a naval power.[23] Far from trying to obstruct the advance of
the Romans the Rhodian fleet helped it. Hannibal, in his exile,
saw the necessity of being strong on the sea if the East was to
be saved from the grasp of his hereditary foe; but the resources
of Antiochus, even with the mighty cooperation of Hannibal, were
insufficient. In a later and more often-quoted struggle between
East and West--that which was decided at Actium--sea-power was
again seen to 'have the casting vote.' When the whole of the
Mediterranean coasts became part of a single state the importance
of the navy was naturally diminished; but in the struggles within
the declining empire it rose again at times. The contest of the
Vandal Genseric with Majorian and the African expedition of
Belisarius--not to mention others--were largely influenced by
the naval operations.[24]

[Footnote 22: Schmitz, _Hist._Rome_, p. 256.]

[Footnote 23: C. Torr, _Rhodes_in_Ancient_Times_, p. 40.]

[Footnote 24: Gibbon, _Dec._and_Fall_, chaps. xxxvi. xli]

SEA-POWER IN THE MIDDLE AGES

A decisive event, the Mohammedan conquest of Northern Africa
from Egypt westwards, is unintelligible until it is seen how
great a part sea-power played in effecting it. Purely land
expeditions, or expeditions but slightly supported from the sea,
had ended in failure. The emperor at Constantinople still had at
his disposal a fleet capable of keeping open the communications
with his African province. It took the Saracens half a century
(647-698 A.D.) to win 'their way along the coast of Africa as
far as the Pillars of Hercules';[25] and, as Gibbon tells us,
it was not till the Commander of the Faithful had prepared a
great expedition, this time by sea as well as by land, that the
Saracenic dominion was definitely established. It has been generally
assumed that the Arabian conquerors who, within a few years of his
death, spread the faith of Mohammed over vast regions, belonged
to an essentially non-maritime race; and little or no stress has
been laid on the extent to which they relied on naval support
in prosecuting their conquests. In parts of Arabia, however,
maritime enterprise was far from non-existent; and when the
Mohammedan empire had extended outwards from Mecca and Medina
till it embraced the coasts of various seas, the consequences
to the neighbouring states were as serious as the rule above
mentioned would lead us to expect that they would be. 'With the
conquest of Syria and