Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
The islanders, too, were great pirates. These islanders were Carians
and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized, as was
proved by the following fact. During the purification of Delos by
Athens in this war all the graves in the island were taken up, and it
was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they were
identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the
method of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow.
But as soon as Minos had formed his navy, communication by sea became
easier, as he colonized most of the islands, and thus expelled the
malefactors. The coast population now began to apply themselves more
closely to the acquisition of wealth, and their life became more
settled; some even began to build themselves walls on the strength of
their newly acquired riches. For the love of gain would reconcile the
weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital
enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller towns to subjection.
And it was at a somewhat later stage of this development that they went
on the expedition against Troy.
What enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my opinion,
his superiority in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus, which bound
the suitors to follow him. Indeed, the account given by those
Peloponnesians who have been the recipients of the most credible
tradition is this. First of all Pelops, arriving among a needy
population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that,
stranger though he was, the country was called after him; and this
power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his
descendants. Eurystheus had been killed in Attica by the Heraclids.
Atreus was his mother’s brother; and to the hands of his relation, who
had left his father on account of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus,
when he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenæ and the
government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return, Atreus
complied with the wishes of the Mycenæans, who were influenced by fear
of the Heraclids—besides, his power seemed considerable, and he had not
neglected to court the favour of the populace—and assumed the sceptre
of Mycenæ and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And so the power
of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater than that of the
descendants of Perseus. To all this Agamemnon succeeded. He had also a
navy far stronger than his contemporaries, so that, in my opinion, fear
was quite as strong an element as love in the formation of the
confederate expedition. The strength of his navy is shown by the fact
that his own was the largest contingent, and that of the Arcadians was
furnished by him; this at least is what Homer says, if his testimony is
deemed sufficient. Besides, in his account of the transmission of the
sceptre, he calls him
Of many an isle, and of all Argos king.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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