During the winter months these cold and piercing winds blow with so much fury over the land-locked seas and islands of Greece, that among the ancients all navigation was suspended during the brumal season. In proof of the violence of these aërial currents, which may almost be said to set steadily in one direction through a great portion of the year, it may be observed, that in several of the islands neither vines nor fig-trees can be trained upright, but are blown down and compelled to creep along the rocks.[1743] An example of the strength of the gales which sometimes also prevail on the Hellenic continent is recorded in history; during the retreat of Cleombrotos out of Bœotia, his army being overtaken by a storm as it was traversing the mountain passes leading from Creusis to Ægosthena along the shore of the sea, numerous sumpter asses were blown with their ladings over the precipices; even the shields and arms were in many cases whirled from the hands of the soldiers and precipitated into the waves below; and to prevent similar misfortune the rest of the army turned their bucklers upside down and filled them with stones, while they pushed forward, divested of defensive armour, into the Megaris, a friendly country, from which they afterwards returned and fetched off their shields.[1744] ----- Footnote 1743: Thiersch, Etat Actuel de la Grèce. t. i. p. 284. Della Rocca, Traité Complet des Abeilles. t. i. p. 203. Footnote 1744: Xenoph. Hellen. v. 4. 17. ----- In cases of shipwreck the protection afforded to crews and merchandise depended in most cases, perhaps, on the character and progress of civilisation of the people on whose shore the accident happened. On the coast of Thrace, in the neighbourhood of Salmydessos, where the whole maritime population appear to have been confirmed wreckers, numerous pillars were set up along the beach to mark the limits within which each little community might claim whatever booty was drifted in by the sea. Previous to this arrangement, the barbarians used frequently to come to blows in the eager pursuit of this inhuman calling, and in these brawls many lives were lost. Afterwards they appear to have carried on their war against distressed mariners with perfect harmony and equanimity.[1745] But among the Rhodians, an enterprising mercantile people, the amount of salvage was regulated by a law which, together with the rest of their commercial code, was afterwards adopted by the Romans. ----- Footnote 1745: Xenoph. Anab. vii. 5. 12, seq. -----