r/;.\A:77 



that stormy and open sea, of which they are in possession, 

 they hold as tributaries almost all those who have been 

 accustomed to traffic in that sea. . . ." 



" For their own ships were built and equipped in the following 

 manner : Their ships were more flat-bottomed than our vessels. 

 in order that they might be able more easily to guard against 

 shallows and the ebbing of the tide ; the prows were very much 

 elevated, as also the sterns, so as to encounter heavy waves 

 and storms. The vessels were built wholly of oak, so as to 

 bear any violence or shock ; the cross-benches, a foot in breadth, 

 were fastened by iron spikes of the thickness of the thumb ; 

 the anchors were secured to iron chains, instead of to ropes ; 

 raw hides and thinly-dressed skins were used for sails, either 

 on account of their want of canvas and ignorance of its use, 

 or for this reason, which is the more likely, that they con- 

 sidered that such violent ocean storms and such strong winds 

 could not be resisted, and such heavy vessels could not be 

 conveniently managed by sails. The attack of our fleet on 

 these vessels was of such a nature that the only advantage 

 was in its swiftness and the power of its oars ; in everything 

 else, considering the situation and the fury of the storm, they 

 had the advantage. For neither could our ships damage them 

 by ramming (so strongly were they built), nor was a weapon 

 easily made to reach them, owing to their height, and for the 

 same reason they were not so easily held by grappling-irons. 

 To this was added, that when the wind had begun to get 

 strong, and they had driven before the gale, they could better 

 weather the storm, and also more safely anchor among shallows, 

 and, when left by the tide, need in no respect fear rocks and 

 reefs, the dangers from all which things were greatly to be 

 dreaded by our vessels." 



Roman writers after the time of Tacitus mention warlike 

 and maritime expeditions by the Saxons and Franks. Their 

 names do not occur in Tacitus, but it is not altogether 

 improbable that these people, whom later writers mention as 

 ravaging every country which they could enter by sea or land, 

 are the people whom Tacitus knew as the Sueones. 



The maritime power of the Sueones could not have totally 

 disappeared in a century, a hypothesis which is borne out 

 by the fact that after a lapse of seven centuries they arc 

 again mentioned in the time of Charlemagne ; nor could the 

 supremacy of the so-called Saxons and Franks on the sea have 



