[Market Economy Guide] Western Civilization Began at Sea

Writer
Sung-no Choi

The Greek city-states and the Roman Empire were both maritime civilizations...

They built powerful states by seizing control of Mediterranean trade

Even if people do not recognize the name Battle of Thermopylae, many will understand if it is described as the battle that served as the backdrop to the film 300. Along with the Battle of Marathon, the Battle of Thermopylae is one of the most representative battles of the Persian Wars fought between the Greek alliance and the Persian Empire.

Maritime civilizations have greater potential for development than agricultural civilizations because they create added value through trade. Like nomadic peoples, maritime civilizations tend to display a frontier spirit that drives them beyond their boundaries, making them more likely to pioneer overseas colonies. The Greek city-states, as well as Rome and Carthage, all understood the value of the Mediterranean and prospered by establishing colonies throughout the region.

In the autumn of 480 BC, hundreds of thousands of troops led by the Persian emperor Xerxes I attempted to pass through Thermopylae, a narrow coastal pass, in order to attack mainland Greece. The event in which only a few hundred Spartan warriors resisted them and were annihilated to the last man is the main motif of the film 300.

The Greek City-States That Defeated the Persian Empire

Many people who have seen the film consider the most memorable scene to be the one in which Sparta’s King Leonidas kicks a Persian envoy, who has come to urge surrender, into a well while shouting, “This is Sparta.” This scene is also one of the few parts of the fiction-laden film 300 that is based on a historical fact. Before the war, Persia reportedly sent envoys to the Greek city-states demanding earth and water from each city. At the time, offering a foreign power the earth and water of one’s own land meant accepting that power’s rule.

Most Greek city-states submitted to Persia’s demand, but Athens and Sparta alone responded by executing the envoys. Athens held a trial, sentenced the envoys to death, and threw them into an execution pit, while Sparta reportedly skipped the trial and simply kicked them into a well. Thus began what was, in historical terms, the first war between East and West.

The Greeks describe themselves as a people who cannot live apart from the sea. Since the days of the ancient Cretan civilization, the Greeks had enjoyed a reputation as a maritime people. They established their colonies throughout the Mediterranean.

Greek cities were as much a product of the Mediterranean as the Greeks themselves. Surrounded by the three continents of Europe, Africa, and Asia, the Mediterranean served as a thoroughfare for the exchange of diverse goods. Its many islands and intricate coastline made it easy to put out to sea, while harbors set inland were safe from storms, making the region ideally suited for the location of city-states. Unlike the Mediterranean, the coastlines of southern China and India have few inlets and open directly onto the ocean, making it difficult for meaningful city-states to emerge. In short, whereas in other regions the sea was a massive barrier of water, in the Mediterranean it was a friendly highway linking three continents.

From the 8th century BC onward, various Mediterranean trade networks formed centered on the Greek peninsula, the Peloponnesian peninsula, and the coast of Asia Minor. During this period, the main commodities traded were grains, especially wheat. As the stage of human activity expanded onto the sea, competition among city-states to seize maritime leadership grew increasingly fierce.

Rome, Which Won Hegemony in the Mediterranean, Grew into a Maritime Empire

Rome, too, was at first a city-state located inland on the western side of the Italian peninsula. Rome was situated close to the sea, but it was not a port city; it was connected to the sea by the Tiber River. What enabled Rome to develop into a vast empire was precisely its rivalry with maritime powers. This was embodied in the three Punic Wars fought against Carthage, a maritime state, for supremacy in the Mediterranean. By defeating Carthage, Rome secured naval control and colonies in the western Mediterranean and was able to grow into a maritime empire with the Mediterranean as its inland sea.

Trade and Struggle Across the Sea Shaped the Identity of Western Culture

Most of the cultural elements that form the identity of the West today were inherited from the history of the Mediterranean. The two great pillars of Western civilization—Hellenism (the tradition of individualism) and Hebraism (the Christian tradition)—are products of trade and struggle across the Mediterranean. In the end, the film 300 also depicts how the city-state of Sparta defended Greek maritime civilization against the invasion of the Persian Empire, which symbolized continental power.

John F. C. Fuller, the British soldier and historian, once pointed out that victory in the Persian Wars was the cry uttered at the birth of the infant called Europe. In other words, the Greek city-states defended not only the Mediterranean world in the Persian Wars, but also Europe and, beyond that, the West as a whole. The Mediterranean is the cradle of Europe and Western civilization, and that is why the significance of the sea in human history is so profound.

■ Please remember

Sung-no Choi, President of the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 서양문명은 바다에서 시작됐다

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2020-09-28

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=6&idx=23132

LIST

Prev.

[Market Economy Guide] Child Laborers in Bangladesh