If the oars of this vessel, which in their leading features no doubt resembled those of the large single-banked galleys of the ancients and of the middle ages, were fifty feet in length, then a beam of thirty feet would not suffice for oars of that enormous length. But if the beam was only one-fifth of her length, we may assume that the oars were not more than thirty-nine feet long, especially as that length would be amply sufficient for propelling a single-banked vessel. In that case the oar would be “thirteen” feet inboard as described, affording abundance of space for six slaves to be stationed at it, although the two nearest the side would be of comparatively less service in rowing. To enable the rowers, and especially those who were stationed nearest the centre of the galley, to work with effect, their benches must have been placed in a slightly oblique position.
From this description, there is no difficulty in understanding the character of the uniremes; it is only when we come to inquire what was meant by biremes, triremes, and so forth, and how they were propelled, that the most conflicting statements are met with. Although Scheffer,[388] General Melvill, and others, have bestowed an immense deal of learning in their endeavours to prove that each oar was rowed by one man only, and that the banks were placed directly one over the other, the bulk of the testimony of ancient writers, confirmed by experience, is opposed to any such views. Besides, the most casual inquiry will show that it would be impracticable to row any galley with more than two banks of oars on the plan suggested. Every additional rank adds to the difficulty in a greatly increased ratio; and if hexiremes were efficient ships, which, on the authority of Polybius they were,[389] it would have been altogether impracticable to propel them by oars on the plan suggested.
General Melvill’s theory.
It might be unnecessary to offer any further remarks on this branch of the subject, had not Mr. Mitford, the celebrated historian of Greece, expressed so strong an opinion in favour of it. “The most satisfactory conjectures,” he remarks, “that I have met with by far, are those of General Melvill.”[390] It may, however, be here explained that General Melvill, in common with other writers, had previously entertained the opinion that the number of banks were measured by the number of men at an oar. That is to say, a unireme, he considered, had only one man placed at an oar, a bireme two, a trireme three, and so forth, up to the great ship of Ptolemy Philopator, which had, according to this theory, forty men to each of its fifty-seven feet oars. As the General on examination found such a theory to be untenable, he conceived the idea that in no case was there more than one man to an oar. “He,” then,[391] “set himself to investigate the subject for confirmation of this opinion on fact, as he should find that fact to turn out in the descriptions of sea-fights and other naval transactions, as given by the ancient authors, particularly Polybius, Cæsar, Livy, and Florus.” Impressed with his new idea, it occurred to him, that “the indispensable requisites were, that in the arrangement of the rowers within, each side ought to have been such as to admit of the greatest number possible, that they should be so placed as not to impede each other; that they should be enabled to row to the best advantage; and that the highest tiers, both in respect to length and weight, should be sufficiently manageable: from these grounds the discovery immediately resulted to him, which was, that by a combination of two obliquities between the galley and a rower’s gallery running along its waist part, projecting outwards from a small distance above the water’s edge, with an angle of 45°, and rows of horizontal seats of about two feet in length, fixed obliquely upwards from the bottom of this gallery against this obliquely projecting part of the side, with no more space betwixt them in all directions than should be found necessary for the free movement of men when rowing together, a quincunx or chequer order would be formed, with all the above-mentioned requisites, to the highest degree of advantage which could co-exist consistent with each other.”
It is not easy to understand the General’s scheme by this description of it. He lays down, practically enough, some essential points which require to be considered; but while the oar adapted for the lowest banks might be “sufficiently manageable,” the oars of the upper banks, even if well balanced, could not be effectively worked by one man. Nor is it easy to understand what is meant by “rows of horizontal seats, of about two feet in length, fixed obliquely upwards from the bottom of this gallery.” However, the General caused a model of a quinquereme to be erected against a high wall belonging to his house in London, which was of the same proportions as would have been required for a “fifth part of a real galley.” The model is said to “have held, in a very small space, but with sufficient ease, the rowers of five tiers, of six men in each, lengthways, making one-fifth the rowers on each side of a quinquereme, according to Polybius, who mentions three hundred as the whole number of rowers in it, besides one hundred and twenty fighting men.” But this further explanation does not assist in the elucidation of his theory of “one man to each oar.” On the contrary, it rather tends to confuse, unless the General means that there were one hundred and fifty row-ports on each side of the quinquereme mentioned by Polybius, which would be absurd.
But the impracticability of the whole plan is shown when an examination is made of the space that would be required to place, single file, three hundred rowers at the oars of a quinquereme.
The sweep of an oar is measured by its length, and would require a certain defined space for its movement, irrespective of the number of men at work upon it. The single-banked French galley already described was one hundred and fifty feet long, having twenty five benches on each side, requiring a length of one hundred feet. All other accounts, as well as experience, show that the benches were, and required to be, three feet apart: and, allowing one foot for the breadth of the bench, each oar would require a space of four feet in a horizontal line. According to the General’s theory there would be thirty oar-ports on each bank, which, allowing for their obliquity, would require the gallery attached to the side of his galley to be somewhere about two hundred feet in length for the accommodation of the rowers. No doubt such a vessel could be built, but it is very questionable if any such vessel ever was built. Ptolemy Philopator’s ship would have required two thousand oar-ports on each side, to afford employment to her rowers. There is, however, another equally valid objection to the General’s scheme: a bank of oars means something whereby one class of galleys could be clearly distinguished from another class. Ships of war, up to a comparatively recent period, were rated as mounting so many guns, just as ancient galleys were rated by their banks of oars; the one measured the fighting, the other the propelling power. But if, according to the General’s plan, triremes or quinqueremes were known by the number of banks, what was the measure of vessels of the larger size? for he does not profess to work any galley on his plan with more than five tiers; nor does he maintain that the size of his galley was measured by the number of her oars, which would depend upon her length. In whatever way this scheme is examined it will be found to be altogether untenable.
Charnock’s theory.
Charnock, in his “History of Marine Architecture,”[392] has evidently devoted more space than thought to the elucidation of this intricate subject. While he, with all other writers on the subject, accurately describes “uniremes” as “those galleys or vessels which had only one row of oars extending between their masts, or perhaps the entire length of the vessel,” he breaks down at the first step beyond a unireme, when he says that “the biremes had one tier of oars between their masts, and another abaft the main or principal mast.” Indeed, all theories must necessarily fail which cannot be made applicable to vessels of every description; and it is no solution of the difficulty to deny, as Mr. Charnock and others have done, the existence of vessels beyond a certain size, when it is found that a theory practicable within certain limits would be altogether impracticable if carried beyond them.
That this would be the case in Mr. Charnock’s plan he himself admits. He says that a trireme was a galley more formidable than the bireme, “having one tier of oars extending between the masts, a second abaft the mainmast, and a third forward, near the prow or stem before the foremast.” The quadriremes he describes as having had “their oars ranged like the triremes, with the difference of having two tiers of oars one above the other, abaft the mainmast.” “The quinqueremes,” he adds, “were also of the same description, with the addition of the second tier of oars forward.” He then goes on to state that “the octoremes had two tiers of oars in the midships, and three at the stem and stern, making in all eight.” This is no doubt an easy method of solving the difficulty, so far as regards biremes, triremes, quadriremes and octoremes, but our author fails to explain how his principle can be applied to vessels of a larger description, or even how the number of rowers each of these classes are said to have contained was placed at the oars. The latter he does not attempt, and as summarily dismisses the former by questioning the existence altogether of any vessels with more than three tiers of oars placed either directly or obliquely above each other, in the face of the most ample evidence to the contrary. However, the theory Mr. Charnock considers unanswerable would not be the most perfect in practice, even in vessels of an inferior class to the octoreme. The oars would be more effective in midships than at any other part of the vessel, yet our author places the greatest number of these aft and forward, near “the prow or stem and near the stern.” If there is any merit in his scheme, it would consist in placing the three banks in midships, and one aft in the case of a quadrireme; one aft and one forward in the case of a quinquereme; and two instead of three near the “stem and stern.”