A. D. 73, 181 



monfoons right aft ; and fometimes they mufl have had them almoft 

 barely upon the beam. 



The maritime part of the Itinerary of Antoninus, which was com- 

 piled by imperial authority, feemingly not long after this time, gives us 

 a good pidure of the timid practice of the Mediterranean feamen in 

 creeping into almoft every bay on the coaft. It begins with diredling 

 what ports are to be touched at in making a paflage from Achaia in 

 Greece to Africa, of which there are no fewer than twenty, and fome ot 

 them at the heads of bays on the coafts of Greece, Epirus, Italy, within 

 the Sicilian Jiraits as far as Mcffana, then along the eaft and fouth fides of 

 Sicily to the weft point of it, whence to the Maritime ifland, and from 

 it a long run, rated at nine hundred ftadia (about ninety miles) to the 

 coaft of Africa. 



Though the general practice was to keep clofe to the fhore, or at leaft 

 to have it conftantly in fight, yet, as they were fure of an extenfive 

 range of coaft for their land-fall, they fometimes ventured to depart 

 from that dilatory and dangerous timidity, when they could depend 

 upon a fair wind by the regular return of the etefians in the Mediter-- 

 ranean, or the monfoons in the Indian ocean. We have feveral inftan- 

 ces of what they called the co?npendious paffage, among which I ftiall in- 

 ftance the following runs to Alexandria. Agrippa went from Rome to 

 Puteoli, where he found a veflel belonging to Alexandria ready to fail, 

 and he arrived in that port in a few days, [fofeph. Antiq. L. xviii, c. 8.] 

 Galerius was conveyed to Alexandria in the feventh, and Babilius in the 

 fixth, day from the Sicilian ftraits. \_PHn. L. xix,/>/-o^OT.] Thefe might 

 be reckoned pretty good paffages even in modern times *. 



In the Mediterranean, during the winter, mild as it is in that fea-, 

 and ftaort as the nights are, compared with thofe of our more northern 

 climate, all navigation was fufpended, as well now as in the. age of the 

 antient Greek poet Hefiod, unlefs upon fome very extraordinary and 

 urgent occafions, or when avarice, as Pliny fays, overcame that cautious 

 regulation. Even the Phcenicians ufually finiftied their voyages for 

 the year about the end of autumn, and laid up their veflels during 

 the winter. \_ASs of the apoftles, cc. 27, 28. — Flin. L. ii, c. 47. — Sueton. in 

 Claud, c. 18. — Veget. L.iv,c. 39. — Lticiaui Dial. 'Toxaiis.'] We muft, 

 however, remember, that the owners of veflels or goods had not the op- 

 portunity of guarding againft the ruinous confequences of fliipwreck, , 

 by paying a moderate premium of infurance f: and, indeed, the fame 



* Piiny [i- XV, c. i8] tells a ftory of the fire- Cato's aflertion mutl have been falfe with refpedl 



brand Cato, ' burning with deadly hatred to Car- to the time, the paffage to Rome being at Icait 500 



• thage,' fliowing a fig to the Roma.i fenate, miles, which alone was more than fufficicnt to take 



which, he faid, had been pulled only three days up three days. 



before at Carthage, as an argument againft per- f It has been fuppofcd, that infurance upon vef- 



njitting- a powerful city fo near them to exill ; and fels was introduced by the emperor Claudius, but ■ 



ht adds, with fome flowers of rhetoric, th.it that without any authority, as 1 have already obfervid.. 



fingle apple (he makes figs a fpecies of apple) was p. i^ i note, 

 -ihe. caufe of the de(lru'''\ion of Carthage. But 



