ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. (3) 
Pythagoras, a native of the island of Samos, taught the rotundity of the 
earth, the existence of the antipodes, and a confused idea of the real motion 
of the planetary system as afterwards demonstrated by Copernicus. 
B. C. 550, the Phoenicians visited Ireland, and returned with reports of 
the islands now known as Great Britain. 
B. C. 548, we learn that the inhabitants of Phoca, a Grecian city on the 
Asiatic coast, were a commercial people, and the first Greeks who traded to 
remote Asiatic countries; performing their voyages in long vessels of fifty 
oars, in the management of which they were very expert. Strabo mentions a 
colony of Phoczans who were expelled from Corsica, who sailed to the south 
of Gaul, where, B. C. 538, they founded Massilia (Marseilles), a city which 
about the Christian era, sustained a high character as the seat of science, 
commerce and naval power. 
The Etruscans and Etrurians, says Didorus Siculus, founded colonies at a 
very early age, were good mariners, and appear to have possessed the greater 
portion of Italy before the Trojan war. Polybius says, B. C. 524, the Car- 
thagenians were possessed of hereditary preéminence in nautical science. 
Their ships were equal to any on the Mediterranean, carrying carved figure 
heads and sterns. Aristotle says they were the first who raised their ships of 
war from three to four rows of oars. They constructed wet docks, and were 
first to appoint second captains (mates) to their vessels. 
B. C. 524, the Carthagenians embarked 30,000 people in sixty ships of fifty 
oars each, and passed Gibraltar to the west coast of Africa to found colonies. 
These vessels must have carried 500 persons each. 
B. C. 506, Darius, king of Persia, invaded the Scythians with a fleet of 600 
vessels. Darius was also sovereign of Phcenicia. 
B. C. 497, the Ionian fleet of 353 vessels was defeated by 600 ships belong- 
ing to the maritime vassals of Persia, chiefly under the direction of Phoeni- 
cians. 
B. C. 494, an expedition, conducted by Mardonius, son of Darius, com- 
posed of 300 ships, containing 20,000 soldiers, was cast away against the 
rocks of Mount Athos during a violent storm. 
B. C. 481, Xerxes, the mighty monarch of Persia and a greater part of Asia, 
sent a memorable expedition against Greece, composed of 1,207 triremes, or 
ships of war, carrying three tires of oars, and 3,000 transports, which formid- 
able armada was finally defeated by the Greeks. 
B. C. 477, Herodotus says, Amilcar a Carthagenian general, invaded Sicily 
with an army of 300,000 men. As Sicily is an island, this necessitated a 
naval fleet. : 
Frequent mention of large naval fleets transporting armies, is made from 
this date until the Christian era. From this time wide commercial intercourse 
existed,and many naval engagements of great magnitude are noted. 
The commerce which had flourished for ages in the hands of the Pheni- 
cians was largely desolated by the conquests of Alexander, B. C. 333. 
B. C. 260, the Romans, who prospered for a while by a perpetual violation 
of justice, resolved to establish a naval force for piracy and commercial plun- 
der. They had neither ship carpenters nor seamen, but got possession of a 
stranded Carthagenian quinquereme, and in sixty days from felling the trees, 
