Sea-Power and Other Studies | Page 5

in the end enslaved, because the
quarrels of Greeks with Greeks led to the ruin of their naval states.
The Peloponnesian was largely a naval war. The confidence of the

Athenians in their sea-power had a great deal to do with its outbreak.
The immediate occasion of the hostilities, which in time involved so
many states, was the opportunity offered by the conflict between
Corinth and Corcyra of increasing the sea-power of Athens. Hitherto
the Athenian naval predominance had been virtually confined to the
Ægean Sea. The Corcyræan envoy, who pleaded for help at Athens,
dwelt upon the advantage to be derived by the Athenians from alliance
with a naval state occupying an important situation 'with respect to the
western regions towards which the views of the Athenians had for some
time been directed.'[15] It was the 'weapon of her sea-power,' to adopt
Mahan's phrase, that enabled Athens to maintain the great conflict in
which she was engaged. Repeated invasions of her territory, the
ravages of disease amongst her people, and the rising disaffection of
her allies had been more than made up for by her predominance on the
water. The scale of the subsequent Syracusan expedition showed how
vigorous Athens still was down to the interruption of the war by the
peace of Nicias. The great expedition just mentioned over-taxed her
strength. Its failure brought about the ruin of the state. It was held by
contemporaries, and has been held in our own day, that the Athenian
defeat at Syracuse was due to the omission of the government at home
to keep the force in Sicily properly supplied and reinforced. This
explanation of failure is given in all ages, and should always be
suspected. The friends of unsuccessful generals and admirals always
offer it, being sure of the support of the political opponents of the
administration. After the despatch of the supporting expedition under
Demosthenes and Eurymedon, no further great reinforcement, as Nicias
admitted, was possible. The weakness of Athens was in the character of
the men who swayed the popular assemblies and held high commands.
A people which remembered the administration of a Pericles, and yet
allowed a Cleon or an Alcibiades to direct its naval and military policy,
courted defeat. Nicias, notwithstanding the possession of high qualities,
lacked the supreme virtue of a commander--firm resolution. He dared
not face the obloquy consequent on withdrawal from an enterprise on
which the popular hopes had been fixed; and therefore he allowed a
reverse to be converted into an overwhelming disaster. 'The complete
ruin of Athens had appeared, both to her enemies and to herself,
impending and irreparable. But so astonishing, so rapid, and so

energetic had been her rally, that [a year after Syracuse] she was found
again carrying on a terrible struggle.'[16] Nevertheless her sea-power
had indeed been ruined at Syracuse. Now she could wage war only
'with impaired resources and on a purely defensive system.' Even
before Arginusæ it was seen that 'superiority of nautical skill had
passed to the Peloponnesians and their allies.'[17]
[Footnote 15: Thirwall, _Hist.Greece, iii. p. 96.]
[Footnote 16: Grote, _Hist.Greece, v. p. 354.]
[Footnote 17: _Ibid._ p. 503.]
The great, occasionally interrupted, and prolonged contest between
Rome and Carthage was a sustained effort on the part of one to gain
and of the other to keep the control of the Western Mediterranean. So
completely had that control been exercised by Carthage, that she had
anticipated the Spanish commercial policy in America. The Romans
were precluded by treaties from trading with the Carthaginian
territories in Hispania, Africa, and Sardinia. Rome, as Mommsen tells
us, 'was from the first a maritime city and, in the period of its vigour,
never was so foolish or so untrue to its ancient traditions as wholly to
neglect its war marine and to desire to be a mere continental power.' It
may be that it was lust of wealth rather than lust of dominion that first
prompted a trial of strength with Carthage. The vision of universal
empire could hardly as yet have formed itself in the imagination of a
single Roman. The area of Phoenician maritime commerce was vast
enough both to excite jealousy and to offer vulnerable points to the
cupidity of rivals. It is probable that the modern estimate of the
sea-power of Carthage is much exaggerated. It was great by
comparison, and of course overwhelmingly great when there were none
but insignificant competitors to challenge it. Mommsen holds that, in
the fourth and fifth centuries after the foundation of Rome, 'the two
main competitors for the dominion of the Western waters' were
Carthage and Syracuse. 'Carthage,' he says, 'had the preponderance, and
Syracuse sank more and more into a second-rate naval power. The
maritime importance of the Etruscans was wholly gone.... Rome itself
was not exempt