The Historians' History of the World 03

Although the Hellenes had been able to expand on the Italian, Sicilian, and Pontine coasts with almost no hindrance, Grecian colonisation met an insurmountable obstacle in the old civilised lands on the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean, with their dense populations. In Syria the Hellenes did not attempt a settlement; they were not even able to drive the Phœnicians out of Cyprus. Indeed, when the Assyrian king Sargon conquered Syria at the end of the eighth century, the Greeks on Cyprus thought it advisable to recognise his supremacy, at least nominally, and this relation continued under his successors until Asshurbanapal. Later, after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, the island came under Egyptian rule. Sargon’s son Sennacherib (705-681) repulsed an attempt of the Greeks to settle on the Cilician plain. The warlike tribes of rough Cilicia and Lycia also succeeded in keeping the Greeks at a distance from their coasts, or at least prevented their further expansion. Phaselis, founded by the Rhodians on the western shore of the gulf of Pamphylia in 700, remained the last Grecian colony in the south of Asia Minor.

The rich valley of the Nile attracted Grecian pirates at an early period, the more so as the political divisions of the country in the eighth and first half of the seventh century rendered an effective resistance impossible. The superior military ability of these pirates finally caused Psamthek, the ruler of Saïs, to hire them as mercenaries. With their aid he got the upper hand over the other sectional princes and freed Egypt from the Assyrian yoke (about 660-645). From that time forward, Greeks formed the kernel of the Egyptian army, and although the Nile valley was now closed to piracy, it was, on the other hand, open to Greek commerce. The Milesians founded a colony on the Bolbitinic mouth of the Nile, below Saïs; somewhat later a number of Greek mercantile settlements grew up at Naucratis, not far from the Canopic mouth of the Nile, to which King Aahmes granted rights of corporation. The city soon grew to be the chief commercial emporium of Egypt and in the sixth century occupied, on a small scale, a position like that of the later Alexandria. In the course of time the Greeks would without doubt have become rulers of the country, but the Persian conquest retarded their development for fully a century and put a limit to the further expansion of Hellenism.

The route from Greece to Egypt was usually by way of Crete in a southerly direction to the coast of Libya. This is the narrowest part of the eastern Mediterranean, and the stretch of open sea to be crossed measures hardly three hundred kilometers, about the same as the width of the Ægean Sea. The need soon began to be felt of having a station at the place where land was first touched again. Thus in 630 Greeks from Thera settled upon the small island of Platea, which is situated off the Libyan shore at precisely this point. After a few years the colonists felt strong enough to cross over to the mainland. At a short distance from the coast, where the high tableland of the interior slopes down to the sea, they founded the city of Cyrene. The fertility of the soil and the trade in the aromatic plant silphion, which is here indigenous and was highly prized by the Greeks, assured prosperity to the newcomers. The Libyan tribes living in the neighbourhood were subdued and an attack of the Egyptian king Apries [Uah-ab-Ra] was successfully repulsed (570). A short time later Barca was founded (550) on the heights of the plateau west of Cyrene, and Teuchira and Hesperides on the coast. Carthage prevented a further extension toward the west, and Egypt toward the east, and consequently Cerenaica remained the only district on the south coast of the Mediterranean, which was colonised by Hellenes.

Thus in the course of two centuries the Ionian Sea, the Propontis, and the Pontus had become Grecian seas, and Grecian colonies had arisen in Egypt as well as in Libya, on the west coast of Italy, and in the land of the Celts as far as distant Iberia. The nation had grown out of the narrow limits in which till then its history had been enacted. Greek influence was henceforth predominant within the entire circumference of the Mediterranean. The reaction of this on Grecian life was manifest in all its phases.c

FOOTNOTES

[14] [Recent excavations have tended to confirm the existence of Crete’s boasted hundred cities.]

CHAPTER XII. SOLON THE LAWGIVER

[594-593 B.C.]

It is on the occasion of Solon’s legislation that we obtain our first glimpse—only a glimpse, unfortunately—of the actual state of Attica and its inhabitants. It is a sad and repulsive picture, presenting to us political discord and private suffering combined.