XIV

P R E F A C E.

Hiero’s ship, as well as of that of Ptolemy Philopater, are not only impro-bable, but, adhering to the description as a literal one, it is impossible itcan be true. In regard to the extended numbers of vessels composing thefleets of antiquity, the case is different, and no such exception will lie ; butfancy, in some instances, pourtravs to itself a visionary picture, and gazeson it with admiration till it becomes convinced of its real existence. Itwould be an historical heresy, according to the opinion of many, to com-pare the most inconsiderable vessel in Agamemnon’s fleet to a modemboat; yet it is an indisputable fact, that although the dimensions of thatvessel might, in some instances, be superior, its form and character of con-struction were exactly the same. The gallies of war, when the custom ofnaval hostility was introduced, and gradually advanced in general practice,■were certainly improved, and perhaps enlarged ; but the peculiar exigencesof the state, and the mode of fighting then practised, not requiring anattention to those points which have become necessary since the revivalof the science in modern times, the ease with which vessels were at thattime built, rendered it possible for a powerful nation to send forth an arma-ment as formidable, in respect to numbers, as it thought proper, or couldfind persons to navigate and man it. The gradual diminution in the num-bers of vessels composing fleets, as the improvement in the construction ofthose vessels gradually advanced, forms no slight internal evidence in favourof the correctness with which historians have given such numerical state-ments, as, at first sight, may have been considered as exaggerated and un-true. The same points pervade the chronolog}' of naval war, and servefor, at least circumstantial evidence, as well ill support of the historiansof antiquity, as of those in modern Europe, whose accounts have beenrejected by many as legendary tales, fit only for the extravagance ofromance, or the allowed effusions of poetical fancy.

To the causes just mentioned may be assigned the alleged immense ex-tent of the armament, with which the Persians originally invaded Greece ;of those with which other contending countries, at different times, over-spread