vaded Caria with a design of gaining possession of Halicarnassus: by the
direction of the queen, the inhabitants made a signal that they
surrendered; the Rhodians suspecting no treachery, and delighted with their
apparent success, left their fleet to take possession of the town; in the
meantime, the queen brought her fleet from an adjoining creek, by means of
some canal or other inland communication, to the port where the Rhodian
vessels lay, and quietly took them. This disaster was the cause of another,
still more calamitous to the Rhodians; for Artemisia sailed with the
Rhodian ships to Rhodes, and the inhabitants, under the belief that their
fleet was returning victorious, permitted the enemy to land and to seize
the city. To what cause the Rhodions were indebted for the restoration of
their liberty and independence we are not informed; but it was owing,
either to the interference of the Athenians, or the death of Artemisia.

From the period of these events, which occurred about 350 years before
Christ, till the reign of Alexander the Great, the Rhodians enjoyed
profound and uninterrupted tranquillity; their commerce extended, and their
wealth encreased. To this conqueror they offered no resistance, but of
their own accord surrendered their cities and harbours; as soon, however,
as they learnt that he was dead, they resumed their independence. About
this time the greater part of their city was destroyed by a dreadful
inundation, which would have swept the whole of it away, if the wall
between it and the sea had not been broken down by the force of the waters,
and thus given them free passage. This misfortune seems only to have
encouraged the inhabitants to attend still more closely and diligently to
commerce, which they carried on with so much industry and skill, and in
such a profitable manner, that they soon rebuilt their city, and repaired
all the losses they had sustained. Their alliance was courted by all their
neighbours; but they resolved to adhere to a strict neutrality, and thus,
while war raged among other nations, they were enabled to profit by that
very circumstance, and thus became one of the most opulent states of all
Asia. Their commerce, as well as that of all the states on the
Mediterranean, being much molested and injured by the pirates, they
undertook, of their own accord, and at their own expence, to root them out;
and in this they completely succeeded.

But that commerce, on account of which they