market (12) for the product except
by persuading the ruler of the sea? Or, suppose the wealth of some state
or other to consist of iron, or may be of bronze, (13) or of linen yarn,
where will it find a market except by permission of the supreme maritime
power? Yet these are the very things, you see, which I need for my
ships. Timber I must have from one, and from another iron, from a third
bronze, from a fourth linen yarn, from a fifth wax, etc. Besides which
they will not suffer their antagonists in those parts (14) to carry
these products elsewhither, or they will cease to use the sea.
Accordingly I, without one stroke of labour, extract from the land and
possess all these good things, thanks to my supremacy on the sea; whilst
not a single other state possesses the two of them. Not timber, for
instance, and yarn together, the same city. But where yarn is abundant,
the soil will be light and devoid of timber. And in the same way bronze
and iron will not be products of the same city. And so for the rest,
never two, or at best three, in one state, but one thing here and
another thing there. Moreover, above and beyond what has been said, the
coast-line of every mainland presents, either some jutting promontory,
or adjacent island, or narrow strait of some sort, so that those who are
masters of the sea can come to moorings at one of these points and wreak
vengeance (15) on the inhabitants of the mainland.

(11) Or, "they have a practical monopoly."

(12) Or, "how is it to dispose of the product?"

(13) Or, "coppert."

(14) Reading {ekei}. For this corrupt passage see L. Dindorf, ad.
loc.; also Boeckh, "P. E. A." I. ix. p. 55. Perhaps (as my friend
Mr. J. R. Mozley suggests) the simplest supposition is to suppose
that there is an ellipsis before {e ou khresontai te thalatte}:
thus, "Besides which they will not suffer their antagonists to
transport goods to countries outside Attica; they must yield, or
they shall not have the use of the sea."

(15) {lobasthai}. This "poetical" word comes to mean "harry,"
"pillage," in the common dialect.

There is just one thing which the Athenians lack. Supposing that they
were the inhabitants of an island, (16) and were still, as now, rulers
of the sea, they would have had it in their power to work whatever
mischief they liked, and to suffer no evil in return (as long as they
kept command of the sea), neither the ravaging of their territory nor
the