Greece Is So Admirably Situated For
Maritime And Commercial Enterprize, That It Must Have Been Very Early
Sensible Of Its Advantages In These Respects.
The inhabitants of the isle
of Egina are represented as the first people in Greece who were
distinguished for their intelligence and success in maritime traffic:
Soon
after the return of the Heraclidae they possessed considerable commerce, and
for a long time they are said to have held the empire of the adjoining sea.
Their naval power and commerce were not utterly annihilated till the time
of Pericles.
The Corinthians, who are not mentioned by Homer as having engaged in the
Trojan war, seem, however, not long afterwards, to have embarked with great
spirit and success in maritime commerce; their situation was particularly
favourable for it, and equally well situated to be the transit of the land
trade of Greece. Corinth had two ports, one upon each sea. The Corinthians
are said to have first built vessels with three banks of oars, instead of
galleys.
Although the Athenians brought a considerable force against Troy, yet they
did not engage in maritime commerce till long after the period of which we
are at present treating.
Of the knowledge which the Greeks possessed at this time, on the subject of
geography, we must draw our most accurate and fullest account from the
writings of Homer and Hesiod. The former represents the shield of Achilles
as depicting the countries of the globe; on it the earth was figured as a
disk surrounded by the ocean; the centre of Greece was represented as the
centre of the world; the disk included the Mediterranean Sea, much
contracted on the west, and the Egean and part of the Euxine Seas. The
Mediterranean was so much contracted on this side, that Ithaca, and the
neighbouring continent, or at the farthest, the straits which separate
Sicily from Italy, were its limits. Sicily itself was just known only as
the land of wonders and fables, though the fable of the Cyclops, who lived
in it, evidently must nave been derived from some obscure report of its
volcano. The fables Homer relates respecting countries to the west of
Sicily, cannot even be regarded as having any connection with, or
resemblance to the truth. Beyond the Euxine also, in the other direction,
all is fable. Colchis seems to have been known, though not so accurately as
the recent Argonautic expedition might have led us to suppose it would have
been. The west coast of Asia Minor, the scene of his great poem, is of
course completely within his knowledge; the Phoenicians and Egyptians are
particularly described, the former for their purple stuffs, gold and silver
works, maritime science and commercial skill, and cunning; the latter for
their river Egyptos, and their knowledge of medicine. To the west of Egypt
he places Lybia, where he says the lambs are born with horns, and the sheep
bring forth three times a year.
In the Odyssey he conducts Neptune into Ethiopia; and the account he gives
seems to warrant the belief, that by the Ethiopians he meant not merely the
Ethiopians of Africa, but the inhabitants of India: we know that the
ancients, even so late as the time of Strabo and Ptolemy, considered all
those nations as Ethiopians who lived upon the southern ocean from east to
west; or, as Ptolemy expresses it, that under the zodiac, from east to
west, inhabit the inhabitants black of colour. Homer represents these two
nations as respectively the last of men, one of them on the east and the
other on the west. From his description of the gardens of Alcinous, it may
even be inferred that he had received some information respecting the
climate of the tropical regions; for this description appears to us rather
borrowed from report, than entirely the produce of imagination.
Close to the gates a spacious garden lies,
From storms defended and inclement skies.
Four acres was th' allotted space of ground,
Fenc'd with a green enclosure all around,
Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould;
The red'ning apple ripens here to gold.
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows,
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows,
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,
And verdant olives flourish round the year.
The balmy spirit of the western gale
Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail:
Each dropping pear a following pear supplies,
On apples apples, figs on figs arise:
The same mild season gives the blooms to blow,
The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow;
Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear,
With all th' united labours of the year;
Some to unload the fertile branches run,
Some dry the black'ning clusters in the sun,
Others to tread the liquid harvest join,
The groaning presses foam with floods of wine.
Here are the vines in early flow'r descry'd,
Here grapes discolour'd on the sunny side,
And there in autumn's richest purple dy'd.
Beds of all various herbs, for ever green,
In beauteous order terminate the scene.
_Odyssey,_ b. vii. v. 142.
This description perfectly applies to the luxuriant and uninterrupted
vegetation of tropical climates.
From the time of Homer to that of Herodotus, the Greeks spread themselves
over several parts of the countries lying on the Mediterranean sea. About
600 years before Christ, a colony of Phocean Greeks from Ionia, founded
Massilia, the present Marseilles; and between the years 500 and 430, the
Greeks had established themselves in Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and even in
some of the southern provinces of Spain. They were invited or compelled to
these emigrations by the prospect of commercial advantages, or by intestine
wars; and they were enabled to accomplish their object by the geographical
and nautical charts, which they are said to have obtained from the
Phoenicians, and by means of the sphere constructed by Anaximander the
Milesian. The eastern parts of the Mediterranean, however, seem still to
have been unexplored. Homer tells us that none but pirates ventured at the
risk of their lives to steer directly from Crete to Lybia; and when the
Ionian deputies arrived at Egina, where the naval forces of Greece were
assembled, with an earnest request that the fleet might sail to Ionia, to
deliver their country from the dominion of Xerxes, who was at that time
attempting to subdue Greece, the request was refused, because the Greeks
were ignorant of the course from Delos to Ionia, and because they believed
it to be as far from Egina to Samos, as from Egina to the Pillars of
Hercules.
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