[Page 225, Title and Heading] “the manner of men” seems to have been a favourite expression of St Paul’s. Besides the verse from which the heading is taken, it occurs in Romans 6.19; Galatians 3.15; and 1 Thessalonians 1.5. For its significance here, see the comments of Bodelsen and Kemp in the main note on this story. The verse from which the heading is taken reads in full:
If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
Nowadays this is not usually understood as implying that St Paul had in fact fought with wild beasts in the arena, at Ephesus since, except for this verse, there is no evidence for Paul’s having “fought with beasts”. However, on page 234 Kipling makes Sulinor identify certain “old dry bites” on Paul’s back as showing that “he must have dealt with the Beasts”.
[Page 225, line 1] Her cinnabar tinted topsail Cinnabar is red mercuric sulphate, used for dressing sails in Roman times, to give a red, almost vermilion, colour to the canvas so dressed. Most Roman merchant ships were indeed rigged as Kipling describes it here: a single mast carrying a mainsail, and a small topsail above it, a small square spritsail, carried on a stubby bowsprit, and a small fore-and-aft sail, a driver, on a supplementary mast right at the stern. nicking. The topsail was triangular.
[Page 225, line 2] showed she was a Spanish wheat-boat National and local characteristics have long been a means by which a sailor can deduce a ship’s port of origin, or building ship-yard, or even owner. When one says “I can tell by the cut of his jib”, one is echoing generations of seamen who could tell at a glance where a ship hailed from. And the same still applied, until recently, with power driven vessels – the author of this note would have been reasonably confident, in the 1950s, of identifying a Blue Funnel cargo-liner at a range of ten miles.
[Page 225, line 3] hours before she reached Marseilles mole An example of Kipling’s attention to detail: such a ship as is here described would have a mast perhaps forty feet high. From a viewpoint on the mole, say 15 feet above the sea, the topsail on such a mast would “nick the hot blue horizon” at a distance of about nine of today’s sea miles: at a speed of three to four knots, the ship would take two-and-a-half to three hours to reach the harbour entrance.
[Page 225, line 9] The blare of her horns Today, a merchantman on entering a port should hoist her identifying four-letter international call-sign. It is suggested that Kipling probably took what he had observed as standard practice, and translated it to what he imagined might have been the practice in the first century A.D. Or he might have seen in the British Museum an earthenware lamp of about this period showing a Roman ship entering harbour with a man blowing a trumpet to announce her arrival.
[Page 225, line 12] the senior ship-cat Under the ancient law and custom of the sea the captain was held responsible for cargo losses due to rats unless he could show that he had cats on board to keep them down.
[Page 225,, line 13] after-hatch A hatch is an opening in the deck affording access below for cargo or crew. The covering of such an opening is also known as a hatch.
[Page 225, line 18] All Spanish wheat … Wheat in bulk is a tricky cargo: if it gets wet, it will sprout and, more dangerously, swell, to the extent that it will cause the deck and even the hull seams of a wooden ship to open. Where possible, the wheat would be stowed in bins, so that at least the hull seams would not be affected by any increase in volume.
[Page 226, line 13] lead-pigs Oblong masses of lead run molten from the furnace into moulds.
[Page 226, line 14] verdigris in their dole bread The inspector is suggesting that the wheat is lying in contact with the “bagged copper-ores” of the ballast, but the captain explains that it is contained in bins, lined with hides. By “dole-bread” is meant the official allowance of flour or grain distributed to the poor of Rome.
[Page 226, line 20] dressed African leathers on your private account? Captains of a later era would frequently carry cargo to trade on their own account, with or without the owner’s permission. This could be lucrative, since such cargo probably did not pay any freight. Kipling suggests, with every justification, that the same applied in Roman times.
[Page 226, line 23] Port of Rome Ostia, at the mouth of the Tibur.
[Page 226, line 25] stowed in the wings of her The “wings” are the spaces between the grain bins and the ship’s sides. The captain has utilised them to force (“screw”)
in bales of wool, and these have further strained the ship’s structure.
[Page 226, line 30] get your ship undergirt To undergird a ship was to lash one or more hawsers (rope cables) tightly round the hull at strategic points, in order to strengthen the hull and keep the planks above a hold from opening.
[Page 226, line 26] Circumcised apes—just like you A piece of youthful insolence, implying that Quabil is both sub-human and a Jew
[Page 227, line 2] waterways The rims round the edge of a hatch designed to keep the water out.
[Page 227, line 6] your Jew-bow A disrespectful reference to the inspector’s nose, hooked like the bow of a ship.
[Page 227, line 16] all three seas—Middle, Western, and Eastern Areas of the Mediterranean. The story was originally sub-titled “A Romance of the Middle Sea”.
[Page 227, line 25] topsides The sides of a ship above the waterline.
[Page228, line 3] abaft On the sternward side of.
[Page 228, line 6] single-banker Having 22 oars all on the same level, 11 on each side.
[Page 228, line 12] He did not… so early This sentence is not in the London Magazine text.
[Page 228, line 17] Tomi A Greek port on the western coast of the Black Sea.
[Page 228, line 18] the flesh-traffic The slave trade.
[Page 228, line 18] a Free Trader A pirate.
[Page 228, line 21] the Euxine The Black Sea.
[Page 228, line 22] too hot to hold him Too dangerous for him to continue there.
[Page 229, line 1] poop The aftermost part of a ships deck
[Page 229, line 5] spilling those small cups overside As a libation to the gods just named, who require only a token offering—hence the small cups.
[Page 229, line 18] our Islands (the Balearics) Baeticus the Spaniard is speaking. The islands, of which the largest are Majorca, Minorca and Ibiza, are still Spanish.
[Page 229, line 20] gorget A piece of armour protecting the throat.
[Page 229, line 27] Forum Julii A Roman naval base some 100 naval miles east of Marseilles. It is now Fréjus, on the French Riviera, but the old port is silted up.
[Page 230, line 1] Then he’d officer it with well-born young Romans It is interesting to note that Kipling puts into the mouth of Quabil words that might have been spoken in the Royal Navy some 1500 years later. In the late Stuart period there was dissension between the ‘tarpaulins’ and the ‘gentlemen’ which, by the early Hanoverian period, was resolved by a melding of the two.
[Page 230, line 9] We [Sulinor and Quabil] had a passenger, our last trip together, who wanted to see Caesar Here we come to St Paul and the shipwreck described in Acts 27. Paul, a Jew and a Roman citizen by birth, was sent for trial in Caesarea on a charge of stirring up trouble among the Jews by his preaching of Christianity. He appeared before Felix, the Roman procurator of Judea, and his successor Festus, but exercised his right as a Roman citizen to be sent for trial by Caesar in Rome. He was sent on a coastal journey by ship in the custody of a Roman centurion; and on reaching the port of Myra in Lycia the two of them transferred to ”a ship of Alexandria sailing into Italy” (Acts 27, 6). This, in the story, is Quabil’s ship the Eirene.
[Page 230, line 12] Was he a warlock – a wind-raiser? Sailors have long had superstitions about the causes of unfriendly winds. It remains a superstition that to whistle on board a ship will cause a wind to blow.
[Page 230, line 16] I don’t like the Jews — they lie too close to my own hold The Jews and the Phoenicians were descended from the same Semitic stock, but there was evidently not much love lost between them.
[Page 230, line 20] Caesar wished the Eastern wheat-boats to run through the winter It was customary to lay up ships in the stormy winter season, but Caesar, for political reasons, wanted a good and continuous supply of wheat for the common people (the plebs) of Rome. It was not until the late 17th century that European navies gave up the habit of laying up the fleet in winter time – analogous to Caesar’s going into winter quarters.
[Page 230, line 26] across the bows of the Equinox The literal meaning of this, in today’s calendar, is “about the 20th September”. Its significance is that the periods each side of the equinoxes (22-23 March and 22-23 September) have always been remarkable for the preponderance of gales. So Quabil was taking a risk in setting out so late in the season.
[Page 230, line 27] well down in the pickle Being heavily laden, the ship was well down in the water. Salt water (brine) is used for pickling, and “the pickle” (a term probably invented by Kipling) here means the sea—cf. “the briny”, another semi-humorous name for the sea.
[Page 230, line 29] sutlers Sellers of provisions.
[Page 230, line 31] I made across it for the Lycian coast Quabil headed roughly due north, to reach the southern coast of Turkey, and anchored off Myra, an ancient port in Lycia now called Dembre, until the wind should moderate.
[Page 231, line 5] My anchors were apeak An anchor is apeak when, as a result of pulling in the cable attaching it to the ship, the ship is drawn over the anchor—shortly after which the ship gets under way.
[Page 231, line 5] a Lycian patrol threshed in A good example of Kipling’s attention to detail and economy of language. We are at once aware that the craft was an oared galley, and that she was in a hurry. What follows hereafter is Kipling’s ‘faction’ of Paul’s journey to Malta, as set out in Acts 27 & 28.
[Page 231, line 9] Weatherly craft Well able to stay at sea in less-than-good weather. It can also mean “able to sail close to the wind under sail”, but clearly that is not the meaning here.
[Page 231, line 8] Mother of Carthage On page 239 Quabil says that, in the face of death, Sidonians say “Mother of Carthage, I return my oar.” Carthage started as a Phoenician colony, and it seems probable that the goddess invoked was a personification of Sidon itself.
[Page 231, line 17] chain-staples Staples to which the prisoners’ chains could be fastened.
[Page 231, line 17] cable-tier The compartment where the ship’s cables were coiled down
[Page 232, line 8] There was always too much west in the autumn winds In the broadest of terms, Quabil’s most direct course lay slightly south of west to pass south of Greece, before turning north-west to reach the ‘heel’ of Italy, so that any wind from about south-south-west through east round to north-north-west would have served: but the wind was too far in the west to enable the Eirene to make progress westwards.
[Page 232, line 10] as far as Cnidus Cnidus, the modern Cumali, lies at the south-western corner of modern Turkey, opposite the island of Kos.
[Page 232, line 11] on which she ran through the Aegean Islands, for the tail of Crete Strictly speaking, it was the Dodecanese Islands through which the Eirene ran, to round the tail (the east end) of Crete, before turning west again to begin [line 14] “darning the water” (tacking back and forth) again as she proceeded westward against the wind, making along the south coast of Crete.
[Page 232, line 18] Fairhaven The English name of this anchorage (marked by Quabil’s cork) is at first surprising, but it is taken straight from Acts 27.8, where the A.V. has it as “The fair havens, nigh whereunto was the city of Lasea”. Lasea lay just to the east of Cape Lithino, the promontory in the middle of the south coast of Crete.
[Page 232, lines 19-21] I had to call a ship-council as to lying up for the winter. That Rhodian law… Acts 27. 11-12 shows that a council was held, at which the centurion rather than the captain seems to have presided. The majority were in favour of sailing on from Fairhaven. Rhodes was the source of much Roman maritime law.
[Page 233, line 5] advised pushing on to Phenike Phenike (see Acts 27.12), near the modern Sfacia, lies at the south-west corner of Crete.
[Page 233, line 10] She was beginning to talk too much A wooden ship will always “talk”. However securely she has been put together, there is always some play between the planks, and as these work against one another, they will squeak and groan – hence “talking”.
[Page 233, line 12] chafed a wrist Recalling the effort of steering.
[Page 233, line 15] She could lie within six points of any wind One must suspect that Quabil is exaggerating, since at the end of the sail era a well-designed square-rigged ship, with well-cut sails, could “lie within six points of any wind”, but no closer. It is unlikely that ships of the first century AD could sail so close to the wind: but no sailor would admit that his ship could not do better than any other.
[Page 233, line 16] What made Paul vote with those Greeks? Acts 27, 9-11 shows that he did not.
[Page 233, line 28] it held too much lee wind The cut of a sail, and the curve it described when filled with wind, could affect the performance of a ship, by shifting the centre of pressure, and the precise angle at which the wind acted to provide extra force in the direction of motion of the ship, or, disadvantageously, at right angles to that direction, to leeward. Hence, “held too much lee wind”.
[Page 233, line 30] both ends and the bight of most things coiled down The reference is to a piece of rope. The bight of a piece of rope is any loop in the middle between the ends. Hence Sulinor is saying to Paul that he seems to have everything neatly sorted out in his mind.
[Page 234, line 9] lictor’s work and criss-cross Jew scourging Lictors were officers or guards who accompanied senior Roman magistrates in public.. They carried fasces (bundles of wooden rods with an axe at the centre) as symbols of authority, and inflicted punishments on those who misbehaved. In 2 Corinthians 11, 24-25 Paul says he was beaten three times with rods (by lictors, according to Quabil) and that he received 39 stripes from the Jews no less than five times.
[Page 234, line 11] old dry bites See the note on the title and heading of this story, above.
[Page 234, line 11] rugg Pull, wrench or tear.
[Page 234, line 23] Arlesian Of Arles (formerly Arelate), a town about 45 miles north-west of Marseilles. It was an important centre in Roman times and still has a Roman theatre and amphitheatre in fine condition.
[Page 234, line 24] long-snouted three banker A ram-bowed warship with three tiers of oars, commonly called a trireme.
[Page 234, line 25] the benches The oarsmen on them.
[Page 234, line 30] She has been here re-masting. They’ve no good rough-tree at Forum Julii. Although Roman warships were primarily propelled by oars, they used to carry a single mast, on which they could set a single square sail to take advantage of a favourable wind. A rough tree was the equivalent of the later sheer-legs, a hoisting apparatus able to lift a mast high enough to clear the upper-works of the galley and to lower it down onto the mast-step on the keel.
[Page 234, line 33] the shallop The open boat containing the women.
[Page 235, line1] the banks held water The trireme’s oarsmen ceased rowing while the girls sang.
[Page 235, lines 3-6] Ah, would swift ships… Echoes have been found in this verse both from the nurse’s speech at the opening of Euripedes’ Medea and from Callimachus (285-247 BC), Epigrams, XIX.
[Page 235, line 9] a pretty stick The new mast.
[Page 235, line 10] opened the island To open is to come in sight of, or get an open view of, something by rounding or passing an intervening object. Its meaning here is unclear.
[Page 235, line 10]athwart Across.
[Page 235, line 12] A trireme’s only a bird cage Quabil’s remark is meant to indicate that, because of the multiplicity of holes for the oars, the upperworks of the trireme are like a bird-cage or perhaps a dovecote.
[Page 235, line 14] the yelp of a bank being speeded up to the short sea-stroke The cry of the oarsmen spurred on by the overseer’s whip. Our readers will probably have seen, at some time, today’s professional oarsmen on television, and will have observed that they have sliding seats and row with a long pull, using the legs as much as the upper body to give the oar its movement. Seated on a fixed bench and cramped both vertically and longitudinally, the oarsman in a galley could only row with short strokes.
[Page 235, line 17] racking Undergoing strain, with the possibility of splitting, which the wire wound round it was intended to counteract.
[Page 235, line 30] that lying wind The morning sea breeze, caused by the sun’s heat on Mt. Ida, the large mountain in the centre of Crete.
[Page 236, line 3] the full north-easter The “tempestuous wind called Euroclydon” of Acts 27, 14.
[Page 236, line 4] needed a lee to clean up in Quabil had committed the cardinal sin of putting to sea without securing for sea. His upper deck was “like a fair” (p. 236, line 2). Having been caught now, in open water, with the wind behind him, he needed to find a piece of land in whose lee he could find relatively calm water in which he could secure everything for the rough weather they could not now avoid.
[Page 236, line 5] Clauda was a few miles down wind The island of Clauda (modern Gavdos) lies 17 miles off the coast of Crete, to the south-west of Laresa.
[Page 236, line 6] bear up Turn closer to the wind (in order to gain the sheltering lee of Clauda).
[Page 236, line 9] towing our longboat half-full To steady and slow down the ship.
[Page 236, line 19] scanting daylight Getting dark.
[Page 236, line 21] Then we streamed our boat alongside, baled her, sweated her up, and secured. The sense of the words that Kipling is giving Quabil is clear – they got the longboat on board; but the words do not make complete sense to the modern sailor. To stream something – a sea-anchor, or a rope – is to let it out: Kipling is using the word in the sense of to haul in. To bale – more usually bale out – a boat is to empty it of water. Sweating her up may be taken to mean that they somehow got the boat inboard with a great deal of (extremely) hard labour. Davits, the ‘cranes’ from which boats hang over a ship’s side did not exist, and they would probably have used the main-yard (see below) as a form of crane. Finally, “secured” means that they had the boat lashed down on deck – it would probably have been turned upside down, All this would have been extremely hazardous, to put it mildly, in the open sea.
[Page 236, line 31] rive Wrench
[Page 236, line 33] I got the main-yard on deck Quabil has brought down everything from aloft to improve his ship’s stability – the main-yard is the transverse spar from which the ship’s main-sail is hung. He has ‘snugged her down’, and is now going to ‘run under bare poles’ before the wind.
[Page 237, line 15] taffrail A rail round the stern of a ship.
[Page 237, line 20] pray that we were’nt pooped The poop is the aftermost, uppermost, section of the deck. When running before the wind, there is always a danger that a following wave may break over the ship from behind onto the poop.
[Page 237, line 11] line his hold for a week Probably a recommendation to eat heartily while he could.
[Page 237, line 25] Any sights? Mariners have used celestial bodies for navigation, probably for as long as men have gone to sea out of sight of land. But at this time, such a ‘sight’ would merely have been a glimpse of the sun, to get an idea of the direction in which one was heading, or a glimpse of the Pole Star at night for the same purpose. The conventions of Latitude and Longitude did not exist, nor did instruments for measuring the altitude of a heavenly body, nor did the almanacs necessary for calculations, nor chronometers. A sense of Latitude has been known for centuries, measured by the altitude of the sun at mid-day, but this would be of limited use under these circumstances.
[Page 237, line 28] ground-tackle anchors and cables.
[Page 238, line 11] steerage The place where the helmsman stood—not, as nowadays, the cheapest accommodation for passengers.
[Page 238, line 15] scuppers Strictly, holes in the bulwarks of the upper deck, to let overboard water which has come inboard. More loosely (as here), it means the waterways along the edges of the upper deck which channel the free water into the scuppers themselves.
[Page 240, line 10] the sea had changed Not the wind, but the sea; from being long rolling seas, they have become short and broken, a sure sign of the proximity of land.
[Page 240, line 14] a bosun-captain One who has risen from seaman to captain via the rank of bosun (boatswain).
[Page 240, line 15] to get a cast of the lead To take a sounding with the lead and line in order to find the depth of water and hence some indication of the nearness to land.
[Page 240, line 16] Black dark and raining marlinspikes A seaman could tell by feel the depth being indicated by the lead-line. At two fathoms, two strips of leather are spliced in; at three fathoms, three strips; at five fathoms, a piece of white duck; at seven fathoms, a piece of red bunting (in the dark the colour would be immaterial, but duck and bunting feel different), etc. “raining marlinspikes” is the maritime equivalent of “chucking down stair-rods” or “raining cats and dogs.”A marlinspike is a pointed tool, usually of iron, used in splicing ropes.
[Page 240, line 17] anchoring by the stern See Acts 27, 29. As shown here, one advantage of lying stern to wind is that if it becomes necessary to beach the vessel, the cables can be cut, with the vessel immediately under control and heading in the right direction.
[Page 240, line 18] shoaling like a slipway To shoal is to become shallow, and a slipway is a sloping ramp extending out into the water to serve as a place for launching, landing, building or repairing ships. The further up a slipway a boat goes, the shallower the water.
[Page 240, lines 19-21] we dropped both bowers and spare and the stream…the kedge Quabil has dropped all the ship’s ‘ground tackle’ from the stern, to halt his ship’s headlong progress into danger. “Bowers” are bow anchors, “stream” is a small stern anchor, and “kedge” the smallest anchor of all, capable of being handled in a boat with comparative ease.
[Page 240, line 26] We were trapped! St. Paul’s Bay, as it is now called, lies at the north-western end of Malta. The line of the coast is very roughly West-North-West to East-South-East. Quabil has been driving roughly westward, i.e., at an angle of about 22½º to the line of the coast. But St. Paul’s Bay lies at right angles to the line of the coast, and not far off 70º to the course which Quabil’s Eirene has been travelling. Once anchored, she will lie more or less across the line of the bay, under the influence of the wind. The northern side of St. Paul’s Bay extends slightly further to seaward than the southern side, so the Eirene is now lying with the rocky headland of the north side of the bay immediately in front and slightly to the right of her.
[Page 241, line 5] for warnings To show the others that safety depended on their remaining in the ship.
[Page 241, line 14] my sort—a little removed The Phoenicians contributed much to the population of Malta, but there were many later comers. The Maltese language is basically Phoenician, with an overlay of Arabic and other sources.
[Page 241, line 15] one day’s run from Syracuse Syracuse, at the south-east corner of Sicily, is about 85 miles from Malta.
[Page 241, line 27] fore-bitts A pair of posts towards the front of the ship, used for securing cables.
[Page 242, line 5] said words over them Said grace before eating, in Christian fashion.
[Page 242, line 15 ff] Now this is how we lay. . . Here Kipling has gone slightly astray. As Quabil describes it, the Eirene is lying, at the mouth of the Bay, anchored by her stern, and, in the absence of any other information, lying stern to the wind, heading roughly west – we haven’t been told that the wind has shifted at all. So, although the beach Quabil describes does indeed lie in the blind gut of a bay (i.e. a narrow bay with only one outlet), it would not have been ahead, but almost at right angles to the direction in which the Eirene lay. For the remainder of the action to have been possible, the wind would have to have shifted round to the north-north-east, so that the Eirene would have swung until she pointed directly into the bay.
Let us assume that it has. Quabil orders the ship to be lightened by throwing out the cargo so that she will draw less water, and so take the ground as close as possible to the edge of the sea. Choosing his moment, he has the anchor cables cut, and the ship is driven ashore, more-or-less under control.
[Page 242, line 17] overfalls Turbulent patches of water, caused by peculiarities of bottom, wind, current etc.
[Page 242, line 20] a Cyclops surf The Cyclopes were a race of giants who served Hephaestus on Mt Etna, striking with their ponderous hammers the red-hot bronze coming from his furnace. The surf was delivering similar hammer blows.
[Page 242, line 28] achators The purveyors previously referred to as sutlers.
[Page 243, line 2] spitfire-sprit A spitfire jib is a small storm jib of heavy canvas. The Roman equivalent would be a small, strong sail at the front of the ship, that would help to drive the bow up the beach.
[Page 243, line 5] set the spritsail fore and aft A temporary measure to keep the sail from filling before the cables were cut.
[Page 243, line 7] have the rudders down They had evidently been raised, but would need to be lowered to enable the ship to be steered once the cables were cut.
[Page 243, line 16] she sheared Her timbers were distorted or broken.
[Page 243, line 19] a man’s paunched by a lion Those of a man disembowelled by a lion—a common fate of victims in the arena.
[Page 243, line 26] the main. The mainland There is such an islet in the bay, and both bay and islet are named after St Paul.
[Page 244, line 1] judies Women.
[Page 244, line 18] dipped our hands in the same dish Sharing the same food has long been regarded as creating a special bond—cf. Kipling’s own: “I have eaten your bread and salt” in the prelude to Departmental Ditties.
[Page 244, line 29] ironed Shackled together, and to the ship.
[Page 245, line 10] Port of Rome The ship landed them at Puteoli (moderrn Pozzuoli); see Acts 28, 13.
[Page 245, line 12] of course, Caesar paid you Said ironically.
[Page 245, line 20] Narbo Narbonne.
[Page 245, line 22] under-Lebanon Quabil’s native land.
[Page 245, line 25] Foul Bay, off Berenice Berenice (modern Baranis) was an ancient seaport of Egypt, half-way down the west coast of the Red Sea. Foul Bay is the gulf sheltered on the north by the promontary of Ra’s Banas.
[Page 246, line 9] Tyrian tub A scornful term for a merchantman from Tyre, Sidon’s sister but rival port.
[Page 246, line 11] bilge To suffer damage in the bilge (the lowest part of the hull).
[Page 246, line 17] the Long Puddle The Sea of Marmora perhaps, or the Mediterranean as a whole. Sulinor is recalling his piratical days.
[Page 246, line 30] blindages Screens to give protection from enemy fire.
[Page 247, line 6] my father’s island horsemen Presumably the Balearic slingers mentioned below.
[Page 247, line 9] Take the nuts Evidently used here as slang for “you win”, though not recorded by Partridge.
[Page 247, line 13] New Carthage A Carthaginian settlement on the coast of Spain—the modern Cartagena.
[Page 247, line 19] I do so As a poacher turned gamekeeper.
[Page 247, line 22] Strategos Commander-in-Chief of naval or land forces—here used jocularly.
[Page 247, lines 23-24] only one neck The Euxine (the Sea of Marmora).
[Page 247, lines 23-24]It made mine ache When the Euxine “grew too hot to hold him”—see page 228.
[Page 247, line 26] in the Fleet As captain of the Roman guard-ship at Marseilles.
[Page 247, line 32] Thessalian jugglery with a snake A reference to Paul’s being bitten by a viper, but suffering no harm (Acts 28, 3-6). Thessaly (in northern Greece) was famous for witchcraft.
[Page 248, line 10] Scythian The Scythians were settled to the north and north-east of the Black Sea. They founded a colony, Scythia Minor, south of the mouth of the Danube, from which Sulinor’s mother probably came.
[Page 248, line 18] canvas I can cut Paul was brought up to be a tent-maker.
[G.E./A.W.]
©George Engle and Alastair Wilson 2005 All rights reserved