• HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

95

necessarily required to effect this purpose, the Lacedaemonians, making the bestuse of their time, by mere manual labour conveyed their vessels over the lownarrow neck of land, and sailing with the utmost expedition to their owncountry, effected their escape. The Athenians, on their part, terrified, almost,at the singularity of the event, and finding their expected prey escaped, hardlyknew whether to believe the whole affair a matter of enchantment, or attri-butable to the natural power of man.

Two interesting: circumstances are deducible from the foreg-oing: historicfact: the first is, that the gallies, or vessels, employed by the Spartans on thisdesultory expedition, must have been of very inferior size to those which theypossessed at the time of their first battle; the second is, that the ancients must,at that time, have acquired a most perfect knowlege of the different mecha-nical powers, their uses and their effects.

The foregoing singular transaction first raised the Spartans into renown, andrendered them respectable for their skill in maritime affairs, not only in theeyes of the inferior states of Greece, but even of the Athenians themselves.The cruelties inflicted by the latter people on the revolted island of Scio, which,throwing itself under the protection of the Lacedaemonians, abandoned thefriendship of the former, naturally caused a renewal of contest; but after a longcontinued scene of warfare with their ever jealous rivals, the efforts of theSpartans were compelled to sink before the unremitting industry of their oppo-nents ; for they were obliged to submit to the very humiliating stipulation—“ Ne cui Spartano, nave longa navigare liceret, sed oneraria tantum eaqueparva “ that the Lacedaemonians should use no gallies or vessels fitted for warwhatever, and such as were employed in the transportation of merchandizeshould be of very limited dimensions.” That rapid fluctuation, however, ofpower, which occurs in the history of almost every state and government, fromthe earliest ages down to the present moment, once more raised the fallenSpartans into respect and eminence. The descendants of those benevolentmen, who had so long, though unsuccessfully, endeavoured to stem the torrentof Athenian tyranny, had the temporary satisfaction of seeing the fate of theirancestors avenged : Athens having fallen a prey to the voracious appetite ofall-devouring Rome, and the sword of the sanguinary Sylla ; while Lacedsemon,although depressed considerably below that pinnacle of greatness which shehad once reached, continued to hold a less dangerous and more quiet station,

in