The Age of the Nobles and the Tyrants in Greece 137 were gradually transformed into temples. Thus on the citadel at Athens, there had been a palace of the old king Erechtheus. The little shrine of Athena in this palace later became a temple of the goddess, called the " Erechtheum," ^ after the old king. In this way the castle of the ancient Attic kings was followed by the famous temples of Athens on the citadel mount, called the Acropolis (Fig. 91 and Plate III). During the centuries of social and political ferment which Beginnings brought forth a noble class and placed them in power, the civiliza- fgation d^^ tion of the ^E'gean world had undergone great changes. The co^i^ierce open-minded and clever Greek had meantime learned from his yT^gean predecessors many of the arts which had so highly devel- oped in the days of Cretan splendor. Iron had become common after 1000 r..c. and had deeply influenced all industry'. The ^Egean waters gradually grew familiar to the Greek communi- ties, until they proved a far easier line of communication than a road through the same number of miles of forest and mountain. v Especially important and rich was the traffic between the Greek cities of the Asiatic coast on the east and Attica and Euboea on the European side. Among the Asiatic Greeks it was the Commercial Ionian cities which led in this commerce. The ships used by ^^e lonians° all were open, undecked craft accommodating about fifty oarsmen. The Greek trader was met by sharp competition in the hands of Phoenician mariners and merchants, who were common in Phoenicians these waters since Cretan days. Once dwellers in the desert, like the Hebrews and other Semites, the Phoenician townsmen along the Syrian coast (see Eig. 72 and map, p. 56) early took to the sea and became clever navigators. They gained a foot- hold in Cyprus and thence sailed into the ^gean. The Phoeni- cian craftsman of Tyre or Sidon was a clever imitator. He received the patterns and the methods of the older oriental civi- lizations, especially Egypt and Assyria, and easily employed them 1 The porch of the Erechthetim, supported by figures of beautiful maid- ens, will be found as headpiece of this chapter. The situation of the building on the Acropolis may be seen in Fig. 91, at the extreme left (east) end of the Parthenon.
