History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 4
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
armor that can resist the rapid violence of their shaft.” Five
hundred transports, navigated by twenty thousand mariners of
Egypt, Cilicia, and Ionia, were collected in the harbor of
Constantinople. The smallest of these vessels may be computed at
thirty, the largest at five hundred, tons; and the fair average
will supply an allowance, liberal, but not profuse, of about one
hundred thousand tons, 10 for the reception of thirty-five
thousand soldiers and sailors, of five thousand horses, of arms,
engines, and military stores, and of a sufficient stock of water
and provisions for a voyage, perhaps, of three months. The proud
galleys, which in former ages swept the Mediterranean with so
many hundred oars, had long since disappeared; and the fleet of
Justinian was escorted only by ninety-two light brigantines,
covered from the missile weapons of the enemy, and rowed by two
thousand of the brave and robust youth of Constantinople.
Twenty-two generals are named, most of whom were afterwards
distinguished in the wars of Africa and Italy: but the supreme
command, both by land and sea, was delegated to Belisarius alone,
with a boundless power of acting according to his discretion, as
if the emperor himself were present. The separation of the naval
and military professions is at once the effect and the cause of
the modern improvements in the science of navigation and maritime
war.
8 (return) [ See the preface of Procopius. The enemies of archery
might quote the reproaches of Diomede (Iliad. Delta. 385, &c.)
and the permittere vulnera ventis of Lucan, (viii. 384:) yet the
Romans could not despise the arrows of the Parthians; and in the
siege of Troy, Pandarus, Paris, and Teucer, pierced those haughty
warriors who insulted them as women or children.]
9 (return) [ (Iliad. Delta. 123.) How concise—how just—how
beautiful is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the
archer—I hear the twanging of the bow.]
10 (return) [ The text appears to allow for the largest vessels
50,000 medimni, or 3000 tons, (since the medimnus weighed 160
Roman, or 120 avoirdupois, pounds.) I have given a more rational
interpretation, by supposing that the Attic style of Procopius
conceals the legal and popular modius, a sixth part of the
medimnus, (Hooper’s Ancient Measures, p. 152, &c.) A contrary and
indeed a stranger mistake has crept into an oration of Dinarchus,
(contra Demosthenem, in Reiske Orator. Graec tom iv. P. ii. p.
34.) By reducing the number of ships from 500 to 50, and
translating by mines, or pounds, Cousin has generously allowed
500 tons for the whole of the Imperial fleet! Did he never
think?]
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