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

and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized, as was
proved by the following fact. During the purification of Delos by
Athens in this war all the graves in the island were taken up, and
it was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they were
identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the
method of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow.
But as soon as Minos had formed his navy, communication by sea became
easier, as he colonized most of the islands, and thus expelled the
malefactors. The coast population now began to apply themselves more
closely to the acquisition of wealth, and their life became more settled;
some even began to build themselves walls on the strength of their
newly acquired riches. For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker
to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled
the more powerful to reduce the smaller towns to subjection. And it
was at a somewhat later stage of this development that they went on
the expedition against Troy.

What enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my opinion,
his superiority in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus, which bound
the suitors to follow him. Indeed, the account given by those Peloponnesians
who have been the recipients of the most credible tradition is this.
First of all Pelops, arriving among a needy population from Asia with
vast wealth, acquired such power that, stranger though he was, the
country was called after him; and this power fortune saw fit materially
to increase in the hands of his descendants. Eurystheus had been killed
in Attica by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother's brother; and to
the hands of his relation, who had left his father on account of the
death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus, when he set out on his expedition,
had committed Mycenae and the government. As time went on and Eurystheus
did not return, Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans,
who were influenced by fear of the Heraclids- besides, his power seemed
considerable, and he had not neglected to court the favour of the
populace- and assumed the sceptre of Mycenae and the rest of the dominions
of Eurystheus. And so the power of the descendants of Pelops came
to be greater than that of the descendants of Perseus. To all this
Agamemnon succeeded. He had also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries,
so that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong an element as love
in the formation of the confederate expedition. The strength of his
navy is shown by the fact that his own was the largest contingent,
and that of the Arcadians was furnished by him; this at least is what
Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Besides, in his
account of the transmission of the sceptre, he calls him "Of many
an isle, and of all Argos king." Now Agamemnon's was a continental
power; and he could not have been master of any except the adjacent
islands (and these would not be many), but through the possession
of a fleet.

And from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier enterprises.
Now Mycenae may have been a small place, and many of the towns of
that age may appear comparatively insignificant, but no exact observer