It is scarcely necessary to follow further in detail the services which
Phoenicia rendered to Persia as her submissive and attached ally. For
the space of about seventy-five years from the date of the engagement
at the Eurymedon (B.C. 465-390), the Phoenicians continued to hold the
first place among the Persian naval states, and to render their mistress
effective help in all her naval enterprises. They protected Cyprus
and Egypt from the Athenian attacks, bore their part in the war with
Amyrtæus and Inaros, and more than once inflicted severe blows upon the
Athenian navy.[14314] It was his command of a Phoenician fleet amounting
to nearly a hundred and fifty triremes which enabled Tissaphernes to
play so influential a part in Asia Minor during the later years of the
Peloponnesian war. It was the presence of their ships at Cnidus which,
in B.C. 394, turned the scale between Athens and Sparta, enabling
the Athenians to recover the naval supremacy which they had lost at
Ægos-Potami. It was the appearance of a Phoenician fleet in Greek
waters[14315] which, in the following year, gave an opportunity to the
Athenians to rebuild their “Long Walls,” alarmed Sparta for her own
safety, and extorted from her fears--in B.C. 387--the agreement known
as “the Peace of Antalcidas.” Persia owed to her Phoenician subjects
the glory of recovering complete possession of Asia Minor, and of being
accepted as a sort of final arbiter in the quarrels of the Grecian
states. From B.C. 465 to B.C. 392 Phoenicia served Persia with rare
fidelity, never hesitating to lend her aid, and never showing the least
inclination to revolt.
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