FOOTNOTES:
[152] Dr. Young, not Champollion, was the first to discover the true method of deciphering the hieroglyphics by determining that “certain characters in the Proper Names, whatever may have been their original import, were employed to represent sounds.” This he published, in 1819, in the “Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica.” Two years later, in 1821, M. Champollion published at Grenoble a work in which he still asserted “that hieroglyphics are not phonetic,” and “that hieroglyphical symbols are the signs of things, and not the signs of sounds.”
[153] Herod. ii. 109.
[154] Tacit. Ann. ii. 60.
[155] Texier, “Asie Mineure,” ii. p. 304. Cf. Herod. i. 106.
[156] Herod. i. 112, 154. Compare also Strabo, xvii. 1147. Joseph. Ant. Jud. xiv. 8.
[157] Herod. ii. 179.
[158] Herod. ii. 178.
[159] Herod. ii. 60.
[160] The Acantha is a species of Mimosa, or Acacia, still common in Egypt, and the origin of our “gum Arabic,” perhaps the same as the Shittim wood of Exodus. The present boats are built of it. The Egyptians exported “fine linen” for sail-cloths to Phœnicia (Ezek. xxvii. 7). Hempen (Herod. vii. 25) and palm ropes (not papyrus) were used for the tackle. The process of making them may be seen on the tombs at Beni-Hassan and Thebes, and specimens of them have been often found. The modern boatmen place a stone aft to keep the boat’s head to the stream. Col. Chesney (ii., p. 640) found the Arabs using a bundle of hurdles and a stone for the kufahs on the Euphrates, exactly as described by Herodotus. Baris occurs in Æschylus, technically, as an Egyptian boat (Suppl. 815 and 858); see also Plutarch, Isis, c. 18; Iamblichus De Myst. 5, 6. All their larger, and even their market boats, had cabins. Wilkinson adds that there is as much difference now as of old in the size of the boats; and that there are some (which can only navigate the Nile during the inundation) which are rated as high as twenty-four thousand bushels of corn. The war vessels of the eighteenth and nineteenth Dynasties had a single row of twenty to fifty oars, like the Greek penteconters.
[161] Herodotus, book ii. c. 96.
[162] A talent is about sixty-five pounds weight.
[163] See also Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” vol. ii. p. 132.
[164] Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” vol. ii. p. 156.
[165] Tacit. Annal. ii. 6, and De Morib. German, c. xliv.
[166] See also Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” vol. ii. p. 137.
[167] Egypt produced no forest timber nor any lofty trees, except the date-palm and sycamore, of which the mummy cases are made.
[168] See an elaborate drawing of a ship in Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” vol. ii. p. 157.
[169] Plin. xxxvi. 12.
[170] Plin. xxxvi. 86.
[171] Cæsar, Bell. Civil. iii. 93.
[172] Herod. iv. 42. The canal was really commenced by Rameses II., and, probably, only re-opened by Necho and Darius.
[173] Lucian, Navig. 5.
[174] Athen. v. 37.
[175] See a further examination of her by Leroy, Mémoires de l’Acad. d’Inscriptions, t. xxxvii.
[176] A long account is given of her by Athenæus (v. 40-44), who makes use of three distinct words for the trenails, the ribs, and the upright supports of the side planks.
[177] This is surely an exaggeration, as the passage through the islands to Asia Minor must have been familiar to them. Even the Spartans were used to the voyage (Herod. i. 70, 152; iii. 47, 57). The reason was rather, as Mr. Grote suggests, “fear of an enemy’s country, where they could not calculate the risk beforehand” (vol. v. p. 198).
[178] Plutarch in Thes. c. 19, where “trireme” is used in the sense of any vessel.
[179] Cicero, de leg. Agrar. ii. 32; Eurip. Troad. 1097; and Hor. Od. i. 7, 2, exactly describe the geographical position of Corinth. The Phœnicians must have been there early, as a mountain at Corinth bore the name of the “Phœnician” (Ephor. ap. Steph. Byz.), and the “Phœnician Athene” was also worshipped there (Tzetz. ap Lycophr. 658.) The Corinthians, too, were the founders of Syracuse and Corcyra (Corfu) and of many ports along the coast of Greece. The principal port of Corinth (represented on a coin of Antoninus Pius) was called Cenchreæ, and is noticed in Acts xviii. 18, and Romans xvi. 1.
[180] Plin. xxxiv. 7; xxxvii. 49; xxxv. 15, 151; xxxvi. 178; xxxv. 152, &c.
[181] The actual boundary stone of the mercantile port of the Piræeus, of the date of the Peloponnesian war, was found in situ in 1842 (Ulrich’s Athen. 1843). Themistocles planned, and Pericles carried out the building of this port-town (Paus. i. 1; Schol. Arist. Equit. 974; ibid. 547).
[182] The few following facts are, perhaps, worth recording. Thus, an oar cost 5 drachmæ (Andoc. p. 81); and Lucian, Dial. de Mort. 4, charges the anchor for Charon’s boat at 3 dr. The tropoter cost 2 obols; a needle for sewing the sail, 3 obols; and the pitch, wax, nails, &c., 2 drachmæ more. Again, Demosthenes speaks of a bottomry bond of 3000 drachmæ; and Polyænus states, generally, that a ship cost a talent. Usually the State found the hull, and the trierarch the fittings. In the naval service the pay and the provisions were generally joined together: 20 minæ was good pay for a month, and the complement of a trireme about 200 men; the proportion of sailors, rowers, and fighting men varying considerably at different times. The thranitæ got the best pay (Arnold’s note, Thucyd. vi. 43). The whole equipment of shipping (for war) was under the control of trierarchs (Böckh, Publ. Economy of Athens, bk. iv. c. 11).
[183] Herodotus, book viii. ch. 1 and 2.
[184] Herodotus, book vii. ch. 185.
[185] Ibid. book viii. ch. 17.
[186] This Clinias, who was killed at the battle of Coronæa, in B.C. 447, was the father of the famous Alcibiades. Plut. Alcib.
[187] Herod. vii. 184.
[188] Herod. vii. 190.
[189] Ibid. vii. 188.
[190] Some ancient, as well as many modern writers, have questioned the story of this canal (Cf. Juvenal, x. 173, 174); but later researches have shown that there are undoubted remains of this great work. Captain Spratt, R.N., has surveyed it thoroughly, and has published an account and map thereof in the “Journ. Roy. Geogr. Soc.” v. 17. The canal now forms a line of ponds, from 2 to 8 feet deep, and from 60 to 90 broad, extending from sea to sea. It is cut through tertiary sands, which would naturally fall in, as Herodotus states (vii. 23). Previously to Spratt, the genuineness of this work had been maintained by Choiseul-Gouffier, Voy. Pittor. ii. i. 148; Colonel Leake, “Northern Greece,” ii. 145; and Sir George Bowen, “Athos,” p. 57. Moreover, we can hardly fancy that Herodotus could be in error about a work of such magnitude, and executed only thirty-six years before he publicly read his history at the Olympic Games, B.C. 445.
[191] Herod. vii. ch. 24.
[192] There is no doubt that the ancients did adopt this plan of hauling vessels over land to a great extent; a portion of the Isthmus of Corinth was called Diolcus—as the spot where the ships were so drawn across. Hesych. ad voc. Cf. Thucyd. iii. 81; iv. 8. Horat. Od. i. 4, 2.