pass through or behind the parados or gallery, an essential matter if, as has been stated, the para dos was an outside fighting platform. We must note also that the platform or parados itself, projecting obviously-by the cast shadow-from the side of the ship, confirms emphatically a conspicuous feature in numerous works of art usually looked upon with suspicion of so-called artistic licence. The exiguous coin not alone, Montfaucon and Wincklemann are both absolved, while several engravings in the 'De re Navali' of Lazari Bayfii, 1537, are fully substantiated. The Lenormant cast is, by the traces of rich ornamentation, representative of a rather late period, possibly of the time of Alcibiades, and is of the description known as aphract, in distinction to cataphract, in which the thranite rowers were covered, and not exposed, as in the aphract, to the attacks of an enemy. It will be seen that the supports of the gallery or parados are in the photograph frequent and substantial. These also lend their support to the horizontal bands or wales which lie along the side of the ship, and being connected with the ram distributed the shock with less danger to the structure. To strengthen the entire fabric, however, it was found necessary to reinforce these wales by encircling the ship with closely tied ropes, which shrank and tightened when they were wet. The ram itself, below the ornamented prow, of which there are extant examples, appeared above the water, and was probably fairly represented in the Trajan column sculpture as divided into three points. In later times, however, the armed beak was entirely submerged.* Although the Greek trireme carried a mast or masts and sails, according to Graser, it is probable that one of these was in the nature of a bowsprit. In all cases, I believe, these were removed on going into action, and the vessel was manoeuvred by the oars alone; passing through the enemy's line, hurling projectiles from the upper or fighting deck, or in the case of the Romans from temporary but high turrets. There seems to be no reason for fixing definitely the number of the crew or fighting men on a trireme or other ships. Accounts differ, and I think we may safely infer circumstances and amount of accommodation would * The ram as a means of attack lasted for a long period, but was superseded by the Romans in their preference to boarding the enemy to running him down. They came to close quarters and let fall platforms or bridges which gripped the enemy vessel with a spike. rule. Suffice that the number of rowers in the upper or thranite bank of a trireme seems to have been 62; the zygites, who sat immediately below these, numbered 58; and the thalamites, who were the lowest bank, were 54; i. e., half these numbers on each side.* M. Cartault, correcting Graser as to measurement, agrees with him as to the seating of the rowers. The correction is as to the distance apart on each bank, Cartault taking the statement of Vitruvius that the rowers sat on their stools three feet apart. Great economy of space was customary in the arrangement of the rowers. The heads of the zygite rowers must have risen above the level of the feet of the thranites, and the heads of the thalamites similarly to the same level between the zygites.† It has been shown that each man carried his oar and a cushion to place on his seat, and also proof is afforded that there was a scale of payment agreeably to the respective labour of thranite, zygite, and thalamite. The thalamite having the shortest oar, and having consequently less laborious work, received the smallest pay.‡ * Surplus oars were occasionally used by the Epibatae or others on board in emergencies. The side lights of comedy give us illumination and tend to prove, not only as with ourselves, public interest in the navy, but details which confirm the statements of other authorities. There are texts of Aristophanes which bear out by popular allusion some of the discomforts of the rowers so tightly packed in the coulvirs, in which they sat, that one can well believe there was not room, as has been said, on a fully manned and equipped warship for one man more. M. Cartault warns us against confounding the forcats or galleyslaves of the Middle Ages with the crews of the Greek ships which were rowed by citizens or free mercenaries. Citizens of high rank do not appear to have been exempt. VOL. XXXIII. 21 I have no doubt that the thranite oar was in length approximately fourteen feet three inches (according to Mr. Cecil Torr); this would be sufficient length, if we accept Graser's dictum that the trireme stood eleven feet above the line of flotation, and, moreover, if it be allowed, as I have pointed out, that the trireme of the Acropolis shows the oars coming from under the parados, and not over it. Another feature in this cast-if I interpret it correctly, and I have examined both it and the photograph too frequently not to observe its striking significance is that the zygite oars pass under, and not over, the band or wale affixed to the brackets or supports of the parados. The importance of these oars being within the wale is apparent, in that it obviates all risk of the zygite oars clashing with those of the upper ordine, the thranites. It would seem that the thalamite oars similarly lay under the lowest wale, but allowing for the shape of the ports through which they pass confusion would be avoided. The thalamite oar ports could not have had a horizontal axis, but must have been depressed so as to afford the thalamite the opportunity of a more or less vertical stroke.* The stroke of the oarsmen in those ancient navies is a matter of greater' consideration, in my own view, than it has received. Having once cleared our minds of the boating idea or that of the mediaeval galley where the oars lie upon a low gunwale, it becomes a question *It should be remembered that the ports were protected from the influx of the sea by leather screens or bags through which the oars passed. in relation to length at what angle the ancient oarsmen took the water; the more vertical the stroke the shorter necessarily must be the oar; the angle would determine the length. We may agree that the Greek trireme could be pulled in the ordinary way, more or less, as represented-always assuming that the thranites are seated with their backs to the bow, of which the fragment of sculpture affords no absolute proof.* We may agree that this method of rowing, as shown in the trireme, applied to antecedent ships, and also to the Liburnian bireme down to Roman times, but when the size of the vessel is increased beyond a quadrireme or quinquireme, unless we allow some other method of rating, of which we know nothing, the necessarily longer oar becomes unmanageable in a seaway. Mr. Marks puts the matter very concisely when he says in a note to his paper, March, 1900: "We may try to escape from the difficulty by supposing some different method of rating for galleys with a higher number of banks than, say, five. But we at once encounter another difficulty. The maximum of freeboard for a oneman oar, six feet, must, for all we can see, have been required for the quinquireme. But the higher rated galleys were certainly larger than the quinquiremes, the sixteen-banked galley was of "almost unmanageable bulk." In what * I may mention here that the same uncertainty as to direction in which the vessel is proceeding is apparent on the coins. There is one indeed of about A.D. 200 where the rowers are evidently backing water hard, or adopting some method akin to paddling. On examination of the Acropolis relief one's attention is called to the depressed hands of the rowers. My friend Mr. Paley Baildon, F.S.A., is of opinion that these indicate the use of a lever or crutch such as is found in various forms of paddle, a lever which would certainly be of service in turning the oar to regain after stroke. VOL. XXXIII. 218 |