APPENDIX. XXIll therefore, when we find them called TrsvrexovTOM, (fifty-oared), and £xaTovTO|oi (hundred-oared), we are not to suppose they were rowed with fifty and an hundred banks, but only with so many oars. The ship Argo, invented by Jason, was rowed with fifty oars, and, according to some writers, was the first of the long ships; all vessels, till that time, having been of a form much more inclining to oval. Others carry the invention of long ships somewhat higher, referring it to Danaus, who sailed from Egypt to Greece in a ship (we are told) of fifty oars ; and even if Jason be allowed to have been the first who introduced the long ships into Greece, yet he cannot be considered as the original contriver of them, but rather an imitator of the Egyptian or African model, the latter of which was constructed some time before by Atlas, and much adopted in that part of the Mediterranean. The first who used a double bank of oars were the Erythrreans, and Aminocles of Corinth added a third, as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Diodorus have reported ; although Clemens Alexandrinus attributes this invention to the Sidonians. A fourth bank was added by a Carthaginian called Aristotle ; and Nesicthon of Salamis (according to Pliny), or Dionysius the Sicilian (according to Diodorus), increased the number to five ; Xenagoras of Syracuse added a sixth ; and Nesigiton increased the number to ten. Alexander the Great and Ptolemy Soter had vessels of twelve and fifteen banks of oars ; and Philip, the father of Perseus, is said to have had one of sixteen.

As the method of erecting one bank above another came to be generally known, it was easy to make further additions ; Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, built a ship of thirty banks ; and Ptolemy Philopator, that he might outdo his predecessors, enlarged the number still further to forty ; which, as all other parts were necessarily in proportion, raised the vessel to such an enormous size, that it appeared at a distance like a floating mountain or island, and on a nearer view took the form of a huge castle in the midst of the waves. This enormous structure contained four thousand rowers, four hundred sailors employed in other services, and a body of nearly three thou-Extreme bulk of some of the vessels.