Note 880 — Chapter XIII · —Island Peoples

Cuba suffered from its geographic aloofness. So did little Crete, which submitted to Turkish oppression sixty years after the continental Greeks had made good their claim to freedom. Nor was this the first time that Cretan liberty had suffered from the detachment of an island environment. Aristotle recognized the principle when he wrote: "The people of Crete have hitherto submitted to the rule of the leading families as Cosmi, because the insular situation of Crete cuts off the interference of strangers or foreigners which might stir up rebellion against the unjust or partial government." And then he adds that this insular exclusion of outside incitement long rendered the fidelity of the Perioeci or serf-like peasants of Crete a striking contrast to the uneasy spirit of the Spartan Helots, who were constantly stirred to revolt by the free farmers of Argos, Messinia and Arcadia.880 Thus ancient like modern Crete missed those beneficient stimuli which penetrate a land frontier, but are cut off by the absolute boundary of the sea.