Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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To the Tyrians also is due the colonisation of other countries, which, following the example of the mother-country, soon rivalled her in wealth and enterprise. The principal of these was Carthage, which in its turn founded colonies of her own, one of the first of which was Gades (Cadiz). From that port Hanno made his celebrated voyage to the west coast of Africa, starting with sixty ships or galleys, of fifty oars each. He is said to have founded six trading-posts or colonies. About the same time Hamilco went on a voyage of discovery to the north-western shores of Europe, where, according to a poem of Festus Avienus,129 he formed settlements in Britain and Ireland, and found tin and lead, and people who used boats of skin or leather. Aristotle tells us that the Carthaginians were the first to increase the size of their galleys from three to four banks of oars.

Under the dynasty of the Ptolemies the maritime commerce of Egypt rapidly improved. The first of these kings caused the erection of the celebrated Pharos or lighthouse at Alexandria, in the upper storey of which were windows looking seaward, and inside which fires were lighted by night to guide mariners to the harbour. Upon its front was inscribed, “King Ptolemy to God the Saviour, for the benefit of sailors.” His successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, attempted to cut a canal a hundred cubits in width between Arsinoe, on the Red Sea, not far from Suez, to the eastern branch of the Nile. Enormous vessels were constructed at this time and during the succeeding reigns. Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, is said to have owned five hundred galleys and two thousand smaller vessels. Lucian speaks of a vessel that he saw in Egypt that was one hundred and twenty cubits long. Another, constructed by Ptolemy Philopator, is described by Calixenus, an Alexandrian historian, as two hundred and eighty cubits, say 420 feet, in length. She is said to have had four rudders, two heads, and two sterns, and to have been manned by 4,000 sailors (meaning principally oarsmen) and 3,000 fighting-men. Calixenus also describes another built during the dynasty of the Ptolemies, called the Thalamegus, or “carrier of the bed-chamber.” This leviathan was 300 feet in length, and fitted up with every conceivable kind of luxury and magnificence—with colonnades, marble staircases, and gardens; from all which it is easy to infer that she was not intended for sea-going purposes, but was probably an immense barge, forming a kind of summer palace, moored on the Nile. Plutarch in speaking of her says that she was a mere matter of curiosity, for she differed very little from an immovable building, and was calculated mainly for show, as she could not be put in motion without great difficulty and danger.