A. D. 73* 179 



fleet on the coaft of Britain, and the wreck of that of Drufus on the 

 coaft of Germany. What Uttle nautical knowlege they had was merely 

 fubfervient to the purpofes of war : for com.merce, as beneath tlie dig- 

 nity of the conquerors of the world, was abandoned to their fubjects of 

 Gadir, New Carthage, Maflilia, Rhodes, Phoenicia, Egypt, &c. Their 

 own veflels were of two kinds, the one adapted for battle, and the other 

 for tranfporting their armies. Their fhips intended for battle, though 

 they carried feveral tires of oars, drew very little water *. They were 

 very long in proportion to their breadth ; and probably their bottoms 

 were fiat, or fo nearly fo, that they could be conveniently hauled up 

 upon the beach f , and their fides parallel to each other, being according 

 to the be ft judgement I can form of them, in the conftrudion of their 

 bodies, much more like the coal barges on the River Thames than fhips 

 fit to go upon fait water. They were called long fhips to diftinguilh them 

 from others, which, having their bottom timbers fomewhat rounded,, 

 and their fides bending in to the ftem and ftern-pofl, were called round 

 JhipsX' Their tranfports, or fliips of burthen, which Caefar calls great 

 fhips, and fays, they required (comparatively) deep water, drew in facl 

 fo little water, that the foldiers leaped over their fides, and walked 

 onfhore, as failors do from a fhip's long-boat. 



The natives of Greece appear to have been even now but very indif- 

 ferent feamen. Polybius, about a century and a half before the Chriftian 

 »ra, had obferved, that in his time very few of them ventured fo far 

 from home as Byzantium ; a voyage not half fo long as that afcribed to 

 the Argonauts in the fabulous ages. If we may truft to the poetical 

 authority of Ovid, they ftill perfifted in the grofs ftupidity of preferring 

 the greater bear to the lefTer one as their mark for the north pole in the 

 enlightened age of Auguftus. And Lucian, contemporary with the 

 emperor Antoninus the Philofopher and his fon Commodus, reprefents 

 the whole city of Athens as flruck with, aftonifhment at the fight of a 

 very large fliip. It may be obferved, however, that moft of the names 

 ufed by the Roman writers to diftinguifh the different kind of velTels, 

 were received by them from the Greeks §. 



* The Llbuniians decoyed their enemies, pro- out of the water required flat bottoms : and Lucf- 



babty Romans, who were onboard a tn'remis, into an's fiction (in his "True hijlory) of his vefiel going 



fiiallow water, which, by cronching down in it, upon the ice infers, that ihe could .land upright 



they made to have the appearance iti 3, deep ica. without being I'upported by the water, and with- 



(' alti marls'), wherein men's heads only could be out the additional keels given to the ice boats in 



4ecn abos'c the water. The trtrtmis got aground, America. 



and was taken. [_Frontini Stratii^anata, L. ii, c. % Some have fuppofed, that thofe veflels were 



5.] How many feet, or rather how many inches, literally circular, or, in other words, that people 



of water did this ihip of war require to float her \ went to fea in tubs. See a reprefentatiun of a 



— Paulus Emilias went up the Tiber (which, if I round vefie] in the plate at p. 31. 

 am rightly infarracd, has fcarcely four feet of wa- J" A lift of the various kinds of veflels may be 



ter) to Rome in a veflel ai fintccn tires of oars, found in Aulus Gellius. ^NoU. Att. L. x, c. 25. j 



taken from the king of Macedonia. [Z/f/i Hiji. But as it only contains bare names, it would bs 



L. xlv, c. 35.] ufekfs to tranfcribe it. 



f The common praiSice of hauling their vctTtls 



Z 2 



