30 Before Chrift 734 — 713. 



embalmed bodies of their deceafed parents, the moft facred depofit that 

 could be imagined : but he alio decreed, that the debtor, negleding to 

 redeem this pretious pledge, fhould himfclf be deprived of the high- 

 prized honours beftowed in Egypt upon the meritorious dead. Still 

 the Egyptians confined their ideas of commerce to home trade, or paf- 

 five foreign trade. 



-734 The dominion of the fea is next afligned to the Carians, a 



people formerly noted for their piracies ; and there feems no good rea- 

 fon to believe, that their prefent power was of any other nature; [Herod. 

 L. ii, c. 152] or that it ever was near fo great and extenfive, as that of 

 the buccaneers in later times was in the Weft-India feas. 



'yiy — The commercial city of Tyre was attacked by Salmanafar king 

 of Aflyria, who brought againft it a fleet of fixty (or feventy) vefTels, 

 furnifhed and manned by fome of the Phoenicians, who had fubmitted 

 to his dominion. The Tyrians, then the only people of Phoenicia free 

 from the Aflyrian yoke, with twelve (hips completely defeated his fleet, 

 and took 500 prifoners. So vaftly fuperior were free men fighting for 

 themfelves and their families to flaves fighting for a mafter. [Annales 

 Tyrii in Menandri Chron. op. Jofeph. Antiq. L. ix, c. 14.] This, if I mif- 

 take not, is the moft antient naval battle, exprefsly recorded in any 

 hiftory. 



713 — The firft fun-dial, mentioned in hiftory, was in the palace of 

 Hezekiah king of Judah, and it appears to have been eredted by his 

 predeceflbr, as it is called * the fun-dial of Ahaz.' [Ifaiah, c. 38.] Ac- 

 cording to Herodotus, the Greeks learned the ufe of dials from the Ba- 

 bylonians * ; and it is probable, that the Ifraelites had it from the fame 

 people, with whom they had frequent intercourfe of friendftiip or hof- 

 tiUty. 



So defective is Caftor's lift of rulers of the fea, that he has entirely- 

 overlooked the Corinthians, who, there is good reafon to believe, were 

 the firft, and for a long time the only, nation of Greece, or indeed of 

 all Europe, who made any confiderable figure in naval tranfadions. 

 The Greeks, in all ages timorous feamen, preferred land-carriage to the 

 dangerous navigation (as they efteemed it) round the rocky and tem- 

 peftuous head-lands of the Pelopomiefusf , and thereby threw the whole 

 trade of their coimtry into the hands of the Corinthians, who, occupy- 



• Though Herodotus [i, ii, c. IC9] fays that Miletus, he had Icarntd it from the Pcrfians ov 



tlie Greeks learned the pole, the gnomon, and the Babylonians. 



divifu,n of the day iiito twelve pans, from the Ba- f About 1800 years after the time now under 



bylonians, the later Greek writers have afTumcd conl'ideration, vvhcii tlie Romans liad carried into 



the honour of the invention of the gnomon in Greece all the military and naval knowlcge to he 



tavour of Aiiaximander, who flourillicd about 170 had in the Mediterranean, an impciial fleet was 



years after Ikzckiah, and who fet up the firrt dial cairicd over-land acrofs the lUliniiis of Corinth to 



fccn in Greece at Lacedicmon. \^L)ii>g. Larrl. avoid the dreadful circumuavigatiun of the Pclopon- 



i. ii.] It is poUible he might be an inventor of it i nefus. [^Gilion's Rom. /.'i/i. F. x, p. i -^8, etJ. iroi.l 



but it is more probable, that, being a native of Q^ How larp;c were thofe imperial men-of-war ? 



