Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/37

 mercatoriæ, or vectoriæ, as being the carriers of merchandise. So piscatoriæ were boats used for fishing.

The ships of the Greeks had various ornaments attached to the prow and stern, most of which were afterwards adopted by the Romans, and may even still be seen on the waters of the Mediterranean. Thus an eye painted on each side of the prow was supposed to indicate watchfulness and to ward off ill-luck; while the prow itself terminated in the acrostolium, the head of an animal or bird—corresponding in principle with our figure-head. An original goose-head (technically called cheniscus) is still preserved in the Bibliothèque at Paris. So, at a later period, St. Paul's ship had for its "ensign" the "sign of Castor and Pollux," while Ovid's ship, which bore him to the land of his exile, had a head of Minerva painted on her prow.

On the stern was the aplustre, forming a kind of roof over the steersman, and bearing also the image of the tutelary Deity—a flag or pennon—sometimes a lantern, as may be seen on Trajan's Column, and the purple sail which, in Roman times, marked the Admiral's ship. Ships, it appears, were from remote times painted with various colours. Thus Homer specifies black, red, and purple, and Herodotus speaks of red paint; while Plautus, in a well-known passage, classes together ships and women as equally greedy of ornament. It was also, occa-*