The Achaemenid navy had four major bases of operation. These were in Phoenicia, Egypt, Cyprus, and the Ionian Greek cities in the central Aegean coast of modern-day Turkey.

The Phoenician cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos possessed a seafaring culture going back for centuries before Cyrus subjected them. Phoenicians dominated seagoing trade in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Persian period. They maintained a massive trading network of colonies throughout the entire Mediterranean and potentially as far afield as Britain and the western coast of Africa. These cities maintained self-government under the Achaemenids, at least until Sidon joined in an Egyptian rebellion that led to the destruction of the city. They enjoyed a king of feudal contract where their autonomy was preserved in exchange for the use of their navies.

Herodotus isn’t always a reliable source, but he does talk about the King of Sidon as the most favored subject of the Achaemenid King of Kings, joining him as his most honored guest while he reviewed the invasion fleet. This shows how strategically important the Phoenician navies were to the Empire.

The Cypriot ships were partly recruited from Greek cities and partly from Phoenician colonies on the island.

When Greek rebellions on Cyprus threatened the security of the Phoenician cities on the coast of modern Lebanon, the Phoenician navies were allowed to return, severely weakening the fleet.

The Phoenicians in Lebanon harvested cedar from their mountains. This was a staple item of commerce that was exported to Mesopotamia and Egypt, where there was a paucity of good timber. (EDIT: To put this in context, both the Hebrew Bible (King Solomon requests and receives timber from Tyre to build his Temple) and Mesopotamian myths like the Epic of Gilgamesh attach a quasi-mythical significance to the timber of Phoenicia and the type of masculinity required to “conquer” it.). So the Egyptian contingent was built using Phoenician timber from the hills of Lebanon, just as it was under the Pharoahs. The Amarna Letters, for example, make arrangements for shipments of timber from Phoenician vassal-kings for the Egyptian navy and for larger construction projects.

The Ionian and Cypriot fleets were constructed using local resources.

Smaller contingents of ships came from Cilicia (southeast of modern Turkey), Lycia (central-Southern coast of modern Turkey), and the Greeks from some Aegean islands and from Greek colonies on the Black Sea Coast of Turkey (the so-called Pontic Greeks).