The geography would be one essential formative force in the development of Greece, during any and all time periods. I have overlooked this so far but I felt that this could be a good day to post a picture reminding you of that. This is the Argolic golf and it's, as you can see, bordered by mountains. This means that inland transports are very difficult and this has the effect that travel by sea is much faster and cheaper.
2 comments:
This is beautiful.
Why not regard parts of the Nordic area as similar? Norway with its deep fiords and difficult land routes, Denmark with all the islands, Sweden with long coasts and lakes and rivers suited well for water transports, but often very difficult overland trails. Consequently, the early states here were more or less marine empires, built on naval power, like what was found in the Aegeic area. I think Per Nyström pointed that out well before WWII.
Yes that is very true, especially Norway is a great example!
We actually find a similar situation more or less all over the world still - transport by sea is even today cheaper (at least to my knowledge) in some ways. It was much more clear during all pre-industrialized eras though.
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