or place of exercise, and walks proportionate to the magnitude of the ship. In them were gardens and plants of all kinds, disposed in wonderful order. Pipes, some of hardened clay, and others of lead, conveyed water all round to refresh them. There were also arbours of ivy and vines, that had their roots in great vessels filled with earth. These vessels were watered in the same manner as the gardens. The arbours served to shade the walks.

After these came the apartment of Venus with three beds. This was floored with agates and other precious stones, the finest that could be found in the island. The walls and roof were of cypress wood. The windows were adorned with ivory, paintings, and small statues. In another apartment was a library, at the top of which, on the outside, was fixed a sun-dial.

There was also an apartment with three beds for a bath, in which were three great brazen coppers, and a bathing-vessel, made of a single stone of various colours. This vessel contained two hundred and fifty quarts. At the ship's head was a great reservoir of water, which held an hundred thousand quarts.

All round the ship on the outside were Atlasses of six cubits, or nine feet, in height, which supported the sides of the ship; these Atlasses were at equal distances from each other. The ship was adorned on all sides with paintings, and had eight towers proportioned to its size; two at the head, two at the stern, and four in the middle, of equal dimensions. Upon these towers were parapets, from which stones might be discharged upon the ships of an enemy, that should approach too near. Each tower was guarded by four young men completely armed, and two archers. The inside of them was filled with stones and arrows.

Upon the side of the vessel, well strengthened with planks, was a kind of rampart, on which was an engine to discharge stones, made by Archimedes: it threw a stone of three hundred weight, and an arrow

of twelve cubits (eighteen feet) the distance of a stadium, or an hundred and twenty-five paces from it.

The ship had three masts, at each of which were two machines to discharge stones. There also were the hooks and masses of lead to throw upon such as approached. The whole ship was surrounded with a rampart of iron to keep off those who should attempt to board it. All around were iron grapplings (corvi) which, being thrown by machines, grappled the vessels of the enemy, and drew them close to the ship, from whence it was easy to destroy them. On each of the sides were sixty young men completely armed, and as many about the masts, and at the machines for throwing stones.

Though the hold of this ship was extremely deep, one man sufficed for clearing it of all water, with a machine made in the nature of a screw, invented by Archimedes. An Athenian poet of that name made an epigram upon this superb vessel, for which he was well paid. Hiero sent him a thousand medimni of corn as a reward, and caused them to be carried to the port of Piræus. The medimnus, according to father Montfaucon, is a measure that contains six bushels. This epigram is come down to us. The value of verse was known at that time in Syracuse.

Hiero having found that there was no port in Sicily capable of containing this vessel, except some, where it could not lie at anchor without danger, resolved to make a present of it to king* Ptolemy, and sent it to Alexandria. There was at that time a great dearth of corn throughout all Egypt.

Several other transports of less burthen attendedthis great ship. Three hundred thousand quarters of corn were put on board them, with ten thousand great earthen jars of salted fish, twenty thousand quintals (or two millions of pounds) of salt meat, twenty thousand bundles of different clothes, without including the provisions for the ship's crews and officers.

*There is reason to believe this was Ptolemy Philadelphus,

To avoid too much prolixity, I have retrenched some part of the description which Athenæus has left us of this great ship. I could have wished, that, to have given us a better idea of it, he had mentioned the exact dimensions of it. Had he added a word upon the benches of oars, it would have cleared up and determined a question, which, without it, must for ever remain doubtful and obscure.

Hiero's fidelity was put to a very severe trial, after the bloody defeat of the Romans in the battle of Cannæ, which was followed by an almost universal defection of their allies.

But even the laying waste of his dominions by the Carthaginian troops, which their fleet had landed in Sicily, was not capable of shaking his resolution.

He was only afflicted to see that the contagion had spread even to his own family. He had a son named Gelon, who married Nereis the daughter of Pyrrhus, by whom he had several children, and amongst others. Hieronymus, of whom we shall soon speak. Gelon, despising his father's great age, and setting no value on the alliance of the Romans, after their last disgrace at Cannæ, had declared openly for the Carthaginians. He had already armed the multitude, and solicited the allies of Syracuse to join him; and would* perhaps have occasioned great trouble in Sicily, if a sudden and unexpected death had not intervened. It happened so opportunely, that his father was suspected of having promoted it. He did not survive his son long, and died at the age of fourscore and ten years, infinitely regretted by his people, after having reigned fifty-four years.

Piv. 1. xxiii. n. 30.

* Movissetque in Sicil res, nisi mors, adeò opportuna ut patrem quoque suspicione adspergeret, armantem eum multitudinem, sollicitantemque socios, absumpsisset, LIV..

A. M.

37 89.

Ant. J. C

215.

SECT. I.

ARTICLE II.

Hieronymus, grandson of Hiero, sucz ceeds him, and causes him to be regretted by his vices and cruelty. He is killed in a conspiracy. Barbarous murder of the princesses. Hippocrates and Epicydes possess themselves of the government of Syracuse, and declare for the Carthaginians as Hieronymus had done.

THE death of Hiero occasioned great revolutions in Sicily. The kingdom was fallen into the hands of Hieronymus his grandson, a young* prince, incapable of making a wise use of his independence, and far from possessing strength to resist the seducing allurements of sovereign power. Hiero's apprehensions, that the flourishing condition in which he left his kingdom would soon change under an infant king, suggested to him the thought and desire of restoring their liberty to the Syracusans. But his two daughters opposed that design with all their influence; from the hope, that the young prince would have only the title of king, and that they should have all the authority, in conjunction with their husbands, Andranodorus and Zoippus, who were to hold the first rank amongst his guardians. It was not easy for an old man of ninety, to hold out against the caresses and arts of those two women, who besieged him day and night, to preserve the freedom of his mind in the midst of their pressing and assiduous insinuations, and to sacrifice with courge the interests of his family to those of the public.

Puerum, vix dum libertatem, nedum dominationem, modicè laturum. Liv.

3

+ Non facile erat nonagesimum jam agenti annur z circumsesso dies noctesque muliebribus blanditiis, liberare animum, & convertere ad publicam privata curam.

Liv.

To prevent as far as possible the evils he foresaw, he appointed him fifteen guardians, who were to form his council; and earnestly desired them, at his death, never to depart from the alliance with the Romans, to which he had inviolably adhered for fifty years, and to teach the young prince to tread in his steps, and to follow the principles in which he had been educated till then.

The king, dying after these arrangements, the guar dians whom he had appointed for his grandson immediately summoned the assembly, presented the young prince to the people, and caused the will to be read. A small number of people, expressly placed to applaud it, clapped their hands, and raised acclamations of joy. All the rest, in a consternation equal to that of a family who have lately lost a good father,kept a mournful silence, which sufficiently expressed their grief for their recent loss, and their apprehension of what was to come. His funeral was afterwards solemnized, and more honoured by the sorrow and tears of his subjects, than the care and regard of his relations for his memory.

Andranodorus's first care was to remove all the other guardians, by telling them roundly, the prince was of age to govern for himself.

He was at that time near fifteen years old. So that Andranodorus, being the first to renounce the guardianship held by him in common with many colleagues, united in his own person all their power. The arrangements made by the wisest princes at their deaths, are often little regarded, and seldom executed afterwards.

The + best and most moderate prince in the world, succeeding a king so well beloved by his subjects,

Funus fit regium, magis amore civium & caritate, quàm curé suorum celebre. Liv.

↑ Vis quidem ulli bono moderatoque regi facilis erat favor apud Syracusands, succedenti tanta caritati Hieronis. Verùm enimverò Hieronymus, velut suis vitiis desiderabilem efficere vellet avum, primo statin conspectu, omnia quàm disparia essent ostendit. Liv.