NAVIGATION.
nean, Adriatic, and Archipelagian seas, besides their pos-sessions in Asia Minor, and their commerce with the Eu-ropean continent, obtained the next power by sea. Weread, indeed, that Minos, the famous Cretan sovereign and legislator, who lived two descents before the Trojanwar, sent out shipping to free the Grecian seas of pirates;which shows, as Sir Walter ingeniously infers, that there hadbeen trade and war upon the waters before his time also.
The next in point of time and importance on record wasthe highly renowned expedition of the Argonauts for thegolden fleece to Colchis, a country of Asia, on the Euxine sea. Immediately after this, was the colonization of Cyrene , inAfrica , by Baltus, one of the companions of Jason, in hisColchian expedition. Shortly afterwards, the Grecian statesunited against Phrygian treachery and the abuse of Grecianhospitality; forming another most memorable epocha in thehistory of the world. We are informed, the Grecian Nep-tune, or as mythology styles him, a yocl of the Saturnianfamily, for the great service he did his father Saturn, orNoah, against the Titans, had the seas given to him. His-tory informs us, that the first inventor of rowing vessels wasa citizen of Corinth , of the name of Anurnocles; and, like-wise, that the first naval war was between the Samians andCorcyrians. The history of Ithicvs, translated into Latin by St. Jerome, affirms that Griphon, the Scythian , was theinventor of long boats; and Strabo also gives the honour ofthe invention of the anchor to another Scythian , the famousAnaciiarssis, whilst Greece herself, by her historians,ascribes its invention to E/tpolemus. Also, it is said, thatIcarus invented the sail, and others, various other pieces ofthe component parts of ships and boats. 3 The specificationof such other imperfect memoirs, many of fabulous appear-ance, may be of no great importance.
It appears certain, that among the four sons of Javanthe son of Japhet, the grandsons, and other the posterityof Noah, who peopled “ the isles of the Gentiles,” 4 the Gre-cian islands, must long before the days of Minos have usedthose seas, from the insular nature of their habitations. Andit certainly does not appear extravagant to us, to presumethat this people were among the first who navigated the seas.Mankind in various parts of the world, being stimulated bythe same necessities, urged by the same wants, and possess-ing the same meaDs, might probably produce similar invemtions to each other. Most, indeed, had occasion to navigate
♦ Genesis, ch. x . ▼. 5.