CHAPTER III
THE GREEKS
Homer knew nothing apparently of incendiary compositions. When the Trojans set fire to the Greek ships, he certainly says that they burned with “unquenchable flame” (ἀσβέστη φλόξ), Iliad, xvi. 123; but this is a mere figure of speech, for presently afterwards he tells us that Patroclus extinguished the fire (κατὰ δ’ ἔσβεσεν αἰθόμενον πῦρ), 293.
The Assyrian bas-reliefs in the British Museum prove that liquid fire was used in warfare in very remote times. Whether the Greeks adopted its use from the Orientals or originated it themselves, there is little evidence to show; but traces of it are found at an early date, for instance at the siege of Syracuse,[44] 413 B.C., and the siege of Rhodes,[45] 304 B.C. Vessels full of burning matter were thrown, at first by hand, from walls and the tops of forts upon besiegers; and when shell of suitable construction had been devised, these missiles were discharged from machines.
The earliest instance of the use of firearms by the Greeks is found in Thucydides, ii. 75, where it is stated that at the siege of Platæa, 429 B.C., the Platæans found it necessary to protect a wooden wall by skins and hides against the fire-arrows (πυρφόροις ὀïστοῖς) of their Peloponnesian besiegers. By the time of the Roman Empire, fire-arrows were so well known as to be mentioned by the Latin poets,[46] and the historians speak of fire-lances which were discharged from machines[47] (adactæ tormentis ardentes hastæ). Vegetius, who lived in the fourth century A.D., gives the composition of fire-arrows;[48] and Ammianus Marcellinus, who lived about the same time, points out their defects. First, the fire-arrow had to be discharged with a low velocity—ictu enim rapidiore extinguitur; it was extinguished by the cooling effect of the air when discharged with the full force of the bow. Secondly, in addition to its low velocity (and consequently limited range) it was extinguished when covered with clay.[49] However, the composition was easy to light and hard to put out—even with clay or vinegar; its viscosity enabled it to stick to the body it struck; and, becoming more and more fluid from the heat of combustion, it “spread like wild-fire.”
But the use of incendiaries was not confined to grenades and arrows. At the siege of Platæa, just referred to, the Spartans piled up faggots of brushwood against the walls, and, after pouring a mixture of sulphur and pitch on the heap, set fire to it in order to burn the town.[50] They would have gained their object but for a rainstorm which put out the fire. We have here perhaps the earliest historical account of the composition of an incendiary—429 B.C. At the siege of Delium, 424 B.C., a tree was cut down and hollowed out, so as to form a tube, and from one end of it, which was protected by a covering of iron, was hung a cauldron containing a burning mixture of charcoal, sulphur, and pitch. Into this cauldron was introduced an iron bellows-pipe, leading from the end of the tree from which it hung. Having transported the machine close to the wall of the town (the cauldron to the front), the besiegers inserted the snout of a large bellows into the other end of the hollowed tree, and blew them. A great flame was thus produced; the wall, in which there was much wood, was set on fire; the heat of the fire and the vapour of the incendiary drove the defenders from the walls, and the town fell.[51] Its simplicity shows that the mixture belongs to the infancy of incendiaries in Greece.
We meet with fire-ships as early as 413 B.C., when the Syracusians employed one ineffectually against the Athenian fleet;[52] and a special incendiary for naval use is recommended by Æneas, the tactician, about 350 B.C. It consisted of sulphur, pitch, incense, pine-wood, and tow. The mixture was stowed in egg-shaped, wooden vessels, admirably adapted for their purpose, which were thrown lighted upon the enemy’s decks.[53]
TABLE II.
Greek Fires.