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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: [10] Reading with Kirchhoff, {demosia}.
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,
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