1802.] 
appear fecured from blows, for fear, left 
Some accident should difturb their labours. 
What the author fays here is not accurate. 
The decks of which he {peaks, far from be- 
ing above the heads of the rowers (which 
would have deprived them of a large mafs 
of air neceffary for their refpiration) were 
under théir feet, as in our gallies. Over 
their heads, narrow-ways reached along 
the borders of the veffel, from poop to 
prow. A great interval feparated them 
from one another: the antients named 
them parodos. 
The gallies of the Romans, reprefent- 
ed in this battle, were not with many 
benches of cars, as Montfaucon afferts ; 
nor were the apertures on the fides made 
to pafs the oars through; for, from the 
example which he cites, we can conclude 
nothing relative to the figures of the gal- 
lies of the Trajan column. Thefe latt 
were entirely uncovered ; and thofe of the 
bas-relief of Seville are not fo. The 
holes, in other re{peéts very {mall, are not 
open in a {ufficient length, that the rank 
or ranks of upper oars placed there, could 
cover the lower rank. And befides, the 
defigns of thefe holes were figures pretty 
mach varied ; which would not have been 
the cafe, if they had been all intended for 
the fame ufe, thai of paffing oars through 
them. And lattly, as the moment of the 
battle indicates the purfuit of the enemy’s 
veffels, it was affuredly the mot favour- 
able circumitance to difplay ranks of fu- 
perior oars, if the veffels had had any. 
From all that Citizen David le Roy has 
faid, and efpecially trom there not appear- 
ing in the bas-reliefs, any trace of a rank 
of fuperior- oars, he concludes, that the 
vefiels had only the one which is repre- 
fented in the two monuments. 
_. If the antient gallies, employed by the 
Romans with great {uccefs in naval bar- 
tles, had only had a fingle rank of oars, 
they could only have been very great dy- 
burna, (lyburnes). The mott diftant period 
in which it may be permitted to place the 
battle, which the lyburnes reprefent, is 
the famous epoch where Auguttus difput- 
ed the empire with Mark Antony. 
There is reafon to believe, that Agrippa 
was the inventor of the new gallies. He 
had recourfe to new means to overcome 
theenemy. The men of genius who have 
preceded or followed him in the career of 
arms, have not contented themfelves with 
ordinary means to obtain vittory. The 
Romans were indebted to the corvus of 
Domitius, for their fir maritime triumph 
over the Carthaginians. . Hittory ought 
likewile to tranfmit to our late defcend- 
MonTuiy Mas, Ne. 83. 
* Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
ants, the memory of thofe redoubts of a 
conftru&tion entirely new, which Bona- 
parte eftablifhed at Marengo, to cover the 
flanks of his army when ranged in battle 
on the plain. ' 
It was at the time of the fight at Aéti- 
um, that the gallies, or rather the great 
lyburnes, invented by Agrippa, were car- 
ried to the higheft degree of perfection. 
From that epoch, neither under the reign 
of Auguftus, nor under that of the other 
emperors, does hiftory make mention of 
any other naval combat wherein ambition 
or intrigue had placed the Romans in con- 
teft with other Romans. The author of. 
the Memoir concludes from hence, that 
the bas-reliefs of Seville retrace to us the 
moft important circumftances of the fea- 
fight of Actium. 
The lyburnes were very light, when 
compared with thofe which had many 
ranks of oars, and the elevation of which 
was prodigious. 
As to the thips which fly before the 
Roman army, nothing announces in them 
ftrong veffels of war. We neither fee 
towers nor even battlements above the ha- 
bitations of the ftern ; we remark only a 
cordage inclined and ftretched, which fup- 
pofes fails. The little maft to which an 
enfign was fulpended, ferved to diftinguith 
the vefflel which carried a chief of the 
vanquifhed army. ‘hay 
It is then very probable, that not only 
the Battle of Actium is reprefented in the 
bas-reliefs of Seville, but that care has 
been taken to trace on them, the inftant in 
which the army of Oétavius feizes the ad- 
vantage, and when Antony takes flight 
after the example of Cleopatra. The 
two veliels the moft remarkable, one for 
the multiplicity of compartments feen on 
its poop, the other for the enfign which. 
decorates its little maft, are, perhaps, 
thefe which carried Cleopatra and Mark 
Antony. This laft was, doubilefs, in a 
Pentere, {mall and light, at the moment, 
when lofing all his fame in the arms of 
effeminacy, he abandoned his two armies, 
and the empire, to his young rival. 
Plutarch informs us, that contrary to 
the advice of his pilots, he preferved the 
fails of his gallies; but this author adds 
that the greateft gallies were taken or 
deftroyed on the very {pot where the battle 
was fougit. 
Such is the manner in which Citizen 
David le Roy explains the two bas. 
reliefs of Seville, although the celebrated 
Montfaucon had. afarmed that zt evas 0f 
poffible to difcover what battle is reprejented 
& them, When the author thall have 
Hi publithed 
