Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/233

 a fire was kindled every evening at sunset, and served as the beacon light for the guidance of mariners.

Tacitus 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