184

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

eluded, except through the tedious medium just mentioned. The tempestuousseas raging round the southern promontory of Afric, would at that time have posi-tively precluded all intercourse, even had the audacity of Europe been equal to theattempt. Ere such a navigation could be undertaken with any degree or pros-pect of safety, it was necessary that some material change should take place inthe practice of Marine Architecture; and Providence, as it were in apparentcompassion to the lives of the human race, with-held the knowlege that thepassage to India was practicable by sea, till the means of accomplishing the-voyage were, by experience and improvement, rendered equivalent to the mag-nitude of the undertaking.

The wars of Belisarius, undertaken with a force apparently contemptiblewhen compared with that which, in the earlier ages, was sent forth againstfoes, or even rebels, occupying a province of little import, prove either that thepower of the Roman empire was considerably impaired, that the force of theVandal conquerors, who had caused Rome to tremble to its very foundations,had experienced a similar diminution, or that the science of war had advancedso materially as a matter of study, that the fate of nations no longer dependedon the actual force of fleets, or of armies, but on the skill of those who com-manded them. Contracted as they certainly were, comparatively speaking,in respect to numbers, modern historians have thought most highly of theexertions made by the emperor of the east on this important occasion.—“ The preparations for the African war,” says Mr. Gibbon, “ were not un-worthy of the last contest between Rome and Carthage. The pride and flowerof the army consisted of the guards of Belisarius, who, according to the per-nicious indulgence of the times, devoted themselves, by a particular oath offidelity, to the service of their patron. Their strength and stature, for whichthey had been curiously selected, the goodness of their horses and armour, andthe assiduous practice of all the exercises of war, enabled them to act whatevertheir courage might prompt; and their courage was exalted by the socialhonour of their rank, and the personal ambition of favour and fortune. Fourhundred of the bravest of the Heruli marched under the banner of the faithfuland active Phares: their untractable valour was more highly prized than thetame submission of the Greeks and Syrians; and of such importance was itdeemed to procure a reinforcement of six hundred Massagetce, or Huns, thatthey were allured by fraud and deceit to engage in a naval expedition. Five

thousand