Ships & Ways of Other Days - E. Keble Chatterton

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practically all their seafaring energy. Their general naval strategy consisted of two kinds. The first consisted in reproducing afloat the principles of fighting on shore. To this end the galleys were massed with troops as many as they could hold, and so soon as the engaging combatants could get close enough they attacked each other with spears and shot arrows from their bows. The victory therefore came to that floating army which had the most numerous and ablest soldiers. Brute force rather than tactics: energy rather than skill won the day.

      And thus it continued until about the end of the fifth century B.C., when another method of fighting was introduced and developed by the Athenians to its most perfect state. This consisted as follows: The well-manned, quickly-darting galley shot out against the enemy, pecked deeply—viciously—with its beak, and then hurried out of the danger sphere as quickly as it had entered. Connected with the general strategy of ramming there were two distinct schemes of tactics employed. The first was called diekplous, or sailing through. This consisted of breaking the enemy’s line. A single line of galleys would pass between the enemy’s line, make a sharp turn, and then swoop down on to them from astern, doing the utmost damage with their rams. The other was technically known as periplous, or sailing around, and consisted in outflanking the enemy’s ships so as to charge them with the beak against their broadside. Thus it will be seen that neither of these manœuvres involved a direct prow-to-prow attack, for the reason that the Athenian ships were too light as to the bows. Prior to a fight protective awnings of sailcloth or horsehair were spread over the open spaces on these galleys, and every protection that could be afforded the essential oarsmen was provided. Everything points to the fact that the Greek fleets were properly organised and drilled. An admiral’s ship was distinguished by a flag as well as any purple or vermilion sail which she might carry so as most easily to be discernible across the waters. When the fleet was at sea doing a passage before a fair wind bound for the battle area, the admiral’s sail would in itself be sufficient for a sign. But, as already emphasised, sails were lowered before the battle commenced, and it is probable that either the flag was displayed somewhere about the ship in that case, or that some other method, such as the colour of the hull, was employed to cause the discrimination. It is probable that the Greek admiral’s ship at night, like that of the Roman admiral, carried three lights, the other warships having one light each, except the transports, which were distinguished by two.

      Shield Signalling.

      In battle a national flag was used so as to facilitate recognition of one’s own vessels from those of the enemy. And, as illustrative of the development of the early naval tactics, it is well to notice that there existed a signalling code—the displaying of a purple flag, for instance, being the signal for going into action. Mr. Torr mentions the interesting fact that attempts were made at semaphoring with a single flag, and further at signalling by flashing the sunlight from a shield. In addition to the above, signals were made for getting under way, for altering the formation of the fleet, for bringing-to, as well as for disembarking troops.

      Their seamanship was necessarily simple, because their ships had no complicated gear and were primarily rowing craft. We know that they used the sounding lead armed with grease, and the numerous landmarks of the Ægean Sea and the neighbouring waters would be more than well known to those in command of the ships sailing. When one thinks of the bare simplicity of the Mediterranean galley, the fighting ship of Tudor times with all its sails and rigging and running gear points to a far more elaborate species of seamanship with a corresponding increase of anxiety. As to the division in supervising the ship’s work, the officers consisted as follows: The captain of the trireme—called trierarchos—was in supreme command of his ship. Under him came the kubernetes or helmsman. Then forward stood the officer in command of the bow—the proreus or look-out man. Under these three officers the ship was manœuvred in such a manner that either the enemy’s hull might be pierced or, at any rate, his protruding lines of oars smashed into splinters, thus rendering him an easy prey.

      For the most part the representations of ancient classical ships have been so carefully made that they have every appearance of accuracy, taking into consideration the possibilities of wind, sails, and sea, but occasionally mistakes are made which show that the artist certainly was not a seaman. In the accompanying illustration9 we have an instructive picture of a penteconter. She sets two sails with a bowline shown on the mizzen, but interesting as the picture is in many ways, yet the sails are clearly not set in accordance with the wind. The steering oar at the side and the flag on the staff at the bows will be immediately noticed.

      Greek Penteconter from an Ancient Vase.

      That the artist was not a seaman is obvious from the ludicrous way in which the sails are depicted.

      To sum up, then, the Greek seamen evolved their ships as follows: Like the Egyptians and Phœnicians before them, they began with a penteconter, which means that each man pulled an oar and that there was but one tier of twenty-five on either side of the ship. Next, inasmuch as they wanted increased power and speed—possibly because the ships were being built more strongly and thus needed more vehemently to be rammed—so they had to increase the number of their oarsmen and to lengthen their ship. This involved a risk of hogging, so the hull was engirdled; or when that was dispensed with a deck was added to join forecastle and poop, and gave facilities for a second tier of rowers. In the next step we get the introduction of triremes, quadriremes, and quinquiremes, which multiplied the number of men rowing from each bench, but placed all the men on one bench pulling their oars through the same porthole. After this come the monstrosities of the powerful Egyptian, Sicilian, and other kings, in whose ships each oar was probably pulled by any number of men from six to forty. But luxury certainly came afloat at no late date. Professor Flinders Petrie calls attention10 to the extraordinary analogy between the work of the Mykenæans and that of the Egyptians in the grandly embroidered squaresails painted in the frescoes at Mykenæ. Certainly as far back as 232 B.C. there were mosaics to be seen on the magnificent ship of Hiero II of Syracuse.11

      Not less interesting were the ships and ways of ancient Rhodes, which in like manner had its dieres, trieres, tetreres, penteres, even up to seven- and nine-fold ships. In addition to these they had a swift type of their own invention, having one bank of oars, called celoces. They were wont, also, to use another fast type of craft called triemioliæ, which had no fighting deck stretching from end to end. The usual Rhodian naval tactics consisted in endeavouring to run through the enemy’s line and break the oars of his ships as they passed. Afterwards the Rhodians would then turn and ram them at the stern or else on the beam, always carrying away something that was essential for working the ship unless they could sink her forthwith.

      They were very fond of one device in particular. When they were positively compelled to ram stem to stem they used to make provision by depressing their own bows as deep as possible in the water, so that while the enemy’s ram struck them high above the water-line, the Rhodian teeth holed the other ship well below the water. After the impact was over and the two ships fell apart the enemy was in a sinking condition, whereas the Rhodian could, by removing his ballast and some of his men aft, elevate his bows well above the water-line. But just as was discovered in modern ironclads fitted with rams, it was found that the rammer often came off as grievously as the rammed. At the battle of Chios in 201 B.C. one galley left her ram in the enemy’s ship, promptly filled and sank. At the battle of Myonnesos in 190 B.C., when a Rhodian ship was ramming an enemy the anchor of the former caught in the latter. The Rhodian ship endeavoured to go astern to clear herself, but as she did so the cable got foul of her oars so that she was incapacitated and captured. During this same battle the Rhodians affixed braziers of fire which hung over the bows. In trying to avoid these, the Syrian ships exposed their broadsides to the Rhodian rams, so that it became a choice of two evils.

      The Rhodians were fine, able seamen, and well they needed to be. But even with the smart handling of their fast little craft they had all their work cut out to keep off the embarrassing attentions of the Cretan pirates during the second century B.C. On the biggest of their galleys the Rhodians erected deckhouses with portholes for their powerful catapults and archers.

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