As soon as the Greeks began to apply themselves to maritime affairs, they constructed ports and docks in various parts of the country, where they built numerous ships, rude enough at first, perhaps; but improving by experience and study[1666] they in time equalled, and at length surpassed, the Phœnicians, by whom at the outset they may perhaps have been instructed. Among the greatest difficulties they had to encounter was the scarcity of ship-timber, for which they were always compelled greatly to depend on other countries. The materials, however, being collected, their shipwrights appear to have proceeded in much the same manner as those of modern times, laying down the keel, fixing in the ribs, planking, decking, caulking, and pitching, until the hull was completed. ----- Footnote 1666: Cf. Hom. Il. α. 316. Thucyd. i. 10. ----- In their war-galleys,[1667] constructed under the superintendence of a naval architect elected by lot, they exhausted all the resources of art in their endeavours to communicate to them the greatest beauty of form and splendour of appearance. Painting, carving, and gilding,[1668] were called in to cover both stern and prow with images and ornaments of the most fanciful kinds, glowing with bright blue or vermilion,[1669] intermingled with scrolls and flourishes of other colours, and figures of burnished gold. Occasionally beneath the rim of the prow were bright cerulean bands,[1670] painted in encaustic and defended by so durable a varnish that they could neither be blistered by the sun, nor dimmed by the action of the sea-water. In this part, beneath the roots as it were of the acrostolion, were placed those ornaments resembling eyes, one on either side, over which the name of the ship was written.[1671] The sweep of the deck was a gentle curve, the lowest dip of which was at the ship’s waist. On the poop stood a deep alcove in which the pilot took his station,[1672] protected in a great degree from wind and weather, and having over his head a large lantern, in which a bright light was kindled at nightfall. ----- Footnote 1667: Vid. Gyrald. de Navig. c. xvi. t. i. col. 646. Thucyd. i. 13, seq. Athen. xi. 49. Aristoph. Lysist. 173. On the names of different classes of vessels, see Schol. Aristoph. Pac. 143. Eq. 1363. Thucyd. iv. 67. Footnote 1668: Poll. i. 84. Goguet, iv. 261. Winkel. i. 26. n. Footnote 1669: Lucian. Charidem. § 25. Footnote 1670: Athen. v. 37. Footnote 1671: Poll. i. 86. Footnote 1672: In this he had a seat which was called ικρία. Hesych. in v. -----