Navigators had to take additional precautions, owing to the presence of AEgean or Asiatic pirates on the routes followed by the mercantile marine, which rendered their voyages dangerous and sometimes interrupted them altogether.  The Syrian coast-line was exposed to these marauders quite as much as the African had been during the sixty or eighty years which followed the death of Ramses II.; the seamen of the north—­Achaeans and Tyrseni, Lycians and Shardanians—­had pillaged it on many occasions, and in the invasion which followed these attacks it experienced as little mercy as Naharaim, the Khati, and the region of the Amorites.  The fleets which carried the Philistines, the Zakkala, and their allies had devastated the whole coast before they encountered the Egyptian ships of Ramses III. near Magadil, to the south of Carmel.  Arvad as well as Zahi had succumbed to the violence of their attack, and if the cities of Byblos, Berytus, Sidon, and Tyre had escaped, their suburbs had been subjected to the ravages of the foe.*

     * See, for this invasion, vol. v. pp. 305-311, of the
     present work.

Peace followed the double victory of the Egyptians, and commerce on the Mediterranean resumed once more its wonted ways, but only in those regions where the authority of the Pharaoh and the fear of his vengeance were effective influences.  Beyond this sphere there were continual warfare, piracy, migrations of barbaric hordes, and disturbances of all kinds, among which, if a stranger ventured, it was at the almost certain risk of losing his life or liberty.  The area of undisturbed seas became more and more contracted in proportion as the memory of past defeats faded away.  Cyprus was not comprised within it, and the AEgeans, who were restrained by the fear of Egypt from venturing into any region under her survey, perpetually flocked thither in numerous bodies.  The Achaeans, too, took up their abode on this island at an early date—­about the time when some of their bands were infesting Libya, and offering their help to the enemies of the Pharaoh.  They began their encroachments on the northern side of the island—­the least rich, it is true, but the nearest to Cilicia, and the easiest to hold against the attacks of their rivals.  The disaster of Piriu had no doubt dashed their hopes of finding a settlement in Egypt:  they never returned thither any more, and the current of emigration which had momentarily inclined towards the south, now set steadily towards the east, where the large island of Cyprus offered an unprotected and more profitable field of adventure.  We know not how far they penetrated into its forests and its interior.  The natives began, at length, under their influence, to despise the customs and mode of existence with which they had been previously contented:  they acquired a taste for pottery rudely decorated after the Mycenean manner, for jewellery, and for the bronze swords which they had seen in the hands