History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 1 (of 4)Lindsay, W. S. (William Schaw)
History
History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 1 (of 4)
Lindsay, W. S. (William Schaw)
Commerce -- History; Shipping -- History; Steam navigation -- History
5. All galleys, above a quinquereme, were likewise classed according
to the number of rows. In their case, however, the _oblique_ rows were
counted; but, in all cases, from the smallest to the largest, including
Ptolemy’s tesseracontoros, _each row, whether oblique or horizontal,
was a distinct bank of oars_, which, like the number of guns, wherever
they were placed, in wooden men-of-war, _constituted the only basis for
their classification_.
6. The portion of the galley appropriated to the rowers and their
oars was as separate from the other portions of the vessel as is the
machinery of a paddle-wheel steamer. The rowers, also, like modern
engineers and stokers, were entirely distinct from the seamen and
marines; and among them were leaders and crack rowers, who were as
indispensable to get the galley under way and keep the rest of the
rowers in time as are the engineers of our own day, who start and keep
the machinery in proper working order.
In a word, the row-galley constituted the steamship of the ancients,
as distinguished from their sailing vessels. She had sails to aid her
progress when the winds were fair, as a steamer now has, but the one
depended on her oars as much as the other now does upon her machinery;
and, however vast the improvements, there is really no difference in
principle between the galley of the ancients and the steamship of
to-day. In practice they are the same, except that steam is substituted
for manual labour. An oar is a paddle, and the blades of the oars
fastened together, like the spokes round the axle of a wheel, and
projecting into the water, constitute the paddle-wheel of modern times.
FOOTNOTES:
[372] Hom. Il. ii. 510. Od. xii. 409, &c.
[373] Plin. vii. 207, cf. Cic. ad Attic. xvi. 4. The _biremis_ was
often a little boat managed by two oars. Horat. iii. 29, 62. Lucan,
viii. 562.
[374] Thucyd. i. c. 13.
[375] Athen. v. 37.
[376] Polyb. in Excerpt.
[377] Liv. xlv. 34.
[378] Plutarch, Themist. c. 4.
[379] Plut. ibid.
[380] Plut. Vit. Demet. c. 10.
[381] Plut. Vit. Anton. c. 4. Hor. iv. ii. 4. Virg. Æn. viii. 691. Dio.
L. 33.
[382] As noticed in the Introduction to this work, these sails were
called Suppara. Lucan, v. 429. Stat. Sylv. ii. 2, 27. Senec. Epist. c.
77.
[383] Thucyd. ii. c. 93.
[384] Athen. v. c. 37.
[385] Athen. v. c. 37.
[386] Dio. xxix. 32. Horat. Epod. i. 1. Veget. iv. 33. Sueton. Vit.
Calig. c. 37.
[387] In the “Monthly Magazine,” vol. xviii., London, 1758, p. 445,
there is a review of a work, entitled “The Memoirs of a Protestant
condemned to the Galleys of France,” written by himself, which
contains, in minute detail, a description of a French galley in
which, in the year 1701, he was condemned to labour. The account was
originally published at the Hague, and was afterwards translated into
English, 2 vols. 12mo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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