The conquest of Egypt by Alexander put an end to the internal convulsions which had so long disturbed that country, and gave new life to its trade, and Alexandria became the entrepôt of the trade of India and the West. Favoured after his death by wise counsellors and enterprising monarchs, Egypt flourished under the rule of the Ptolemies, and devoted more attention to maritime commerce than she had hitherto done. Ptolemy, son of Lagos, by a judicious exercise of sovereign authority, and by encouraging by all means in his power sea-faring pursuits and free intercourse with other nations, collected a considerable body of traders at the new city; and perceiving what had been the intentions and policy of Alexander, steadily endeavoured to follow in his footsteps.
It was during this long and prosperous reign that the celebrated Pharos at Alexandria was erected by Sostratus of Cnidus,[169] at the cost, it is said, of eight hundred talents; and though Pliny doubts the value of such buildings, and seems to think of them rather as snares to the navigator,[170] Cæsar fully approved of the Alexandrian one.[171] The upper storeys had windows, looking seaward; and fires therein at night lighted ships into the harbour. A few similar structures are mentioned in ancient history as those at Ostia, Ravenna, Brundusium, Capreæ, and Gessoriacum (Boulogne). In England, it is believed that we have remains of two similar structures—the Pharos in Dover Castle, and at Moel Van in Flintshire.
Upon the front of the Alexandrian Pharos there was written the appropriate inscription: “King Ptolemy to the God the Saviour, for the benefit of sailors.”
Canal over the Isthmus.
More than one of the followers of Ptolemy I. pursued the same course, and encouraged their subjects in the promotion of commerce. Thus Philadelphus, his son, made a fresh attempt to cut a canal a hundred cubits in breadth, between Arsinoe (on the Red Sea, not far from Suez) to the Pelusiac or eastern branch of the Nile. But though he failed to carry out his plan, as Necho had done two centuries before,[172] he built on the south-western shores of the Red Sea the port of Berenice, so that goods from Alexandria could be carried on camels’ backs for shipment, either from Myos Hormus, or from this new port; while stations were erected on the road, so as to facilitate the commercial intercourse between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, Thus Egypt, mainly through his instrumentality, enjoyed a line of commerce to India uninterruptedly until the period of Augustus Cæsar, when Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.
Although, as we have seen, the Egyptians were not naturally fond of maritime occupations, it is certain that, during the sway of the Ptolemies, an Egyptian fleet was maintained in the Mediterranean of sufficient size to command that sea, and to afford effectual protection to their merchants and ship-owners. Appian, in his preface, enumerating the naval and military forces of Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, says that he had five hundred galleys, two thousand smaller vessels, and eight hundred thalamegi, or pleasure boats; and Lucian[173] states that he saw in Egypt a vessel of the country, one hundred and twenty cubits long, thirty broad, and twenty-nine deep.
Again, another Ptolemy (Philopator) appears to have been no common enthusiast in ship-building, for he constructed vessels of a size far in excess of any before his day, either in his own or in any other country—ships, indeed, as much larger than any then known, as the Great Eastern is larger than any vessel built in modern times.
Ptolemy’s great ship.
One of these extraordinary vessels is described at length in Athenæus,[174] from an Alexandrian historian named Callixenus. The following are some of her chief peculiarities: she is said to have been two hundred and eighty cubits long, thirty-eight broad, and fifty-three from the highest part of the stern to the water; she had four rudders, each thirty cubits long; and the oars of the thranitæ were thirty-eight cubits long, with handles necessarily weighted with lead. She had two heads, two sterns, and no fewer than seven beaks, one of them much larger than the rest. She carried on board four thousand rowers, and about three thousand mariners, besides a large body of men under her decks, and a vast quantity of stores and provisions. She was launched by means of a contrivance invented by a Phœnician, one, indeed, which might probably have been adopted with success for the launching of the Great Eastern, and, assuredly, at less cost.
