chapter 62._

GREEK EMPIRE OF TREBIZOND.

See TREBIZOND: A. D. 1204-1461.

GREEK FIRE.

"The important secret of compounding and directing this artificial flame was imparted [in the later part of the seventh century to the Greeks, or Byzantines, at Constantinople] by Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis, in Syria, who deserted from the service of the caliph to that of the emperor. The skill of a chemist and engineer was equivalent to the succour of fleets and armies; and this discovery or improvement of the military art was fortunately reserved for the distressful period when the degenerate Romans of the East were incapable of contending with the warlike enthusiasm and youthful vigour of the Saracens. The historian who presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition should suspect his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine guides, so prone to the marvellous, so careless, and, in this instance, so jealous of the truth. From their obscure, and perhaps fallacious hints, it should seem that the principal ingredient of the Greek fire was the naphtha, or liquid bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, which springs from the earth. … The naphtha was mingled, I know not by what methods or in what proportions, with sulphur and with the pitch that is extracted from evergreen firs. From this mixture, which produced a thick smoke and a loud explosion, proceeded a fierce and obstinate flame … ; instead of being extinguished it was nourished and quickened by the element of water; and sand, urine, or vinegar were the only remedies that could damp the fury of this powerful agent. … It was either poured from the ramparts [of a besieged town] in large boilers, or launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil; sometimes it was deposited in fire-ships … and was most commonly blown through long tubes of copper, which were planted on the prow of a galley, and fancifully shaped into the mouths of savage monsters, that seemed to vomit a stream of liquid and consuming fire. This important art was preserved at Constantinople, as the palladium of the state. … The secret was confined, above 400 years, to the Romans of the East. … It was at length either discovered or stolen by the Mahometans; and, in the holy wars of Syria and Egypt, they retorted an invention, contrived against themselves, on the heads of the Christians. … The use of the Greek, or, as it might now be called, the Saracen fire, was continued to the middle of the fourteenth century."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,