Boating

by Walter Bradford Woodgate

ANCIENT GALLEY FIGHT, FROM POMPEII.

The benches on which the rowers sat ran from the vessel’s side to timbers which, inclined at an angle of about 64° towards the ship’s stern, reached from the lower to the upper deck. These timbers were, according to Graser, called the diaphragmata. In the trireme each diaphragma supported three, in the quinquereme five, in the octireme eight, and in the famous tesseraconteres forty seats of rowers, who all belonged to the same ‘complexus,’ though each to a different bank. In effect, when once the principle of construction had been established in the trireme, the increase to larger rates was effected, so far as the motive power was concerned, by lengthening the diaphragmata upwards, while the increase in the length of the vessel gave a greater number of rowers to each bank. The upper tiers of oarsmen exceeded in number those below, as the contraction of the sides of the vessel left less available space towards the bows.

Of the length of the oars in the trireme we have an indication in the fact that the length of supernumerary oars (πηρινἐῳ) rowed from the gangway above the thranites, and therefore probably slightly exceeding the thranitic oars in length, is given in the Attic tables as 14 feet 3 inches. The thranites were probably about 14 feet. The zygite, in proportion to the measurement, must have been 10¹⁄₂, the thalamite 7¹⁄₂ feet long. Comparing modern oars with these, we find that the longest oars used in the British navy are 18 feet. The University race is rowed with oars 12 feet 9 inches. The proportion of the loom inboard was about one third, but the oars of the rowers amidship must have been somewhat longer inboard. The size of the loom inboard preserved the necessary equilibrium. The long oars of the larger rates were weighted inboard with lead. Thus the topmost oars of the tesseraconteres, of which the length was 53 feet, were exactly balanced at the rowlock.

The Attic trireme was built light for speed and for ramming purposes. Her dimensions, so far as we can gather them from the scattered notices of antiquity, were probably approximately as follows:—length of rowing space (ἔγκωπον), 93 feet; bows, 11 feet; stern, 14 feet; total, 118 feet; add 10 feet for the beak. The breadth at the water-line is calculated at 14 feet, and above at the broadest part 18 feet, exclusive of the gangways; the space between the diaphragmata mentioned above was 7 feet. The deck was 11 feet above the water-line, and the draught about 8 to 9 feet. All the Attic triremes appear to have been built upon the same model, and their gear was interchangeable. The Athenians had a peculiar system of girding the ships with long cables (ὑποζώματα), each trireme having two or more, which, passing through eyeholes in front of the stem-post, ran all round the vessel lengthwise immediately under the waling-pieces. They were fastened at the stern and tightened up with levers. These cables, by shrinking as soon as they were wet, tightened the whole fabric of the vessel, and in action, in all probability, relieved the hull from part of the shock of ramming, the strain of which would be sustained by the waling-pieces convergent in the beaks. These rope-girdles are not to be confused with the process of undergirding or frapping, such as is narrated of the vessel in which St. Paul was being carried to Italy. The trireme appears to have had three masts. The mainmast carried square sails, probably two in number. The foremast and the mizen carried lateen sails. In action the Greeks did not use sails, and everything that could be lowered was stowed below. The mainmasts and larger sails were often left ashore if a conflict was expected.

The crew of the Attic trireme consisted of from 200 to 225 men in all. Of these 174 were rowers—54 on the lower bank (thalamites), 58 on the middle bank (zygites), and 62 on the upper bank (thranites),—the upper oars being more numerous because of the contraction of the space available for the lower tiers near the bow and stern. Besides the rowers were about 10 marines (ἐπιβάται) and 20 seamen. The officers were the trierarch and next to him the helmsman (κυβερνήτης), who was the navigating officer of the trireme. Each tier of rowers had its captain (στοιχαρχός). There were also the captain of the forecastle (πρωρηύς), the ‘keleustes’ who gave the time to the rowers, and the ship’s piper (τριηραυλής). The rowers descended into the seven-foot space between the diaphragmata and took their places in regular order, beginning with the thalamites. The economy of space was such that, as Cicero remarks, there was not room for one man more.

Such, we may believe, was the trireme of the palmy days of Athens. Built for speed, it was necessarily light and handy, and easily turned, so that the formidable beak could be plunged into the enemy’s side, the moment a chance was given. But it required sea room for its manœuvres, and in a narrow strait or land-locked harbour, such as that of Syracuse, was no match for the solid balks of timber with which Corinthian and Syracusan shipwrights strengthened the bows of their vessels. Against these the pride of Athens was hurled in vain, only to find itself broken up and rendered unseaworthy by the crash of its own ram.

With the defeat of Athens comes in the fashion of larger vessels with more banks of oars, quadriremes, quinqueremes, and so on up to sixteen banks, when the increase of the motive power had been more than overtaken by the increase in bulk and weight. The principles of construction in these larger vessels seem to have been the same as in the trireme. The space for each man was probably somewhat less, and the handles of the upper tiers of oars were weighted with lead, so as to give a balance at the thowl between the parts outboard and inboard.

A question difficult to solve has often been raised respecting the pace at which these ancient galleys could be propelled. If five-man power could be taken as equivalent to one-horse power, then for the propulsion of the trireme there would have been available about thirty-five horse power, but that would hardly give a very high rate of speed.

There is a passage in Xenophon[3] in which he speaks of a distance of about 150 nautical miles, from Byzantium to Heraclea, as possible for a trireme in a day, but a long day’s work. Assuming eighteen hours’ work out of the twenty-four, a speed of something over eight knots per hour would be required for this, which may perhaps seem excessive. Still we may believe that by a crew when fresh a pace not less than this could be achieved.