CHAPTER III_Gunpowder and Ammunition, Their Origin and Progress

THE GREEKS

Homer knew nothing apparently of incendiary compositions. When the

Trojans set fire to the Greek ships, he certainly says that they burned

with “unquenchable flame” (ἀσβέστη φλόξ), _Iliad_, xvi. 123; but this

is a mere figure of speech, for presently afterwards he tells us that

Patroclus extinguished the fire (κατὰ δ’ ἔσβεσεν αἰθόμενον πῦρ), 293.

The Assyrian bas-reliefs in the British Museum prove that liquid fire

was used in warfare in very remote times. Whether the Greeks adopted

its use from the Orientals or originated it themselves, there is

little evidence to show; but traces of it are found at an early date,

for instance at the siege of Syracuse,[44] 413 B.C., and the siege of

Rhodes,[45] 304 B.C. Vessels full of burning matter were thrown, at

first by hand, from walls and the tops of forts upon besiegers; and

when shell of suitable construction had been devised, these missiles

were discharged from machines.

The earliest instance of the use of firearms by the Greeks is found in

Thucydides, ii. 75, where it is stated that at the siege of Platæa,

429 B.C., the Platæans found it necessary to protect a wooden wall by

skins and hides against the fire-arrows (πυρφόροις ὀïστοῖς) of their

Peloponnesian besiegers. By the time of the Roman Empire, fire-arrows

were so well known as to be mentioned by the Latin poets,[46] and the

historians speak of fire-lances which were discharged from machines[47]

(_adactæ tormentis ardentes hastæ_). Vegetius, who lived in the fourth

century A.D., gives the composition of fire-arrows;[48] and Ammianus

Marcellinus, who lived about the same time, points out their defects.

First, the fire-arrow had to be discharged with a low velocity—_ictu

enim rapidiore extinguitur_; it was extinguished by the cooling effect

of the air when discharged with the full force of the bow. Secondly,

in addition to its low velocity (and consequently limited range) it

was extinguished when covered with clay.[49] However, the composition

was easy to light and hard to put out—even with clay or vinegar; its

viscosity enabled it to stick to the body it struck; and, becoming more

and more fluid from the heat of combustion, it “spread like wild-fire.”

But the use of incendiaries was not confined to grenades and arrows. At

the siege of Platæa, just referred to, the Spartans piled up faggots of

brushwood against the walls, and, after pouring a mixture of sulphur

and pitch on the heap, set fire to it in order to burn the town.[50]

They would have gained their object but for a rainstorm which put out

the fire. We have here perhaps the earliest historical account of the

composition of an incendiary—429 B.C. At the siege of Delium, 424

B.C., a tree was cut down and hollowed out, so as to form a tube, and

from one end of it, which was protected by a covering of iron, was

hung a cauldron containing a burning mixture of charcoal, sulphur, and

pitch. Into this cauldron was introduced an iron bellows-pipe, leading

from the end of the tree from which it hung. Having transported the

machine close to the wall of the town (the cauldron to the front), the

besiegers inserted the snout of a large bellows into the other end of

the hollowed tree, and blew them. A great flame was thus produced; the

wall, in which there was much wood, was set on fire; the heat of the

fire and the vapour of the incendiary drove the defenders from the

walls, and the town fell.[51] Its simplicity shows that the mixture

belongs to the infancy of incendiaries in Greece.

We meet with fire-ships as early as 413 B.C., when the Syracusians

employed one ineffectually against the Athenian fleet;[52] and

a special incendiary for naval use is recommended by Æneas, the

tactician, about 350 B.C. It consisted of sulphur, pitch, incense,

pine-wood, and tow. The mixture was stowed in egg-shaped, wooden

vessels, admirably adapted for their purpose, which were thrown lighted

upon the enemy’s decks.[53]

TABLE II.

_Greek Fires._

+-----------------+------------------+------------------+------------+---------------+-------------------------+

| _cir._ 350 B.C. | _cir._ A.D. 350. | 1200-1225. | 1405. | 1560. | 1903. |

+-----------------+------------------+------------------+------------+---------------+-------------------------+

| | | | | | |

| | | | | | |

| | | | | | |

| | | | | | |

| | | | | | |

| ... | ... | Oil of Gemma | ... | ... | ... |

| | | | | | |

+-----------------+------------------+------------------+------------+---------------+-------------------------+

In such ways were incendiaries employed by the Greeks for nearly eleven

centuries after the siege of Platæa. During this long period the

composition was of course improved, and the mixture of the seventh

century A.D. burned more fiercely, and was harder to put out than that

of the fourth century B.C.; but nevertheless the two mixtures were of

the same species. At length, in the decade 670-80, a new species was

devised. For the sake of clearness, the old incendiary mixtures will

henceforward be called Greek fire; the new one “sea-fire.”

We are told by Theophanes in his “Chronography,” written 811-815,

that in the year 673 an architect called Kallinikos[64] fled from

Heliopolis in Syria to the Romans (_i.e._ Constantinople), and

eventually compounded a “sea-fire” which enabled them to burn large

numbers of the Moslem vessels engaged in the Seven Years’ War,[65]

671-677. This incendiary was again employed with success against the

Moslems during their second attack against Constantinople, 717, and at

the decisive naval victory over the Russians under Igor in 941. The

evidence of Theophanes about Kallinikos is corroborated almost verbally

by the Emperor Constantine VII., Porphyrogenitus, in Chap. xlviii.

of his “Administration of the Empire”: “Be it known that under the

reign of Constantine Pogonatus (668-685) one Kallinikos, who fled from

Heliopolis to the Romans, prepared a ‘wet-fire’ to be discharged from

siphons, by means of which the Romans burned the fleet of the Saracens

at Cyzicus and gained the victory.”[66] It is true that when writing to

his son (in Chap. xiii. of the same work) the Emperor gives (or tells

his son to give) a different version of the invention of sea-fire:

“If any persons venture to inquire of you how this fire is prepared,

withstand them and dismiss them with some such answer as this—that

the secret was revealed by an angel to the first Emperor Constantine”

(A.D. 323-337).[67] But this passage only proves that the Emperor was

mendacious and his people superstitious. There can be little doubt

that this great invention was made by a Greek for the Greeks in the

decade 670-680; but what was the nature of the mixture? All we know

for certain about it is that it was a State secret, was intended for

sea service, burned with much noise and vapour, and was projected

from siphons. In other words, the mixture fulfilled the following

conditions:—

(1) Its composition could be kept secret.

(2) It had some close connection with the sea, or water.

(3) It burned with much noise and smoke.

(4) It had some close connection with siphons, or tubes.

The fact that the sea-fire was made a State secret proves that it did

not belong to the same family as the Greek fire of Æneas and Vegetius

which, in one form or another, had been known all over the East

from time immemorial. It was a new mixture—_i.e._ either a mixture

containing some substance not hitherto known, or a mixture of known

substances not hitherto combined together for warlike purposes. Many

hold that an unknown substance was employed, and, further, that it

was no other than saltpetre. We might, of course, fall back on the

conclusion established in Chap. ii., and reply that saltpetre was

not discovered until the thirteenth century and could not have been

used as an ingredient of an incendiary in the seventh century. But

the conclusion drawn in Chap. ii. was not a certain one: it was there

characterised as highly probable. Saltpetre might possibly have been

employed, and a belief which is shared in by some good writers deserves

respectful consideration. We have, therefore, to investigate how far a

saltpetre mixture would satisfy the above four conditions.

There was absolutely nothing to attract public attention in the

purchase from time to time of common, well-known substances, such

as sulphur, quicklime, naphtha, &c. &c., by the authorities of the

Arsenal; but the suspicions of the spies and traitors, always to be

found in Constantinople,[68] would have been instantly roused by the

importation of any new or rare substance such as saltpetre. And whence

could saltpetre have come? M. Berthelot recognises the importance of

this question, although he cannot answer it: “Comment se procurait-on

le salpêtre?... Aucun renseignment n’est venu nous l’apprendre. Ce

point pourtant est capital.”[69] Saltpetre would naturally have

been obtained from the countries where it was most abundant and

cheapest—from the East; but the Greeks could not have relied upon this

source of supply, for whenever political complications arose between

the Emperor and the Caliph—and they were interminable—the ports of

Egypt and Syria were closed against Greek ships. However, saltpetre

did not grow in the streets of Constantinople: the natural salt (if

used) must have been collected _somewhere_, and sold to Government by

_someone_, and transported _somehow_ to the capital; and what despot

could have tied the tongues of collectors, merchants, sailors, and

porters? The mere facts that only one State trafficked in saltpetre,

that this State only bought it in time of war, and that this State

alone employed sea-fire, would have immediately betrayed the secret

of its composition to these men, and what was known to them was known

to the world. It is most improbable that the use of saltpetre could

have been concealed for one year, much less the five hundred years

during which the secret of the sea-fire was successfully guarded. I

may be reminded of the Emperor Constantine VII.’s statement (in Chap.

xiii. of his “Administration, &c.”), that on one occasion a Roman

general, corrupted by a large bribe, did reveal the secret and shortly

afterwards, when entering a church, was consumed by fire which fell

from heaven upon him. The story is obviously legendary. The venal

general is as unreal as the fire from heaven; he is merely introduced

to us as “an awful example,” and we cannot endow him with reality by

rejecting the fire. The claim of the Marquess Carabbas to reality is

not established by denying the existence of Puss-in-Boots. Had the

secret been divulged the sea-fire would have been used against the

Greeks, and no mixture that can be identified with it ever was.

A saltpetre mixture, then, would not, in all probability, have

fulfilled the first condition, nor would it have fulfilled the second.

There is no conceivable connection between saltpetre and the sea, or

water in general. A saltpetre mixture (of suitable proportions) would

have proved a much better incendiary than Greek fire, but it would have

acted as effectively from a fort as from a ship. Indeed, if we consider

the ill effect of the moist sea air on the impure saltpetre of early

times, we are justified in saying that the action of such mixtures on

land would have been better, in general, than at sea.

A saltpetre mixture would have fulfilled the third condition by burning

with much noise and smoke, which we may suppose to be the essential

meaning of the Emperor Leo’s phrase, “thunder and smoke.”[70] We

cannot reasonably attach greater significance to one of the commonest

of all metaphors, thunder, which has been applied times unnumbered to

the human voice, to the bursting of a child’s cracker,[71] and to the

whirring of a dart. “Never burst such peals from the thunder-cloud,”

says Vergil, as were produced by the javelin thrown by Æneas.[72]

As regards the fourth condition, the above statement of the Emperor

Constantine about sea-fire and siphons[73] completely justifies us

in concluding that there was some necessary connection between the

two things. Now, there was no necessary connection between saltpetre

mixtures, even when explosive, and siphons. Small quantities of such

mixtures could have been, and eventually were, thrown by hand, in

grenades, like Greek fire. Saltpetre mixtures, therefore, would not

have fulfilled the fourth condition.

The result of the foregoing inquiry is, that a saltpetre mixture would

have only fulfilled one, the third, of the four conditions to which the

sea-fire was subject; and we have now to cast about for some mixture of

known substances, not hitherto combined together for warlike purposes,

which would have fulfilled them all.

A clue to the composition of the Kallinikos mixture may perhaps be

found in its Greek name, “sea-fire” or “wet-fire.” One substance

had long been known with whose combustion water was closely

connected—quicklime, and with its properties Kallinikos, as an

architect, must have been perfectly familiar. Its temperature rises—to

150° C. (302° F.) if the quantity be large—when sprinkled with water,

and it can consequently be employed to ignite substances with low

points of ignition. For example, if a mixture of quicklime and naphtha

be thrown into water, the rapid rise in temperature of the lime causes

a sudden and strong development of vapour from the naphtha, which on

mixing with the air becomes highly explosive. Such a mixture, it is

almost unnecessary to add, could not be handled with safety _after_ it

has been wet. Plutarch was aware of the explosive nature of naphtha

vapour. “Naphtha,” he says, “is like bitumen, and is so easy to set

on fire that, without touching it with any flame, it will catch light

from the rays which are sent forth from a fire, burning the air which

is between both.”[74] Pliny speaks of the heat developed by quicklime

when sprinkled with water. “It is strange,” he says, “that what has

already been burnt should be ignited by water” (_mirum aliquid,

postquam arserit, accendi aquis_).[75] The same property is implicitly

referred to in the “Kestoi,” attributed to Sextus Julius Africanus

of Emaus, who lived under Alexander Severus, 222-235. The military

portions of this work, however, must have been written long afterwards,

in the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century at the

earliest; for Belisarius, who was born in 505, is mentioned in the

sixty-sixth chapter.[76] In the forty-fifth chapter there is a recipe

for a quicklime-asphalt composition, which is called “automatic fire.”

This mixture was used by jugglers to exhibit “spontaneous combustion,”

a little water being secretly poured on a plate on which a ball of

the composition was placed.[77] It contained very little quicklime

(παντελῶς ὀλίγον). Cameniata tells us that at the storming of Salonika

in 904 the Moslems threw “pitch and torches and quicklime” over the

walls.[78] By “quicklime” he probably meant the earthenware hand

grenades, filled with wet quicklime, described by the Emperor Leo,

who then sat on the throne (886-911). “The vapour of the quicklime,”

he says, “when the pots are broken, stifles and chokes the enemy and

distracts his soldiers.”[79]

The simplest and most probable explanation of the nature of the

sea-fire then is, that it was a sulphur-quicklime-naphtha mixture of

the same family as those shown in the following Table.

TABLE III.

_Sea-Fires._

+------------------+------------------+--------------------+------------+------------------+

| _cir._ 1300. | _cir._ 1350 | _cir._ 1350. | 1405. | _cir._ 1425. |

+------------------+------------------+--------------------+------------+------------------+

| Gum Arabic. | ... | Wax. | Wax. | Gum Arabic. |

| ... | ... | Oil of Balm. | ... | ... |

+------------------+------------------+--------------------+------------+------------------+

_N.B._—None of these mixtures professes to be the

official Greek sea-fire, the exact composition of which

is unknown; but the “De Mirabilibus” mixture is probably

a close approximation to it. Although called sea-fires

here, they were not so called by their western authors,

who were ignorant of the use and even of the name of

sea-fire. The first four recipes are described as

mixtures which will ignite “when rain falls upon them.”

Hartlieb alone foresaw that such mixtures would ignite

“if thrown upon water.”

Such a mixture would have completely fulfilled the four conditions

already mentioned. First, the secret of its composition was

easy to keep, since it lay in the choice and proportions of known

ingredients; not in the use of one special and unknown substance (such

as saltpetre), smuggled privily into the Arsenal[85] with a mystery

which was certain to excite the curiosity of a people who “spent their

time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”

Secondly, it was literally a “sea-fire” or “wet-fire,”—a fire which

was ignited by water and which burned on its surface. Thirdly, its

combustion gave rise to a considerable volume of vapour and a series of

small explosions in the air. Fourthly, from the mode of its combustion

it was unsafe to handle after ignition, and it was necessarily

discharged from siphons. This simple explanation of the sea-fire[86]

sweeps away the insurmountable difficulties raised by the saltpetre

theory. We have no longer to believe in the patriotic silence of

Byzantine officials, workmen and sailors, maintained for five hundred

years; we have no longer to admit reluctantly that saltpetre was known

in Greece, where it occurs in comparatively scanty quantity, five

hundred years before it was known in the great natural storehouse of

this salt, Asia; we have no longer to suspect the whole body of Greek

writers on alchemy and pharmacy, from the seventh to the thirteenth

century, of having entered into a vast conspiracy of silence to hide

their knowledge of saltpetre from the barbarians; we are no longer left

wondering whence the Greeks got their saltpetre, and why they gave the

name of “sea-fire” to a mixture in no way connected with the sea; and

we are no longer perplexed by the fact that the earliest recipes for

Greek fire contain no saltpetre.[87]

It remains to inquire how the sea-fire was expelled from the siphons.

There were two kinds of siphons, large siphons and hand-siphons.

Of the hand-siphons there were several patterns. Some seem to have been

thrown by hand, like squibs;[88] from others, mentioned by Cameniata,

the charge was projected by air[89]—presumably by a bellows or some

such contrivance; while in a third kind, described by the Princess

Anna, a pellet was blown by the breath through a flame placed before

the front end of the tube.[90] The two latter siphons were of the same

species, and as Anna’s was charged with Greek fire[91] we may suppose

Cameniata’s took a similar charge.

The large sea-fire siphon was fixed in the bow of the ship and served

by the two foremost rowers, one of whom laid the siphon and was called

the siphonator, while the other, we may suppose, loaded it. The siphon

was mounted on a swivel, as may be gathered from the account given by

the Princess Anna of the naval battle fought near the island of Rhodes

in 1103 by the Greeks and the Pisans. The latter were terrified, she

says, by an apparatus which directed on them fire of an extraordinary

nature. “Ordinary flame rises upwards, but this flame shot downwards

and sideways as well, at the will of the gunner.”[92] Unless the siphon

was mounted on a swivel, the phrase which I have translated by “at the

will of the gunner” (ἐφ’ ἃ βούλεται ὁ πέμπων) would be meaningless.

In his _Recherche sur le Feu Grégeois_, p. 23, M. Chrétien-Lalanne

maintains that the incendiary was expelled from the siphon by means

of a spring. This theory is inadmissible, for helical springs are not

heard of until long after the time in question. Further, the ancients

possessed no means of condensing air to the degree necessary for the

projection of a heavy body over even the short ranges of the Dark Ages,

and steam power had hardly been recognised at all.[93] Therefore, it

has been urged, the incendiary must have been expelled from the siphon

by means of an explosive saltpetre mixture, this being the only way of

effecting the object that remained at the disposal of the ancients. As

will be seen presently, there remained a simple and efficacious method,

involving very little expense and no danger whatever; a fact which in

itself would be sufficient to meet the above argument in favour of

saltpetre, even were it unsupported by the evidence already brought

forward in Chap. ii. to show that saltpetre had not been yet discovered

at the time in question, and the evidence adduced in the present

chapter to prove that in fact it was not used. Further, the supposition

that an explosive was employed is excluded by the construction of the

siphon, which was made of wood. Such is the only reasonable explanation

that can be given of the Emperor Leo’s order that the siphons should

be “cased with bronze.”[94] Had they been of metal, a casing of bronze

would have been a useless complication; but, being of wood, an internal

casing of metal was absolutely necessary to protect them from the flame

of the burning composition. Only one round probably could have been

fired from a wooden tube by means of an explosive, and that round in

most cases would have been more fatal to the siphon detachment than to

the enemy.

Again, as the projectile was simply a lump of oleaginous matter, it

would have been blown by an explosive cartridge into thousands of

fragments, each of them so small as to be worthless for incendiary

purposes; for the efficacy of an incendiary depends to a great extent

on its containing a large quantity of matter.

Since the use of springs, compressed air, and steam were impossible,

and the use of an explosive extremely improbable, it only remains to

examine the arguments for and against water as the motive power.

The Emperor Leo VI. speaks of the “artificial fire discharged by means

of siphons;”[95] the Emperor Constantine VII. speaks similarly of

“the wet-fire projected by means of siphons;”[96] and if we translate

_siphon_ by _tube_ both phrases are intelligible, but neither gives

any hint as to the means by which the mixture was expelled from the

tubes. But like so many other military words, _siphon_ has (at least)

two meanings, and signifies not only a tube, but a _fire-engine_, or

_water-engine_, or _squirt_. Heron of Alexandria (_cir._ 130 B.C.)

begins his description of a fire-engine with the words: “The _siphons_

used for the extinction of fire are made as follows.”[97] Pliny the

Younger (_cir._ 100 A.D.), in a letter to the Emperor Trajan about

a fire which had taken place in the town of Nicomedia, observes

that “there was not a _sipho_, nor even a bucket, at hand to quench

it.”[98] Hesychius in his Greek Lexicon, about the end of the fourth

century, gives under σίφων: “an apparatus for pumping water in

conflagrations.”[99] If we translate _siphon_ by _water-engine_, as

we are perfectly justified in doing, we find that the phrases used by

the two Emperors are not only intelligible, but indicate both the mode

of projection and the mode of ignition of the sea-fire. The lump of

quicklime-naphtha-sulphur was projected, and at the same time ignited,

by applying the hose of a water-engine to the breech of the tube, which

thus became an integral part of the apparatus to which it gave its name.

Two obscure passages in Byzantine works, which hitherto have never been

satisfactorily explained, are made clear by this interpretation. The

first occurs in the “Tactics” of Constantine VIII., where he directs

“‘flexible’ (apparatus) with (artificial) fire, siphons, hand-siphons,

and manjaniks” to be employed, if they are at hand, against any tower

that may be advanced against the wall of a besieged town.[100] The

“flexible” apparatus cannot refer to the helical springs of a later

age. Neither can it mean crossbows, for the Princess Anna, who wrote

a century after Constantine, expressly says: “The crossbow (_tzangra_)

is a foreign weapon (hitherto) unknown in the Greek service.”[101]

That it cannot mean longbows is quite certain from the second of the

obscure passages in question, which occurs in the “Alexiad”: “In the

bow of each ship he (the Admiral) put the heads of lions and other land

animals, made of brass and iron, gilt, so as to be (quite) frightful

to look at; and he arranged that from their mouths, which were (wide)

open, should issue the fire to be delivered by the soldiers by means

of (or through) the ‘flexible’ apparatus.”[102] The enemy might have

exclaimed with the Jewish king: “They gaped upon me with their mouths,

as a ravening and as a roaring lion.” But whatever the moral effect of

these trumpery scarecrows—if ever actually used—it is certain that

archers with longbows could not have shot fire-arrows through them with

any success; and the meaning of Emperor and Princess remains hidden

until we interpret “flexible instrument” as the leathern hose of a pump

or water-engine, than which nothing can be more flexible. The import of

both passages then becomes perfectly plain. Such a mode of discharging

incendiaries is by no means unknown in later military history. “Dans

une expérience faite au Havre, 1758, avec une pompe à huile de naphte,

dont le jet était enflammé par une mèche allumée, on brûla même

une chaloupe.”[103] At the siege of Charleston, 1863, not only was

solidified Greek fire in tin tubes employed,[104] but coal naphtha

placed in shells or pumped through hose.[105] Finally, M. Berthelot

speaks of “les propositions faites, pendant le siège de Paris (1870),

pour repousser les ennemis au moyen de pompes projetant des jets de

pétrole enflammé. Mais cet agent ... n’a été mis réellement à l’épreuve

que par la Commune, pour brûler nos palais.”[106]

When the Crusades began in 1097 Greeks were thus in possession of

two species of incendiaries: the sea-fire which was distinctively

and exclusively Greek, and the old mixture of the Æneas family which

was known all over the East. Yet it was to the latter that the name

“Greek fire” was given by the Crusaders, who, I believe, had neither

experience nor knowledge of the sea-fire. The only passage I can recall

among the old writers in which the two fires are discriminated and

correctly named occurs in the metrical romance “Richard Coer-de-Lion,”

_temp._ Edward I. (1272-1307):—

“Kyng Richard, oute of hys galye,

Caste wylde-fyr into the skye

And fyr Gregeys into the see.

* * * * *

The see brent all off fyr Gregeys” (2627).[107]

Historically this passage is probably worthless; but, whether

deliberately or by accident, the poet indicates the real distinction

between the two fires. It was the sea-fire, the true Greek fire,

which was thrown or fell into the sea; while the wild-fire, misnamed

“Greek fire” by the Crusaders, was flung “into the sky” to descend

on the heads of the enemy. In the preceding pages I have adopted the

Crusaders’ nomenclature, because it is now too late to rectify their

blunder.

During the siege of Stirling Castle, 1304, Edward I. “gave orders

for the employment of Greek fire, with which he had probably become

acquainted in the East.”[108] It was also made use of by the Flemish

engineer, Crab, who took an active part in the defence of Berwick when

besieged by Edward II. in 1319:—

“And pyk (_pitch_) and ter (_tar_) als haiff thai tane,

And lynt (_fat_) and herdes (_refuse of flax_) and brymstane,

And dry treyis (_trees or wood_) that wele wald brin (_burn_).”[109]

We again made use of Greek fire in the defence of the Castle of

Breteuil, and in the attack on the Castle of Romorentin, in 1356;[110]

but no record remains of its composition or of the way in which it was

projected. It was no doubt similar to Whitehorne’s wild-fire of 1560,

given in Table II. As late as 1571 Greek fire was poured down on the

heads of the Turks, in the primitive fashion, by the Venetians in the

defence of Famagusta.[111]

The phrase “Greek fire” never took root in England, where “wild-fire”

was early substituted for it. Wild-fire is found in Robert of

Gloucester’s “Chronicle,”[112] of the same date as “Richard

Coer-de-Lion.” According to the _Promptorium Parvulorum_, an

English-Latin dictionary compiled in 1440 by Galfridus, a Dominican

of Lynn Episcopi in Norfolk, the phrases “Greek fire” and “wild-fire”

were then synonymous; for he gives as the Latin equivalents of the

latter—“ignis Pelasgus, vel ignis pelagus, vel ignis Græcus.” Among

the ammunition supplied to the troops sent to Scotland under Lord

Lennox in 1545, we find “xx tronckes charged with wylde fyer.”[113]

Whitehorne gives a plate of these tronckes or trombes, which were

hollow wooden cylinders, “as bigge as a man’s thigh and the length of

an ell,” filled with the mixture given in Table II. for the sixteenth

century. In Phillips’ English Dictionary, 1706, wild-fire is described

as (1) “a sort of fire invented by the Grecians about A.C. 777,” and

(2) “gunpowder rolled up wet and set on fire.” It is used in the latter

sense in “Robinson Crusoe,” published in 1719. Before an attack on

the Indians, the sailors “made some wild-fire ... by wetting a little

powder in the palms of their hands” (Part ii. chap. 21). The word is

only heard now in the phrase “spreads like wildfire.”

But though its names have passed away, the thing remains. Greek fire

was used at the siege of Charleston in 1863; in 1870 M. Berthelot

watched its effects when thrown into Paris by German guns; we

ourselves possess it to this day in our Carcass composition.[114]

The sea-fire, on the other hand, was comparatively short-lived, and

I can find no certain evidence of its employment after the year

1200. Its disappearance is easily accounted for. From about the

middle of the eleventh century the Byzantines began to show signs of

an ever-increasing disinclination for war-service either afloat or

ashore,[115] a want of national honour and military energy which Mr.

Finlay ascribes to “a general deficiency of common honesty and personal

courage;”[116] and this moral degeneracy threw naval duties more and

more into the hands of the Venetians and other foreign mercenaries,

to whom the Government may have been unwilling to make known the

secret of the sea-fire. This state of things did not escape the notice

of Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish traveller of the twelfth century:

“(Les Grecs) entretiennent des soldats à gages de toutes les Nations

qu’ils appellent Barbares, pour faire la guerre au Roi des Peuples

de Togarma appellez Turcs. Car les Grecs eux-mêmes n’ont ni cœur ni

courage pour la guerre. Aussi sont-ils reputez comme les femmes qui

n’ont aucune force pour combattre.”[117] Matters came to a crisis in

1200: in this year Michael Struphnos, the admiral commanding, sold the

naval stores at Constantinople and appropriated the proceeds of the

sale.[118] When, therefore, the pious warriors of the Fourth Crusade

turned their arms against their fellow-Christians and beleaguered the

city in April 1204, there was no sea-fire at hand for use against

their ships, and an attempt to burn them by means of sixteen ordinary

fire-ships was foiled by the activity of the Venetian sailors.[119]

The accession of the Latin dynasty to the throne of Constantinople in

this year was a serious hindrance to the reemployment of sea-fire.

The Latins were ignorant of its composition, and they were not likely

to gain information upon the subject from the few Greeks who were

acquainted with it; for these Christians did not love one another.

Finally, saltpetre was discovered not many years afterwards, and

its substitution for customary ingredients in the later editions of

existing “Fire-books”[120] proves that it was utilised without delay

for Greek fire, which thus became a more formidable incendiary than

sea-fire.

The Greeks had no hand in the invention of cannon. One of their

historians of the fifteenth century, when speculating on the subject

in his narrative for the year 1389, says the Germans were commonly

believed to have been the inventors.[121] Could the Greeks, then, have

been in possession of saltpetre-mixtures many centuries before? Is it

credible that people with intellect as keen as the Greeks employed

an explosive for long ages without hitting upon the idea of metal

guns? Yet judging from the manner in which Chalcocondyles speaks of

cannon in his narrative for 1446, they were even then but little known

to the Greeks. “Cannon,” he tells his countrymen, “are formidable

instruments, which no armour can resist, and which penetrates through

everything.”[122] No historian of the ability of Chalcocondyles would

have spoken in this manner about an arm which was well known.

The fact that the first recorded use of fire-arrows on Greek soil

was made by Persian archers,[123] lends some probability to the

view that Greek fire was originally borrowed from the East; but the

Greeks assuredly invented the sea-fire which was the palladium of the

Empire for several centuries. To the discovery of saltpetre they have

no legitimate claim. The claim put forward in their name is based

partly on a metaphor,[124] partly on the assumption that the effects

of sea-fire could have been only produced by a mixture containing

saltpetre; and it cannot be sustained. The hypothesis that Kallinikos

compounded a saltpetre mixture ignores the highly probable conclusion

that saltpetre was not discovered until the thirteenth century;[125]

fails to explain some statements, and is irreconcilable with other

statements made by the ancients; and involves many incredible

consequences.

It may be objected that this conclusion has been arrived at without

taking the evidence of the chief witness for the Greeks, Marcus Græcus.

Let us examine his _Liber Ignium_.