DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0524
01' the military affairs ok greece.
country to another ; nor was there (according to some") any other ground
for those known fictions of Pegasus, the winged horse of Bellerophon,
or the ram that is reported to have carried Phryxus to Colchos, with se-
veral others that occur every where in the poets,
The whole fabric being completed, it was fortified with pitch to secure
the wood from the waters ; whence it comes that Homer's ships are eve-
ry where mentioned with the epithet of (xs'Xaivai, or black. The first that
made use of pitch, were the inhabitants of Phseacia (l) called afterwards
Corsica. Sometimes wax was employed in the same use ; whence
Ovid (2) :
Ctxrvla cerafas accipit undo, rates.
The azure sea receives the wax_> ships.
Now and then it was applied with a mixture of rosin, or other materials
fit for the same purpose ; whence the colour of ships was not always
the same, and the epithets ascribed to them in the poets are various.
After all, the ship being bedecked with garlands and flowers, the ma-
riners also adorned with crowns, she was launched into the sea, with loud
acclamations, and other expressions of mirth and joy (3) ; and being pu-
rified by a priest with a lighted torch, an egg, and brimstone (4), or af-
ter some other manner, was consecrated to the god whose image she
bore.
CHAP. XVI.
ok the tackling and instruments required in navigation.
The instruments used in navigation were of divers sorts, being either
necessary to all sorts of navigation, or only some form of it, as that by-
sails, by oars, &c. The chief of the former sort were as follow :
n»i&*Xiov, gubernaculur/i, the rudder, placed in the hindmost deck,
whereby the pilot directed the course of the ship. The smaller sort of
ships had only one rudder, but those of greater bulk, as often as occasion
required, had more, insomuch that sometimes we read of four rudders in
one vessel : the places of these are uncertain, being perhaps not always
the same ; but it seems probable, that when there were only two rudders,
one was fixed to the fore deck, the other to the hindmost ; whence we
read of visg «efji(pjV£i;|xvoi, or ships with two sterns ; when there were four
rudders, one seems to have been fixed to each side of the vessel.
"Ayxu^a, an anchor, the first invention of which some ascribe to the
Tyrrhenians (5), others to Midas, the son of Gordius, whose anchor,
Pausanias tells us, was preserved in one of Jupiters temples till his days.
Since there were divers sorts of anchors, it is not improbable that both
these may justly lay claim to part of the invention. The most ancient
anchors are said to have been of stone (6), and sometimes of wood, to
which a great quantity of lead was usually fixed. In some places baskets
(1} Suidas, v. Naucrlnaa. (5) Plin. lib. vii. cap. ult.
(2) Epist. Oenon. v. 42. (6) Apollonius, Argonaut. Arrianus in Periplo
(3) Athenaeus, lib. v. Ponti Euxini,
(4) Apuleius Asin. Jib, xi.
country to another ; nor was there (according to some") any other ground
for those known fictions of Pegasus, the winged horse of Bellerophon,
or the ram that is reported to have carried Phryxus to Colchos, with se-
veral others that occur every where in the poets,
The whole fabric being completed, it was fortified with pitch to secure
the wood from the waters ; whence it comes that Homer's ships are eve-
ry where mentioned with the epithet of (xs'Xaivai, or black. The first that
made use of pitch, were the inhabitants of Phseacia (l) called afterwards
Corsica. Sometimes wax was employed in the same use ; whence
Ovid (2) :
Ctxrvla cerafas accipit undo, rates.
The azure sea receives the wax_> ships.
Now and then it was applied with a mixture of rosin, or other materials
fit for the same purpose ; whence the colour of ships was not always
the same, and the epithets ascribed to them in the poets are various.
After all, the ship being bedecked with garlands and flowers, the ma-
riners also adorned with crowns, she was launched into the sea, with loud
acclamations, and other expressions of mirth and joy (3) ; and being pu-
rified by a priest with a lighted torch, an egg, and brimstone (4), or af-
ter some other manner, was consecrated to the god whose image she
bore.
CHAP. XVI.
ok the tackling and instruments required in navigation.
The instruments used in navigation were of divers sorts, being either
necessary to all sorts of navigation, or only some form of it, as that by-
sails, by oars, &c. The chief of the former sort were as follow :
n»i&*Xiov, gubernaculur/i, the rudder, placed in the hindmost deck,
whereby the pilot directed the course of the ship. The smaller sort of
ships had only one rudder, but those of greater bulk, as often as occasion
required, had more, insomuch that sometimes we read of four rudders in
one vessel : the places of these are uncertain, being perhaps not always
the same ; but it seems probable, that when there were only two rudders,
one was fixed to the fore deck, the other to the hindmost ; whence we
read of visg «efji(pjV£i;|xvoi, or ships with two sterns ; when there were four
rudders, one seems to have been fixed to each side of the vessel.
"Ayxu^a, an anchor, the first invention of which some ascribe to the
Tyrrhenians (5), others to Midas, the son of Gordius, whose anchor,
Pausanias tells us, was preserved in one of Jupiters temples till his days.
Since there were divers sorts of anchors, it is not improbable that both
these may justly lay claim to part of the invention. The most ancient
anchors are said to have been of stone (6), and sometimes of wood, to
which a great quantity of lead was usually fixed. In some places baskets
(1} Suidas, v. Naucrlnaa. (5) Plin. lib. vii. cap. ult.
(2) Epist. Oenon. v. 42. (6) Apollonius, Argonaut. Arrianus in Periplo
(3) Athenaeus, lib. v. Ponti Euxini,
(4) Apuleius Asin. Jib, xi.