vention of the 'biremis' to the Erythraeans. Those
with three ranks of rowers were introduced by the Corinthians;
while Dionysius, the first king of Sicily, was the inventor of the
Quadriremis, or ship with four ranks of rowers. Quinqueremes, or
those with five ranks, are said to have been the invention of the
Salaminians. The first use of those with six ranks has been
ascribed to the Syracusans. Ships were sometimes built with
twelve, twenty, and even forty ranks of rowers, but they appear to
have been intended rather for curiosity than for use. As, of
course, the labour of each ascending rank increased, through the
necessity of the higher ranks using longer oars, the pay of the
lowest rank was the lowest, their work being the easiest. Where
there were twenty ranks or more, the upper oars required more than
one man to manage them. Ptolemy Philopater had a vessel built as a
curiosity, which had no less than four thousand rowers.]

[Footnote 38: _Towards their sides._--Ver. 475. 'Obvertere lateri
remos' most probably means 'To feather the oars,' which it is
especially necessary to do in a gale, to avoid the retarding power
of the wind against the surface of the blade of the oar.]

[Footnote 39: _Fixes the sail-yards._--Ver. 476. 'Cornua' means,
literally, 'The ends or points of the sail-yards,' or 'Antennae:'
but here the word is used to signify the sail-yards themselves.]

[Footnote 40: _Covering of wax._--Ver. 514. The 'Cera' with which
the seams of the ships were stopped, was most probably a
composition of wax and pitch, or other bituminous and resinous
substances.]

[Footnote 41: _The tenth wave._--Ver. 530. This is said in
allusion to the belief that every tenth wave exceeded the others
in violence.]

[Footnote 42: _Calls those happy._--Ver. 540. Those who died on
shore would obtain funeral rites; while those who perished by
shipwreck might become food for the fishes, a fate which was
regarded by the ancients with peculiar horror. Another reason for
thus regarding death by shipwreck, was the general belief among
the ancients, that the soul was an emanation from aether, or fire,
and that it was contrary to the laws of nature for it to be
extinguished by water. Ovid says in his Tristia, or Lament (Book
I. El. 2, l. 51-57), 'I fear not death: 'tis the dreadful kind of