"Thucydidies - The History Of The Peloponnesian War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thucydidies)

The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular
individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source
of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly Attica, from the poverty
of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction,
never changed its inhabitants. And here is no inconsiderable exemplification
of my assertion that the migrations were the cause of there being
no correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful victims
of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians
as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming naturalized, swelled
the already large population of the city to such a height that Attica
became at last too small to hold them, and they had to send out colonies
to Ionia.

There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to
my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan
war there is no indication of any common action in Hellas, nor indeed
of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary, before the
time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed, but
the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular
of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong
in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that
one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of
Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten
itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished by Homer. Born
long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by that name,
nor indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis,
who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they are called Danaans,
Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the term barbarian, probably
because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off from the rest of
the world by one distinctive appellation. It appears therefore that
the several Hellenic communities, comprising not only those who first
acquired the name, city by city, as they came to understand each other,
but also those who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole
people, were before the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength
and the absence of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective
action.

Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition till they had gained
increased familiarity with the sea. And the first person known to
us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself
master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the
Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies, expelling
the Carians and appointing his own sons governors; and thus did his
best to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure
the revenues for his own use.

For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast and
islands, as communication by sea became more common, were tempted
to turn pirates, under the conduct of their most powerful men; the
motives being to serve their own cupidity and to support the needy.