Note 518 — Chapter VIII · —Coast Peoples

The long, indented coast of the Mediterranean has in all ages up to modern times presented the contrast of a littoral more advanced in civilization than the inland districts. The only exception was ancient Egypt before Psammeticus began to exploit his mud-choked seaboard. This contrast was apparent, not only wherever Phoenicians or Greeks had appropriated the remote coast of an alien and retarded people, but even in near-by Thrace the savage habits of the interior tribes were softened only where these dwelt in close proximity to the Ionian colonies along the coast, a fact as noticeable in the time of Tacitus as in that of Herodotus five hundred years before.518 The ancient philosophers of Greece were awake to the deep-rooted differences between an inland and a maritime city, especially in respect to receptivity of ideas, activity of intellect, and affinity for culture.519