As to wealth, the Athenians are exceptionally placed with regard to
Hellenic and foreign communities alike,[11] in their ability to hold
it. For, given that some state or other is rich in timber for
shipbuilding, where is it to find a market[12] for the product except
by persuading the ruler of the sea? Or, suppose the wealth of some
state or other to consist of iron, or may be of bronze,[13] or of
linen yarn, where will it find a market except by permission of the
supreme maritime power? Yet these are the very things, you see, which
I need for my ships. Timber I must have from one, and from another
iron, from a third bronze, from a fourth linen yarn, from a fifth wax,
etc. Besides which they will not suffer their antagonists in those
parts[14] to carry these products elsewhither, or they will cease to
use the sea. Accordingly I, without one stroke of labour, extract from
the land and possess all these good things, thanks to my supremacy on
the sea; whilst not a single other state possesses the two of them.
Not timber, for instance, and yarn together, the same city. But where
yarn is abundant, the soil will be light and devoid of timber. And in
the same way bronze and iron will not be products of the same city.
And so for the rest, never two, or at best three, in one state, but
one thing here and another thing there. Moreover, above and beyond
what has been said, the coast-line of every mainland presents, either
some jutting promontory, or adjacent island, or narrow strait of some
sort, so that those who are masters of the sea can come to moorings at
one of these points and wreak vengeance[15] on the inhabitants of the
mainland.

[11] Or, "they have a practical monopoly."

[12] Or, "how is it to dispose of the product?"