d in the capital, the islands of the Aegean Sea, and
the seaports of Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. It carried thirty-four
thousand mariners, seven thousand three hundred and forty soldiers,
seven hundred Russians, and five thousand and eighty-seven Mardaites,
whose fathers had been transplanted from the mountains of Libanus. Their
pay, most probably of a month, was computed at thirty-four centenaries
of gold, about one hundred and thirty-six thousand pounds sterling. Our
fancy is bewildered by the endless recapitulation of arms and engines,
of clothes and linen, of bread for the men and forage for the horses,
and of stores and utensils of every description, inadequate to the
conquest of a petty island, but amply sufficient for the establishment
of a flourishing colony. [76]

[Footnote 69: If we listen to the threats of Nicephorus to the
ambassador of Otho, Nec est in mari domino tuo classium numerus.
Navigantium fortitudo mihi soli inest, qui eum classibus aggrediar,
bello maritimas ejus civitates demoliar; et quae fluminibus sunt vicina
redigam in favillam. (Liutprand in Legat. ad Nicephorum Phocam, in
Muratori Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii. pars i. p. 481.) He
observes in another place, qui caeteris praestant Venetici sunt et
Amalphitani.]

[Footnote 70: Nec ipsa capiet eum (the emperor Otho) in qua ortus est
pauper et pellicea Saxonia: pecunia qua pollemus omnes nationes super
eum invitabimus: et quasi Keramicum confringemus, (Liutprand in Legat.
p. 487.) The two books, de Administrando Imperio, perpetually inculcate
the same policy.]

[Footnote 71: The xixth chapter of the Tactics of Leo, (Meurs. Opera,
tom. vi. p. 825-848,) which is given more correct from a manuscript
of Gudius, by the laborious Fabricius, (Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p.
372-379,) relates to the Naumachia, or naval war.]

[Footnote 72: Even of fifteen and sixteen rows of oars, in the navy
of Demetrius Poliorcetes. These were for real use: the forty rows of
Ptolemy Philadelphus were applied to a floating palace, whose tonnage,
according to Dr. Arbuthnot, (Tables of Ancient Coins, &c., p. 231-236,)
is compared as 4 1/2 to 1 with an English 100 gun ship.]

[Footnote 73: The Dromones of Leo, &c., are so clearly described with
two tier of oars, that I must censure the version of Meursius and
Fabricius, who pervert the sense by a blind attachment to the classic
appellation of Triremes. The Byzantine historians are sometimes guilty
of the same i