History of the Peloponnesian War

Of the cities, again, such as were founded most recently and when there were now greater facilities of navigation, having greater abundance of wealth, they were built with walls on the very shores; and occupied isthmuses, with a view both to commerce and to security against their several neighbours: whereas the old ones, owing to the [*]( Goeller reads ἀντισχοῦσαι instead of ἀντισχοῦσαν, which he pronounces inexplicable, and interprets it thus, Veteres urbes ob latrocinia, post quam diu et restiterunt et perduraverunt, longius a mari conditae sunt. ) long continuance of piracy, were built farther off from the sea, both those in the islands and those on the mainlands; (for they used to plunder one another, and all the rest who lived by the sea without being seamen;) and even to the present day they are built inland.

And the islanders especially were pirates, being Carians and Phoenicians. For it was these that had colonized most of the islands. And this is a proof of it:—When Delos was purified by the Athenians in the course of this war, and all the sepulchres of those who had died in the island were taken up, above half were found to be Carians; being known by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the manner in which they still bury.

But when the navy of Minos was established, there were greater facilities of sailing to each other. For the malefactors in the islands were expelled by him, at the same time that he was colonizing most of them.

And the men on the sea-coast, now making greater acquisition of wealth, led a more settled life: and some of them even surrounded themselves with walls, on the strength of growing richer than they had before been. For through desire of gain, the lower orders submitted to be slaves to their betters; and the more powerful, having a superabundance of money, brought the smaller cities into subjection.

And being now more in this state of things, some time after they made the expedition against Troy.

And Agamemnon appears to me to have assembled the armament because he surpassed the men of that day in power, and not so much because he took the suitors of Helen bound by their oaths to Tyndarus.