History of the Peloponnesian War

But when the navy of Minos had been established, navigation between various peoples became saferfor the evil-doers on the islands were expelled by him, and then he proceeded to colonize most of them—and the dwellers on the sea-coast now began to acquire property more than before and to become more settled in their homes, and some, seeing that they were growing richer than before, began also to put walls around their cities.

Their more settled life was due to their desire for gain; actuated by this, the weaker citizens were willing to submit to dependence on the stronger, and the more powerful men, with their enlarged resources, were able to make the lesser cities their subjects.

And later on, when they had at length more completely reached this condition of affairs, they made the expedition against Troy.

And it was, as I think, because Agamemnon surpassed in power the princes of his time that he was able to assemble his fleet, and not so much because Helen's suitors, whom he led, were bound by oath to Tyndareus.[*](According to the post-Homeric legend, all who paid their court to Helen engaged to defend the man of her choice against all wrong. cf. Isoc. 10.40; Paus. 3.20. 9; 3.10.9.)

It is said, furthermore, by those of the Peloponnesians who have received the clearest traditional accounts from men of former times, that it was by means of the great wealth which he brought with him from Asia into the midst of a poor people that Pelops first acquired power, and, consequently, stranger though he was, gave his name to the country, and that yet greater things fell to the lot of his descendants. For when Eurystheus set out on the expedition that resulted in his death in Attica at the hands of the Heracleidae, Atreus, his mother's brother, who chanced to have been banished by his father for the death of Chrysippus,[*](Chrysippus, his half-brother, son of Pelops and Axioche, was killed by Atreus and Thyestes at the instance of their mother Hippodameia.) was intrusted by Eurystheus with Mycenae and the sovereignty because he was a kinsman; and when Eurystheus did not return, Atreus, in accordance with the wish of the Mycenaeans, who feared the Heracleidae, and because he seemed to be a man of power and had won the favour of the multitude, received the sovereignty over the Mycenaeans and all who were under the sway of Eurystheus. And so the house of Pelops became greater than the house of Perseus.

And it was, I think, because Agamemnon had inherited all this, and at the same time had become strong in naval power beyond the rest, that he was able to collect his armament, not so much by favour as by fear, and so to make the expedition.