To sum up, then, the Greek seamen evolved their ships as follows:
Like the Egyptians and Phœnicians before them, they began with a
penteconter, which means that each man pulled an oar and that there was
but one tier of twenty-five on either side of the ship. Next, inasmuch
as they wanted increased power and speed--possibly because the ships
were being built more strongly and thus needed more vehemently to be
rammed--so they had to increase the number of their oarsmen and to
lengthen their ship. This involved a risk of hogging, so the hull was
engirdled; or when that was dispensed with a deck was added to join
forecastle and poop, and gave facilities for a second tier of rowers.
In the next step we get the introduction of triremes, quadriremes,
and quinquiremes, which multiplied the number of men rowing from each
bench, but placed all the men on one bench pulling their oars through
the same porthole. After this come the monstrosities of the powerful
Egyptian, Sicilian, and other kings, in whose ships each oar was
probably pulled by any number of men from six to forty. But luxury
certainly came afloat at no late date. Professor Flinders Petrie
calls attention[10] to the extraordinary analogy between the work of
the Mykenæans and that of the Egyptians in the grandly embroidered
squaresails painted in the frescoes at Mykenæ. Certainly as far back as
232 B.C. there were mosaics to be seen on the magnificent ship of Hiero
II of Syracuse.[11]
Not less interesting were the ships and ways of ancient Rhodes, which
in like manner had its dieres, trieres, tetreres, penteres, even up to
seven- and nine-fold ships. In addition to these they had a swift type
of their own invention, having one bank of oars, called celoces. They
were wont, also, to use another fast type of craft called triemioliæ,
which had no fighting deck stretching from end to end. The usual
Rhodian naval tactics consisted in endeavouring to run through the
enemy’s line and break the oars of his ships as they passed. Afterwards
the Rhodians would then turn and ram them at the stern or else on the
beam, always carrying away something that was essential for working the
ship unless they could sink her forthwith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account