Sea-Power in Greek Thought Author(s): Arnaldo Momigliano Source: The Classical Review, Vol. 58, No. 1 (May, 1944), pp. 1-7 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/701960 Accessed: 06/09/2010 12:25

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http://www.jstor.org THE CLASSICALREVIEW MAY 1944

SEA-POWER IN GREEK THOUGHT As far as I know, the history of the idea According to him Polycrates was the of thalassocracy in Greek thought has first who conceived the design of gain- never been written-a surprising fact. ing the empire of the sea, 'unless it were Neither can I deal with it here ade- Minos the Cnossian, and those (if there quately. But an outline from Hero- were any such) who had the mastery of dotus to the Greek source on which the Aegean at an earlier time' (iii. 122). Cicero drew may well be attempted for A period of thalassocracy is attributed the use of future students.' also to Aegina (v. 83). In the alleged I. Reckoning power in terms of debate at Gelo's court, where the ships is already a feature of the Homeric Spartan and Athenian ambassadorsare Catalogue-not an obvious thing (apart supposed to have come for help (vii. from the position of the Catalogue in 157 ff.), Gelo asks for the supreme com- the Iliad), on which I should like to mand, but would remain content with hear more from Homeric scholars.z the command of the fleet. The Athen- The Odysseygives an account of a naval ians refuse it indignantly: if the Spar- powerin its descriptionof the Phaea- tans do not want to have it, the cians: they delight in ships rather than Athenians, who have 'raised up a navy in war, their fault is isolation (not greater than that of any other Greek promiscuity in their foreign relations, people', are the only ones entitled to the usual later criticism of maritime the succession. This is a good piece of cities). But the poet is somewhat Athenian retrospective propaganda of politicizing fairyland. His tale, al- the time of the Delian League (cf. vii. though largely utilized by philosophers 139 and Aesch. Pers. 728).' I leave and moralists for contrasting purposes, aside the list of thalassocracies which did not influence the later discussion Eusebius' Chronikonderived from Dio- on sea-power to a noticeable extent. dorus (Book VII). Some modern scho- Thalassocracy, as is well known, be- lars have attributed it to the labours comes a clear-cut idea in Herodotus. of an unknown Greek historian of the fifth and, indeed, SThe learned friends who century B.c., any helped my paper research of that type would fit the fifth 'Terra marique' (ourn. Rom. Stud. xxxii, 1942, 53) have contributedto this sketch also (I add the century. But I do not see sufficient names of A. W. Gomme, P. Treves, and A. N. evidence that the list, as we have it, is Sherwin-White);but they do not necessarilyshare earlier than Diodorus' contemporary my belief that a synthetic survey, however bad, Castor of Rhodes, whom we know to must precede analytic study, however good. Herodotus is quoted in Rawlinson's translation, have composed a treatise on thalas- Thucydides in Jowett's, Isocrates in G. Norlin's socracies. That Castor and, in general, (Loeb Library), Plato's Laws in A. E. Taylor's the scholars of the Alexandrian tradi- M. (J. Dent). tion were able to utilize fifth-century 2 I. ii. 614 distinguishessea-power from land- studies on that theme Hero- power. F. Jacoby explained 'Die Einschaltung (besides des Schiffkatalogsin die Ilias' in Sitz. Preuss. Ak. dotus and Thucydides) is possible, but 1932, 572 ff., but the historical interpretation of the not yet supported by proofs.Z catalogue has hardly progressed since B. Niese (1873)and E. Rohde, KI. Schriften,i. io7 (=Rh. I The latest discussion is by P. Treves, Class. Museum, xxxvi, 1881,570). W. Leaf, Homerand Philol. xxxvi, 1941, 321; but I am not certain, as History, 1915,though certainly right versus T. W. Trevesis, that the embassyto Gelois not historical. Allen, J.H.S. xxx, 1910, 292 (an article expanded, Cf. F. Jacoby, P.-W., Suppl. ii, s.v. 'Herodotus', but not improved, in his book of I192I), is again too 453-4. conjectural. At the moment non liquet is the 2 For the fifth-centuryorigin of the Eusebian wisest conclusion. Cf. J. L. Myres, Who werethe list see especially J. L. Myres,J.H.S. xxvi, 19o6, Greeks? 1930, 312. 84; xxvii, 1907, 123, and A. R. Burn, ib. 4598.15 2 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW In Athens facts had a way of becom- mocracy easy. Clearly the author is an ing spiritual problems; and Athenian oligarchicpessimist who despisesAthen- thalassocracy itself underwent search- ian democracy, but recognizes its con- ing analysis both in its presuppositions sistency and strength. He despairs of and its effects.' The controversy did a change, although he does not con- not remain confined to Athens. The sider it impossible, Athens not being pamphlet of Stesimbrotus of Thasos an island: if she were, her thalassocracy On Themistocles,Thucydides, and Peri- would be unbreakable. The author says cles (written after 430 B.C.) was in much less than he thinks, but obviously effect an attack on Athenian sea-power does not believe sea-power compatible and on Themistocles as a corrupter of with decent government. We shall the Athenian people (Plut. Themist. 4). find this conclusion explicit in Iso- It is no longer possible to say how much crates, De Pace. On this, as on many Stesimbrotus depended on contem- topics, Isocrates seems to derive his porary Athenian discussions. The argument from the anti-democratic Pseudo-Xenophontean Constitution of tradition of the fifth century. Athens, which I date between 431 and II. It would be difficult to prove that 425 B.c., with a slight preference for the Pericles' last speech in Thucydides years 431-430, offers more solid ground.z (ii. 60-4) is directed against the Pseudo- The writer affirmsthe relation between Xenophontean pamphlet, but probably sea-powerand democracy: as the power Thucydides knew it,' and certainly the of Athens depends on the sea, sailors set of arguments which Pericles takes are inevitably the masters of Athens. for granted, and sweepingly turns to He illustrates also the strategic advan- a glorification of the current war, tages of sea-power over land-power in would not have been repudiated by the forming and holding an empire: mili- oligarchicwriter. Sea-poweris at stake tary campaigns can be organized, in this war. 'You think that your em- enemy trade can be hampered, hostile pire is confined to your allies, but I say coalitions can be forestalled much more that of the two divisions of the world easily by a naval than by a land power. accessible to man, the land and the Above all he knows that sea-power sea, there is one of which you are means wealth; and wealth makes de- absolute masters, and have, or may have, the dominion to any extent which This Contra: W. Rh. Mus. you please.' sea-power xlvii, 1927, 165. Aly, lxvi, implies tyranny, which it may seem 1911, 585; cf. R. Helm, Hermes, lxi, 1926, 241; Kubitschek,P.-W., s.v. 'Kastor', 2355. Relevant wrong to have assumed, but which it also are Jacoby, FGrH ii D, p. 816; G. Murray, is certainly dangerous to let go--and The Rise of the Greek Epic, 3rd ed., 1924, 322-6, inglorious, because hatred does not and H. Winckler, Der alte Orient, vii, 1905, 20. last long, but 'besides the immediate Castor's work is mentioned by Suidas (Jacoby, of the renown FGrH 250 T i). splendour great actions, I First direct evidence in Aeschylus,Pers. 728, of them endures for ever in men's of 472 B.C. memories'. The speech, clearly written 2 I think that the pamphlet is later than the or rewritten after the end of the first Spartan invasion of Attica and earlier than does not one Brasidas'expedition to Thraceand very probably Peloponnesian War, deny than Aristophanes'Knights; also it is easier to of the main contentions of the oli- understandif it is earlier than the great plague, garchic analysis of Athenian power: although (as H. T. Wade-Gerypoints out to me) the Athenian is a the is not to be democracy tyranny a mention of plague expected. founded upon sea-power. Yet the For a differentview see A. W. Gomme, Athenian of that is assumed to Studies presented to W. S. Ferguson, 194o, 211 f., glory power who gives the bibliography(cf. H. Diller, Gnomon, justify acceptance of the consequences. 1939, 113-24). On Stesimbrotus F. Jacoby, If the oligarch's implicit assumption FGrH ii D, p. 343, is more persuasive than R. was that sea-power ought to be given Laqueur, P.-W., s.v. 'Stesimbrotos'. For the relations between Ps.-Xen. and Thucydides the I In i. 143 Thucydidesuses the same argument son of Melesiassee H. T. Wade-Gery,J.H.S. Iii, of the 'island'; in iv. 85. 4 a rejoinderto Ps.-Xen. 1932, 208. ii. 5 seems clear. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 3 up as being related to an immoral tions (ch. 7): the point is important form of empire, the implicit conclusion because Plato thought differently. At of Pericles (Thucydides) is that the last, after the first experiment of the immorality of the Athenian Empire is Lelantine Wars, the Persian Wars to be accepted and defended because introduced land-poweron a Panhellenic related to the glory of sea-power. scale and by implication made possible A remarkable statement in this the divisions of Greece between the speech of Pericles is that neither have land-hegemon and the sea-hegemon. the Athenians ever reflected on this That was the balance of power which, subject of sea-power, nor has he dealt in Alcibiades' opinion, it would have with it in his previous speeches (ch. 62). been the interest of the king of Persia Thus in the opinion of Thucydides, if to preserve (viii. 46).' It is obvious, not of Pericles, the argument was fairly although never explicitly stated, that new about 430 B.C. I do not suggest Thucydides recognized a strict con- that we may conclude from this passage nexion between the sea-power of alone that the oligarchic pamphlet was Athens and the psychological attitude not yet published at that date, but of the Athenians as described in i. 70 certainly we have here a warning and in Pericles' Funeral Speech; he was against assuming much earlier litera- also clearly aware that sea-power pro- ture on the subject. duces wealth and is the best security The argument which in Pericles' against enemies. speech appears as a direct defence of the III. We may well imagine that much Athenian Empire runs also through the literature attacking Athenian sea-power introductory chapters of Book I, which was produced immediately after 404 I still believe to have been written B.C., but it is all lost, except, in one before 404 B.C.' The whole growth of sense, the Gorgias (cf. 519 A)-and the Greece up to the Persian Wars is I Alcibiades (cf. I34 B) if it is taken as described in terms of naval power. authentic. But it is typical of the 'Whereas by land, no conflict of any earlier Plato that he does not discuss kind which brought increase of power the material features of Athenian im- ever occurred; what wars they had perialism,while he recognizesnavigation were mere border feuds. Foreign and as an element of a primitive, healthy, distant expeditions of conquest the political society (Ref. 371 B).2 Iso- Hellenes never undertook, for they crates evidently polemizes against the were not as yet ranged under the com- literature attacking Athenian sea-power mand of the great states, nor did they in the great manifesto of the Second form voluntary leagues or make ex- Athenian League-the Panegyricus peditions on an equal footing' (ch. i5). (about 380 B.C.). He wants to persuade Agamemnon's hegemony during the the Greeks that the first Athenian Trojan War was very similar to the of Athens in the I See also i. hegemony league. Thucyd. 8o-1, 93, 121, 143; iii. 13, 39- 'It was, as I believe, because Agamem- --Euripides is unkind to the sailor in Hec. 606; non inherited this power and because Iph. Aul. 914 (cf. 450, 517). Aristophanesnever disapprovedof sea-powerand he was in sympathy he was the greatest potentate of his with the sailor: see for time that he was able to assemble the instance Ach. 648; Eq. 551, 1300oo; Vesp. og91; Ran. 698, 1465, and A. W. expedition; and the other princes Gomme's vigorous paper in Class. Rev. lii, 1938, followed him, not from good will, but lo6-7 (also R. W. Macan, Herodotus, i895, ii. 182ff.). from fear' (ch. 9). Homer, who had Sea-powerwas no problemto him. ventured to take the view in 2 E. Schwartzrightly observed: 'es kann kein opposite Zufall sein, dass weder die Reichspolitiknoch der Odyssey, v. 307, is unceremoniously ZusammenbruchAthens in den Diskussionender snubbed. That the older cities were Sokratik irgend eine erhebliche Rolle spielen' built at a distance from the sea is (Thukydides, 2nd ed., 1929, 152). For an analysis of ioo see considered a of Isocrates,Paneg. ff., Wilamowitz,Arist. sign primitive condi- und Athen, ii. 380 ff. I do not consider texts, like Andocides,De pace, whichare not directattacks on Cf. Riv. Fil. Class. lxv, 1937,284. sea-power. 4 THE CLASSICALREVIEW Empire was never a tyranny (Ioo ff.), (also touched upon in Antid. 64; Phil. but does not discuss the typical 61) is perhaps better explained by the features of a sea-hegemony and subor- words of the Panathenaicus: 'a land- dinates the whole to his propagandafor power is fostered by order and sobriety a crusade against Persia. In Xeno- and discipline and other like qualities; phon's description the new Athenian a sea-poweris not augmented by these, League reopened the contention over but by the crafts which have to do with sea-hegemony. The speech of Poly- the building of ships and by men who damas of Pharsalus (374 B.c.) presents are able to row them-men who have Jason as meaning to get sea-rule (Hell. lost their own possessions and are vi. I, io); and in 369 the Spartans are accustomed to derive their livelihood said to have recognized the sea-hege- from the possessions of others' (115- mony of Athens in magnanimouswords 16). Renunciation of sea-power, to which, intentionally or not, throw Isocrates' mind, is the only solution. unfavourable light on the subsequent Xenophon (who, incidentally, excluded behaviour of Athens (vii. I ff.).' Criti- sea-power from the horizon of his ideal cism of Athenian sea-power became state in the Cyropaedia) offered at louder again after the Social War least an alternative to the greedy (about 357-355 B.c.).2 Isocrates, caring Athenians by his financial scheme in little for consistency, but not for the the Revenues-a product of the same first time critical of Athenian demo- years and with the same bias.' Like the cracy, drew far-reaching consequences. writer of the pamphlet on the Constitu- Sea-power is the evil, both for Athens tion of Athens, Xenophon was aware and for Sparta. In the De pace of that imperialism meant wealth, and 355 B.C.3 the argument is developed at wanted to persuade the Athenians that length. Land-powerimplies and fosters they might obtain wealth from peaceful virtue, but sea-power is definitely commerce and from their own mines. demoralizing: it causes injustice, in- Isocrates was much more austere: he dolence, lawlessness, avarice, covetous- offered only moral prestige in exchange. ness, and is equivalent to tyranny. But in the Panathenaicus he made a Look at the Spartans: 'Because of partial recantation. Sea-power was their supremacy on land and of their described as a necessary evil which stern discipline and of the self-control Athens had not been able to avoid lest which was cultivated under it, they she should become a prey to her enemies. readily obtained command of the sea, No wonder that Isocrates' pupils were whereas because of the arrogancewhich divided on sea-power. Theopompus, of was bred in them by that power they course, was scornful of sailors and speedily lost the supremacy both on maritime cities; Ephorus thought that land and on sea. For they no longer sea-power has something to do with a kept the laws which they had inherited good constitution.z from their ancestors nor remained IV. Plato, who had before ruled out faithful to the ways which they had sea-power, but had never discussed it, followed in times past, but conceived now became eloquent on the subject. that they were licensed to do whatever The myth of the Critias was imagined they pleased and so were plunged into great confusion' (102-3). The point I Cf. Ann. Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa, s. ii. 5 (1936),Io9 ff. (with bibliography). SI cannot discuss here the purpose of these 2 On the Panathenaicussee the bibliographyin chaptersin Xenophon'smind: cf. Mem. iii. 5. Momigliano,Filippo il Macedone,1934, 190. On F cf. 2 On the chronologysee E. Schweigert,Hesperia, Theopompussee FGrH 115 62, 281; ioo, 105, viii, 1939,12. 114, 204, 233. On Ephorus70 F 149; cf. 119; also, 3 Cf.W. Jaeger,Athenian Studies ... Ferguson, most significant, Diod. xv. 79, with which cf. 425,n. i andthe essay mentioned in n. 2. Aelius Isocr. v. 53; Plut. Philop. 14, and Aristid. 33 Aristideswrote a speech with the title 'Isocrates (Leuctr.I), 421,P. 634,Dindorf. (Researchon the tries to wean the Atheniansfrom their empire of sources of Aelius Aristides has overlooked these the sea' (Philostr.Lives of the Sophists,ii. 9, passages: bibl. in A. Boulanger, Aelius Aristide, p. 58401.). 1923, 281.) THE CLASSICALREVIEW 5 to describe the victory of the ideal sailors should not have rights of citizen- State over sea imperialism,though even ship. Perioeci and peasants from her there navigation is not taken as an evil territory will make up the crews. Thus ipsofacto. The indictment of navigation Aristotle, being less strict than Plato is peculiar to the Laws. Indeed the about war and wealth, could confirm verdict of the Laws (Book IV) is that the condemnation of Athenian sea- a State aiming at peace ought not even power without involving sea-power to be within sight of the sea lest it in general: he avoided the politi- should succumb to the sea's tempta- cal power of the sailors which had tions. The traffic of a port 'breeds characterizedthe Athenian democracy. shifty and distrustful habits of soul, Aristotle's solution seems to have won and so makes a society distrustful and wide acceptance in Hellenistic thought. unfriendly within itself as well as It advocated a proper distance of the towards mankind at large' (705). The ideal city from the sea, but left her State of the Laws is notoriously critical as many harbours as necessary. The of travels and travellers (949; 952). letter of Ps.-Aristeas, which is a descrip- Furthermore, sea-fighting encourages tion of an ideal State,' points out that, if cowardice, as Homer is said to have Jerusalem is far from the sea and nobly noticed already (Il. xiv. 96-102). Thus isolated, her State has plenty of good the problem of the choice of the best harbours and 'does not suffer for lack place for a new State becomes inti- of imports by sea' (114). The most mately connected with the controversy important document of the post- on Athenian sea-hegemony. In the Aristotelian tradition is in Cicero's De same passage Plato attacks Athens Republica. The passage is well known: directly and disparages the battle of 'est autem maritimis urbibus etiam Salamis.' quaedam corruptela et demutatio A famous passage of the Politics morum ...' (ii. 4.7). The corruption and (vii. 4, P. 1327a ii), obviously aimed at misfortunes of Greece are due to the the Laws, waters down Platonic in- fact that Greek cities are usually by transigence into typical Aristotelian the sea. However, Cicero,like Aristotle, compromise.ZAll the evils which Plato does not repudiate the advantages of enumerated exist (Aristotle admits), a harbourclose at hand, and finds merit but the military and economic advan- in Romulus' choice of a position from tages of a sea-side town must not be which 'posset urbs et accipere a mari overlooked. If the city is a market only quo egeret et reddere quo redundaret' for herself and not for others, the (cf. Livy, v. 54. 4 'mari vicinum ad dangers of avarice will be avoided; if commoditates nec expositum nimia the port is separated from the city, propinquitate ad pericula classium ex- being almost another town, unpleasant ternarum'). Cicero's passage is doubly intercourse will be prevented. Nor precious because the comparison with must a city renounce a fleet, even a his letter to Atticus, vi. 2. 3, leaves powerful fleet, if she wants to have a no doubt that his Peripatetic source hegemonical and political life, but the was Dicaearchus.z In general Hellen- istic writers appreciated sea-power,3 I On the Salamis-motive in literature, G. Schmitz-Kahlmann,Das Beispiel d. Geschichteim I Bibliographyin W. W. Tarn, The Greeksin politischen Denken des Isokrates, 1939, pp. 77, Bactria and India, 1938, 424 ff. n. 1; 79, n. 1. Plato probably knew Ps.-Xenoph. 2 On Dicaearchus, F. Egermann, Sitz. Akad. Const. of Athens: Laws 707 AX Ps.-Xen. i. 2. The Wien, ccxiv. 3, 1932, 51 ff. R. v. Scala, Stud. d. alleged Spartan prohibitionof navigation (Plut., Polybius, i, 189o, 233, on Hippodamus' Hiep Inst. Lac. 239 E, ch. 42) is a late falsification. HoAhrldavand Cicero must be consideredsuper- 2 See especiallyW. L. Newman, Polit. of Arist. seded. Pompey, as is well known, was deeply i. 317 ff. On Aristotle's judgement of Athenian aware of the importance of sea-power (Cic. ad sea-power, Pol. ii. 1274ai5; v. 13o4a2o;viii. I34Ia29; Att. x. 8. 4; Plut. Pomp. 50o;Plin. N.H. vii. 98). 'AO.HoA. 23 ff. For later biographicaldiscussion His son learned from him. of it, Plut. Themist. 19 (cf. 4); Arist. 22; Cim. 5; 3 Cf. my paper 'Terra marique' in Journ. Rom. Philop. 14. Stud., 1942. Cf. also Athen. viii. 334 a, b. 6 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW but the prestige of land-powerremained just men 'do not travel on ships, but greater. The superiormoral qualities of grain-giving earth bears them fruit'). a land-power over a sea-power were In the former case it was presupposed reaffirmedby Polybius in his compari- that sea-power was a normal element son between Rome and Carthage(vi. 52), of a political society; in the latter both although his arguments do not con- sea-power and land-power were elimin- sider sea-power per se. ated.x But of course it is very probable V. Also a different, non-philosophi- that the idea of a Golden Age without cal, tradition played a part in this navigation slumbered at the back of limited defence of sea against the at- the mind of writers like Plato.2 tacks of land-minded philosophers: the Another point remains to be ex- tradition of the 'encomium'. At least amined: whether the Platonic con- from Sophocles, Oedipus Col. 711, or, demnation of sea-power was repeated perhaps better, from Homer onwards by the Romans in order to justify the (for instance, Odyss. xix. 172), the destruction of Carthage. So much is eulogy of a country used to include the certain, that the Roman offer that the eulogy of the sea surroundingit. Even Carthaginians should settle at least Xenophon in his Revenues 3 (where eighty stades from the sea corresponds he repeats a commonplace on Attica) exactly to the suggestion of the Laws glorifies the sea of Attica. This tradi- for the ideal city. Appian goes a step tion (to be found also in Ephorus' farther. He attributes to the Roman description of Boeotia, ap. Strab. ix. consul L. Marcius Censorinus a long 2. 2 = FGrH 70 F I19 Jac.) obviously speech which develops the Platonic influenced Ps.-Aristeas and Cicero, and argumentagainst sea-power(Pun. 86-9). appears again in the encomia of Rome If the speech could be proved to derive and Italy by Virgil (Georg. ii. 162), ultimately from Polybius, it might Pliny (N.H. iii. 4I; xxxvii. 201), correspond to the real words of a Aristides (To Rome 7), etc. All this Roman consul. But the derivation has encomiastic literature never implied never been demonstrated (though never more than an acknowledgementof sea- disproved), and all we can say is that facilities as one of the advantages Appian provides evidence that Platonic offered by the eulogized country and arguments were utilized by Roman therefore contributed to what we would annalists to justify Roman cruelty.3 call the Aristotelian compromise.' In other words, the passage of Appian On the other hand, no important is evidence for the survival of the part in this development can be attri- buted to the usual Graeco-Romancon- I Cf. Aesch. Prom. 467; Eurip. Suppl. 209; ception that primitive and 'Golden Arat. Phaen. iio; Strab. xi. 4. 3; Philo, Quod did not know of omnis probus, 12, 78; Lucret. v. 100oo6;Virg. Age' peoples naviga- Georg. i. 137; ii. 503; Tib. i. 3. 35; Ovid, Met. i. 94; tion. The idea of a state of nature Amor. iii. 8. 43; Manil. Astr. i. 77; Sen. Med. 301; either was antithetic to that of a body Phaedra, 530. These and other texts are quoted politic (cf. Odyssey, ix. 125, on the by A. O. Lovejoy and G. Boas, Primitivism and Cyclopes) or was meant to describe a Related Ideas in Antiquity, Baltimore, 1935,passim. condition of without war and Negatively, it is interesting that sea-power is not happiness discussed in Plat. Protag. 320 c ff.; Polybius, vi. trade (as Hesiod, Works, 236-7, says 4-6; Diodor. i. 8, and Hippodamus' H17ptIohAorEla (Stobaeus, 43, 94 = iv. I, 95, P. 33 H.), on which On this encomiastic tradition G. cf. W. cf. Gernentz, especially Theiler, Gnomon, 1926, 151. Laudes Romae, diss. Rostock, 1918; A. H. Krappe, 2 See for instance Laws, iii. 679 D with v. 742 D. Class. Quart. xx, 1926, 42; L. Castiglioni, 'Le lodi 3 Cf. Diod. xxxii. 6. 3; Livy, Per. 49; Zon. ix. dell' Italia e la visione della piccola Roma pas- 26; Oros. iv. 22. 3, and also Polyb. iii. 5. 5. On torale', Atti II Congresso Studi Romani, iii (1931), the speech of the Roman consul see S. Gsell, Hist. 244 (also, slightly expanded, in Rend. Ist. Lom- anc. de l'Afrique du Nord, iii. 348, n. 4 (cf. U. bardo, 1931); E. Kienzle, Der Lobpreis von Stddten Kahrstedt, Gesch. d. Karth., iii. 644, n. i). The and Ldndern in der dlteren griechischen Dichtung, relation with Plato was noted by O. Meltzer, diss. Basel, 1936, 20 ff., 72. The eulogy of Rome Neue Jahrb. f. Philol. cxliii, 1891, 685. F. W. as sea-power in Dionys. Hal., Ant. Rom. i. 3, 9 is Walbank called my attention to the passage of very interesting. Appian. THE CLASSICALREVIEW 7 Platonic tradition in the matter of sea- to oppose to this hostility a qualified power versus the Aristotelian com- belief in the constructive sides of promise. Athenian imperialism was doomed to VI. The more profound reasons for failure by the tyrant character which the hostility of much Greek political he attributed to Athens. I suppose that thought to sea-power need not be em- the anti-naval bias is attenuated in phasized: they are to be found in its Aristotle both for many other obvious anti-banausic and anti-democraticbias reasons and by his better historical and largely show the influence of the knowledge. He knew that sea-powerwas epic conception of an individual virtue compatible with more than one political which only land-fighting can show. form. Indeed, the association of sea- The Athenian Empire became the best power with democracy had been an argument for this hostility. In the exceptional feature of Athens. Until fifth century 'the question of imperial- the formation of modern national ism was largely one of food' (Glotz). States sea-power was more frequently Sea-power gave food and made full associated with oligarchies, Republican democracypossible.' Thucydides'effort Rome included. But neither Aristotle Cf. B. Besitz und nor any other Greek philosophertotally especially Biichsenschfitz, overcame the distrust of the Erwerb im griech. Alterthume, Halle, 1869, 512 ff.; acquisitive G. Glotz, Ancient Greeceat Work, Engl. transl., instinct and of the plebeian habits London, 1926, 293 ff.; A. E. Zimmern, The Greek which were believed to be peculiar to Commonwealth,5th ed., Oxford, 1931; J. Hase- sailors and maritime cities. broek, Tradeand Politics in AncientGreece, Engl. transl., London, 1933, 130 ff. Furthermore, G. ARNALDOMOMIGLIANO. Glotz, 'La marineet la cit6 de l'dpopdeh l'histoire' in Ltudes sociales et juridiques sur l'antiquite' Oxford. grecque, Paris, 19o6, 229-53.

THE STORY OF ATLANTIS: ITS PURPOSE AND ITS MORAL THEstory of the lost island of Atlantis, atmosphere of myth, of symbolism and 'larger than Libya and Asia', with the imaginative truth. 'Once upon a time' account given by Critias of how that is the formula of the main myth, the story had come down to him from Solon, cosmological; and 'once upon a time' makes a delightful opening to the not indeed unimaginably remote, but Timaeus, and shows that Plato, at the sufficiently distant-9,ooo years ago-is age of 70 or thereabouts, was still a the formula of the secondary myth, master of lively narrative and dialogue. the myth of the Ideal State projected But why is the story here at all? Why into temporal existence. No one who is it, taken together with its develop- is alive to this parallelism will doubt ment in the unfinished Critias, in such that Xenocrates was right, as against a position that the main body of the Aristotle, in holding that in represent- Timaeus becomes a mere episode in a ing the making of the ordereduniverse, prehistoric romance? the KOUaLOS,as an event in time Plato As Plato did not finish the Critias was writing 'for the sake of exposition' and did not even begin the third (8sLaaKaAla- Xadpv): in other words, that dialogue of his projected trilogy, the his cosmogony is disguised cosmology. Hermocrates, we cannot answer this Further, I would suggest that in one question with certainty.' But we can particular passage Plato has been at perhaps make a reasonableguess. pains to ensure that we shall not miss In the first place, Plato wants to put the parallelism of the two myths. At his reader in the right atmosphere, the 24 c Athena, the tutelary goddess of Athens and Egyptian Sais alike, is For some speculationson the projected con- of as 'bestowed on tent of the Hermocrates,and on the plan of the spoken having you whole trilogy, see F. M. Cornford,Plato's Cosmo- (Athenians) first all this ordering and logy, pp. 6-8. system' (7rav-r-vavlirraaav -r-v 8tLaKOCYLr/Lwv