The rapid construction of the fleet in question furnishes one proof more in favor of the point raised regarding the small size of ships.
In order to show more clearly what is meant by uniformity in the shape of vessels, attention will be called to the “tialque” type of the Netherlands, which is found, with slight changes and under other names, from Denmark to Belgium. All the boats of this type have a common fundamental character; but with the tialque are met still other types which are also found elsewhere.
So, from Denmark to Belgium, there is a series of well defined fundamental types and hence we can speak of common forms.
This remark applies also to the Mediterranean (Dictionnaire des Antiquités grecques et romaines, 36th part, p. 24; Navis), where these fundamentals have been preserved for centuries: the old types of wooden vessels to be met with at the present time still give an exact idea of them, save in what relates to the rudder and rig.
Sundry types have evidently been set aside or have undergone changes demanded by local conditions, so that, in order to find among them the fundamental characters belonging to a given country, it is often necessary to seek elsewhere.
So, for example, there are found in Holland, at ’s Gravenmoer (North Brabant), an old Rhenish type; in Portugal, small fishing boats which resemble greatly the ancient Egyptian vessels and, in the Arabian Sea, a ship which, aside from the rudder and rigging, resembles, to an astonishing degree, the primitive Roman vessel. And the Arabs claim that they have the oldest and best ships (compare PARIS, Vol. III, no 135, with the relief of the “port of the Tiber” which appears in BAUMEISTER, Denkmäler des Klassischen Altertums, fig. 1688).
If vessels moved by oars underwent no changes as the result of the invention of gunpowder, the cause must be sought in the slenderness of their construction required by the small motive power which they could put forth. The number of oarsmen was limited and very soon a maximum was reached which could not be exceeded.
In view of the fact that a practical vessel having more than three banks of rowers could not be constructed, and that the old reproductions which are known never show more than three, it seems permissible to conclude that the ancient writers who speak of four banks of oars and more, have allowed their imaginations to run away with them or, which appears more exact, that they had a way of counting other than the one adopted in our time? Doubtless, it was desired to designate the number of oars which passed in banks through the side of the ship.
Huys’s drawing, according to Breugel (dating from the middle of the XVIth century), shows oars grouped thus in sets of threes, and the same process is found in other old pictures; if these pictures show triremes, the question would be simple to explain.
A reproduction of the trireme, often referred to, is that of the bas-relief of the Acropolis at Athens. (Baumeister Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, fig. 1689.) Copies of it are found in all the works, but they do not always agree and hence can offer nothing certain. (Dr. MORITZ RÜHLMANN, p. 62.)