GREEK EIRE. 
167 
charged from the fore part of ships could not have been either hand engines 
or such blow-pipes. They were constructed of copper and iron, and the 
extremity of them sometimes resembled the open mouth and jaws of a lion 
or other animal ; they were painted, and even gilded, and it appears that 
they were capable of projecting the fire to a great distance. 
In some of the ancient drawings of ships, we see as a figure- 
head an animal with rays issuing from the month, as if fire 
were being vomited forth — a representation, probably, of the 
ancient fire-ship described above. Even in the present day 
the same kind of figure-head is sometimes erected. 
Continuing his narrative/ Beckman states that the machines 
by which the liquid substance was thrown forth were expressly 
called, by the ancient writers, spouting engines. 
John Comeniata, speaking of the siege of his native city, Thessalonica, 
which was taken by the Saracens in the year 904, says that the enemy 
threw fire into the wooden works of the besieged, which was blown into them 
by means of tubes, and thrown from other vessels. This passage which 
I do not find quoted in any of the works that treat of Greek fire, proves that 
the Greeks, at the beginning of the tenth century, were no longer the only 
people acquainted with the art of preparing this fire, the precursor of our 
gunpowder. The Emperor Leo, who about the same time wrote his u Art of 
War,” recommends such engines, with a metal covering, to be constructed in 
the fore part of ships ; and he twice afterwards mentions engines for throwing 
out Greek fire. 
Great attention bas been paid to tlie question, —“At wkat 
period was the Greek fire introduced into warfare ? Sir William 
Temple traced it as far back as the seventh century, but 
Gibbon treats the argument as destitute of fact, and, indeed, 
as false. Theophanes, however, and Cedrenus, trace it back 
to the year 660, when, they say, it was discovered by the 
engineer Callinicus, of Heliopolis, or Balbec, who, it is re- 
ported, learned the art of chemistry from the Egyptians, the 
fathers of the art. Nay, by others the discovery has been 
traced back to the pure Greek and Boman period, the in- 
vention being assigned, by Joseph Scaliger, to one Marcus 
Gracchus, or Grsecus, and its application being declared as 
connected with the wars between the Greeks and Bornans, 
and as common to both sides. Bespecting this last-named 
hypothesis, I have only to state, that no direct testimony for 
its support is to be found. The assertion is made purely on 
inferences drawn from the Greek and Boman writers. By the 
I same process of reasoning I think the invention might be traced 
back earlier still, even^through our own Biblical records, and 
through the Vedas. There is nothing improbable, indeed, in the 
hypothesis of a very early origin of Greek fire ; for there are 
an immense number of minor historical details, which would lead, 
