It is also related by Diodoros that there were ships of six and seven banks in the fleet of Demetrios Poliorcetes at a battle off Cyprus in 306 b.c., and that Antigonos, the father of Poliorcetes, had ships of eleven and twelve banks. We have seen, however, that Diodoros died about two and a half centuries after this period. Pliny, who lived from 61 to 115 a.d., increases the number of banks in the ships of the opposing fleets at this battle to twelve and fifteen banks respectively. It is impossible to place any confidence in such statements.
Theophrastus, a botanist who died about 288 b.c., and who was therefore a contemporary of Demetrios, mentions in his history of plants that the king built an eleven-banked ship in Cyprus. This is one of the very few contemporary records we possess of the construction of such ships. The question, however, arises, Can a botanist be accepted as an accurate witness in matters relating to shipbuilding? The further question presents itself, What meaning is intended to be conveyed by the terms which we translate as ships of many banks? This question will be reverted to hereafter.
In one other instance a writer cites a document in which one of these many-banked ships is mentioned as having been in existence during his lifetime. The author in question was Polybios, one of the most painstaking and accurate of the ancient historians, who was born between 214 and 204 b.c., and who quotes a treaty between Rome and Macedon concluded in 197 b.c., in which a Macedonian ship of sixteen banks is once mentioned. This ship was brought to the Tiber thirty years later, according to Plutarch and Pliny, who are supposed to have copied a lost account by Polybios. Both Plutarch and Pliny were born more than two centuries after this event. If the alleged account by Polybios had been preserved, it would have been unimpeachable authority on the subject of this vessel, as this writer, who was, about the period in question, an exile in Italy, was tutor in the family of Æmilius Paulus, the Roman general who brought the ship to the Tiber.
The Romans first became a naval power in their wars with the Carthaginians, when the command of the sea became a necessity of their existence. This was about 256 b.c. At that time they knew nothing whatever of shipbuilding, and their early war-vessels were merely copies of those used by the Carthaginians, and these latter were no doubt of the same general type as the Greek galleys. The first Roman fleet appears to have consisted of quinqueremes.
The third century b.c. is said to have been an era of gigantic ships. Ptolemy Philadelphos and Ptolemy Philopater, who reigned over Egypt during the greater part of that century, are alleged to have built a number of galleys ranging from thirteen up to forty banks. The evidence in this case is derived from two unsatisfactory sources. Athenæos and Plutarch quote one Callixenos of Rhodes, and Pliny quotes one Philostephanos of Cyrene, but very little is known about either Callixenos or Philostephanos. Fortunately, however, Callixenos gives details about the size of the forty-banker, the length of her longest oars, and the number of her crew, which enables us to gauge his value as an authority, and to pronounce his story to be incredible (see p. [45]).
Whatever the arrangement of their oars may have been, these many-banked ships appear to have been large and unmanageable, and they finally went out of fashion in the year 31 b.c., when Augustus defeated the combined fleets of Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium. The vessels which composed the latter fleets were of the many-banked order, while Augustus had adopted the swift, low, and handy galleys of the Liburni, who were a seafaring and piratical people from Illyria on the Adriatic coast. Their vessels were originally single-bankers, but afterwards it is said that two banks were adopted. This statement is borne out by the evidence of Trajan's Column, all the galleys represented on it, with the exception of one, being biremes.
Augustus gained the victory at Actium largely owing to the handiness of his Liburnian galleys, and, in consequence, this type was henceforward adopted for Roman warships, and ships of many banks were no longer built. The very word "trireme" came to signify a warship, without reference to the number of banks of oars.
After the Romans had completed the conquest of the nations bordering on the Mediterranean, naval war ceased for a time, and the fighting navy of Rome declined in importance. It was not till the establishment of the Vandal kingdom in Africa under Genseric that a revival in naval warfare on a large scale took place. No changes in the system of marine architecture are recorded during all these ages. The galley, considerably modified in later times, continued to be the principal type of warship in the Mediterranean till about the sixteenth century of our era.
Ancient Merchant-ships.
Little accurate information as we possess about the warships of the ancients, we know still less of their merchant-vessels and transports. They were unquestionably much broader, relatively, and fuller than the galleys; for, whereas the length of the latter class was often eight to ten times the beam, the merchant-ships were rarely longer than three or four times their beam. Nothing is known of the nature of Phœnician merchant-vessels. Fig. [12] is an illustration of an Athenian merchant-ship of about 500 b.c. It is taken from the same painted vase as the galley shown on Fig. [9]. If the illustration can be relied on, it shows that these early Greek sailing-ships were not only relatively short, but very deep. The forefoot and dead wood aft appear to have been cut away to an extraordinary extent, probably for the purpose of increasing the handiness. The rigging was of the type which was practically universal in ancient ships.