Navigation still remained what it had been before, the Greeks seldom venturing into the open sea, and considering it necessary to remain in sight of the coast by day and to observe the rising and setting of the stars by night, in order to replace the landmarks no longer visible in the darkness. In winter, navigation was suspended altogether. Rather than double a cape, they would drag their vessel across a neck of land from one sea to another, by machines contrived for the purpose. This was frequently done across the Isthmus of Corinth. The ordinary size of a war-galley or trireme may be inferred from the fact that its complement of men was two hundred and thirty; and its speed in smooth water and with a favorable wind may be stated as very nearly that of a modern steamboat.
Dionysius of Syracuse (405 b.c.) is said to have built the first quadrireme and quinquereme in Greece,—inventions which he probably obtained from the Carthaginians and Salaminians. Alexander the Great built ships with twelve and thirty ranks of oars. Ptolemy Philopator, of Egypt, is said to have constructed one of forty, after a Greek model. Callixenus has left a description of this vessel; and this, having been transcribed by Plutarch and Athenæus, was, until very lately, thus supported by competent authority, regarded as quite authentic. Late investigations have shown conclusively that the vessel, with the proportions given, never could have existed. She was said to have had forty tiers of oars, one above the other. It is clear that the uppermost tiers must have been of enormous length to reach the water, and we find their length stated, in consequence, at seventy feet. Sixty feet of this length must naturally have been without the vessel, leaving ten feet of handle within. As the strength of no one man would be sufficient to manage an oar thus unequally poised, the fabulists assert that the handles were made of lead, that the equilibrium might be restored. What the story thus gains in weight, however, it certainly loses in credibility. Oars of seventy feet were out of the question, even in the heroic ages. Their number was equally extraordinary, for they counted no less than four thousand, and were managed by four thousand men. Besides these, there were two thousand eight hundred and fifty combatants collected in castles and behind her bulwarks. She had four rudders, each forty-five feet long, and a double prow. This last feature would have been an impediment instead of an advantage, as the re-entering angles of the two prows would have presented a very violent resistance to the water, which, in its turn, would have exerted a great power to separate them. Her stern was said to have been decorated with resplendent paintings of terrible and fantastic animals, her oars to have protruded through masses of foliage, and, as if she was not already overladen, her hold was declared to have contained huge quantities of grain. A critical comparison has shown that this famous galley could not have turned her head from west to east without describing an enormous orbit and occupying a full hour in the manœuvre. Indeed, had the Egyptians been foolish enough to build such a ship, they would not have been fortunate enough to navigate her.
Nevertheless, as it is quite clear that Ptolemy did construct a galley of unusual size and capacity, modern commentators have earnestly sought to explain away the glaring exaggerations and impossibilities of the description given by Callixenus. The chief difficulty lay in the forty tiers of oars and in the four thousand oarsmen. The engraving upon the opposite page gives a representation of the Ptolemy, as she may reasonably be supposed to have appeared. Instead of forty tiers, she has, when thus restored, forty groups of oars: with this substitution, and a liberal diminution in the aggregate number, it is not improbable that she may have existed, and floated even. It is not, however, pretended by Callixenus that she was ever useful in war: she seems to have been regarded as a curiosity and a spectacle. She was, in fact, the Leviathan of antiquity,—the original "Triton among the minnows."
THE PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR.
The Romans obtained the models of their vessels from the Greeks, though they remained almost entirely unacquainted with the sea till the third century before Christ. They then had no fleet, and few or no ships for any peaceful or commercial use. Livy mentions the appointment of naval decemvirs about the year 300 b.c. But it was not till 260 b.c. that Rome became a maritime power. It was now seen that she could not maintain herself against Carthage without a navy, and the senate ordered the immediate construction of a fleet. Triremes would have been of little avail against the high-bulwarked quinqueremes of the Carthaginians. It so happened, very fortunately for them, that a vessel of the largest class, belonging to Carthage, was wrecked upon the coast of Bruttium, and thus furnished them a model. They built, after this design, over one hundred vessels, the greater part of them quinqueremes, the whole being completed in sixty days after the trees were cut down. Thus built of green timber, they were unsound and clumsy. Still, to their own astonishment, they achieved a naval victory, capturing fifty of the enemy's vessels. Seventeen of their own were taken and destroyed by the Carthaginians off Messina. It was not long before the Romans completely crippled the maritime power of their African foe. From this time forward they continued to maintain a powerful navy, and built vessels with six and even ten ranks of oars. The construction of their vessels differed little from that of the Greeks, with the exception of the destructive engines of war and the towers and platforms with which they furnished them.
During the Imperial period, the Romans took great delight in witnessing representations of fights at sea, and their emperors were equally fond of exhibiting them. The first spectacle of this kind, or naumachia, was given by Julius Cæsar upon a lake dug for the purpose in the Campus Martius. Augustus caused a lake or "stagnum" to be made for a similar use. This remained as the permanent scene of such exhibitions. The combatants in these fights were usually captives or criminals condemned to death, who fought as in gladiatorial combats, until one side was exterminated or spared by imperial clemency. In a naumachia given by Nero, there were sea-monsters swimming about in the artificial lake. Claudius ordered a naval battle upon Lake Fucinus, in which one hundred ships and nineteen thousand combatants were engaged. Troops of nereids were seen swimming about, and the signal for attack was given by a silver Triton, who was made, by means of machinery, to blow the alarum upon a trumpet.
We now proceed to narrate, in chronological order, the very few voyages of discovery made previous to the Christian era. These were those of Hanno to Sierra Leone, of Sataspes to Sahara, of Nearchus from the Indus to the Tigris, of Pytheas from Massilia to Shetland, and of Eudoxus from Cadiz to the Equator.