Before Chrift 3 1 1 — 302. 



83 



311 — According to Livy [L. ix, c. 30] the Romans appointed two 

 new officers, called duumviri navales, (or lords of the admiralty) whofc 

 duty it was to fupcrintend the equipment and repair of their fleets *. 



302 — Seleucus, one of Alexander's officers, who obtained Syria, Ba- 

 bylonia, and Periia, as his fhare of the empire, had fome intercourfc 

 with India. He fent Megafthenes as his ambaflixdor to Chandragupta, 

 called by the Greeks Sandracottus, king of the Prafii, whofe capital was 

 Pataliputra, which the Greeks call Palibothra, on the Ganges f. Me- 

 gafthenes appears to have penetrated farther into the Eaft than any Eu- 

 ropean ever did before him ; and he publiflied an account of his travels 

 and difcoveries, which, containing many things incomprehenfible to the 

 Europeans, and being afterwa^-ds vitiated by tranfcribers, met with fe- 

 verer treatment from Strabo and fome other learned men than it pro- 

 bably deferved ; for in his geography of India he was much more ac- 

 curate than the fucceeding geographers, except thofe who copied from 

 him ; and it is chiefly to the fragments of his work, tvanfcribed by later 

 writers, that we are indebted for what little we know of the antient flate 

 of India. Allitrochadas, the fon of Chandragupta, (or Sandracottus) 

 i^eceived another ambafllidor, called Daimachus, from Seleucus, or his 

 fon Antiochus, who alfo fent Patrocles on a voyage of difcovery to the 

 eaftward. Both thefe travelers wrote accounts of their difcoveries, of 

 which we know next to nothing. After this the intercourfe between 



* It is evident that Livy lias antedated the 

 creation of an office fuppofed antient in his own 

 time ; for Polybius, the eailieft and mod impartial 

 writer of Roman hiftory now extant, fays very ex- 

 prefsly and repeatedly, that the Romans had no 

 fleet before their firll war with Carthage. It may 

 be inferred, however, from their treaties with the 

 Carthaginians, that they, or rather their conquer- 

 ed fubjefts, had fome trading vefFels ; but their 

 traders, as we fliall frequently have occailon to ob- 

 ferve, attrafled very httle of the attention of go- 

 vernment. 



It is proper, however, here to introduce a llory 

 from a refpeftable author, which, if it were given 

 by him as authentic, might infer that the Roman* 

 had probably fome veffels about this time : I fay 

 frobdhly, becaiife they might have boiTowed veffels 

 then, as wc know for certain they did long after, 

 when they wanted to ferry their army over to Si- 

 cily. Theophrallus, who was a pupil of Arillotle, 

 and died 288 years before Chriil, relates in his 

 Hiftory of phnts, [L. v, c. 9] that, ' though the 

 ' largell and moft beautiful of the Italian pines 

 * and firs grow in Latium, they are nothing in 

 ' comparifon with thofe of Corfica. For the Ro- 

 ' mans, when they went with twenty-iive veffels in 

 ' order to build a town in that iiland, are f aid to 

 ' have fallen in with a place where the trees were 

 ' fo ptodigioudy large, and their branches fo clofe 

 ' together, that the mafts of the veffels were broken 



' to pieces by them in fome bays and harbours ; 



• and, as they favv that the whole idand was thick 

 ' fet, and quite wild and crowded with trees, they 

 ' are/aid to have defifted from their purpole of 

 ' building a town ; but fome of them going afliore, 

 ' cut down in a fmall fpace of ground timber fuf- 

 ' ficient to build a ftiip which was to carry fifcy 



• lails, which, they moreover fay, peridred in the 

 ' fea.' They were certainly very right to put it 

 out of fight. A veffel with Jifly fails indeed ! (not 

 a numeral letter N for 50, but TmrviKoiTx iri«i5 in 

 plain words). Who ever faw or heard of a (hip 

 cai-rying fifty fails, even in the modern fyftem of 

 malls over mafts, ftudding-fail booms added to the 

 yards, and ftay-fails extended between the mafts I 

 Perhaps the reporters of the ftory mi^ook fails tor 

 oars ; and, if the Romans in that age built a velFel 

 of fifty oars, it might certainly have been fome- 

 thing to boaft of. It is fcarcely worth while to 

 notice the leffer abfurdity of the bays and harbours 

 being fo narrow, that (hips were obhged to brufli 

 through the trees. It appears, however, from this 

 hearfay ilorj', that the Romans had made an at- 

 tempt upon Corfica, which is unknown to their 

 own writers, and alfo to thofe modern writers who 

 have correfted the faithful Polybius from the ro- 

 mantic Livy. 



f See the yt/iatic rtfearches, V, iv, p. 10. But 

 the pofition of this famous city is not unqueftion 

 ably afcertained. 



L2 



