Further, besides the primitive mode of tying the parts together, two main types of build must be noticed, in accordance with which a boat is said to be either carvel-built or clinker-built. (1) A boat is carvel-built when the planks are laid edge to edge so that they present a smooth surface without. (2) A boat is clinker-built when each plank is laid on so as to overlap the one below it, thus presenting a series of ledges running longitudinally.
The former method is said to be of Mediterranean, or perhaps of Eastern origin. The latter was probably invented by the old Scandinavian builders, and from them handed down through the fishing boats of the northern nations to our own time.
The accounts of vessels used by the Egyptians and Phoenicians generally refer to larger craft which naturally fall under the head of [Ship] (q.v.). The Nile boats, however, described by Herodotus (ii. 60), built of acacia wood, Ancient boats. were no doubt of various sizes, some of them quite small, but all following the same type of construction, built up brick fashion, the blocks being fastened internally to long poles secured by cross pieces, and the interstices caulked with papyrus. The ends rose high above the water, and to prevent hogging were often attached by a truss running longitudinally over crutches from stem to stern.
The Assyrian and Babylonian vessels described by Herodotus (i. 194), built up of twigs and boughs, and covered with skins smeared with bitumen, were really more like huge coracles and hardly deserve the name of boats.
The use of boats by the Greeks and Romans is attested by the frequent reference to them in Greek and Latin literature, though, as regards such small craft, the details given are hardly enough to form the basis of an accurate classification.
We hear of small boats attendant on a fleet (κελήτιον, Thuc. i. 53), and of similar craft employed in piracy (Thuc. iv. 9), and in one case of a sculling boat, or pair oar (ἀκάτιον ἀμφηρικόν, Thuc. iv. 67), which was carted up and down between the town of Megara and the sea, being used for the purpose of marauding at night. We are also familiar with the passage in the Acts (xxvii.) where in the storm they had hard work “to come by the boat”; which same boat the sailors afterwards “let down into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship,” and would have escaped to land in her themselves, leaving the passengers to drown, if the centurion and soldiers acting upon St Paul’s advice had not cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off.
There can be little doubt that boat races were in vogue among the Greeks (see Prof. Gardner, Journal of Hellenic Studies, ii. 91 ff.), and probably formed part of the Panathenaic and Isthmian festivals. It is, however, difficult to prove that small boats took part in these races, though it is not unlikely that they may have done so. The testimony of the coins, such as it is, points to galleys, and the descriptive term (νεῶν ἅμιλλα) leads to the same conclusion.
It is hardly possible now to define the differences which separated ἄκατος, ἀκάτιον, from κέλης, κελήτιον, or from λέμβος or κάραβος. They seem all to have been rowing boats, probably carvel-built, some with keels (acatii modo carinata, Plin. ix. 19), and to have varied in size, some being simply sculling boats, and others running up to as many as thirty oars.
Similarly in Latin authors we have frequent mention of boats accompanying ships of war. Of this there is a well-known instance in the account of Caesar’s invasion of Britain (B.G. iv. 26), when the boats of the fleet, and the pinnaces, were filled with soldiers and sent to assist the Legionaries who were being fiercely attacked as they waded on to the shore. There is also an instance in the civil war, which is a prototype of a modern attack of torpedo boats upon men of war, when Antonius manned the pinnaces of his large ships to the number of sixty, and with them attacked and defeated an imprudent squadron of Quadriremes (B.C. iii. 24). The class of boats so frequently mentioned as actuariae seems to have contained craft of all sizes, and to have been used for all purposes, whether as pleasure boats or as despatch vessels, or for piracy. In fact the term was employed vaguely just as we speak of craft in general.
The lembus, which is often referred to in Livy and Polybius, seems to have been of Illyrian origin, with fine lines and sharp bows. The class contained boats of various sizes and with a variable number of oars (biremis, Livy xxiv. 40, sexdecim, Livy xxxiv. 35); and it is interesting to note the origin in this case, as the invention of the light Liburnian galleys, which won the battle of Actium, and altered the whole system of naval construction, came from the same seaboard.