HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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inconsiderable insight into the equipment and force of the ancient marine.The numbers of the unfortunate victims, for such they might be considered,divided by that of the vessels lost, amount to sixty-six and a small fraction, asthe crew of each, for the destruction is said to have been so fatally complete,that none of the persons employed either as mariners, or soldiers, on boardthem, are said to have been preserved. The foregoing forms a sad, thoughcurious circumstance, which renders the modern apportionment of individualnumbers extremely easy, and adds strongly to those objections already made,as to the common acceptation of the term trireme, and the supposition that itimplies a vessel of three tiers of oars, placed above each other. Without againentering into any repetition of controversy, it must be evident, that sixty-sixpersons could not suffice to work even nine oars, (three in a rank) so arranged;but that a crew, not more numerous, would be quite adequate to the task ofimpelling thirty on each side, divided into three ranks of ten each *, placed inone line. In a subject so extremely open to mere opinion, and supported bywhat must be considered at best as doubtful evidence, every collateral circum-stance tending, in the smallest degree, to elucidate it, cannot fail of beingotherwise than highly consequential.

It were a needless, not to say impertinent, waste of time, to enter on the varioustransactions either of this war, or that which followed it, under the direction ofXerxes, the son and successor to the former prince. The only circumstance thatappears to demand particular notice, is the wonderful account given of the fleetpossessed by the latter, which is made, by ancient historians, to have consistedof four thousand two hundred vessels, twelve hundred of which are said to havebeen triremes : of the remainder, the largest were furnished with fifty oarseach, and those of the smaller rate with thirty. The vessels of the latterdescription, which acted merely as transports, contained, according to theirburthen, from eight)', to two hundred and thirty soldiers, or mariners, each.The operations of the son were attended with no less a degree of misfortunethan those of his father had been. Four hundred of his gallies of war weredestroyed by a sudden tempest, together with so great a proportion of his store-ships and transports, that one third part of his whole force was completelydestroyed ere it arrived in the presence of its apparently devoted enemy.Against the remainder, the Athenians displayed prodigies of valour, but supe-

* See page 72.

riority