50

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

prove, that many of the vessels of antiquity were of dimensions infinitely largerthan modern ships, of what are called the line ; to say nothing of the verysplendid manner in which they were decorated, which indeed is very little tothe present purpose. To conclude, we may venture to assert, as a certainfact, that the galleys of the ancients were longer than any modern ships of war,though very narrow, and much less raised from the surface of the water, if weexcept the Octoremes, vessels with eight ranks, or, as some will have it, distincttiers of oars.

Though the foregoing account is extremely ingenious, perhaps we may withjusticesay, more so than the greater part of those hitherto published ; yet it is far fromsatisfactory in all points. Did not the express term of remigum ordines , or tiers ofrowers, so frequently used in ancient accounts, stand in our way, the best solutionthat perhaps could be given to the difficulty woul4 be to close with the idea whichhas prevailed with many, that the terms Trireme and Quinquireme, meant vesselsof such classes as required three or five men to work each oar. This explana-tion, however, for the reason just given, will not bear us through, to our ownsatisfaction, as militating in direct opposition to a particular point in the ancientdescription which is given us as peremptory. The Trireme and the Quinqui-reme, but more particularly the former, occur as the most frequent class ingeneral use ; but, as has been already stated, were we to attempt establishing anycertain description from the authorities we dare refer to, or indeed from any ofthe most valuable remnants of antiquity, the table of dimensions would be tooridiculous for the attention, or belief, of a single moment.

In proof of this assertion, it will only be necessary to state a few of them mea-sured by the most accurate scale, a scale constructed on the datum which it isvery fair to assume, that the rowers were of the height of five feet six inches,and such certainly cannot be objected to, as an unreasonable supposition, orallowance. Pursuing this idea, which, though it is in some points the most reason-able, is certainly in others highly extravagant, we shall suppose the tiers of rowers,to bring them strictly under that description, were separated from each other bypartial decks, or thwarts, laid from one side of the vessel to the other, and allow,in conformity to the suggestion of many ingenious men, that the rowers weredisposed chequer-wise, or on seats resembling a flight of stairs.

First then, the perpendicular height of the upper edge of the side, taken at themidship frame, from the lower edge of the keel, was, in a Trireme, depending onthe proof just stated, only six feet three inches; the length, from the extremity of

the