Antic Warships

[pasanax]

I've been trying to get as much info about antic warships and as far as I've realised it is very obsecure. All that we have is an ocasonal description from an ancient historian and a few archeological evidences. The most famous antic warship, the trireme, is still very much a mystery. There are only a few rare hints from the past on which historians can create knowlidge.

 

I need these answers because I am building an antic Greek ship with model crew and I want to get as much info because I want the amount of detail to be as real as possible

 

Now questions that I need answered were hard for me to find online or in the books I've read. So I was wondering if any of  the naval history lovers of this forum could know answers.

 

1) Historians belive that the oarsmen of greek ships were free men and it was their proffesion. So were they trained to fight when naval combat turns into melee? Did they carry shields and spears arround with them and if it comes to that situation they would rise from their seats and defend? Was such a situation ever talked about in antic sources? I need this because my bireme model will have 48 rowers and I need to know if i should get 48 spears and shields to put them somewhere on the ship.

 

2) I know ships were given names by the Greeks (like Argo) but did they put the name somewhere on the ship? Is that known?

 

3) We all know that scene from Ben Hur where the crew of the ship rows in the beat of the drums. But did the Greek use drums aswell? I've read that they had a flutist on board but no one acctualy says what was sthe flutists role, maybe similar to the drummers? I have a 1/72 model of a drummer but it would be just plain wrong to put him on deck if the Greeks didn't practice that.

 

If anyone knows any useful information, doesn't have to be about my questions, I would really appritiate it.

 

Thanks!

[druxey]

Good questions. Perhaps you could ask the Classics Department at a local University. One of the professors might know the answers. I certainly don't!

[pasanax]

Well the funny thing is that I actualy study history, but there are no real experts on classical studies at my university. We had the best classical department in the country but it got disbanded due to their internal affairs. Very sad thing.

 

I guess I could share here what I found out so far about the crew of the trireme. Basicaly all the info you can find about greek naval warfare is about the trireme. 

 

Ancient warships were not built for large scale sailing so they always had to be near the shore. So sailing would be done during the day, and during the night the ships would dock and the crew would eat and sleep on the shore. So combat was never conducted in the open sea, and before they would engage they would leave anything they don't need on the shore, including the mast that would be taken down. When the ship was sailing all of the top deck crew would be sitting down, centered in the middle, so the ship doesen't lose its stability it needs for rowing (wich was fairly easy to happen).

 

Classical greek ships were based on speed and manuverability. They focused on ramming the enemy ship and tried to sink it that way, avoiding any boarding actions. Ramming another vessel required a lot of skill and training, and only the most experienced crew were able to do more compicated manouvers (like crushing oars of the enemy ship). With that approach the Greeks won their most famous naval battle, the battle of Salamis. They managed to defeat the enemy that outnumbered them with much larger ships, but manouverability and speed proved to be better than sheer size and strenght.

 

The trireme was praised by one of the ancient historians as a true depiction of the greek society. All of the crew in the lower decks were free men (this is atleast tought to be), and above them stood the men that were in the society above them. All of them, the rich and the poor, working together for a goal as true democracy that they treasured. Apparently the rowers were free men and it was their profession to be one. It required a lifetime of  training to do effectivly some of the complicated manouvers. The image of rowers bound in chains under the crack of a whip was constructed in the middle ages, since the Venetians use to do that. So the same view was about Romans and all of the rowers of ancient times, but the reality could be much different.

 

Now the number and consistancy of the crew onboard the trireme seems to vary depending on the situation. There are accounts that say a trireme had 200 men onboard, including 170 oarsmen, 16 hoplites, 4 archers, a ,,captain'' (i am keeping it simple and not going into real terms), deck officers, some ondeck sailors and a flutist. It is rather interesting how they only had 16 hoplite infantry on board, one would think what could they do with 16 men if they went into melee. Well, as far as I realise it, they avoided melee combat on seas so it was not needed to concentrate on heavy infantry on board. That is the reason why the Romans managed to defeat them at sea. Greeks had a far superior knowlidge of naval warfare, and the Romans never mastered it. 

 

But the Romans did a smart thing and turned  naval combat into land combat by constructing a bridge with a hook that they mounted on their ships (corvus). With that they would board the ships that rammed them, and since they put a significant number of infantry on board, those ,,16'' hoplites would soon find themselves in a difficult situation.

 

Now I couldn't find any info about a ship that I am building - the bireme. I am guessing that the crew of a bireme would be similar to the trireme, only in fewer numbers. Trireme had more than triple rowers than the bireme, but there is no info about the crew (so i sepose the deck crew numbers are atleast half of the trireme).

[trippwj]

These may not provide an answer, but they may steer you to further information:

 

Middleton, W.E.K. 1973. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli on the Construction of Galleys. The Mariner’s Mirror 59, no. 1: 3–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.1973.10657869.

 

Renn, J., and M. Valleriani. 2001. Galileo and the Challenge of the Arsenal. Preprint 179, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. presented at the Letture Galileiane, Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza. http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/content/shipbuilding/venice_arsenal/lettura_gal_html/LetturaGal.html?backLink=http%3A%2F%2Fecho.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de%2Fcontent%2Fshipbuilding%2Fvenice_arsenal&startLink=lettura_gal_html%2FLetturaGal.html%3FbackLink%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fecho.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de%252Fcontent%252Fshipbuilding%252Fvenice_arsenal.

 

I need to go back and figure out where I found these next 2 drawings:

 

 

[pasanax]

That is one really good picture! But i think its a Roman trireme because of the aquilla at the front and on the sides. I would like to find out more about the Greek warships.

 

And i wish the charts were readable on the side

Edited May 23, 2015 by pasanax

[druxey]

Wasn't there a trireme project about 20 years ago in England? A section of what they thought was the layout and construction was built, full size, and manned to see if the oars could work without fouling each other.

[mtaylor]

Was that the Olympias, Druxey?  There's videos on Youtube: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=trireme&tbm=vid

[druxey]

No, Mark. The project I recall was one by a British university and consisted of a short half-section amidships. The Greek Olympias (long before their current austerity measures!) may have been based on the results of that experiment.

[mtaylor]

Thanks Druxey.

[woodrat]

This may be of assistance

 

The trireme shown in trippwj's post is the reconstruction of 1861 suggested by Auguste Jal on the orders of Napoleon III. It was designed by Dupuy de Lome. It was an epic failure by all accounts.

 

Dick

 

[pasanax]

Hmm I haven't seen that book so far, might aswell look it up.

 

hahaha, epic failure?

[Louie da fly]

Pasanax, have you seen the Youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s_0bwC7Hi8 of the reconstruction and sailing trip of Jason's 50-oared Argo?

 

There's an article about her at http://www.argonautes2008.gr/en/argo-ship/new-argo-ship.html

 

The reconstruction looks very good to me - the construction method is correct, using tenons between the planks, so I think the research for her shape and layout was probably also correct.

 

I don't know the answers o the questions in your first post, but I've never herd of a drum being used on a Greek galley. I expect the oarsmen would have had spears and shields, though I don't remember seeing them on any contemporary pictures of the ships, so perhaps they were stored out of sight somewhere. I've also never heard of an ancient Greek galley's name being written anywhere on the ship - you might try reading such things as the story of Jason and the Argonauts and historical descriptions of voyages to see if it's mentioned. If not, I think you're safe leaving it off.

 

Best wishes,

 

Steven 

[pasanax]

Thank you Loiue, reading the argonauts mith is a really good advice. I haven't done that yet, but am sure i could find some interesting info there. And i've never seen that video before, I was more concentrated on the bireme/trireme that i forgot about the argonauts! ty!

[Louie da fly]

There are also many other ancient Greek sources, such as the Odyssey and perhaps the Iliad, as well as Thukydides (is that spelled right?) and other contemporary historians. Even with the fictional stories such as the Jason and the Argonuts, and the Odyssey, the author was writing for an audience who knew whether people wrote names on their ships, carried shields on board etc, so the information would probably be fairly reliable.

 

You may find also that if you contact the people who built the Argo reconstruction they might be able to help you. I think the article I linked to in my last post contains a contact section.

 

Steven

[pasanax]

Louie (Steven) I listened to your advice and I picked a book about myths that i had home (from Gustav Schwab, any mythlover should have it). There I started reading the myth about argonauts. So here is the thing: The ship that Argonauts sail on is a pentakora (50 oars in one row) that predates the bireme. The myth itself is happening way before the bireme and trireme time, before the Troyan war (that is still in bronze age if i recall good). So all of the crew are fighters and sailors at the same time, but the bireme and trireme had a much more complex hierarchy onboard so i belive that the Argo doesen't give a good representation of it, although it gives a good ''first hand'' look into their age of sailing (that could be before 1200BC). The period I am looking at is of 6th and 5th century BC But i will read the myth to the end and see if there is anything else of interest.

 

 

Furthermore i've done some progress on the ship naming. Basicaly i've found a picture of Olympias trireme from behind that shows the ships name carved into a piece of wood. So I will go with that, and do the same on my model

 

Here you can see the picture and the ships name on the left side.

Edited June 1, 2015 by pasanax