Potter, John; Anthon, Charles [Hrsg.]: Archaeologia Graeca or the antiquities of Greece (New York, 1825)

OK THE MILITARY AFFAIRS OF GRFECL.

■lay

In later ages, also, they were made use of at some places, being the same
with those called Cxoupr, in the strict, and most proper acceptation of that
word (1), from Cxowfrsa'd*!, as made by hollowing, and, as it were, digging
in a tree. Nor was wood alone applied to this use, but any other materials
that float upon the water without sinking, such as the Egyptian reed pa-
pyrus, or (to mention no more) leather, of which the primitive ships were
frequently composed, and called #Xota StyQegtva, or cSs^ariva. These were
sometimes begirt wit:i wickers, and frequently used in that manner upon
the rivers of Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sabaean Arabia, even in later times ;
but in the first of them, we find no mention of any thing but leather, or
hides sewed together. In a ship of this sort, Dardanus secured his flight
to the country afterwards called Froas, when by a terrible deluge, he
was forced to leave Samothrace, his former place of residence (2).
Charon's infernal boat was of the same composition, according to Vir-

gil (3);

-—-— —Gcmuit sub pondere cymba

Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosapaludem,

The feeble vessel groans beneath the load,

And drinks, at many a leak, th' infernal flood. put.

When ships were brought to a little more perfection, and increased in
bigness, the sight of them struck the ignorant people*with terror and
amazement ; for it was no small surprise to behold great floating castles
of unusual forms, full of living men,'and with wings (as it were) expand-
ed, flying upon the sea (4) : what else could have given occasion to the
fiction of Perseus's flight to the Gorgons, who, as Aristophanes (5) ex-
pressly tells us, was carried in a ship :

Tlipirtiii TTfU "Apyof vat/roXav To Topyovc^Tttp^KOfA'^ccv.

What other original could there be for the famous story of Triptolemus,
who was feigned to ride upon a winged dragon, only because, in a time of
dearth at Athens, he sailed to more fruitful countries to supply the ne-
cessities of his people ; or to the fable of the winged horse Pegasus,
who, as several mycologists (6) report, was nothing but a ship of that,
name with sails, and for that reason feigned to be the offspring of Neptune
the emoeror of the sea (7). Nor was there any other ground for the
stories oi griffins, or of ships transformed into birds and fishes, which
we frequently meet with in th« ancient poets. .so acceptable to the first
ages of the world were inventions of this nature, that whoever made any
improvements in the art of navigation, built new ships, of forms better
fitted for strength or swiftness thm those before used, rendered the old
more commodious by any additional contrivance, or discovered countries,
untraced by former travellers, were thought worthy of the greatest ho-
nours, and (like other common benefactors to mankind) ascribed into the
number of the deified heroes ; they had their inventions also consecrated,
and fixed in the heaveus : hence we have the signs of Aries and Taurus,
which were nothing but two ships ; the former transported Phryxusfrorrr
Greece to Colchos, the latter Europa out of Phoenicia into Crete : Argo
likewise, Pegasus, and Perseus's whale, were new sorts of ships, which,

(1) Polyacnus, lib. v. (4) Apollonins, ejusque Scholiast.es,

(2) Lycophronis Cassandr. ejusque Scbolias- (5) Thesraophor.

tes, ver. 75. (.6) Palaephatus, Artemidorus.

(3) £5neid. vi. 414, (7) Vossius Idol. lib. iii. cap. 49.

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