According to ancient records, "Pericles handed the reins to the people and pursued policies that courted their favor. He constantly arranged festivals, plays, communal meals, and processions for the people of Athens. Every year, he sent out sixty ships carrying many commoners to sail the seas for eight months, paying them wages so they could learn and practice the knowledge of navigation.
The Odyssey once described it this way: Odysseus gladly raised his sails before the wind. He sat down and skillfully took the helm, adjusting his course. Sleep never settled upon his upturned eyelids as he watched the Pleiades, the slowly setting Arcturus, and that cluster of Ursa Major nicknamed the Big Dipper. It revolved around itself, gazing toward Orion, and alone among the constellations never descended into the great river to bathe. Calypso had warned him to keep that star on his left whenever he crossed the sea.
Constellations did not merely have magnificent myths behind them; they also served to identify direction. This was common knowledge to modern people, but in ancient times, many sailors determined their position by the terrain.
The Ancient Greek peninsula had an unbroken coastline and islands scattered like stars, making it the peninsula with the most islands in the Mediterranean. Its interior had little land and many mountains. Portugal, on the Iberian Peninsula, had many high mountains inland and many plains along its coast, yet it still could not develop prosperous agriculture, forcing it to take advantage of the conveniences of seafaring and commerce.
When Pericles sent commoners out to sea, he was naturally not sending them on a sightseeing trip. At the very least, they had to map the terrain of the places they visited; that was part of their education.
Navigation not only allowed previously relatively isolated nations and cities