nd increase,
if occasion required it, the naval force of the republic. When it was
necessary to fit out an armament, as many talents as there were galleys to
be built and equipped, were raised in each of the ten tribes of Athens. The
money thus collected was given to the captains of the galleys, to be
expended in the maintenance of the crew. The republic furnished the rigging
and sailors: two captains were appointed to each galley, who served six
months each.

Although the vessels employed by the Athenians both for war and commerce
were small compared with those of modern days, and their merchant ships
even much smaller than those of the Phoenicians, if we may judge by the
description given by Xenophon of a Phoenician merchant vessel in the
Piraeus, yet the expence attending their equipment was very great. We learn
from Demosthenes, that the light vessels could not be kept in commission,
even if the utmost attention was paid to economy, and no extraordinary
damage befel them, for a smaller sum than about 8000_l_. annually; of
course, such vessels as from their size, strength, and manning, were
capable of standing the brunt of an engagement, must have cost more than
double that sum.

In the time of Demosthenes, the trade of Athens seems to have been carried
on with considerable spirit and activity; the greater part of the money of
the Athenians having been employed in it. From one of his orations we
learn, that in the contract executed when money was lent for this purpose,
the period when the vessel was to sail, the nature and value of the goods
with which she was loaded, the port to which she was to carry them, the
manner in which they were to be sold there, and the goods with which she
was to return to Athens, were all specifically and formally noticed. In
other particulars the contracts varied: the money, lent was either not to
be repaid till the return of the vessel, or it was to be repaid as soon as
the outward goods were sold at the place to which she was bound, either to
the agent of the lender, or to himself, he going there for that express
purpose. The interest of money so lent varied: sometimes it rose as high as
30 per cent: it seems to have depended principally on the risks of the
voyage.

In another oration of Demosthenes we discover glimpses of what by many has
been deemed maritime insurance, or rather of the fraud at present called
barratry, which is practised to defraud the insurer: but, as Park in his