The long ships were further divided into two classes: those which were called actuariæ naves, and were very light vessels like our brigantines; and those called only long ships. The first were usually termed open ships, because they had no decks. Some of these light vessels were larger than ordinary, and had twenty, thirty, and forty oars, half on one side, and half on the other, all on the same line. The long ships which were used in war, were of two sorts. Some had only one rank of oars on one side; others two, three, four, five, or a greater number, to forty; but these last were rather for show than use. The long ships of one rank of oars were called aphracti; that is to say, uncovered, and had no decks: in which they differed from the cataphracti, which had decks. They had only small places at the head and stern, to stand on in the time of action. The ships most commonly used in the battles of the ancients, were those which carried from three to five ranks or benches of oars, and were called triremes and quinqueremes. It is a great question, and has given rise to many learned dissertations, how these benches of oars were disposed. Some will have it, that they were placed at length, like the ranks of oars in the modern galleys. Others maintain, that the ranges of the biremes, triremes, quinqueremes, and so on to the number of forty in some vessels, were one above another. To support this last opinion, innumerable passages are cited from ancient authors, which seem to leave no manner of doubt in it, and are strongly corroborated by the column of Trajan, which represents these ranks one above another. Father Montfaucon, how ever, avers, that all the persons of greatest skill in naval affairs, whom he had' consulted, declared, that such an arrangement seemed to them utterly impossible. This manner of reasoning is a weak proof against the experience of so many ages, confirmed by so many authors. It is true, that in admitting these ranks of oars to be disposed perpendicularly one above another, it is not easy to comprehend how they could be worked; but in the biremes and triremes of the column of Trajan, the lower ranks were placed obliquely, and as it were rising by degrees. In ancient times, the ships with several ranks of oars were unknown. They made use of long ships, in which the rowers, whatever might be their number, worked all upon the same line. Such was the fleet which the Greeks sent against Troy. It was composed of twelve hundred sail; of which the galleys of Boeotia contained each one hundred and twenty men, and those of Philoctetes fifty; which no doubt includes the largest and smallest vessels. Their galleys had no decks, but were built like common boats," which is still practised," says Thucydides," by the pirates, to prevent their being so soon discovered at a distance." ""* The Corinthians are said to have been the first who changed the form of ships; and instead of simple galleys, made vessels with three ranks, in order to add by the multiplicity of oars to the swiftness and impetuosity of their motion. Their city, advantageously situated between two seas, lay commodious ly for commerce, and served as an emporium for merchandise. From their example the inhabitants of Corcyra, and the tyrants of Sicily, also equipped many galleys of three benches, a short time before the war against the Persians. It was about the same time that the Athenians, at the warm instances of Themistocles, who foresaw the war which soon broke out, built ships of the same form, the whole deck not being yet in use; and from thenceforth they applied themselves to naval affairs with incredible ardour and success.† The beak of the prow, (rostrum) was that part of the vessel which was mostly used in sea-fights. Ariston of Corinth persuaded the Syracusans, when their city was beseiged by the Athenians, to make the prows lower and shorter, which advice gained them the victory: for the prows of the Athenian vessels being very high and weak, their beaks struck only the parts above water, and for that reason did little damage to the enemy's ships; whereas the Thucyd. I. i. p. 3. †Thucyd. 1. i. p. 10. Syracusans, whose prows were strong and low, and their beaks level with the water, often sunk the triremes of the Athenians with a single blow.* Two classes of people served on board these galleys. The one was composed of the rowers, (remiges,) and the mariners, (nautæ,) employed in steering and working the ships. The other consisted of the soldiers intended for the fight, who were denominated arα This distinction was not made in early times, when the same persons rowed, fought, and did all the necessary work of the ship, as was occasionally the case at a later period. For Thucydides, in describing the arrival of the Athenian fleet at the small island of Sphacteria, observes, that only the rowers of the lowest bench remained in the ships, and that the rest went on shore with their arms.f The condition of the rowers, was very hard and laborious. I have already said, that the rowers, as well as mariners, were all citizens and freemen, and not slaves or strangers. The rowers were distinguished by three several stages. The lower rank were called thalamitæ, the middle zugitæ, and the highest thranite. Thucydides remarks that the latter had greater pay than the rest, because they worked with longer and heavier oars than those of the lower benches. It seems that the crew, in order to act in concert, and with better effect, were sometimes guided by the singing of a man, and sometimes by the sound of an instrument; and this grateful harmony served not only to regulate the motion of their oars, but to mitigate and soothe the pains of their labour. It is a question among the learned, whether there was a single man to every oar in these great ships, or several, as in the galleys of the present day. What Thucydides observes on the pay of the thranitæ, seems to imply that they worked singly. For if others had shared the work with them, wherefore had they greater pay given them than those who managed an oar alone, as the latter had as much, and perhaps more labour than they? Father Montfaucon believes, that in the vessels of five ranks, there might have been several men to a single oar. He who took care of the whole crew, and commanded the vessel, was called nauclerus, and was the principal officer. The second was the pilot, (gubenator) whose station was in the poop where he held the helm and steered the vessel. His skill consisted in knowing the coasts, ports, rocks, shoals, and especially the winds and stars; for before the invention of the compass, the pilot had nothing to direct him, during the night but the stars. The soldiers who fought in the ships, were armed almost in the same manner as the land forces. The Athenians, at the battle of Salamin, had one hundred and eighty vessels, and in each of them eighteen fighting men, four of whom were archers, and the rest heavy-armed troops. The officer who commanded these soldiers, was called τρινραρχος, and the commander of the whole feet, ναυαρχος Οι ςρατηγός We cannot exactly tell the number of soldiers, mariners and rowers, that served on board each ship; but it generally amounted to about two hundred, as appears from the estimate of Herodotus of the Persian fleet in the time of Xerxes, and in other places, where he mentions that of the Greeks. I mean here the great vessels, the triremes, which were the species most in use. The pay of those who served in these ships varied greatly at different times. When the younger Cyrus arrived in Asia, it was only three oboli, or half a drachin; and the treaty between the Persians and Lacedæmonians was concluded on this condition, which gives reason to believe, that the usual pay was three oboli. Cyrus, at Lysander's request, added a fourth. It was fre *Diod. l. xiii. p. 141. Thucyd. 1. i. v. p. 275. Musicam natura ipsa videtur ad tolerandos facilius labores veluti muneri nobis dedisse. Siquidem et semiges cantus hortatur; nec solum in iis operibus in quibus plurium conatus præeunte aliqua jucunda vore conspirat, sed etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet se rudi modulatione solatur.-Quintil. I. i. c. 10. Plut. in Themist. p. 119. This treaty stipulated that the Persians should pay thirty minæ a mont' f each ship, which was half talent the whole amounted to three oboli a day for every man that served on board. Xenoph. Hist. 1, í. p. 441. quently raised to a whole drachm. In the fleet fitted out against Sicily, the Athenians gave a drachm a day to the troops. The sum of sixty talents, which the people of Egesta advanced the Athenians monthly for the maintaining of sixty ships, shows that the pay of each vessel for a month amounted to a talent, which supposes, that each ship's company consisted of three hundred men, each of whom received a drachm per dayt. As the officers' pay was higher, the republic perhaps either furnished the overplus, or it was deducted out of the total of the sum advanced for a vessel, by abating something in the pay of the private men. The same may be said of the land troops as has been said of the seamen, except that the horse had double pay. It appears that the ordinary pay of the foot was three oboli a day, and that it was augmented according to times and occasions. Thimbron the Lacedæmonian, when he marched against Tissaphernes, promised a daric a month to each soldier, two to a captain, and four to the colonels. Now, a daric a month is four oboli a day. Young Cyrus, to animate his troops, who were discouraged by the length of their march, instead of one daric, promised one and a half to each soldier, which amounted to a drachm a day. It may be asked how the Lacedæmonians, whose iron coin, the only species current among them, was of no value elsewhere, could maintain armies by sea and land, and where they found money for their subsistence. They no doubt raised it, as the Athenians did, by contributions from their allies, and the cities to which they gave liberty and protection, or from those they had conquered from their enemies. Their second fund for paying their fleet and armies, was the aids they drew from the king of Persia, as we have seen on several occasions SECTION V. PECULIAR CHARACTER OF THE ATHENIANS. PLUTARCH furnishes us with almost all the matter upon this head. Every body knows how well he succeeded in copying nature in his portraits, and how well qualified he was to trace the character of a people, whose genius and mac ners be had studied with so profound an attention. I. "The people of Athens," says Piutarch," were easily provoked to anger and as easily reduced to resume their sentiments of benevolence and compassion." History furnishes us with numerous examples of this kind. Witness the sentence of death passed against the inhabitants of Mitylene, which was revoked the next day: the condemnation of the ten generals, and of Socrates, both followed with an immediate repentance and most lively grief. II. "They were better pleased with penetrating and almost guessing an affair themselves, than to give themselves leisure be informed of it thoroughly, and in all its extent."|| Nothing is more surprising than this circumstance in their character, which is very hard to conceive, and seems almost incredible. Artificers, husbandmen, soldiers, and mariners, are generally a stupid, heavy kind of people, and very dull in their conceptions; but the people of Athens were of a quite different turn. They had naturally an amazing penetration, vivacity, and even delicacy of wit. I have already mentioned what happened to Theophrastus. He was cheapening something of an old woman at Athens that sold herbs: “No, stranger," said she, "you shall have it for no less." He was strangely surprised to find himself treated as a stranger who had passed almost his whole life at Athens and who prided himself upon excelling all others in the elegance of his language. It was, however, from that she knew he was not of her country We have said, that the Athenian soldiers knew the fine passages of Euripides by heart These artificers and soldiers, from assisting at the public deliberations, were ↑ Ibid. 1. v. p. 415. Xenoph. Exped. Cyr. 1. vii. Thucyd. 1. vi. p. 431. . Ο δήμος Αθηναίων ευκίνητος εστί προς οργην. ευμεταθέτος προς ελεον.-Plut. in Præcept. Reip. Ger. p. 793. Η Μαλλον οξεως υπονοειν, η διδασκεσθαι καθ' ησυχίαν βαλόμενος. Cum Theophrastus percontaretur ex anicula quadam, quanti aliquid venderet, et respondisset illa, ab que addidisset: Hospes, non pote minoris; tulit moleste, se non effugere hospitis speciem, cum ætatem ago Fet Atbexis, optimeque loqueretur.-Cic. de Clar. Orat. n. 17. also versed in affairs of state, and understood every thing immediately. We may judge of this from the orations of Demosthenes, whose style, we know, ardent, brief, and concise. III. As they naturally inclined to relieve persons of a low condition and mean circumstances, so were they fond of conversations seasoned with pleasantry, and calculated to make people laugh."* They assisted persons of a mean condition, because from such they had nothing to apprehend in regard to their liberty, and saw in them the charac ters of equality and resemblance with themselves. They loved pleasantry, and showed in that that they were men, but men abounding with humanity and indulgence, who understood raillery, who were not prone to take offence, nor over delicate in point of respect to be paid them. One day when the assembly was fully formed, and the people had already taken their places and sat down, Cleon, after having made them wait his coming a great while, appeared at last with a wreath of flowers upon his head, and desired the people to adjourn their deliberations to the next day. "For to-day," said he, I have business. I have been sacrificing to the gods; and I am to entertain some strangers, my friends, at supper." The Athenians, setting up a laugh, rose and broke up the assembly. "At Carthage, such a pleasantry would have cost any man his life who had presumed to vent it, and to take such a liberty with a proud, haughty, jealous, morose people, of a genius averse to complacency, and less inclined to humour. Upon another occasion, the orator Stra tocles, having informed the people of a victory, and caused sacrifices to be of fered in consequence, three days after, news came of the defeat of the army As the people expressed their discontent and resentment upon the false infor mation, he asked them, "of what they had to complain, and what harm he had done them, in making them pass three days more agreeably than they would otherwise have done?" IV. "They were pleased with hearing themselves praised, and could not bear to be railed at, or criticised." The least acquaintance with Aristophanes and Demosthenes will show, with what address and effect they employed praises and criticism with regard to the people of Athens.‡ "When the republic enjoyed peace and tranquillity," says Plutarch in another place, "the Athenian people diverted themselves with the orators who flattered them; but in important affairs, and emergencies of the state, they became serious, and gave the preference to those whose custom it had been to oppose their unjust desires; such as Pericles, Phocion, and Demosthenes.§ V." They kept those who governed them in awe, and showed their humanity even to their enemies."l The people of Athens made good use of the talents of those who distinguished themselves by their eloquence and prudence; but they were full of suspicion, and kept themselves always on their guard against the superiority of genius and ability; they took pleasure in restraining their courage, and lessening their glory and reputation. This may be judged from the ostracism, which was instituted only as a curb on those whose merit and popularity ran too high, and which spared neither the greatest nor the most worthy persons. The hatred of tyranny and tyrants, which was in a manner innate with the Athenians, made them extremely jealous and apprehensive for their liberty with regard to those who governed. In regard to their enemies, they did not treat them with rigour; they did not make an insolent use of victory, nor exercise any cruelty towards the vanquished. The amnesty decreed after the tyranny of the thirty, shows that they could forget the injuries which had been done them. * Ωσπερ των ανδρών τοις αδοξοις και ταπεινοις βοηθειν προθυμότερος, ύτως των λόγων της παι νιώθεις και γελοιες άσπα ζείαι και προτιμα. † Xenoph. de Athen. Rep. p. 691. * Τοις μεν επαινεσιν αυτόν μάλιςα χαίρει, τοις δε σκωπίασιν naisα δυσχεραίνει Plut. in Phocion. P.. 746. Η Φοβερός εσιν αχρι των αρχόντων, είτα φιλανθρωπος άχρι των ποεμιων. To these different characteristics, which Plutarch unites in the same pås sages of his works, some others may be added, extracted principally from the same author. VI. It was from this fund of humanity and benevolence, of which I have now spoken, and which was natural to the Athenians, that they were so attentive to the rules of politeness, and so delicate in point of just behaviour; qualities which one would not expect to find among the common people.* In the war against Philip of Macedon, having intercepted one of his couriers, they read all the letters he carried, except that of Olympias his wife, which they returned sealed up and unopened, out of regard to conjugal love and secrecy, the rites of which are sacred, and ought to be respected even among enemies. The same Athenians, having decreed that a strict search should be made after the presents distributed by Harpalus among the orators, would not suffer the house of Callicles, who was lately married, to be visited, out of respect for his bride, who had not long been home. Such behaviour is not very common; and upon like occasions people do not stand much upon forms and politeness.† VII. The taste of the Athenians for all arts and sciences is too well known to require dwelling long upon it in this place. Besides which, shall have occasion to speak of it with some extent elsewhere. But we cannot, without admiration, behold a people, composed for the most part, of artisans, husbandmen, soldiers, and mariners, carrying delicacy of taste in every thing to so high a degree of perfection, which seems the peculiar attribute of a more exalted condition and noble education. VIII. It is no less wonderful, that this people should have such great views and should rise so high in their pretensions. In the war which Alcibiades caused them to undertake, fired with vast projects and unbounded hopes, they did not confine themselves to the taking of Syracuse, or the conquest of Sicily, but had already in idea added Italy, Peloponnesus, Libya, the Carthaginian gates, and the empire of the sea to the pillars of Hercules. Their enterprise failed; but they had formed it, and the taking of Syracuse, which seemed no great difficulty, might have enabled them to put it in execution. IX. The same people, so great, and we may say so haughty in their projects, had nothing of that character in other respects. In what regarded the expense of the table, dress, furniture, private buildings, and, in a word, private life, they were frugal, simple, modest, and poor; but sumptuous and magnificent in every thing public, and capable of doing honour to the state. Their victories, conquests, wealth, and continual intercourse with the people of Asia Minor, introduced neither luxury, gluttony, pomp, nor vain profusion among them. Xenophon observes, that a citizen could not be distinguished from a slave by his dress. The richest inhabitants, and the most famous generals, were not ashamed to go to market themselves.§ It was very glorious for Athens to have produced and formed so many persons illustrious in the arts of war and government; in philosophy, eloquence, poesy, painting, sculpture, and architecture; to have alone furnished more great men in every other department, than any other city in the world; except perhaps Kome, which had imbibed learning and arts from her, and knew how to improve her lessons to the best advantage; to have been in a manner the school of almost all the world; to have served, and still continue to serve, as the model for nations which pride themselves most upon the excellency of taste; in a word, to have taught the language, and prescribed the laws of all that regards the talents and productions of the mind. The part of this history, wherein I shall treat of the sciences and learned men that rendered Greece illustrious, with the arts, and those who excelled in them, will set this in a clear light Πατριον αυτοίς και σύμφυτον ην το φιλανθρωπον. In Pelop. p. 280. ↑ Plut. in Demetr. p. 898. Μεγα φρονεί, μεγάλων ορέγεται· De Rep. Athen, p. 693 Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes Hort. Epist. i. 1. 2. |