A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

Naval Supremacy 205
As to wealth, the Athenians are exceptionally placed
with regard to Hellenic and foreign communities alike, in
their ability to hold it.
For, given that some state or other
is rich in timber for shipbuilding, where is it to find a
market 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, 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 to carry their products elsewhither, or they will
cease to use the sea. Accordingly I, without one stroke
of labor, 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, can be found in 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 on the inhabitants of the mainland.
Naval supremacy
tends to a
monopoly of
the world's
products.
The commerce
of
other states
is at the
mercy of the
supreme
maritime
power.