HISTORY OF NAVIGATION. 7 



was surrounded with galleries resting on pillars ; the total height of this 

 building was four hundred feet ; the lower story formed a square, of which 

 each side was over one thousand feet in breadth. PI. 2, fig. 19, gives a 

 view of the light-house, and figs. 19 ^ 19 ^ show the ground plan of the dif- 

 ferent stories. Under the Ptolemies, also, the two large ships of which we 

 have already spoken, were built. But however great the eminence which 

 Egypt at first attained under this dynasty, it afterwards sank to an equally 

 low depth ; and when under Ptolemy XII., Julius Caesar burned an Egyptian 

 fleet of 110 sail, on the open sea, and sacked Alexandria and Cairo, the 

 Egyptian marine, which had flourished for two thousand years, was left 

 almost without a trace on the records of history. 



c. The Greeks. The Phoenicians, whose navigation was more than four 

 hundred years old at that time, brought a colony to Greece under Inachus 

 in the year 1856 b. c. ; but when, three hundred years later, the colony 

 under Cecrops arrived thither, the people were found in a savage state, 

 living in caves, and suffering under the yoke of the pirates. The first thing 

 necessary, therefore, was to establish navigation, in order to act against 

 these enemies. Connected with this were certain relations of trade, which 

 was still in such a rude condition that as late as seven hundred years 

 after Abraham only barter was known in Greece. The inhabitants on 

 the southwest coast of Attica were the first who engaged in navigation, and 

 the most ancient voyage authenticated by history was the Argonautic 

 expedition to Colchis, for which Jason, probably 1200 b. c, constructed 

 a vessel of a much larger size than had hitherto been known in Greece. 

 After the Argonautic expedition, the Greeks engaged more extensively in 

 navigation. In eighty years the siege of Troy took place, with a fleet of 

 1,186 ships ; the largest carrying 120, and the smallest 50 men. The first 

 ships of the Greeks seem to have had no keels ; Homer makes no allusion to 

 any, and all the Greek vessels of that age were large barques, with a single 

 bank of oars, as shown in pi. 2, fig. 3. They were usually round, and the 

 stem and stern were so elevated that the ship almost looked like the moon 

 in the last quarter ; afterwards the stern only was raised so high {fig. 4). 

 The Plataeans introduced the use of two steering-oars. The oldest vessels, 

 which were entirely open, were called aphracti ; the round half-decked 

 ships were called kataphracti. They had willow guards at the side to break 

 the force of the waves ; only one mast was used, which could be taken out 

 at pleasure ; the mast bore one or more sails, which were moved by ropes. 

 These at first were made of bark, but afterwards of skins ; four such ropes 

 at the prow and the stern held the mast. The ships were often painted in 

 encaustic with lively colors, which helped to preserve them. 



The Greek trading vessels had a wide bottom ; their length was only three 

 times their breadth, while the ships of war, on the contrary, were long and 

 pointed, with usually not more than twenty rowers on a bench, the Greeks 

 being skilful in the use of sails on the high seas. The ships were drawn 

 ashore to winter, and were often conveyed considerable distances by land. 

 The merchantmen generally had two banks of oars ; some had two banks 

 at the stern, and only one at the prow, the prow being made narrower on 



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