ore this they had passed Gibraltar and settled the
colony of Tarshish, where they found silver in such abundance that "it
was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon." We do not know
whether it was "the ships of Tarshish and of the Isles" that first felt
the way north to France and England. But we do know that many
Phoenicians did trade with the French and British Celts, who probably
learnt in this way how to build ships of their own.

CHAPTER III

EAST AGAINST WEST

(480-146 B.C.)

For two thousand years Eastern fleets and armies tried to conquer
Europe. Sometimes hundreds of years would pass without an attack. But
the result was always the same--the triumph of West over East; and the
cause of each triumph was always the same--the sea-power of the West.
Without those Western navies the Europe and America we know today could
never have existed. There could have been no Greek civilization, no
Roman government, no British Empire, and no United States. First, the
Persians fought the Greeks at Salamis in 480 B.C. Then Carthage fought
Rome more than two hundred years later. Finally, the conquering Turks
were beaten by the Spaniards at Lepanto more than two thousand years
after Salamis, but not far from the same spot, Salamis being ten miles
from Athens and Lepanto a hundred.

Long before Salamis the Greeks had been founding colonies along the
Mediterranean, among them some on the Asiatic side of the Aegean Sea,
where the French and British fleets had so much to do during the
Gallipoli campaign of 1915 against the Turks and Germans. Meanwhile
the Persians had been fighting their way north-westwards till they had
reached the Aegean and conquered most of the Greeks and Phoenicians
there. Then the Greeks at Athens sent a fleet which landed an army
that burnt the city of Sardis, an outpost of Persian power. Thereupon
King Darius, friend of the Prophet Daniel, vowed vengeance on Athens,
and caused a trusty servant to whisper in his ear each day, "Master,
remember Athens!"

Now, the Persians were landsmen, with what was then the greatest army
in the world, but with a navy and a merchant fleet mostly manned by
conquered Phoenicians and Greek colonists, none of whom wanted to see
Greece itself destroyed. So when Darius met the Greeks at Marathon his
fleet and army did not form the same sort of United Service that the
British fleet and army form. He was beaten back to his ships and
retired to Asia Minor.