a fire was kindled every evening at sunset, and served as the beacon light for the guidance of mariners.
The shipping described by Tacitus.
Rhodians.
Tacitus[1] has preserved a description of the expedition
of Germanicus, but his "Annals" throw little
light upon the state of that portion of the Roman
navy which assisted in the conquest of Germany,
and frequented the northern seas about the period
when the first lighthouse was erected in the English
Channel. Indeed his description very imperfectly
represents either the vessels or seamen of those maritime
nations, who, becoming subject to Rome, largely
aided her alike in her naval and in her commercial
victories. Of these none have left a more lasting
record of their existence as a maritime people than
the Rhodians. Alike celebrated for their skill as
navigators, and their honesty and shrewdness as
merchants, they excelled all others as jurists. Their
laws relating to navigation were introduced into the
Roman code, and formed the groundwork of maritime
jurisprudence throughout the civilized world.
Colonized, no doubt, by some of the more civilized
nations of Western Asia, and probably by the Phœnicians,
the Rhodians from their position, in a small
island and on the great highway of commerce, as
well as from their skill in astronomy and in navigation,
soon took a prominent part among nations more
populous and powerful than themselves. Accessible
to all the surrounding naval powers, and deriving their
chief commercial wealth from their trade with Egypt,
the Rhodians from the first made it their business
- ↑ Tacit. Annal. ii. 6. They were mostly broad flat-bottomed boats, with rudders at each end.
