§1. Herodotus describes a vigorous era in the history of the maritime traffic and warfare in the Mediterranean. Greek and Phoenician colonies anchored far-flung trading networks north to the Black Sea and west along the African and European coasts to Spain and even beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. Sea lanes had to be policed, colonies protected, parochial navies developed and increased. Furthermore, naval strength, always a prerogative of coastal and island states, became an important factor in the expanding domains of inland powers such as Sparta and Persia. The jostling of all these escalating commercial and political interests in the seas of the Mediterranean fostered developments in ship design, construction, and handling.