This Greek bireme, with its shallow hull and lofty, open superstructure, could hardy have been a seaworthy vessel. The question arises, What purpose could it have been intended to serve? The rams, of course, suggest war; but the use of rams appears to have been pretty general, even in small Greek rowing-boats, and has survived into our own day in the Venetian gondola. The late Dr. A. S. Murray, keeper of the Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum, who wrote an account of the vase in the "Journal of Hellenic Studies," is of opinion that both the subjects on this vase represent processions, or races, held at the funeral ceremonies of some prominent citizen, and that, in fact, all the subjects on Dipylon vases seem to refer to deceased persons. He points out that Virgil mentions in the _AEneid_ that games, held in honour of the deceased, commenced with a race of ships, and that he could hardly have done this if there were no authority for the practice. The large figures at the stern seem to point to the bireme of Fig. 74 being about to be used for racing purposes. The man who is going to step on board is in the act of taking leave of a woman, who holds away from him a crown, or prize, for which he may be about to contend. If this view be correct we have, at once, an explanation of the very peculiar structure of this bireme, which, with its open sides and small freeboard, could only have been intended for use in smooth water and, possibly, for racing purposes. There are several other representations of Greek galleys, or of fragments of them, in existence. Nearly all have been found on eighth-century Dipylon vases, but, hitherto, no other specimen has been found in which all the rowers are seated on an open stage. In the collection of Dr. Sturge there is a vase of this period, ornamented with a painting of a bireme, which is as rakish and elegant in appearance as Fig. 74 is clumsy. It also is propelled by 78, or perhaps 80, rowers. Those of the lower tier are seated in the body of the boat, while those of the upper bank on what appears to be a flying deck connecting the forecastle and poop, and about 3 ft. to 3 ft. 6 in. above the seats of the lower tier. In the Museum of the Acropolis there are also some fragments of Dipylon vases, on which are clearly visible portions of biremes. The rowers of the lower bank are here again, seated in the hull of the galley and appear to be working their oars in large square portholes, while the upper row are seated on a flying deck, the space between which and the gunwale of the hull is partly closed in by what appear to be patches of awning or light fencing. The portholes above referred to are in fact merely open intervals between the closed-in spaces. Similar lengths of fencing may be seen in the representation of a Phoenician galley (Fig. 7, p. 27).