the same time the Athenians, at the warm instances of Themistocles, who foresaw the war which soon broke out, built ships of the same form, the whole deck not being yet in use; and from thenceforth they applied themselves to naval affairs with incredible ardour and success. The beak of the prow, rostrum, was that part of the vessel of which most use was made in sea fights. a Ariston of Corinth persuaded the Syracusans, when their city was besieged by the Athenians, to make their prows lower and shorter; which advice gained them the victory for the prows of the Athenian vessels being very high and very weak, their beaks struck only the parts above water, and for that reason did little damage to the enemy's ships; whereas the Syracusans, whose prows were strong and low, and their beaks level with the water, at a single blow often sunk the triremes of the Athenians. Two sorts of people served on board these galleys. The one were employed in steering and working the ship, who were the rowers, remiges, and the mariners, nauta. The rest were soldiers intended for the fight, and are meant in Greek by the word, This distinction was not understood in the early times, when the same persons rowed, fought, and did all the necessary work of the ship; which was also not wholly disused in latter days; for Thucydides, in describing the arrival of the Athenian fleet at the small island of Sphacteria, observes, that only the rowers of the lowest bench remained in the ships, and that the rest went on shore with their arms. à Diod. 1. xiii. p. 141. ο επιβαταίς Thucyd. 1. iv. p. 275. 1. The condition of the rowers was very hard and laborious. I have already said, that the rowers, as well as mariners were all citizens and freemen, and not slaves or strangers, as in these days. The rowers were distinguished by their several stages. The lower rank were called thalamitæ, the middle zugitæ, and the highest thranitæ. Thucydides remarks, that the latter had greater pay than the rest, because they worked with longer and heavier oars than those of the lower benches. It seems that the crew, in order to act in concert, and with better effect, were sometimes guided by the singing of a man, and sometimes by the sound of an instrument; and this grateful harmony served not only to regulate the motion of their oars, but to diminish and sooth the pains of their labour. It is a question among the learned, whether there was a man to every oar in these great ships, or several, as in the galleys of these days. What Thucydides observes on the pay of the thranite, seems to imply that they worked single: for if others had shared the work with them, wherefore had they greater pay given them than those who managed an oar alone, as the latter had as much, and perhaps more of the labour than them? Father Montfaucon believes, that in the vessels of five ranks there might be several men to one oar. He who took care of the whole crew, and commanded the vessel, was called nauclerus, and was the principal * Musicam natura ipsa videtur ad tolerandos facilus labores veluti muneri nobis dedisse. Siquidem et remiges cantus hortatur: nec solum in iis operibus, in quibus plurium conatus præeunte aliqua jucunda voce conspirat, sed etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet se rudi modulatione solatur. Quintil. 1. i. c. 10. officer. The second was the pilot, gubernator; his place was in the poop, where he held the helm in his hand, and steered the vessel. His skill consisted in knowing the coasts, ports, rocks, shoals, and especially the winds and stars; for before the invention of the compass, the pilot had nothing to direct him during the night but the stars. 2. The soldiers, who fought in the ships, were armed almost in the same manner with the land forces. 1 The Athenians, at the battle of Salamin, had one hundred and eighty vessels, and in each of them eighteen fighting men, four of whom were archers, and the rest heavy armed troops. The officer who commanded these soldiers was called, and the commander of the whole fleet.* We cannot exactly say the number of soldiers, mariners, and rowers, that served on board each ship; but it generally amounted to two hundred, more or less, as appears from Herodotus's estimate of the Persian fleet in the time of Xerxes, and in other places where he mentions that of the Greeks. I mean here the great vessels, the triremes, which were the species most in use. The pay of those who served in these ships varied very much at different times. When young Cyrus arrived in Asia,' it was only three oboli, which was half a drachm, or five pence; and the treaty between the Persians and Lacedemonians was concluded upon тенеаднос h Plut. in Themist. p. 119. k vavagnos, or seaтnyos. 1 Xenoph. Hist. hi. p. 441. this foot; which gives reason to believe, that the usual pay was three oboli. Cyrus, at Lysander's request, added a fourth, which made six pence half penny a day. "It was often raised to a whole drachm, about ten pence French. In the fleet fitted out against Sicily the Athenians gave a drachm a day to the troops. The sum of sixty talents, which the people of Egesta advanced the Athenians monthly for the maintaining of sixty ships, shows that the pay of each vessel for a month amounted to a talent, that is to say, to three thousand livres ; which supposes, that each ship's company consisted of two hundred men, each of whom received a drachm or ten pence a day.. As the officers' pay was higher, the republic perhaps either furnished the overplus, or it was deducted out of the total of the sum advanced for a vessel, by abating something in the pay of the private men. The same may be said of the land troops as has been said of the seamen, except that the horse had double their pay. It appears that the ordinary pay of the foot was three oboli a day, and that it was augmented according to times and occasions. Thimbron the Lacedemonian, when he marched against Tissaphernes, promised a daric a month to each soldier, two to a captain, and four to the colonels. Now a daric a month is four oboli a day. Young Cyrus, to animate his troops, whom a too long march had discouraged, instead of one daric, promised one and a half to each This treaty stipulated, that the Persians should pay thirty mina a month for each ship, which was half a talent; the whole amounted to three oboli a day for every man that served on board. Thucyd. 1 vi. p. 431. Thucyd. 1. vi. p. 415. • About 84001. sterling. Xenoph. Exped, Cyr. 1. vii, ป soldier, which amounted to a drachm, or ten pence French a day. It may be asked how the Lacedemonians, whose iron coin, the only species current among them, would go no where else, could maintain armies by sea and land, and where they found money for their subsistence. It is not to be doubted but they raised it, as the Athenians did, by contributions from their allies, and still more from the cities, to which they gave liberty and protection, or from those they had conquered from their enemies. Their second fund for paying their fleet and armies were the aids they drew from the king of Persia, as we have seen on several occasions. SECTION V. PECULIAR CHARACTER OF THE ATHENIANS. PLUTARCH furnishes us with almost all the matter upon this head. Every body knows how well he succeeds in copying nature in his portraits, and how proper a person he was to trace the character of a people, whose genius and manners he had studied with so profound an attention. I. "The people of Athens," says Plutarch," " 366 were easily provoked to anger, and as easily induced to resume their sentiments of benevolence and compassion." History supplies us with an infinity of examples of this kind. The sentence of death passed against the inhabitants of Mitylene, and revoked the Plut. in præcept. reip. ger. p. 793. * Ο δήμος Αθηναίων ευκίνητος εςι προς οργην ευμετασθετος προς ελεον. |