ans and Russians: their valor
contributed to the victories of Nicephorus and Zimisces; and if a
hostile people pressed too closely on the frontier, they were recalled
to the defence of their country, and the desire of peace, by the
well-managed attack of a more distant tribe. The command of the
Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Tanais to the columns of
Hercules, was always claimed, and often possessed, by the successors of
Constantine. Their capital was filled with naval stores and dexterous
artificers: the situation of Greece and Asia, the long coasts, deep
gulfs, and numerous islands, accustomed their subjects to the exercise
of navigation; and the trade of Venice and Amalfi supplied a nursery of
seamen to the Imperial fleet. Since the time of the Peloponnesian and
Punic wars, the sphere of action had not been enlarged; and the science
of naval architecture appears to have declined. The art of constructing
those stupendous machines which displayed three, or six, or ten, ranges
of oars, rising above, or falling behind, each other, was unknown to
the ship-builders of Constantinople, as well as to the mechanicians of
modern days. The _Dromones_, or light galleys of the Byzantine
empire, were content with two tier of oars; each tier was composed of
five-and-twenty benches; and two rowers were seated on each bench, who
plied their oars on either side of the vessel. To these we must add
the captain or centurion, who, in time of action, stood erect with his
armor-bearer on the poop, two steersmen at the helm, and two officers
at the prow, the one to manage the anchor, the other to point and play
against the enemy the tube of liquid fire. The whole crew, as in
the infancy of the art, performed the double service of mariners and
soldiers; they were provided with defensive and offensive arms, with
bows and arrows, which they used from the upper deck, with long pikes,
which they pushed through the portholes of the lower tier. Sometimes,
indeed, the ships of war were of a larger and more solid construction;
and the labors of combat and navigation were more regularly divided
between seventy soldiers and two hundred and thirty mariners. But for
the most part they were of the light and manageable size; and as
the Cape of Malea in Peloponnesus was still clothed with its ancient
terrors, an Imperial fleet was transported five miles over land across
the Isthmus of Corinth. The principles of maritime tactics had not
undergone any chan