Much of Athenian foreign policy, including its efforts to maintain an overseas empire in the Aegean, cultivate allies such as Argos and Corcyra, and establish dependencies at distant Amphipolis and Potidaea, was predicated on just the need to create permanent bases to facilitate long-distance cruises. Trireme harbors were not unlike the British Empire’s network of coaling stations throughout Africa and the Pacific to service its late-nineteenth-century global fleet.
