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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

is to be taken in the same light. The opinion of a number of learned menhas not escaped me, (says the author) relative to the assertion of Pausa-nias, concerning a certain vessel belonging to Delos, which had nine tiers ofrowers from the deck, or xciTao-Tguy.ct, downwards*. In answer to this, it is never-theless to be observed, that it was a general custom to begin reckoning from thebottom, and not from the top ; therefore, the proper interpretation to be giventhe text is, that the tier employed nine persons at each oar who worked on thedeck itself. Vitruvius has prescribed what he calls a correct method of col-lecting a ship’s dimensions, or length, on which every other part depended : bycalculating the interspace between oar and oar from the number of personsemployed in the upper rank. The length of the celebrated ship of Delos mayfrom thence be accurately collected, as he asserts ; together with that of the firstgallies in Marc Anthony’s fleet, supposing them to be Nonoremes : but this isfar from being the case, for the number of oars in each tier not being stated, itis impossible to say what the length of the vessels was. Of the vessels com-posing the fleet of Augustus Caesar, we might speak with more certainty, theybeing all, or nearly all, of that particular class or description known among theancients by the name of Liburni, the largest of which were Hexeremes, thesmallest Triremes.

As the subject has been just started, it will probably not be inopportune togive a short description of that particular class of vessels just mentioned.Although in the most remote ages, vessels were built of the description justtreated of, and which, it has been already stated, were styled Myoparones, in-tended principally, if not entirely, for purposes of piracy, they were neverthelessalways deemed unfit for the purposes of regular and open war, because theywere not only without decks, but were destitute of rostra, or beaks, on whichthe annoyance of a powerful enemy in great measure depended. They con-tinued, for the above reason, to be very little used till the time of AugustusCaesar, when they acquired the name of Liburni : and on account of the verysingular service they rendered at the time of the battle of Actium, obtained sogreat a celebrity, that scarcely any vessels but what were constructed on similarprinciples, were ever used in any of the subsequent ages during the existence ofthe Roman empire. Suidas states their form to have differed very materiallyfrom the Trireme : in the latter, the oars were disposed in tiers, rising above

* Pausanias asserts this was the largest vessel he had ever seen ! !

each