According to the monument of Prora of Samothrace, thole pins may already have been known to the ancients. Dr. ~Assmann~ gives much information on this point (_Baumeister Denkmälen Seewesen_, p. 1632, fig. 1693). [Sidenote: II 24] The habit, not yet wholly given up, of painting an eye at the bow, on each side of the stem, proves how long old customs may last. It was already a habit of the Phœnicians, the Greeks and the Romans, and it is still found on a few Italian and Portuguese vessels (See: _Das Seewesen, der Griechen und Römer_ by ~Dr. Emil Lübeck~, 1890, p. 43; ~Assmann~, _Seewesen_, p. 1597; _Jahrbuch des Deutsch._ _Archeol. Instituts_, 1889, p. 99; _Archéologie Navale_, ~Jal~, p. 105; _Ancient Ships_ by ~Torr~, p. 69). These eyes were a symbol: they were intended to show that the ship was seeking its own path, they have been considered sometimes, but wrongly, to be hawse holes. Old forms have also been long preserved, and among these the ram is the most remarkable. [Sidenote: II 54] [Sidenote: II 59] In this order of ideas, the _Speronara_ of Malta, which appears in Paris’s work, Vol. IV, nᵒ 203 (nᵒ 164, etc.) is the most interesting example of the Mediterranean. The stem of this boat rises vertically from the water and is provided with a ram; even the eyes too are there. Maltese boats without a ram are to be seen in the same figure, but these vessels differ little from the _Speronara_. By bringing Layard’s drawing above mentioned close to this one, there will be seen in each some boats having a ram and a mast while others have none, but have stems which rise vertically above the water. It can be concluded from this that, as far back as the times of the Phœnicians, ships already presented these same differences. Hence there is no doubt that the _Speronara_ represents a Phœnician type of boat, in which the steering oar is replaced by a rudder. There is no entire agreement as to the place occupied by the ram. Some persons place it above, others below the load-water line. Be this as it may, it is found on all the ancient models and, in most cases, the bottom line of the ship is prolonged in a straight or a slightly curved line as far as the ram. The constant presence of this latter element in the reproductions, allows the conclusion that it was placed not _below_ but _above_ the water. If the _contrary_ had been the case, the ram could not have made so great an impression on the painters and sculptors. As for the rest, all the ancient types, on which traces of a ram are found, carry this element above the water line. The fact that the bottom line ended in the ram, does not prove that this latter was below the water, for this line was invisible, and the draughtsmen, who were uninitiated in the art of shipbuilding, not knowing any other means for representing it, cut the ship off at the water line; but as the drawing then appeared rather strange, they added a curved line joining the ram to the sternpost.