The Phoenicians Are Supposed To Have
Had A Settlement In This Island:
Afterwards it became an object of great
consequence to the Lacedaemonians, who fortified, at great expence, and
with much labour and skill, its two harbours, Cythera and Scandea.
The
convenience of these harbours to the Lacedaemonians compensated for the
sterility of the island, which was so great that when the Athenians
conquered it, they could raise from it only four Attic talents annually.
The chief employment and source of wealth to the inhabitants consisted in
collecting a species of shell-fish, from which an inferior kind of Tyrian
dye was extracted. There were several fisheries on the mainland of Laconia
for the same purpose.
Some of the other Greek islands require a short and general notice, on
account of the attention they paid to maritime affairs. Corcyra was
inhabited by skilful mariners, who, in the time of Herodotus, possessed a
greater number of ships than any other people in Greece, with the exception
of the Athenians; and, according to Thucydides, at one period they were
masters of the Mediterranean Sea. On the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, they
fitted out a fleet of sixty ships, with which they promised to assist their
countrymen; but, instead of this, their ships anchored in a place where
they could see the result of the battle of Salamis, and when they
ascertained that the Greeks were victorious, they pretended that they had
been prevented from affording the promised succours by contrary winds, so
that they could not double Cape Malea. Of the commerce of this island we
have no particulars detailed by ancient writers.
Egina, in the Saronic Gulf, acquired great wealth from the cultivation of
commerce: in the time of the Persian war, they equipped a very powerful and
well-manned fleet for the defence of Greece; and at the battle of Salamis
they were adjudged to have deserved the prize of valour. According to
Elian, they were the first people who coined money.
The island of Euboea possessed excellent harbours, from which, as it was
very fertile, the Athenians exported large quantities of corn. This island
is divided from the mainland of Greece by the Euripus, which the ancients
represented to be so extremely narrow, that a galley could scarcely pass
through it: its frequent and irregular tides were, also the subject of
their wonder, and the cause of them, of their fruitless researches and
conjectures. It hits several promontories, the doubling of one of which,
Cape Catharius, was reckoned by the ancients very dangerous, on account of
the many rocks and whirlpools on the const. Of all the cities of Euboea,
Chalcis was the most famous: its inhabitants applied themselves, at a very
early period, to navigation, and sent numerous colonies to Thrace, Macedon,
Italy, &c. In the vicinity of another of its towns, Carystus, there were
quarries of very fine marble, the exportation of which seems to have been a
lucrative trade: in the same part of the island also was found the
asbestos. Euboea possessed several rich copper and iron mines; and as the
inhabitants were very skilful in working these metals, the exportation of
armour, and various vessels made from them, was also one important branch
of their commerce.
Of the numerous colonies sent out by the Greeks, we shall notice only those
which were established for the purposes of commerce, or which, though not
established for this express purpose, became afterwards celebrated for it.
None of the Athenian colonies, which they established expressly for the
purpose of trading with the capital, was of such importance as Amphipolis.
This place was situated at the mouth of the river Strymon, on the borders
of Macedonia. The country in its vicinity was very fertile in wood, and
from it, for a considerable length of time, the Athenians principally
derived timber for building their fleets: they also levied on its
inhabitants a heavy tribute in silver coin. As this city was well situated
for commerce, and the Athenians, wherever they went, or were settled, were
eager in pursuit of gain, their colonists in Amphipolis extended their
trade, on one side into Thrace, and on the other into Macedonia. They were
enabled, in a great measure, to monopolize the commerce of both these
countries, at least those parts of them which were contiguous, from the
situation of their city on the Strymon; of which river they held, as it
were, the key, so that nothing could depart from it without their consent.
The ancients represent this river as frequently exhibiting immense logs of
wood floating down it, which had been felled either on Mount Rhodope, or in
the forests of Mount Hemus. The Athenians retained this important and
valuable colony till the time of Philip, the father of Alexander, by whom
it was taken from them.
The island of Samos may justly be regarded as a Grecian colony; having been
chiefly inhabited by the Iones, to whose confederacy it belonged. Its
situation between the mainland of Asia and the island of Icaria, from both
of which it is separated by very narrow straits, which were the usual
course for the ancient vessels in their voyage from the Black Sea to Syria
and Egypt, rendered it the resort of pirates, as well as celebrated for its
ships and commerce. The city of Samos, as described by the ancients, seems
to have been a place of great consequence. Herodotus mentions three things
for which it was remarkable in his time; one of which was a mole or pier,
120 feet long, which formed the harbour, and was carried two furlongs into
the sea. The principal design of this mole was to protect ships from the
south wind, to which they would otherwise have been much exposed. Hence it
would appear, that even at this early period, they had made great advances
in commerce, otherwise they would neither have had the disposition or
ability to build such a mole. But we have the express testimony of
Thucydides, that even at a much earlier period, - nearly 300 years before
the Peloponnesian war, - the Samians gave great encouragement to
shipbuilding, and employed Aminodes, the Corinthian, who was esteemed the
most skilful ship-builder of his time; and Herodotus speaks of them as
trading to Egypt, Spain, &c., before any of the other Greeks, except
Sostrates, of Egina, were acquainted with those countries.
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