"Anyone fortunate enough to have seen the sun set at Kommos in southern Crete will have heard the calls and glimpsed the shadows: proud ships glide into the bay, escorted by songs and steered by men with salt-encrusted faces, confident, hardy, and satisfied. Much like four thousand years ago, when Kommos was a way station for mariners who had made the sea their home and the horizon their destination. They were no cause for alarm, these men from Syria,...