to be accidental, that began 'a terrible war which for seven
years stained the Mediterranean with blood and consumed immense
wealth.' In the next century the two republics, 'irritated by
commercial quarrels'--like the English and Dutch afterwards--were
again at war in the Levant. Sometimes one side, sometimes the
other was victorious; but the contest was exhausting to both,
and especially to Venice. Within a quarter of a century they
were at war again. Hostilities lasted till the Genoese met with
the crushing defeat of Chioggia. 'From this time,' says Hallam,
'Genoa never commanded the ocean with such navies as before; her
commerce gradually went into decay; and the fifteenth century,
the most splendid in the annals of Venice, is till recent times
the most ignominious in those of Genoa.' Venice seemed now to
have no naval rival, and had no fear that anyone could forbid
the ceremony in which the Doge, standing in the bows of the
_Bucentaur_, cast a ring into the Adriatic with the words,
_Desponsamus_te,_Mare,_in_signum_veri_perpetuique_dominii_.
The result of the combats at Chioggia, though fatal to it in
the long-run, did not at once destroy the naval importance of
Genoa. A remarkable characteristic of sea-power is the delusive
manner in which it appears to revive after a great defeat. The
Persian navy occasionally made a brave show afterwards; but in
reality it had received at Salamis a mortal wound. Athens seemed
strong enough on the sea after the catastrophe of Syracuse; but,
as already stated, her naval power had been given there a check
from which it never completely recovered. The navy of Carthage
had had similar experience; and, in later ages, the power of
the Turks was broken at Lepanto and that of Spain at Gravelines
notwithstanding deceptive appearances afterwards. Venice was
soon confronted on the sea by a new rival. The Turkish naval