A state, indeed, whose
members, of an age fit for service, at no time exceeded thirty thousand,
could only have acquired such a naval dominion as Athens once held by
devoting and zealously training all its sons to service in its fleets.
In order to man the numerous galleys which she sent out, she necessarily
employed large numbers of hired mariners and slaves at the oar; but the
staple of her crews was Athenian, and all posts of command were held by
native citizens. It was by reminding them of this, of their long
practice in seamanship, and the certain superiority which their
discipline gave them over the enemy's marine, that their great minister
mainly encouraged them to resist the combined power of Lacedaemon and
her allies. He taught them that Athens might thus reap the fruit of her
zealous devotion to maritime affairs ever since the invasion of the
Medes; "she had not, indeed, perfected herself; but the reward of her
superior training was the rule of the sea--a mighty dominion, for it
gave her the rule of much fair land beyond its waves, safe from the idle
ravages with which the Lacedaemonians might harass Attica, but never
could subdue Athens.
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