not turn their attention that way, as Themistocles did in regard to maritime affairs. Xenophon was well capable of rendering them a like service in respect to the cavalry, of the importance of which he was perfectly apprised. He wrote two treatises upon this subject, one of which regards the care it is necessary to take of horses, and how to understand and break them; to which he adds the exercise of the squadron; both well worth the reading of all who profess arms. In the latter he states the means of placing the cavalry in honour, and lays down rules upon the art military in general, which might be of very great use to all those who are designed for the trade of war.

I have wondered, in running over this second treatise, to see with what care Xenophon, a soldier and a pagan, recommends the practice of religion, a veneration for the gods, and the necessity of imploring their aid upon all occasions. He repeats this maxim in thirteen different places; of a tract, in other respects brief enough; and rightly judging that these religious insinuations might give some people offence, he makes a kind of apology for them, and concludes the piece with a reflection, which I shall repeat entire in this place. "If any one," says he, "wonders that I insist so much here upon the necessity of not forming any enterprise without first endeavouring to render the Divinity favourable and propitious, let him reflect, that there are in war a thousand unforeseen and obscure conjunctures, wherein the generals, vigilant to take advantages, and lay ambuscades for each other, from the uncertainty of an enemy's motions, can take no

other council than that of the gods. Nothing is doubtful or obscure with them. They unfold the future to whomsoever they please, on the inspection of the entrails of beasts, by the singing of birds, by visions, or in dreams. Now we may presume that the gods are more inclined to illuminate the minds of such as consult them not only in urgent necessities, but who at all times, and when no dangers threaten them, render them all the homage and adoration of which they are capable."

It became this great man to give the most important of instructions to his son Gryllus, to whom he addresses the treatise we mention, and who, according to the common opinion, was appointed to discipline the Athenian cavalry.

SECTION IV.

OF MARITIME AFFAIRS, FLEETS, AND NAVAL FORCES.

IF the Athenians were inferior to the Lacedemoni. ans in respect to cavalry, they carried it infinitely against them in naval affairs; and we have seen their abilities that way make them masters at sea, and give them a great superiority to all the other states of Greece. As this subject is very necessary to the understanding many passages in this history, I shall treat it more extensively than other matters, and shall make great use of what the learned father Don Bernard de Montfaucon has said of it in his books upon antiquity.

The principal parts of a ship were the prow or head, the poop or stern, and the middle, called in latin, carina, the hulk or waist.

The prow was the part in the front of the waist, or belly of the ship; it was generally adorned with paintings and different sculptures of gods, men, or animals. The beak, called rostrum, lay lower, and level with the water; it was a piece of timber which projected from the prow, covered at the point with brass, and sometimes with iron. The Greeks termed it.b

The other end of the ship, opposite to the prow, was called the poop. There the pilot sat and held the helm, which was a longer and larger oar than the

rest.

The waist was the hollow of the vessel, or the hold. The ships were of two kinds. The one were rowed with oars, which were ships of war, the other carried sails, and were vessels of burden, intended for commerce and transports. Both of them sometimes made use of oars and sails together, but that very rarely. The ships of war are also very often called long ships by authors, and by that name distinguished from vessels of burden.

The long ships were further divided into two species; those which were called actuariæ naves, and were very light vessels, like our brigantines; and those called only long ships. The first were usually termed open ships, because they had no decks. Of these light vessels there were some larger than ordinary, of which some had twenty, some thirty, and others * виболот.

forty oars, half on one side and half on the other, all on the same line.

The long ships, which were used in war, were of two sorts. Some had only one rank of oars on each side; the others two, three, four, five, or a greater number, to forty; but these last were rather for show than use.

The long ships of one rank of oars were called aphracti, that is to say, uncovered, and had no decks. This distinguished them from the cataphracti, which had decks. They had only small places to stand on, at the head and stern, in the time of action.

The ships most commonly used in the battles of the ancients, were those which carried from three to five ranks or benches of oars, and were called triremes and quinqueremes.

It is a great question, and has given occasion for abundance of learned dissertations, how these benches of oars were disposed. Some will have it that they were placed at length, like the ranks of oars in the modern galleys. Others maintain, that the ranges of the biremes, triremes, quinqueremes, and so on to the number of forty in some vessels, were one above another. To support this last opinion, innumerable passages are cited from ancient authors, which seem to leave no manner of doubt in it, and are considerably corroborated by the column of Trajan, which represents these ranks one above another. Father Montfaucon however avers, that all the persons of greatest skill in naval affairs whom he had consulted, declared, that the thing conceived in that manner, seemed to them utterly impossible. But such a way of

reasoning is a weak proof against the experience of so many ages, confirmed by so many authors. It is true, that in admitting these ranks of oars to be disposed perpendicularly one above another, it is not easy to comprehend how they could be worked; but in the biremes and triremes of the column of Trajan, the lower ranks are placed obliquely, and as it were rising by degrees.

In ancient times the ships with several ranks of ears were not known; they made use of long ships, in which the rowers, of whatever number they were, worked all upon the same line. Such was the fleet which the Greeks sent against Troy. It was composed of twelve hundred sail, of which the galleys of Beotia had each one hundred and twenty men, and those of Philoctetes fifty; and this no doubt intends the greatest and smallest vessels. Their galleys had no decks, but were built like common boats; which is still practised, says Thucydides, by the pirates, to prevent their being so soon discovered at a distance.

The Corinthians are said to have been the first who changed the form of ships, and, instead of simple galleys, made vessels with three ranks, in order to add by the multiplicity of oars to the swiftness and impetuosity of their motion. Their city, advantageously situated between two seas, lay well for commerce, and served as a staple for merchandise. From their example the inhabitants of Corcyra, and the tyrants of Sicily, equipped also many galleys of three benches, a little before the war against the Persians. It was about

Thucyd. 1. i. p. 8.
21

VOL. 4.

• Ibid. p. 10.