GREAT SHIP OF PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR.
Analysis of her dimensions.
Various imaginary drawings have been made of Ptolemy’s great vessel; but as none of them appear to answer the only description of her which has been preserved, or to fulfil the requirements of a structure meant to float in safety, an endeavour has been made, in the drawing annexed, to illustrate this remarkable ship, which was “well proportioned in an extraordinary degree.”[175] If the cubit be taken at eighteen inches, Ptolemy’s ship was four hundred and twenty feet in length, fifty-seven feet beam, and had seventy-two feet depth of hold: proportions which, as far as regards the length and breadth, accord very well with those of the large steam-ships of our own time; but the depth is so great and so much out of proportion to the length and breadth, that there is no doubt a mistake in the figures. The depth was much more likely to have been twenty-eight cubits, for which forty-eight has, through some misapprehension, been substituted. There is no doubt, also, a mistake in the height of the stern above the water, for though the ships of the ancients had frequently very high poops or enormous castles erected aft, a practice which prevailed up to the seventeenth century, it is hardly possible to conceive that the highest portion of the poop of Ptolemy’s ship was fifty-three cubits, or about eighty feet above the water. The object of having so many as seven beaks is not easily understood; two of them may, however, have been placed at the bluff, or rounds of the bows, so as to protect, in some measure, the oars from being destroyed by the ship of an enemy sheering alongside. “Some of them,” we are informed, “were fixed to the ears of the ship.”
Nor is it easy to understand what is meant by the “ears,” unless they represent that portion of the head or bow where the cat-heads are now placed. A beak in that place would protect the upper bank of oars, while another below it, a little above the water-line, would guard the lower banks. Though inferior in length, breadth, and capacity to our modern wonder, the Great Eastern, Ptolemy’s huge vessel could hardly have been meant for sea-going purposes, if the dimensions given of her depth, and the height of her poop, are accurate; nor could seven or eight thousand men, besides a “large number under deck,” have been accommodated in her ’tween decks; but, though the nautical knowledge of the present day renders it difficult to accept all the recorded details of this extraordinary vessel, it is not necessary to agree with the writers who altogether deny her existence. The four thousand rowers could perfectly well have been placed at their stations, though it is most likely that she was never used except for display, or as an object of ornament or luxury.
Other writers insist that the oars, by reason of their length, would be unmanageable; but in approaching the question of rowing such ponderous vessels, which more properly belongs to and shall be treated of in a subsequent portion of this work, it will be found that the oars described by Callixenus are not longer than those which have been used in galleys, of which authentic accounts exist. It may be denied that four thousand men could have been made available as oarsmen in any vessel; but if it be possible to work the upper bank of oars, which shall hereafter be shown to be practicable, it will be found on examining the drawing and number of oar-ports, that with ten men to each oar, two thousand rowers could be placed at their stations on each side of the vessel, or, in all, “four thousand rowers,” as described by Callixenus.
The Thalamegus, her size and splendour.
Nor was this the only vessel of huge dimensions constructed during the reign of the Ptolemies. Callixenus describes another, the Thalamegus, or the “carrier of the bed-chamber” which was half a stadium (three hundred feet) in length, thirty cubits wide, and forty cubits high. From his elaborate description we learn that she was fitted with every conceivable luxury, and in a style of magnificence much superior to that of any other ship or floating structure of the period; with “colonnades,” “marble stairs,” and “gardens,” whence it may safely be concluded that this vessel was never meant for sea-going purposes. But there is no reason to question her existence. Such a vessel might have remained moored on the Nile, or on one of the great lakes or canals, as a pleasant place of resort during the hottest months of an Egyptian summer.
Great size of other Egyptian monuments.
When, indeed, the colossal character of all Egyptian monuments (more especially those of the Pyramids, now known to have been in some cases tombs, as that of Mycerinus,) and that, too, of their temples, statues, and canals, is borne in mind, the presumption is strong that this love of the colossal extended to other Egyptian works, and further, that in a country where so much mechanical genius was displayed, the construction of one or two great ships would not form an exception, even though a seafaring life may have been repugnant to the habits and tastes of a majority of the people. Plutarch, in speaking of the great war-ships built by Demetrius, observes, that while these could really be used, the still larger ship of Philopator “was a mere matter of curiosity, for she differed very little from an immovable building, and was calculated more for show, as she could not be put in motion without great difficulty and danger.”
Probability of such vessels having been constructed.