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For a long time past they had evidently been hatching a vile conspiracy against the very existence of Athens. Having once come to this decision, the Athenians lost no time, but sent off a trireme on the same day, with orders to Paches to carry the decree into effect. But after a night of cool reflection they began to repent of their haste.
Leaning on his arm, the blind man left the Tacheia, which, as soon as both had entered the boat, was urged forward by powerful strokes of the oars. The Bithynian informed Hermon that kerchiefs were waving him a farewell from the trireme, that the sails had been unfurled, and the wind was driving the swift vessel before it like a swallow.
Some historians relate that he did not feign madness, but that he burned down his house one night, and next morning appeared in the market-place in a miserable plight, and besought his countrymen that, in consideration of the misfortune which had befallen him, they would allow his son, who was about to sail for Sicily in command of a trireme, to remain at home.
The master oarsman leaped from his seat and crashed his gavel down upon the sounding-board. “Aru! Aru! Aru! Put it on, my men!” The Nausicaä answered with a leap. Men wrought at the oar butts, tugging like mad, their backs toward the foe, conscious only that duty bade them send the trireme across the waves as a stone whirls from the sling.
But above all things speed was needful. The athlete put his strength upon the oars till the heavy skiff shot across the black void of the water. It was little short of midnight when Glaucon swung the skiff away from the tall trireme of Ariabignes, the Barbarian’s admiral. The deed was done. He had sat in the bobbing boat while Sicinnus had been above with the Persian chiefs.
On every Greek trireme was a specially organized boarding party consisting of 36 men 18 marines, 14 heavily armed soldiers, and four bowmen; and the Greeks seem to have been superior to their enemy at close quarters. On the Persian side the superiority lay in their archers and javelin throwers. Toward the end of the battle, for instance, a Samothracian trireme performed a remarkable feat.
A small body of troops was left to guard the camp, and all the rest, except such as were totally disabled by sickness, were distributed as fighting-men among the ships. For the countrymen of Phormio had now reverted to the primitive conditions of naval warfare, in which the trireme was a mere vehicle for carrying troops, and not, as in the days of that great captain, the chief weapon of offence.
What were the ties between the daughter and the mother city? Why was a part of southern Italy called Great Greece? Describe a Greek trireme and the way it was managed. Of what country was Alexander the Great king? When did he reign? How far east did he march? What did he do besides winning victories? Why was the city of Alexandria famous in Ancient Times? Of what help was Ptolemy to Columbus?
The surprise of the Carthaginians was greater still when three hundred of their own people, who had been made prisoners during the Sicilian war, arrived on board an old Punic trireme. Hamilcar, in fact, had secretly sent back to the Quirites the crews of the Latin vessels, taken before the defection of the Tyrian towns; and, to reciprocate the courtesy, Rome was now sending him back her captives.
"Is that true?" asked the queen letting her feather fan droop, and looking her interlocutor severely in the face. "The trireme Proteus, coming from Brundisium, entered the harbor of Eunostus only yesterday," he replied; "and an hour ago a mounted messenger brought the letter. Nor was it an ordinary letter but a despatch from the Senate I know the form and seal." "And Lysias, the Corinthian?"
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