From Susa the story shifts back to Cyprus. #STRATEGIC VALUE OF CYPRUS.# The siege of Amathus is still proceeding, and Onesilos has just received word of the coming of a Phœnician fleet with a large Persian force aboard of it, under the command of Artybios. He accordingly despatched messengers to Ionia to ask for help. Herodotus emphasizes the promptness with which the Ionian fleet was despatched to aid the Cypriotes. It is plain that both sides recognized the crucial importance of the part which Cyprus had to play in the great struggle. The peculiar configuration of the neighbouring continent, which brings the only really practicable military line of communication between Asia Minor and the Euphrates valley into immediate contact with the shore of the Levant at that corner of the sea which is commanded by Cyprus, renders this island a strategical position of inestimable value either to a power assailing Asia Minor from the east, or to one defending it from the west. The Cypriote Greeks, backed by the Ionian fleet, would have been in a position to threaten at its weakest point the Persian line of communication with the Western satrapies. From it as a base also, the Ionian fleet might have made it impossible for the Phœnicians to sail to the Ægean. Cyprus was then, as it is now, the key of the Levant. Of its value as a strategic position the Greek was, moreover, fully aware. The alacrity with which the Ionians accepted the invitation in the present instance was equalled by the eagerness with which, twenty years later, the Greeks on the fleet under Pausanias sought to seize it, even when the liberation of the Ægean coast was as yet in its initial stage. They knew that its possession would inevitably facilitate their task nearer home. Had not Kimon died so inopportunely, Athens might have realized the dream of its permanent acquisition. But it was not merely its strategic position that rendered it so attractive in the eyes of the trading cities of Ionia. From a commercial point of view it would have supplied an ideal base for trade with the wealthy East, and would have placed the Greek trader in possession of a sea route of his own, instead of, on the one hand, a sea route on which he had to face the fierce Phœnician competition, and, on the other, a land route through Asia Minor, inconvenient alike from the expense of traffic along it, and from its passing through many alien peoples. When it is considered that the Ionian fleet had already in this campaigning season brought about the revolt both of the Hellespontine region and of Caria, it cannot be supposed that the expedition to Cyprus was undertaken earlier than the late summer of this year 497. Apart from the time spent in the actual operations at these two comparatively distant points, the ships of those days were not able to keep the sea for any prolonged period without a refit. ◆H. v. 108.◆