It is almost impossible to exaggerate the potent influence exercised by the Phœnicians, as successors of the Egyptians, in being the maritime nation of the world. Happy in their origin by the Persian Gulf, fortunate, too, in having had the Egyptians before them, and so benefiting by the knowledge and experience of the latter, they had developed and prospered through the centuries parallel with the Dynastic peoples. Much that we should wish to know about the Phœnicians is wanting, but we have more than adequate material for the means of realising something of the range and intensity of their sway.
Migrating, like the first Egyptians, westward, they had settled around the Levant, to the north of Palestine. Already, in prehistoric days, they had expanded still further westward into Greece, founding Thebes in Bœotia, and teaching the barbarian inhabitants of that country the elements of civilisation. Everywhere in the ancient world, from remote ages until a century or two before the Incarnation, Phœnician ships were as numerous in the waters of the Mediterranean, as British vessels in all parts of the world are to-day. Possessing a genius for trade, a keen love for the sea and for travel, they had the complete mastery of the commerce and fisheries of the Ægean Sea, until as late as the eighth century B.C. They dragged up from the waters its shell fish to make purple dies; they burrowed into the earth to extract silver; they opened up commerce wherever it was possible, exchanging such products of the East as woven fabrics and highly-wrought metal work. They built factories on islands and promontories, and gave to the towns along the coast-line—especially of the eastern side of Greece—Phœnician names. Troubling but little about inland situations, they made their strong settlements to be their island homes.
Although eventually the Phœnicians were driven out of the Ægean, yet their effect on the inhabitants of Greece was a lasting one. As Greece had received from the Phœnicians her first culture, so she had adopted their religion and their species of ships. We shall see, presently, how very similar the ships of the Greeks and Phœnicians were. But before proceeding thus far, let us remember that, though the Phœnicians were developing while the Egyptians were declining, yet, indubitably, they owed a vast amount to the civilisation of the latter. Why the Phœnicians, more than any other people, were influenced by the Egyptians is not hard to understand if we realise that they alone were allowed to trade to the mouths of the Nile. The Egyptians guarded their kingdom inviolate against all other merchants of the Mediterranean, although Achaian pirates from the North at times swept down to the Nile Delta. Not until the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, when Egypt was reunited, and again made a strong kingdom, were the Milesian and other Greek traders allowed to begin commercial operations with the land of the Pharaohs.
Broadly speaking, the Phœnician ships were identical with those of about the time of Ramases III. (1200 B.C.). The fixed yard, the absence of boom, the brails suspending from the yard, the sweep of the lines aft to the overhanging stern, the double steering oar—these characteristics, which in the last chapter we left with the Egyptians, are all seen in the ships of the Phœnicians. The chief noticeable difference is that the latter have altered the bow so that she has a ram. It was the Phœnicians, too, who invented the bireme and trireme in order that speed might be obtained through increasing the height without adding to the length of the ship. The ships become somewhat larger than those of the Egyptians, for the reason that they have to voyage much further afield. Consequently the sail is sometimes found bigger, too, and instead of four brails, six is the usual number seen. The Phœnician bireme had as many as eleven or twelve rowers each side, sails being only used in a fair wind, but never at all in battle. In addition to its crew of seamen, a Phœnician trireme often carried thirty marines, sometimes of a nation different from the Phœnicians.
Right to the end, even when decline had at last taken the place of a rise, the Phœnicians remained good sailormen. Whenever a superior foe overcame them, they were used by their new master with deadly effect against his next enemy. We have an instance of this in the fifth century B.C., when, Phœnicia and Cyprus having been defeated by Cambyses, the latter utilised the strong Phœnician fleet against Amasis, the Egyptian king. And again, in the following century, when Xerxes had enforced the most rigorous conscription, and every maritime people in his dominions had been compelled to put forth its full strength, we find it recorded that the most trustworthy portion of the fleet, far superior to the Egyptians, was composed of ships of the Phœnician cities, the kings of Tyre and Sidon appearing in person, each at the head of his own contingent. Other things being equal, that side was usually victorious which had the Phœnicians with them. For the Phœnicians had the instinct of sailormen; they knew how to build and design their ships to withstand a fight; they had the ships, they had the men, and, what was more important still, they knew how to use both.
But the Phœnicians were more than mere traders or fighters: they were the world’s greatest explorers—until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of our era. It was they who voyaged out of the Mediterranean across the turbulent Bay of Biscay to Cornwall and perhaps Ireland. I am of the firm opinion that they also continued their travels further eastward across the North Sea: we will deal with that, however, in the next chapter. At any rate about the beginning of the sixth century B.C. they circumnavigated Africa, obeying the orders of Neco, an Egyptian king, “who”—to continue in Hakluyt’s Elizabethan English—“(for trial’s sake) sent a fleet of Phœnicians downe the Red sea: who setting forth in the Autumne and sailing Southward till they had the Sunne at noone-tide upon their sterbourd (that is to say, having crossed the Æquinoctial and the Southerne tropique) after a long Navigation, directed their course to the North, and in the space of 3. yeeres environed all Africk, passing home through the Gaditan streites, and arriving in Egypt.”[11]
It was the Phœnicians, too, who with the Israelites in the time of Solomon sailed down the Red Sea to Eastern Africa, Persia, and Beluchistan. Some, indeed, have thought that the Phœnicians sailed out of the Mediterranean and keeping their course to the westward were the first to discover America. Whether this is true or not is a matter for dispute, but it is quite possible. I have seen a little seven-ton cutter yacht that came across on her own bottom, and she is not half the size of the old Phœnician ships. Nor had she a few dozen galley slaves on board to pull at the oars: still less the room wherein to stow them.[12] There is, then, nothing at all improbable in the Phœnicians having gone so far afield. They were not pressed for time, and could afford to wait till the weather suited them. Given a fair wind they could not have had better shaped canvas for the voyage than theirs. Every sailor will tell you that there is nothing to beat the squaresail for ocean passages, and those who have tried the fore-and-aft rig for deep-sea sailing have lived to wish they had had a rectangular sail set across the mast, so as to avoid the fear of gybing as in a fore-and-after. Lord Brassey, when, in the famous race across the Atlantic in 1905, he commanded his own yacht the Sunbeam, afterwards endorsed these opinions about the respective merits of the square-sail and of the fore-and-aft rig.
Moreover, the Phœnicians had ample brails for reefing. True, the ship would roll considerably with so shallow a keel, but her length would be of some assistance, and no doubt the skipper would see to it that the crew steadied her with their oars.
Either from the Egyptians or the Phœnicians—but almost certainly from the latter—the people down the east coast of Africa learnt the art of navigation pretty thoroughly, for we know from Hakluyt that when, at the end of the fifteenth century of our era, Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope and called at the East African ports, he found that the arts of navigation were as well understood by the Eastern seamen as by himself. This would seem to imply that these Africans had years ago reached the state of advancement in sailing a ship already possessed by the more civilised parts of the world.
Our evidence as to the actual shape and rig of the Phœnician craft is of two kinds. Firstly, thanks to the discoveries of the late Sir Austin Layard and his successors, we have one or two representations of ships. One of these is a rowing boat pure and simple, very tubby, and obviously never intended to be used with a sail. Secondly, we have the evidence of coins of the towns of Phœnicia. I have been so fortunate as to be able to reproduce two of the latter, both being of Sidon.
With regard to the first class, these date back to a period of about 700 B.C. On a relief belonging to the Palace of Sennacherib found near Nineveh, and now in the British Museum, and also on a relief of the Palace of Khorsabad, built by King Sargon, there are depicted ancient Phœnician ships. This latter is now in the Louvre. But these reliefs do not tell us very much, though they are of assistance if read in conjunction with the coins. The upper deck of the ship from the Sennacherib Palace was reserved for the combatants while fighting, and for persons of quality when making a passage. We see the latter reclining in the sunshine, and the look-out man in the bows. A mast with forestay, braces and sail furled to the yard, would be also on the top deck, but these would be of no considerable size. A row of shields ran round as a protection against the enemy’s darts, and the stem ended in a powerful ram. At least seventeen oarsmen in two banks on each side worked the ship, while a couple of steering oars, after the manner of the Egyptians, kept her on her course. This was a bireme for war purposes.
But the ship depicted in the Palace of Khorsabad, while not showing any sail, indicates very clearly a mast with stays leading fore and aft to the bow (which ends in a horse’s head) and to the stern. The shape of this craft, if it was anything like the Phœnician ships, which came to Northern Europe, would certainly seem to prove that the Phœnicians continued their voyage further east to Norway; for here, with the high tapering stern and bow, and the decoration of the latter, is what could very easily be taken for the early design of the Viking ships. She is entirely different from the Egyptian type of ship, though she has evidently been based on the latter.
Passing now to the two coins of Sidon, these are both probably of about the year 450 B.C. Fig. 9 is from a coin in the British Museum. It is a little indistinct, but the Egyptian stern is still seen, though the ram, as already referred to, is at the bows. The double steering oars are faintly visible, though the long line of shields, which survived well into the middle ages, is clearly defined. The curve of the keel-line is very beautiful, and she must have been very fast, as indeed we know from historians similar shaped vessels in Greece were. Although such a ship was of great length, yet by reason of the curve of the keel, having the greatest depth amidships, and because of the design of the stern, she would probably steer pretty easily. This, of course, was essential in the naval manœuvres that were undertaken in fights. As to the sails, if the reader has already followed us in the previous chapter, these call for but little explanation again. The yard is ordinarily kept fixed. The sails hang apparently in two sections like so many curtains, being divided at the mast. The same peculiarity is to be seen in the Irrawadi junks referred to previously.
For shortening sail in a blow, or for stowing when coming to anchor, the six brails seen depending from the yard would be wound round the sail, once or twice, by sending a couple of men to the top of the yard, the crew below throwing up the rope to be passed round sail and yard. It was a clumsy method, but it sufficed. The reader may remember that the Dutchmen have used this principle since the sixteenth century, and the Thames barge of to-day still follows the general idea. The only real difference is that in the Dutchman and Thames barge, being fore-and-aft rigged, the brail comes horizontally—at right angles to the mast—instead of vertically, and parallel to the mast, whilst, of course, going aloft is unnecessary. Even this Dutch brailing system was derived from that used by the lateen-sails of the Mediterranean. (See the mizzen of the Santa Maria, in Fig. 45.) In detail, too, there is a slight difference, for the modern ships we are mentioning have a ring, or fair-lead, for the brail to come through, one end being fastened to the sail, the standing part passing through the ring on the leach of the sail and so back to the mast.
What we have said regarding this illustration is applicable also to Fig. 10. But happily this shows us some important details in the stern. First, the staff with crescent-top denotes that she was the admiral’s flagship. The curved-line immediately below represents part of the structure called the aphlaston (ἀ + Φλαζω = I crush). This was placed as a protection for the ship against the terrible damage that might be done by the enemy charging into her and ramming her. A still better example of this detail will be noticed in Fig. 14. One can easily trace this as having come from the Egyptian ships of the eighteenth dynasty that went to Punt. Immediately below this, in Fig. 10 again, and hanging down, may be either a protection against the enemy or, as will be seen in the ship of Odysseus (Fig. 16), a kind of decoration resembling some rich carpet, to ornament the stern where the admiral was located in authority. This second Phœnician illustration is from a coin in the Hunterian Collection, Glasgow.
It has been said that some of the larger Phœnician ships were as long as 300 feet, though this statement needs to be taken with caution. At any rate, it is accurate to describe them as being long, straight, narrow, and flat-bottomed, and as carrying sometimes as many as fifty oarsmen. Although the crescent-shape had for so long a time been almost a convention for the design of the ship, yet the nation that could found so important and prosperous a colony as Carthage, and that built ships both for Egyptians and Persians, would not be likely to be held down too tightly by custom where their own clever genius and invaluable practical experience taught them otherwise. By completely modifying the bow as it had been customary in the Egyptian ships, the Phœnicians started a new fashion in naval architecture which, permeating through Greek and Roman history, is still found in the galleys of the Adriatic as late as the eighteenth century of our era. Those bows, with or without the ram, even on a Maltese sailing galley, show their ancient Phœnician ancestry in an undeniable manner.
Our information regarding ancient Greek and Roman ships is derived from the following sources: the writings of Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Cicero, Cæsar, Tacitus, Xenophon, Lucian, Pliny, Livy, Æschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Plutarch, Sophocles, and others; the inventories of the Athenian arsenals of the fourth century B.C.; ancient Greek vases; reliefs discovered in Southern Europe at various periods; monuments and tombs; mosaics found in North Africa, ancient coins; the Voyages of St. Paul; and finally ancient remains such as fibulæ, terra-cotta models, and earthenware lamps.
From these diverse channels of information we find that the Phœnicians who invented the bireme and the trireme, who had adopted the Egyptian stern and rigging for their ships, handed these features on to the Greeks, and they, in turn, to the Romans. The earliest Greek ships were afloat in the thirteenth century B.C., and by about the year 800 B.C. maritime matters had taken the greatest hold on the dwellers in the Greek peninsula and the western coasts of Asia Minor. The fierce race for wealth which to-day we see going on in America had its precedent in the eighth century before the Christian era in the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean. Very quickly the contestants found that the shortest route to affluence was viâ the sea. Indeed, following the example of their first teachers, the Phœnicians, so zealously did they keep to their ships that the Milesian sea-traders formed a party in the State known as “the men never off the water.” In the seventh century, if not earlier, the Greeks were prosperously fishing in the Black Sea; and though the dangers of rounding Mount Athos in the Ægean were in those days to some extent analogous to the perils which a sailing ship to-day suffers in doubling Cape Horn, yet in the fourth century B.C., Xerxes, rather than risk a series of shipwrecks to his fleet in the stormy seas at the foot of this mountain, had the sandy isthmus connecting the mainland pierced with a canal.
Greece lacked the advantage to be found in a Tigris, a Euphrates, or Nile. Her rivers are so short, and their descent to the sea so rapid, that navigation was utterly impossible. But for what she missed in rivers she was amply compensated in respect of the peculiar formation of the coast. Endowed with the same blessing that makes the west coast of Scotland so attractive (but happily without the drawback of the Atlantic immediately outside the lochs), Greece had her delightful inlets and arms of the seas running far up into the land. The peaceful waters of the Grecian archipelago, the mildness of its climate, the absence of tides, the comparative smoothness of the water—except for occasional squalls with a nasty short sea—these were factors every bit as encouraging for the art of navigation as ever the conditions that smiled on the Egyptians. In some respects they were more stimulating in proportion as the sea makes a better sailor than even the biggest river. Add to this that there was at hand an ample supply of good wood and that the southern shores of the Euxine were rich not merely in timber but in iron, copper and red-lead. Could the shipbuilder’s paradise possibly be more complete?
There was just one drawback from which, as it seems to me, the nations on the Mediterranean compared with the inhabitants of Northern Europe have always suffered: even till to-day, or at any rate up to the introduction of steam, the tendency of the Mediterraneans has been to build sailing boats rather than sailing ships. The very conditions that prompted naval architecture at all limited their scope. I mean, of course, that whereas along the coasts washed by the Baltic, the North Sea and the English Channel, the sea-farers had either to build a ship or nothing, the case in the Mediterranean was different. The treacherous waters of the North Sea or Baltic, the existence of dangerous sand banks and rushing tides, were an unfair match for delicately designed craft accustomed to sun-speckled seas. Although the Viking craft had their full complement of rowers, yet they were far abler ships than the over-oared boats of Greece and those of the early days of Rome. Right down to the time of the Spanish Armada, and after, the tendency was ever for the galley or galleass—the rowed ship rather than the sailing ship—to linger as long as possible, whereas in the North the reverse has been the case. I attribute the prevalence of the “galley” type of craft to two causes—the geographical conditions of Southern Europe and the abundance of slaves. When any amount of physical rowing power could be got with such ease and absence of expense, it was not likely that the sailing ship, per se, would advance. I think there can be no doubt at all that this condition of affairs kept back both the rig and design of shipping for very many years. The Southerner’s first aim was to create a craft that would be fast; the Northerner’s object was to have a ship that would be seaworthy. The difference between being able to ride out a gale and that of being able to manœuvre with all possible despatch in comparatively sheltered waters, will be found to be the basis of the characteristic features that separate the craft of Northern and Southern Europe.
In Fig. 11 we have some indication of a Greek sailing ship or boat of about the eighth century, when, as we have just said, there existed the great passion for the sea as a means to wealth. This illustration has been sketched from a Bœotian fibula, made of bronze, and now in the British Museum. The boat has not the appearance of being particularly seaworthy, although it is perfectly clear that she is a sailing craft. The aphlaston already alluded to will be noticed at the stern. The bow shows the Phœnician influence with its ram-like features, and this characteristic continued to exist with similar prominence till at any rate the beginning of the Christian era. Opinions differ as to whether the teeth-like projections at bow and stern are just the extending horizontal timbers. Personally, I believe they are separate fixtures with bronze or iron tips, those at the bow for preventing the ram going too far into the enemy’s ship; those at the stern affording a protection against being rammed by the enemy. The forestay leads down to what is apparently a primitive forecastle, and the man in the stern is standing on a platform, but so crude is the draughtsmanship that it would be unsafe to affirm that this was raised as high as the forecastle. Some have thought that this stern arrangement may denote a latticed cabin, but this seems doubtful. However, it is quite clear that the skipper is either steering or rowing with his foot as the primitive gondolier, while his mate is busy as the look-out. The design at the top of the mast has been thought to be a lantern, but it might also be a flag.
Although not shown in this example, many of the early Greek ships had two forestays and a backstay. The mast was supported at its foot by a prop, and when lowered it lay aft in a rest, being raised and lowered by means of the forestays, like the custom of the Thames barge and the Norfolk wherry-man. Fig. 12 represents a war-galley taken from a Greek vase of about 500 B.C. It will be found in the Second Vase Room of the British Museum. The sail (ἱστίον) will be seen hanging from the yard, together with the brails as already described. The two halyards come down on either side of the mast. We should presume that, having the brails, the Greek ships were accustomed to reefing: but we have actual evidence from the expression used by Aristophanes “ἄκροισι χρῆσθαι ἱστίος,” “to keep the sails close-reefed.” Similarly Euripides has the phrase “ἄκροισι λαίφουσ κραπέδοις,” “under close-reefed sails” (lit. “with the outermost edges of the sail”). The reefing method is better shown in Fig. 13. If it came on to blow two hands would be sent aloft to go out along the yard. The brails one by one would be thrown up to the men, who would pass each brail once or thrice round the yard, according to the number of reefs required to be taken in. Fig. 13 shows a ship close-reefed. That this is no fanciful picture will be seen by the reader who cares to compare the relief on the tomb of Naevoleja Tyche at Pompei,[13] on which will be noticed one man on deck getting ready the brails to throw them up, while two other members of the crew are already out on the yard, and two more still are climbing up the rigging to help them, probably by taking up the ends of the brails.
Each yard was composed of two spars lashed together as in the Maltese galley and Japanese junk of to-day. The Latin word for a yard was always used in the plural—antennæ—to signify the two parts lashed in one. The boar’s head—a very favourite symbol for this purpose in early ships—will be noticed at the bow of the war-galley in Fig. 12. Above it is the forecastle, and running thence astern is a flying deck, in order that the fighting men might not hinder the work of the rowers. The two banks of oars will be immediately noticed. Astern sits the steersman with his two steering-oars. That which hangs from the stern below is the gangway for going aboard. The crew either hauled their ships ashore at night, or, laying out anchors from the bows seaward, carried stern ropes ashore to a rock. The gangway shown was lowered to the land side, and the crew came aboard from aft. The reader who is familiar with the Yorkshire cobble and the method adopted for beaching by the fishermen on the coast above the Humber will find additional interest in this.
The ship in Fig. 13 is a merchantman. The gangways are very noticeable. So also is the Egyptian stern with the steering oars. Amidships will be seen the wattled screens or washboards, acting as bulwarks for keeping out the spray. A similar arrangement was customary on the Viking ships, and remains to this day on Norwegian ships of that kind. At the stern of both this ship and that of the previous figure will be noticed an ornament resembling some plant. Perhaps to us moderns the most striking feature of the ship is her beautiful bow: indeed, had one not seen the actual vase, one might easily have said that the design was taken from a modern schooner bow. There are so many points about this merchant ship that attract us in looking at her that we wonder, not unnaturally, if we have advanced so much after all during these fourteen hundred years since she was designed, for such a bow and such a stern would win applause in any port.
The war-galleys were called longships, and the merchant vessels roundships. This aptly describes the chief difference which separated them. Whilst the former were essentially rowing-ships, depending on oars only as auxiliaries, the merchant ship was primarily a sailing vessel. Nevertheless she carried twenty oars, not so much for progression as for turning the ship’s head off the wind, and perhaps for getting under way and in entering harbour. These trading ships were generally built throughout of pine, while the war galleys were of fir, cypress, cedar, or pine, according to the nature of the forests at hand. The merchantmen had keels of pine, but were provided with false keels of oak when they had to be hauled ashore or put on a slip for repairs or other reasons. It was the custom, however, to keep the merchant ships afloat. We have already pointed out that the galleys, on the contrary, were usually hauled ashore at night, and since the friction of their keels would tend to split the wood it was customary for these latter to be of oak. The masts and yards and oars were of fir or pine. The timber for the keel was selected with especial care, as indeed with so much hard wear and tear it was necessary. Among other woods that were also used may be mentioned plane, acacia, ash, elm, mulberry and lime—these being employed especially for the interior of the hull. Alder, poplar and timber of a balsam tree were used also. Like the Koryaks and the very earliest inhabitants of Northern Europe, in some outlandish districts of the Mediterranean the sides of the ship were of leather instead of wood, but this would be only in cases where the inhabitants were still unlearned or there was a scarcity of timber.
The ancients did not allow the timber to season thoroughly, because it would become thereby too stiff to bend. Steaming boxes apparently had not come into use in shipbuilding. However, after the tree was felled it was allowed some time for drying, and then, when the ship was built, some time elapsed for the wood to settle. The seams were caulked with tow and other packing, being fixed with tar or wax, the underbody of the ship being coated with wax, tar, or a combined mixture, the wax being melted over a fire until soft enough to be laid on with a brush. Seven kinds of paint were used, viz., purple, violet, yellow, blue, two kinds of white, and green for pirates in order that their resemblance to the colour of the waves might make them less conspicuous. As we shall see in Fig. 21, elaborate designs were painted along the sides, but this appears to have been a later custom. The latest discoveries in Northern Africa show this decoration round the side to be very frequent about the second century of the Christian era. Earlier Greek ships had only patches of colour on the bows, blue or purple, or vermilion; the rest of the hull was painted with black tar like many of the coasters and fishing smacks of to-day. The painting on the bows was probably to facilitate the recognition of the direction taken by a vessel. Ships were not copper-bottomed, but sometimes a sheathing of lead with layers of tarred sail-cloth interposed between was affixed to the hull.
Nails of bronze and iron, and pegs of wood were used for fastening the planking, the thickness of the latter varying from 2¼ to 5¼ inches. In order to fortify the warships against the terrible shock of ramming, she had to be strengthened by wales running longitudinally around her sides. Fig. 14 shows the stern of a Greek ship of about the fifth century B.C. The wales or strengthening timbers just mentioned will be easily seen. Fig. 15 exhibits another example of the boar’s-head bow. These two illustrations are taken from a coin of Phaselis, in Lycia, now preserved in the British Museum. The aphlaston will be immediately recognised in Fig. 14.
Like the Egyptian ships, these ancient vessels were also provided with a stout cable—the ὑπόζωμα in Greek, tormentum in Latin. The spur for ramming was shod with metal—iron or copper—and was at first placed below the water line, but subsequently came above it. The space between the oar-ports was probably about three feet, each oarsman occupying about five feet of room in width. A galley having thirty-one seats for rowing would have about seventeen feet of beam. The draught of these warships was nevertheless very small—perhaps not more than four or five feet.
The old method of naval warfare consisted in getting right up to the enemy and engaging him alongside in a hand-to-hand fight, spears and bows and arrows being used. There is an Etruscan vase in the British Museum of the sixth century, which shows this admirably. At a later date this method was altered in favour of ramming. The ship would bear down on the enemy, and an endeavour would be made to come up to him in such a way as to break off all his oars at one side, thereby partially disabling him. But if the enemy were smart enough, he would be able to go on rowing until the critical moment, when with great dexterity, he would suddenly shorten his oars inwards. We have also referred to the protection of the stern against the wicked onslaught of the ram, but the ship ramming, lest her spur should penetrate too far into the enemy’s stern and so break off, had usually, above, a head which acted as a convenient buffer. But we must not forget that sails and mast were lowered before battle, since the galley was much more handy under oars alone. The excitement of a whole week’s bumping races on the Isis must be regarded as very slow compared to the strenuous plashing of oars, the shouts of the combatants, and the ensuing thud and splintering of timbers that characterised a Mediterranean engagement.
The reader will find in Fig. 16 one of the finest specimens of a Greek sailing galley with one bank of oars. It is taken from a vase in the Third Room in the British Museum, the date being about 500 B.C. As many as eight brails are shown here. The number of these gradually became so great that we find in the Athenian inventories of the fourth century B.C. that the rigging of a trireme and quadrireme included eighteen brails. No doubt, as time went on, it was found more convenient to be able to brail the sail up at closer intervals. In the present illustration the sail is furled right up to the yard and the rowers are doing all the work. Before passing on to another point we must not fail to notice the fighting bridge or forecastle, the shape of the blades of the oars, and the decoration of the stern previously alluded to. A capital instance here is afforded us of the ever watchful eye which we mentioned in our introductory chapter as being a notable feature of the ancient ship. It is worth while remarking, as showing the extent of this practice, that a representation of an eye is still to be found as a distinguishing attribute on the Portuguese fishing boats to-day.
At the very first, on the Greek as on the Egyptian ships, thongs were used for rowlocks, but subsequently holes were left, as seen in the illustration, for the oars to be passed through. Because the mast had to be taken down before battle, the war galleys were not fully decked all over. Amidships she was open, but, as we have already seen bridges or gangways extended fore and aft on either side of the mast, so that the fighting crew should in no way interfere with the oarsmen. Partial decks were also found at bow and stern. Even in the time of Cæsar, we find that completely covered vessels were not in general use. These flying bridges were placed on supports and then covered with planks as shown in Fig. 12, leaving the intermediate hold undecked. The sail was made of several pieces of white canvas or cloth. Not infrequently they were coloured, a black sail being a universal sign of mourning, while a purple or vermilion denoted the ship of an admiral or sovereign. Just as pirates were wont to paint their ships the colour of the sea, so in the time of war, on board scout-ships, both sails and ropes were dyed of that hue. One can easily understand that with the powerful rays of the southern sun their disguise would have been effectual.
Ropes were made of twisted ox-hide, or fibres of the papyrus plant. This was the usual practice for many years also in other parts of Europe. The edges of the sail were bound with hide, the skins of hyena and seal being especially used for this purpose, as the sailors believed this would keep off lightning. The Koryaks, also, still employ seal-hide for sails and ropes. Later on, windlasses were introduced for working the halyards and cables of the larger ships. After the crew had gone aboard the galley, and everything was ready for getting under way, the gangway would be slung from the stern, and three poles would be used for pushing off from the shore. It is interesting to remark that the word used for this pole by Homer—κοντὸς.—is still found in the word “quant,” given to a long pole for pushing the Norfolk wherries in calms along the banks.
The vessel shown in Fig. 17 is a terra-cotta model of a merchant ship. The socket for the mast will easily be seen. The high stern aft must not be supposed to have been raised to such an altitude solely for the convenience of the steersman. The greatest foe that the merchantman had to contend with was the pirate who swept down and robbed him of his cargo. Therefore, to obtain some protection, these traders were usually fitted with turrets of great height, by means of which missiles could be hurled down on to the enemy below. It is possible that the side “castles” shown were also used as some protection for the steersmen, one standing in each with the protection of a roof over him. Probably, too, on these occasions the score of oars would be brought out in order to manœuvre quickly. A merchant ship sometimes carried as many as eight of these turrets (two in the bows, two in the stern and four amidships). They were easily movable and were known to have reached to a height of twenty feet. The model here shown belongs to the sixth century B.C. It will be noticed that she has a very flat bottom, but this would be a convenience whenever she had to be beached, for there were only two sailing seasons—in the spring, and in the months between midsummer and autumn. After the setting of the Pleiads, the ship was beached and a stone fence built around her to keep off wind and weather. This custom, then, would somewhat modify her lines below the waterline. It was, further, the custom to pull the plug out when laying up for the winter, so that the water should not rot the bottom. Tackle and sail and steering oars were carefully stored at home until the fair weather returned once more. These were the customs as far back as 700 B.C.
The model we have just alluded to was found in Cyprus, and is now in the British Museum. Many others similar to this have also been found. There is an amusing legend that Kinyras, king of Cyprus, having promised to send fifty ships to help the Greeks against Troy, sent only one, but she carried forty-nine others of terra-cotta manned by terra-cotta figures.
Although the Phœnicians probably must be credited with the honour of having invented the trireme, a ship with a triple arrangement of oars, yet the Greeks were responsible for having developed the use of this to a considerable extent, especially after the fifth century B.C. Eventually the word “trireme” denoted not necessarily that she had this triple arrangement, but became a generic expression for warships. We have in later history similar instances of the same designation remaining to a ship even when she has entirely altered the right to her previous definition. Thus the galleass, which was essentially a rowing vessel, frequently bore the same name during the Middle Ages, even when she was a sailing ship proper. A similar instance may be found in the different meanings which the words “barge,” “wherry,” “yawl,” “cutter,” and “barque” denote at different times.
Triremes had two kinds of sails and two kinds of masts, but before battle the larger sail and the larger mast were always put ashore. Such enormous yards and masts would be very much in the way on boats of this kind. Regarding the arrangement of the oars of the trireme much controversy has been raised. The theories of thirty or more banks of oars have now been pretty well dismissed. The amount of freeboard that this would have given to a ship must necessarily have been colossal, and militated against the very object they had in view, viz., handiness. It is highly probable that the crew consisted of two hundred rowers, sixty-two on the highest tier, fifty-four on the middle and fifty-four on the lowest, in addition to thirty fighting men stationed on the highest deck. The upper oars would thus pass over what we now call the gunwale, the second and third rows being through port holes. Even when very large numbers of oarsmen are mentioned, we must not suppose that there were so many lines of rowers as that; several men were needed to each oar. Considering their weight and the size of later ships, this would seem to be very necessary.
Before we pass from the subject of the trireme, it is not without interest to mention that in the year 1861 Napoleon III. had constructed a trireme 39 metres in length and 5½ metres in beam. She carried 130 oarsmen, who were placed two by two. Of these forty-four were on the first row, the same number on the second, and forty-two on the top. Like her ancestors she had a three-fold spur, a rostrum, and two steering oars. But to us a far more important piece of information lies in the fact that she was actually experimented with on the sea at Cherbourg in good weather. It was found that she bore out all that had ever been written by the ancient historians concerning her: for she was both very fast and could be manœuvred with great ease.[14] According to the ancients, a trireme could average as much as seven and a half knots an hour, covering one hundred and ten during a day. The merchant ship was going at a good pace when she reeled off her five knots an hour. Her average was about sixty knots in a day: but during a whole day and night, with a favourable wind, she was capable of doing as much as a hundred and thirty. Comparing this speed with the craft of to-day, it may be worth noting that the average day’s run of a moderate-sized coaster would work out at a hundred or hundred and twenty knots. The speed of the ships of the Mediterranean was not slow, then, though they would appear ridiculous if compared with some of the marvellous passages made by the famous old clippers of the second half of the nineteenth century of our era.
The navigation employed by the Greeks was that of coasting from port to port, from one headland across a bay to another. There was no such thing, of course, as being able to lay a compass course from one point to another out of sight. The system of buoyage was also non-existent, but there were lighthouses, as we know from designs on ancient pottery and reliefs. On certain points of the land the Greeks erected high towers, the most ancient of these being at the entrance to the Ægean Sea—about 800 B.C. Later, about the period of 300 B.C., a tower was raised on the island of Pharos, near Alexandria. At its summit two wooden fires were kept burning constantly, so that the flame by night and the smoke by day might aid the primitive navigators. In the fourth century B.C., however, Pytheas, by means of an instrument called the gnomon, which indicated the height of the sun by the direction of the shadow cast on a flat surface, determined the day of the summer solstice, to which the greatest height of the sun corresponds. He thus succeeded in fixing the latitude of Marseilles.