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168 ANCIENT GEEECE. [CHAP. xn.the fleets was therefore attended with great expense ;and itis known respecting them from the Peloponnesian war, thatSparta could not have borne them but for the alliance andsubsidies of Persia.These causes are sufficient to limit our expectations of thenaval affairs of the Grecians. Yet here, also, the differentepochs must be distinguished.We learn of Homer and of the Argonautic poets, that theGreeks even in the heroic age had ships which were fittedout for distant voyages. The piracy, which before that period had been so common, must have made it necessary forbut forships to be prepared, not only for carrying freight,fighting. These vessels were called long, by way of distinguishing them from the more ancient round ones, whichwere fitonly for the transportation of merchandise ;thoughwe would by no means deny, that the former were also usedfor the purposes of commerce. It was characteristic ofthem,that all the rowers sat in one line. In such times ofinsecurity, fast sailing is the chief merit of a vessel ;be itfor the attack or for flight.This must have been promotedin the lengthened vessels both by the form itself, and theincreased number of rowers ;which gradually rose fromtwenty to fifty, and even more. Hence there was a particular class of ships,which derived their name from thatcircumstance, 1But the incident which made a real and the only epochin the history of Grecian naval architecture, is the inventionof the triremes. They were distinguished by the triple orderof benches for rowing, placed one above the other.2 It thusbecame necessary to build them much higher ;and thoughswiftnessmay have been carefully regarded, strength andfirmness must have been viewed as of equal importance.But even before the Macedonian times, and always after them,the chief strength of the Grecian fleet lay in the triremes,just as that of modern fleets in ships of the line of the secondand third rate.1The TTgi/njieoi/ropoi. See Scheffer de Varietate Nav. in Gronov. Thes. xi.p. 752.2 Scheflfer de Milit. Naval ii. 2. I believe this point, once so much contested, is now no longer doubted; although uncertainty still exists respectingthe order, of the rows. Compare the prints and illustrations in AntichMd'Ercolano, T. v. at the end.