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At what point in Greek history did the most maritime activity take place?

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

What do you mean by "most maritime activity"? As in the most ships sailing around, the best maritime economy, etc.? I suppose those things would be hard to determine, but (if I remember correctly) Greek colonization occurred mainly from the 7th to 4th centuries BCE. However, trade was still going strong during the Roman and the Byzantine eras in the Mediterranean, but it's a bit hard to separate that from the trade of other cultures and societies in the region, such as the Phoenicians or Italians or what not.

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I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce

My purpose for asking is that I'm trying to decide what dialect of ancient Greek I should learn. I associate different languages with certain aspects of life or objects of the world, for example, I associate classical Latin with nature (I don't know why.) To me, ancient Greek represents the sea, but which dialect should I choose to represent that? I'm terribly sorry if that all sounded idiotic.

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

That makes more sense.

Wikipedia's a bit more reliable here, they have a list of Ancient Greek dialects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_greek_dialects

My suggestion would be Attic Greek, the dialect of Athens, since, well, Athens was considered to be the naval power of ancient Greece for quite a long time.

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I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce

I looked at those long and hard. Do you know of any Greek poems about the sea from that time?

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

The Odyssey has tons of scenes that take place at sea, and I think there were portions that were talking specifically about the sea itsel.=f. Granted it's in Homeric Greek, but whatever.

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I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce

Is there any connection between the name "Ionians" and the name of the Ionian Sea?

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Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri. -Multomixtor

I would guess so.

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

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