The length of these vessels is conjectured to have been about 120 feet, and the breadth 16 feet. They had high raised poops and forecastles, filled with archers and slingers, while the rest of the fighting men were armed with pikes, javelins, and pole-axes, of most murderous appearance, to be used in boarding. Wooden bulwarks, rising considerably above the main-deck, protected the rowers. Some of the combatants had bronze coats of mail, in addition to helmets of the same, and some carried huge shields, covered, apparently, with tough bull’s hide. These vessels had masts, with a large yard, and a huge square sail. They are said to have been built of acacia, so durable a wood that vessels built of it have lasted a century or more. They appear to have had but one rank of oars; although two or three tiers soon became common. None of the ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek or Roman monuments represent galleys with more than two tiers of oars, except one Roman painting that gives one with three. Yet quinqueremes are spoken of as very common. It is not probable that more than three tiers were used; as seamen have never been able to explain how the greater number of tiers could have been worked; and they have come to the conclusion that scholars have been mistaken, and that the term _quinquereme_, or five ranks of oars, as translated, meant the arrangement of the oars, or of the men at them, and not the ranks, one above another, as usually understood. Much learning and controversy has been expended upon this subject, and many essays written, and models and diagrams made, to clear up the matter, without satisfying practical seamen. The Roman galleys with three rows of oars had the row ports in tiers. These ports were either round or oval, and were called _columbaria_, from their resemblance to the arrangement of a dove-cote. The lower oars could be taken in, in bad weather, and the ports closed. The “long ships” or galleys of the ancient Mediterranean maritime nations--which were so called in opposition to the short, high and bulky merchant ships--carried square or triangular sails, often colored. The “long ships” themselves were painted in gay colors, carried flags and banners at different points, and images upon their prows, which were sacred to the tutelary divinities of their country. The “long ships” could make with their oars, judging from descriptions of their voyages, perhaps a hundred miles in a day of twelve hours. In an emergency they could go much faster, for a short time. It is reliably stated that it took a single-decked galley, 130 feet long, with 52 oars, a fourth of an hour to describe a full circle in turning.