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In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the annual value of the goods exported from Venice amounted to ten millions of ducats; and the profits on the home and outward voyages, were about four millions. Their shipping consisted of 3000 vessels, of from 10 to 200 amphoras burden, carrying 17,000 sailors; 300 ships with 8000 seamen; and 45 gallies of various sizes, manned by 11,000 seamen.

This promontory with its wild coasts reminded him of that other one where the Triton lived. The first Hellenic sailors had also founded a city here, and the sea had also cast up amphoras, little statues and petrified bits of iron. The Blanes family had gone much to sea.

Then came unclean wagers; they buried their heads in the amphoras and drank on without interruption, like thirsty dromedaries. A Lusitanian of gigantic stature ran over the tables, carrying a man in each hand at arm's length, and spitting out fire through his nostrils. Some Lacedaemonians, who had not taken off their cuirasses, were leaping with a heavy step.

"If I tell it, I break a heart. But if they bide here, they die. None other will come to them by chance or on purpose." "I would not risk it," she answered. Returning to the pallet of matting she finished her breakfast in silence. After a little sigh she glanced at the wine in one of the small amphoras which Rachel had brought to her as a drinking-cup.

But still more pleasing to the eye is the large table loaded with drinking cups and half-emptied amphoras. The leudes, Neroweg's companions in arms and his equals in time of peace, have gone to play at dice with the bishop's clerks and familiars in the vestibule, after having partaken of supper at the same table with the count, as is the custom.

Accordingly, he produced from his ample coffers the large amphoras, the goblets, the large bowls, the huge dishes all of massive gold or silver, fashioned in the Greek, Roman or Gallic style and as varied as the plunderings from which these riches proceeded.

Large electrum flagons, blue glass amphoras, tortoise-shell spoons, and small round loaves were crowded between the double row of pearl-bordered plates; bunches of grapes with their leaves had been rolled round ivory vine-stocks after the fashion of the thyrsus; blocks of snow were melting on ebony trays, and lemons, pomegranates, gourds, and watermelons formed hillocks beneath the lofty silver plate; boars with open jaws were wallowing in the dust of spices; hares, covered with their fur, appeared to be bounding amid the flowers; there were shells filled with forcemeat; the pastry had symbolic shapes; when the covers of the dishes were removed doves flew out.

Here I found fragments of antique bricks, tegulae bipedales, amphoras, pottery of the lustrous Sorrentine ware Surrentina bibis? pavements of opus signinum, as well as one large Roman paving flag of the type that is found on the road between Termini and Punta Campanella.

On the table lie spread sheep and wild boars roasted whole, mountains of ham and smoked venison, avalanches of cabbage in vinegar, the latter being a favorite dish with the Franks; chunks of beef, mutton and veal of the cattle fattened in the count's yards; small game, poultry, carps and pikes, the latter of which are of extraordinary size; vegetables, fruit and cheese raised and prepared on the fertile fields and farms of Auvergne; bowls and amphoras, incessantly replenished by butlers who run from the tables to the barrels and back again, are as speedily emptied by the Franks with the aid of wild bulls' horns that serve as their usual goblets.

Amphoras, flagons, and canvases had been placed out of doors; but the torches were extinguished; brands were taken from the funeral-pile of the Baal, and the Carthaginians bent back their necks and opened their mouths to drink.