gb' Before Chrift 219. 



nations of modern Europe, the impoft was loudly complained of by 

 all the ftates who traded to the Euxine. The Rhodians, as the people 

 principally aggrieved, (for the Grecian voyages, as we learn from Po- 

 lyblus, feldom extended fo far) and as the firft maritime power of the 

 Eaft, after inefFecT:ual negotiation, made war upon the Byzantines, who 

 were foon obliged to allow the paflage of the ft rait to be free to all na- 

 tions *. [^Polyb. L. iv, cc. 38 et feqq.^ 



A kind of rage for building iliips, vaflly exceeding every purpofe of 

 utility in enormous bulk and extravagant ornament, infeded fome of 

 the opulent kings of this age. One of thefe was Hiero, king of Syra- 

 cufe, whom the Romans, not yet ready for the redudion of his king- 

 dom, had detached from his alliance with Carthage, and permitted to 

 pafs a long life in a kind of dependent and tributary alliance with them. 

 His fubjeds were thereby almoft exempted from war ; and their mer- 

 cantile induftry, wherein they were perhaps next to the Carthaginians, 

 together with the great fertility of the country, made the people, and 

 confequently the king, very wealthy. By the affiftance of the famous 

 mechanic philofopher Archimedes, Hiero conftruded a galley of twenty 

 tires of oars, fheathed with lead, and carrying three malls f , which no 

 veflel had hitherto done ; and fhe is faid to have had all the accommo- 

 dations and embellifliments of a palace, together with the fortifications 

 and warlike flores of a caftle. Though fhe was launched before her 

 upperworks were built, it was neceflary, in order to get her into the 

 water, for Archimedes to invent a machine called a helice, which feems 

 to have been a large jack-fcrew. 



Ptolemy Philopator, kiiig of Egypt, built two huge fliips. One of 

 them, faid to be intended for the fea, was 420 feet long, and only 57 

 feet broad, furniflied with two heads and two flerns, whence we may 

 fuppoie, that the lower part confifted of two long flat vefTels united by 

 one deck, like the warlike canoes of the South-fea iflands. She carried 

 4,000 oars difpofed in 40 tires. Befides 4,000 rowers, fhe carried 2,850 

 foidiers, and an innumerable mob of couks, fervants, &c. This fhip* 

 could not be launched, owing to her prodigious bulk ; and fhe muil 

 have remained, a monument of folly, upon the dry land, if a Phoeni- 



* According to Herodian [L. iii] the impoft kep; in Inverncfs-rtiire. There can be little reafon 



was again cxadted by the Byzantines in his own to doubt, that the maft was cut in the celebrated 



time, bef'jrc tlieir city was dedroycd by the army fir wood extending 700 ftadia in Brettia or Cru- 



of Scverus. tium, \_Slraho, L. vi, p. 400] whence it could be 



+ The learned and judicious Camden has been very ealily towed acrols the llrait, and aloii<T the 



mifled ill one place by an error proceeding from fliore to Syracufe ; whereas to tranfport fo large a 



llic fimilarily ot Bfirna (Brutiuni in the fouthern tree from Britain would fcarcely have been pof. 



extremity of Italy) and BfiTrawxii (Britain) to fible. [^BiilDmiia, eJ. 1607,/!. 21; and fee/). 24, 



iiippofe, that the main maft for Hiero's ftupendous where he is alnioft inclined lo give the maft to its 



fliip was carried from Britain: and Speed [/////aWc own native country.] Even a niiftake of fuch an 



»f Bntaiiie, p. 9] has fo far improved upon the author as Camden is entitled to notice, and to a 



idea, as almoft to condefcend upon the very fpot candid examination, 

 where the tree grew, viz. the banks of Loch Ar- 



