but they attempted all this with more risk than formerly, and
with less success. The inhabitants of the coast were possessed of
fully manned ships, similar in form to those of the Philistines or
the Zakkala, which, at the first sight of the Phoenicians, set out in
pursuit of them, or, following the example set by their foe, lay in
wait for them behind some headland, and retaliated upon them for their
cruelty. Piracy in the Archipelago was practised as a matter of course,
and there was no islander who did not give himself up to it when
the opportunity offered, to return to his honest occupations after a
successful venture. Some kings seem to have risen up here and there who
found this state of affairs intolerable, and endeavoured to remedy it
by every means within their power: they followed on the heels of the
corsairs and adventurers, whatever might be their country; they followed
them up to their harbours of refuge, and became an effective police
force in all parts of the sea where they were able to carry their flag.
The memory of such exploits was preserved in the tradition of the Cretan
empire which Minos had constituted, and which extended its protection
over a portion of continental Greece.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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