Part 3 (1/2)
6 in.; height of stem ornament, 72 ft.; length of the longest oars, 57 ft. The oars were stated to have been weighted with lead inboard, so as to balance the great overhanging length. The number of the rowers was 4,000, and of the remainder of the crew 3,500, making a total of 7,500 men, for whom, we are asked to believe, accommodation was found on a vessel of the dimensions given. This last statement is quite sufficient to utterly discredit the whole story, as it implies that each man had a cubic s.p.a.ce of only about 130 ft. to live in, and that, too, in the climate of Egypt. Moreover, if we look into the question of the oars we shall see that the dimensions given are absolutely impossible--that is to say, if we make the usual a.s.sumption that the banks were successive horizontal tiers of oars placed one above the other. There were said to have been forty banks. Now, the smallest distance, vertically, between two successive banks, if the oar-ports were arranged as in Fig. 14, with the object of economizing s.p.a.ce in the vertical direction to the greatest possible degree, would be 1 ft. 3 in. If the lowest oar-ports were 3 ft. above the water, and the topmost bank were worked on the gunwale, we should require, to accommodate forty banks, a height of side equal to 39 ft. 1 ft. 3 in. + 3 ft. = 51 ft. 9 in. Now, if the inboard portion of the 57 ft. oar were only one-fourth of the whole length, or 14 ft. 3 in., this would leave 57 ft. - 14 ft. 3 in. = 42 ft.
9 in. for the outboard portion, and as the height of gunwale on which this particular length of oar was worked must have been, as shown above, 51 ft. 9 in. above the water, it is evident that the outboard portion of the oar could not be made to touch the water at all. Also, if we consider the conditions of structural strength of the side of a s.h.i.+p honeycombed with oar-ports, and standing to the enormous height of 51 ft. 9 in. above the water-line, it is evident that, in order to be secure, it would require to be supported by numerous tiers of transverse horizontal beams, similar to deck-beams, running from side to side. The planes of these tiers would intersect the inboard portions of many of the tiers of oars, and consequently prevent these latter from being fitted at all.
If we look at the matter from another point of view we shall meet with equally absurd results. The oars in the upper banks of Athenian triremes are known to have been about 14 ft. in length. Underneath them, were, of course, two other banks. If, now, we a.s.sume that the upper bank tholes were 5 ft. 6 in.[10] above the water-line, and that one-quarter of the length of the upper bank oars was inboard, and if we add thirty-seven additional banks parallel to the first bank, so as to make forty in all, simple proportion will show us that the outboard portion of the oars of the uppermost bank must have been just under 99 ft. long and the total length of each, if we a.s.sume, as before, that one quarter of it was inboard, would be 132 ft., instead of the 57 ft. given by Callixenos.
Any variations in the above a.s.sumptions, consistent with possibilities, would only have the effect of bringing the oars out still longer. We are therefore driven to conclude, either that the account given by Callixenos was grossly inaccurate, or else that the Greek word, [Greek: tessarakonteres], which we translate by ”forty-banked s.h.i.+p,” did not imply that there were forty horizontal _superimposed_ tiers of oars.
The exact arrangement of the oars in the larger cla.s.ses of galleys has always been a puzzle, and has formed the subject of much controversy amongst modern writers on naval architecture. The vessels were distinguished, according to the numbers of the banks of oars, as uniremes, biremes, triremes, quadriremes, etc., up to s.h.i.+ps like the great galley of Ptolemy Philopater, which was said to have had forty banks. Now, the difficulty is to know what is meant by a bank of oars.
It was formerly a.s.sumed that the term referred to the horizontal tiers of oars placed one above the other; but it can easily be proved, by attempting to draw the galleys with the oars and rowers in place, that it would be very difficult to accommodate as many as five horizontal banks and absolutely impossible to find room for more than seven. Not only would the s.p.a.ce within the hull of the s.h.i.+p be totally insufficient for the rowers, but the length of the upper tiers of oars would be so great that they would be unmanageable, and that of the lower tiers so small that they would be inefficient. The details given by ancient writers throw very little light upon this difficult subject. Some authors have stated that there was only one man to each oar, and we now know that this was the case with the smaller cla.s.ses of vessels, say, up to those provided with three, or four, to five banks of oars; but it is extremely improbable that the oars of the larger cla.s.ses could have been so worked. The oars of modern Venetian galleys were each manned by five rowers. It is impossible in this work to examine closely into all the rival theories as to what const.i.tuted a bank of oars. It seems improbable, for reasons before stated, that any vessel could have had more than five horizontal tiers. It is certain also that, in order to find room for the rowers to work above each other in these tiers, the oar-ports must have been placed, not vertically above each other, but in oblique rows, as represented in Fig. 14. It is considered by Mr. W. S.
Lindsay, in his ”History of Merchant s.h.i.+pping and Ancient Commerce,”
that each of the oblique rows of oars, thus arranged, may have formed the tier referred to in the designation of the cla.s.s of the vessel, for vessels larger than quinqueremes. If this were so, there would then be no difficulty in conceiving the possibility of constructing galleys with even as many as forty tiers of oars like the huge alleged galley of Ptolemy Philopater. Fig. 15 represents the disposition of the oar-ports according to this theory for an octoreme.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--Probable arrangement of oar-ports in ancient galleys.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 15.--Suggested arrangement of oar-ports in an octoreme.]
It appears to be certain that the oars were not very advantageously arranged, or proportioned, in the old Greek galleys, or even in the Roman galleys, till the time of the early Caesars, for we read that the average speed of the Athenian triremes was 200 stadia in the day. If the stadium were equal in length to a furlong, and the working day supposed to be limited to ten hours, this would correspond to a speed of only two and a half miles an hour. The lengths of the oars in the Athenian triremes have been already given (p. 42); even those of the upper banks were extremely short--only, in fact, about a foot longer than those used in modern 8-oared racing boats. On account of their shortness and the height above the water at which they were worked, the angle which the oars made with the water was very steep and consequently disadvantageous. In the case of the Athenian triremes, this angle must have been about 23.5. This statement is confirmed by all the paintings and sculptures which have come down to us. It is proved equally by the painting of an Athenian bireme of 500 B.C. shown in Fig. 9, and by the Roman trireme, founded on the sculptures of Trajan's Column of about 110 A.D., shown in Fig. 16.[11] In fact, it is evident that the ancients, before the time of the introduction of the Liburnian galley, did not understand the art of rowing as we do to-day. The celebrated Liburnian galleys, which were first used by the Romans, for war purposes, at the battle of Actium under Augustus Caesar, were said to have had a speed of four times that of the old triremes. The modern galleys used in the Mediterranean in the seventeenth century are said to have occasionally made the pa.s.sage from Naples to Palermo in seventeen hours. This is equivalent to an average speed of between 11 and 12 miles per hour.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 16.--Roman galley. About 110 A.D.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 17.--Liburnian galley. Conjectural restoration.]
The timber used by the ancient races on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean in the construction of their s.h.i.+ps appears to have been chiefly fir and oak; but, in addition to these, many other varieties, such as pitch pine, elm, cedar, chestnut, ilex, or evergreen oak, ash, and alder, and even orange wood, appear to have been tried from time to time. They do not seem to have understood the virtue of using seasoned timber, for we read in ancient history of fleets having been completed ready for sea in incredibly short periods after the felling of the trees. Thus, the Romans are said to have built and equipped a fleet of 220 vessels in 45 days for the purpose of resisting the attacks of Hiero, King of Syracuse. In the second Punic War Scipio put to sea with a fleet which was stated to have been completed in forty days from the time the timber was felled. On the other hand, the ancients believed in all sorts of absurd rules as to the proper day of the moon on which to fell trees for s.h.i.+pbuilding purposes, and also as to the quarter from which the wind should blow, and so forth. Thus, Hesiod states that timber should only be cut on the seventeenth day of the moon's age, because the sap, which is the great cause of early decay, would then be sunk, the moon being on the wane. Others extend the time from the fifteenth to the twenty-third day of the moon, and appeal with confidence to the experience of all artificers to prove that timber cut at any other period becomes rapidly worm-eaten and rotten. Some, again, a.s.serted that if felled on the day of the new moon the timber would be incorruptible, while others prescribed a different quarter from which the wind should blow for every season of the year. Probably on account of the ease with which it was worked, fir stood in high repute as a material for s.h.i.+pbuilding.
The structure of the hulls of ancient s.h.i.+ps was not dissimilar in its main features to that of modern wooden vessels. The very earliest types were probably without external keels. As the practice of naval architecture advanced, keels were introduced, and served the double purpose of a foundation for the framing of the hull and of preventing the vessel from making leeway in a wind. Below the keel proper was a false keel, which was useful when vessels were hauled up on sh.o.r.e, and above the keelson was an upper false keel, into which the masts were stepped. The stem formed an angle of about 70 with the water-line, and its junction with the keel was strengthened by a stout knee-piece. The design of the stem above water was often highly ornate. The stern generally rose in a graceful curve, and was also lavishly ornamented.
Fig. 18 gives some ill.u.s.trations of the highly ornamented extremities of the stern and prow of Roman galleys. These show what considerable pains the ancients bestowed on the decoration of their vessels. There was no rudder-post, the steering having been effected by means of special oars, as in the early Egyptian vessels. Into the keel were notched the floor timbers, and the heads of these latter were bound together by the keelson, or inner keel. Beams connected the top timbers of the opposite branches of the ribs and formed the support for the deck. The planking was put on at right angles to the frames, the b.u.t.ting ends of the planks being connected by dovetails. The skin of the s.h.i.+p was strengthened, in the Athenian galleys, by means of stout planks, or waling-pieces, carried horizontally round the s.h.i.+p, each pair meeting together in front of the stem, where they formed the foundations for the beaks, or rams.
The hulls were further strengthened by means of girding-cables, also carried horizontally round the hull, in the angles formed by the projection of the waling-pieces beyond the skin. These cables pa.s.sed through an eye-hole at the stem, and were tightened up at the stern by means of levers. It is supposed that they were of use in holding the s.h.i.+p together under the shock of ramming. The hull was made water-tight by caulking the seams of the planking. Originally this was accomplished with a paste formed of ground sea-sh.e.l.ls and water. This paste, however, not having much cohesion, was liable to crack and fall out when the vessel strained. A slight improvement was made when the sh.e.l.ls were calcined and turned into lime. Pitch and wax were also employed, but were eventually superseded by the use of flax, which was driven in between the seams. Flax was certainly used for caulking in the time of Alexander the Great, and a similar material has continued to be employed for this purpose down to the present day. In addition to caulking the seams, it was also customary to coat over the bottom with pitch, and the Romans, at any rate, used sometimes to sheath their galleys with sheet lead fastened to the planking with copper nails. This was proved by the discovery of one of Trajan's galleys in Lake Riccio after it had been submerged for over thirteen centuries.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 18.--Stem and stern ornaments of galleys.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 19.--Bow of ancient war-galley.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 20.--Bow of ancient war-galley.]
The bows of the ancient war galleys were so constructed as to act as rams. The ram was made of hard timber projecting beyond the line of the bow, between it and the forefoot. It was usually made of oak, elm, or ash, even when all the rest of the hull was constructed of soft timber.
In later times it was sheathed with, or even made entirely of, bronze.
It was often highly ornamented, either with a carved head of a ram or some other animal, as shown in Figs. 8 to 11; sometimes swords or spear-heads were added, as shown in Figs. 19 and 20. A relic of this ancient custom is found to this day in the ornamentation of the prows of the Venetian gondolas. Originally the ram, or rostrum, was visible above the water-line, but it was afterwards found to be far more effective when wholly immersed. In addition to the rams there were side projections, or catheads, above water near the bow. The ram was used for sinking the opposing vessels by penetrating their hulls, and the catheads for shattering their oars when sheering up suddenly alongside.
Roman galleys were fitted with castles, or turrets, in which were placed fighting men and various engines of destruction. They were frequently temporary structures, sometimes consisting of little more than a protected platform, mounted on scaffolding, which could be easily taken down and stowed away. The use of these structures was continued till far into the Middle Ages.
CHAPTER III.
ANCIENT s.h.i.+PS IN THE SEAS OF NORTHERN EUROPE.
Outside the Mediterranean it is known that some of the northern nations had attained to very considerable skill in the arts of s.h.i.+pbuilding and navigation. Caesar gives a general description of the s.h.i.+ps of the Veneti, who occupied the country now known as Brittany, and who had in their hands the carrying trade between Gaul and Britain.[12] As might be expected from the stormy nature of the Atlantic, the Veneti were not able to place any reliance on oars as a means for propulsion. According to Caesar's account, they trusted solely to sails. Their vessels were built entirely of oak of great thickness. He also mentions that the beams were as much as 12 in. in depth. The bottoms of these vessels were very flat, so as to enable them the better to be laid up on the beach.
The hulls had considerable sheer, both at the stem and stern. The sails were of dressed hide, and the cables were iron chains. It is evident from this cursory description that the s.h.i.+ps of the Veneti were not based upon Mediterranean models, and it is highly probable that they, rather than the oar-propelled galleys, may be regarded as the prototypes of the early sea-going vessels of Northern Europe.