Nam modo purpureo vires capit Eurus ab ortu:
Nunc Zephyrus, ſero'veſpere miſſus, adeſt
Nunc gelidus ficca Boreas bacchatur ab Arcto Nunc Notus adverſa prælia fronte gerit. Triſt. lib. i. El. ii. ver. 25.
They ſeem to have been firſt incommoded by the North-Weſtwind, called in that country Thraſcias, or by the Greeks Sciron. This probably brought the thunder and lightning, which Mr. Stuart, in his account of the winds on the Temple of Andronicus Cyrrheſtes at Athens, tells us, is the diſtinguiſhing character of this wind[1]. It came however about to the South, and from thence to the South-Weſt, ſo that in the courſe of the tempeſt the wind ſhifted to every point of the compaſs, like the ſtorm above deſcribed by Ovid.
The harbour of Athenae Ponticæ[2] proved however a ſufficient protection for moſt of the ſhips; and the trireme, which rode out the ſtorm, under ihelter of a rock, perhaps owed its ſafety to the promontory Σκίρων, mentioned by Ptolemy. They however uſed the precaution to draw many of their ſhips aſhore in the manner, in which the Grecian fleet is deſcribed by Homer; which ſeems to have been the means of their preſervation, but implied that their draught of water, and conſequently their ability to fail near the wind, was but ſmall. It ſeems however, from an expreſſion
- ↑ It is, "he ſays, "accompanied with fierce and frequent lightnings." Stuart's Athens, vol. i. p. 23.
- ↑ The harbour of Athenae Ponticæ was, as Arrian tells us, ſheltered from the N. E. wind, called Βοῤῥὰς, but expoſed to the North Ἀπαρκτίας and to the North-Weſt Σκίρων. It ſeems probable that the wind had ſhifted from the laſt mentioned quarter before they reached the harbour, as Arrian tells us, the tempeſt blew at Grit from thence, but came about afterwards to the ſouth and South-Weſt. Had the original wind continued to blow, the harbour would not have afforded to the fleet ſufficient protection.
