ndria was met by this fleet and routed. This first naval
victory over the Christians gave the Saracens unbounded confidence in
their ability to fight on the sea. They sailed into the AEgean, took
Rhodes, plundered Cos, and returned loaded with booty. Muaviah,
elated with these successes, planned a great combined land and
water expedition against the Christian capital.

At this point it is worth pausing to consider what the fighting
ship of this period was like. As we have seen in the preceding
chapter the Roman navy sank into complete decay. At the end of the
fourth century there was practically no imperial navy in existence.
The conquest of the Vandals by Belisarius in the sixth century
involved the creation of a fleet, but when that task was over the
navy again disappeared until the appearance of the Arabs compelled
the building of a new imperial fleet. The small provincial squadrons
then used to patrol the coasts were by no means adequate to meet
the crisis.

The warships of this period were called "dromons," a term that
persists even in the time of the Turkish invasion eight centuries
later. The word means "fast sailers" or "racers." The dromon was
not the low galley of the later Middle Ages but a two-banked ship,
probably quite as large as the Roman quinquereme, carrying a complement
of about 300 men. Amidships was built a heavy castle or redoubt of
timbers, pierced with loopholes for archery. On the forecastle
rose a kind of turret, possibly revolving, from which, after Greek
fire was invented, the tubes or primitive cannon projected the
substance on the decks of the enemy. The dromon had two masts, lateen
rigged, and between thirty and forty oars to a side.

There were two classes of dromons, graded according to size, and a
third class of ship known as the "pamphylian," which was apparently
of a cruiser type, less cumbered with superstructure. In addition
there were small scout and dispatch boats of various shapes and
sizes.

Both Christian and Saracen fought with these kinds of warships.
Apparently the Arabs simply copied the vessels they found already
in use by their enemies, and added no new device of their own.

[Illustration: EUROPE'S EASTERN FRONTIER]

In 655 Muaviah started his great double invasion against Constantinople.
He sent his fleet into the AEgean, while he himself with an army
tried to force the passes of the Taurus mountains. Before the Arab
fleet had gone far it met the Christian fleet,