[342] Juvenal, Sat. iii., and passim.
[343] About half of a farthing. Horat. i. Sat. iii. 136. Juvenal, Sat. vi. 146.
[344] Gibbon, ch. xxvi.
[345] Gibbon, ch. xxxii.
[346] Procop. Bell. Vandal, 1.
[347] Gibbon, c. 40. Procop. Gothic. iv. c. 17. Anced. c. 25: Theoph. Byzant. ap. Photium.
[348] Al Sherki.
[349] Gibbon, vol. ix. ch. 51, p. 425.
[350] The Greek fire was prepared chiefly from naphtha, with which there was mixed sulphur and pitch, extracted from evergreen firs. The admixture, when ignited, produced a fierce and obstinate flame, which burned with equal vehemence in every direction, and, instead of being extinguished, was nourished and quickened on the application of water. Sand, urine, or vinegar, were the only known applications which could damp its fury; the Greeks styled it appropriately the liquid or maritime fire. For the annoyance of the enemy, it was employed either by sea or by land, and with equal effect in battles or in sieges. Sometimes it was poured from the ramparts of a besieged city from large boilers, or launched in red-hot balls of stone or iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax or tow which had been soaked in this inflammable oil. On other occasions it was deposited in fire-ships, and thence often, by some unexplained contrivance, blown through long tubes of copper, which were planted on the bow of a galley, and fancifully shaped into the mouths of savage monsters, that seemed to vomit a stream of liquid and consuming fire. Its composition was jealously concealed, and the Greeks terrified their enemies, not merely by the fire itself, but by the reports currently believed that its knowledge had been revealed, by an angel, to the first and greatest of the Constantines for the special use of the people of the eastern portion of the Roman empire. The secret was kept by them for more than four hundred years.