Respecting the tonnage and dimensions of the largest class of merchantmen, we possess little positive information. It would appear, however, that in comparison with the vessels engaged in the corn-trade, between Alexandria and Italy,[1680] they were of very moderate burden, since the appearance of one of those large ships in the Peiræeus excited general astonishment. The size of this Egyptian trader, which seems to have been no way distinguished from others engaged in the same traffic, may perhaps assist the imagination in forming some definite idea of an ancient merchantman: its length, from stem to stern, was one hundred and eighty feet, its breadth nearly fifty, and its clear depth in the hold about forty-five. It was furnished with one enormous mast, with yards in proportion, and a capacious mainsail, composed of numerous tiers of ox-hides. The cables and anchors, capstains, windlasses, with all the other appurtenances of a ship, were on a suitable scale, while the crew was so numerous as to be compared to an army. In the stem were airy and spacious cabins, above which rose the gilded figure of a goose. On either side of the bows stood an image of Isis,[1681] bending over the waves and appearing to afford her divine protection to those who had chosen her for their tutelar goddess. Among the Greeks, however, the place assigned to the tutelar divinity was sometimes the stern, where oaths were taken, expiations made, prayers and sacrifices offered up, and where such of the crew as had committed any offence took sanctuary. On the top of the mast was a vane[1682] of burnished metal which, turning and flashing in the sun, appeared like a streak of flame. As their ships, more especially during long voyages, ran perpetual risk of being assailed by pirates, they were abundantly supplied with all kinds of arms and implements of war, which were ranged along the cabin partitions and elsewhere with so much order and regularity, that they could always, by night or day, be found at a moment’s warning. ----- Footnote 1680: Lucian. Navig. § 5. Footnote 1681: On the bows of the Athenian war-galleys a wooden statue of Athena, richly gilded, occupied the place here assigned to Isis. Aristoph. Acharn. 457, et Schol. Footnote 1682: See on vanes, flags, &c., Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 161. As many of our sailors carry about their persons a child’s caul as an amulet to protect them against the dangers of the ocean, so the mariners of Greece attributed a sort of miraculous power to the skins of the seal and the hyæna, which they bound around the summits of their masts as a safeguard against lightning and thunderbolts. Plut. Sympos, iv. 2. 1. -----