Hannibal ordered a great many serpents to be collected; these were put into
pots, which, during the engagement, were thrown into the enemy's ships. The
alarm and consternation occasioned by this novel and unexpected mode of
warfare, threw his opponents into disorder, and compelled them to save
themselves by flight.

The conquest of all the islands on the coast of Greece, from Epirus to Cape
Malea, by the Romans, was the result of a naval war, in which they engaged
with the Etolians, a people who, at this time, were so powerful at sea, and
so much addicted to piracy, as to have drawn upon themselves the jealousy
and the vengeance of the Romans. This extension of their dominions was
followed by a successful war with the Istrians, which made them masters of
all the western parts of the Mediterranean Sea; and by an equally
successful war with Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, who was compelled to
deliver up his fleet to them, as well as all the sea-ports of consequence
on the coast of Sparta.

The Rhodians hitherto had been generally in alliance with the Romans; but
differences arose between them during the war between the latter and
Perseus, king of Macedon.

The island of Rhodes was remarkably well situated for maritime commerce;
and its inhabitants did not fail to reap all the advantages in this respect
which nature had so kindly bestowed on them. It appears from Homer, that in
his time there were three cities in the island; but during the
Peloponnesian war, the greater part of the inhabitants, having formed the
resolution to settle in one place, built the city of Rhodes, after the
designs of the same Athenian architect, who built the Piræus. This city was
situated on the east coast of the island, at the foot of a hill, in the
form of an amphitheatre: it possessed a very convenient and safe harbour,