very long, and time was kept sometimes by the music of a flute, or by the stroke set by the keleustes, who was on board for that purpose. This he did either with a hammer of some sort, or his voice. And there is at least one illustration showing such a man using a hammer in an oar-propelled boat for that purpose.7 The inscriptions which were unearthed some years ago, containing the inventories of the Athenian dockyards, belonging to the years between 373 B.C. and 323 B.C., have been collected and published. And it is from them that we obtain such valuable information as the number of oarsmen which the biremes carried. This number was usually 200, and was disposed in the ship as follows: There were 54 thalamitai, 54 zugitai, 62 thranitai, and 30 perineo. The exact meaning of the latter word is supercargoes or passengers, but they were carried perhaps as spare oarsmen in case any became disabled.
All oars were worked together against the tholes, and as we know from the old depictions there was a space left both at bow and stern beyond the oarsmen, this space being called the parexeiresia. The number of oarsmen just mentioned may seem very large, but having regard to the speed required for manœuvring and for ramming effectively it is not excessive. But when a war-vessel was employed on transport duty so great a host of men was not essential. In the case of a vessel engaged, for instance, in carrying horses in her hold only sixty oarsmen were needed. Had you found yourself alongside one of the war-galleys you would have been struck by its length and leanness more than by anything else. As you passed round by the bows you would have observed the two great eyes, one on either side of the hull, through which in all probability the hawsers passed. Behind these two eyes were very substantial catheads which projected like great ears from the ship, and were used primarily for slinging the anchors just as in the old-fashioned sailing ships of Nelson and after; but, secondly, for convenience when ramming. Thus, when the terrible shock came, the catheads would protect the oars of the ship from damage and allow the utmost speed to be maintained till the last minute—a factor that was naturally of the highest importance. But also they were sometimes strengthened with supports so that they might catch in the topsides of the enemy and do him considerable damage.
As to the ram, which was the pivot of all the ancient naval tactics, there was one projecting spur below, but above it was another ram to catch the attacked ship at a second place. These rams were made of bronze and had three teeth; or if not made of bronze they were of wood sheathed with that metal. The stempost in these craft rose high in the air, and each ship had a distinguishing sign consisting either of a figurehead or some relief or painting at the bows. Of the two kinds of sails which these vessels carried, the larger was put ashore prior to battle, and only the smaller one retained. And as there were two sizes of sails, so there were two sizes of masts to correspond. Besides the halyards, brailing ropes, cables, braces, sheets, and forestay already alluded to, there were also backstays to support the masts. This was up to about the year 400 B.C., but, at any rate, by 330 B.C. triremes had simply mast, yard, sail, ropes, and the loops of brailing ropes, a simplified form of the earlier brails.
Terra-cotta Vase in the form of a Trireme’s Prow.
Showing eye and both upper and lower ram, each with triple teeth.
But additional to the triremes which had been first built at Corinth, were the quadriremes which first appeared in the year 398 B.C. As to their nature, their complement, and other details we know nothing. But it is legitimate to suppose that if the triremes rowed three men to a bench these were manned by four men on each bench rowing four oars in a similar manner. In the same year that first saw the quadriremes were built also quinquiremes. As to their size and complement we know just this much—that at the battle of Ecnomus the Roman and Carthaginian quinquiremes carried about 300 rowers and 120 combatants each. Probably, like the medieval quinquiremes, they rowed five men to each oar; or, alternatively, the five men each pulled an oar through the same porthole.
Some of the later developments of the marine instinct in the Mediterranean and adjacent seas became grotesque. Personal pride and a keen sense of rivalry caused the King of Sicily and his brother sovereigns of Macedonia, Asia, and Alexandria during the fourth and third centuries B.C. to construct men-of-war on a huge scale. A temple in Cyprus commemorates the builder of a twenty- and a thirty-fold vessel. But there was even a forty-fold vessel constructed by Ptolemy Philopator about the year 220 B.C., which was the size of one of our big liners of to-day. Two hundred and eighty cubits she measured in length, thirty-eight she was wide. Her stem rose 48 cubits above the water with only a 4-cubit draught, while the stern-ornament was 53 cubits high in the air. Fitted with a double prow which had seven rams, a double stern with four steering paddles 30 cubits each in length, the largest of her oars measured 38 cubits in length, but they were nicely balanced by weighting them with an equipoise of lead near the handles. Twelve strong cables 600 cubits long girded her together, and her complement was far greater than any vessel of modern times, four thousand oarsmen, 400 sailors, 2850 soldiers, to say nothing of the retinue of servants and the stores which she carried besides. There was also an enormous Nile barge 280 cubits long, built by Sesostris, but such craft as the fore-mentioned must be looked upon less as an opportunity for practising the seaman’s art than as a vulgar display of wealth.
The true war-vessel was made in the proportions of length seven or eight times her width, and drew about 3 feet of water. Light, shallow, and flat, not particularly seaworthy, they were utterly different from the round, heavy, strong, decked merchantman. The war-galley’s triple-spiked ram had come into use as far back as 556 B.C. The galley was most certainly fast and built of fir with a keel of oak. Competent modern authorities agree in estimating the speed of the galley and merchantman in those days as about 7½ to 4 (or 5) knots respectively.
Portions of Early Mediterranean Anchor in Lead found off the Coast of Cyrene.
(In the British Museum.)
When stone was discarded and metal anchors began to be adopted about the year 600 B.C., they were made first of iron. Some idea of the weight of the holding tackle in vogue may be gathered from the statement that an anchor weighing less than 56 lbs. was used in the Athenian navy. (For the sake of comparison, it may be added that this is about the weight of a modern 10-ton yacht’s bower anchor.) Stone and lead were affixed to these anchors by iron clamps near the bottom of the shank. The ships of the Athenian navy carried each a couple of anchors, while large merchant ships carried several, as we know from the voyages of St. Paul. Cork floats were employed for buoying the anchors, as to-day, and also served the purpose of lifebuoys. Usually the ships rode to rope cables, but sometimes to chain ones. It can readily be imagined that when these light ships pitched fore and aft into a sea the two large steering oars at the high stern would be frequently out of the water, and thus quite easily the vessel would not be under command. In such instances another pair was placed at the bows. Like the modern Arabs, the early seamen of the Mediterranean had to go aloft as best they could by climbing the sail, the mast, or hanging their weight on any rope they could find.
“Curiously,” says Mr. Torr in his invaluable little book “Ancient Ships,” to which I am considerably indebted, “the practice was always to brail up half the sail when the ship was put on either tack, the other half being thereby transformed into a triangle with base extending from the middle of the yard to the leeward end of it, and apex terminating in the sheet below.” Apparently, when the yard was braced round the sail was furled on the arm that came aft, but left unfurled on the arm that went forward.
It is quite certain that the ancient Mediterranean seamen did perform voyages at night when they had attained to experience and confidence, and there is at least one plain reference in Greek literature to a lighthouse, as in the following passage: “No longer dreading the rayless night-mist, sail towards me confidently, O seafarers; for all wanderers I light my far-shining torch, memorial of the labours of the Asclepiadæ.”8
Some of the early vase
