76

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

to have beeu fixed in the manner described in Plate 5, Fig. 1 and 2, and to havebeen elevated to the height of two feet, and nine inches, from the keel, or bot-tom of the vessel. The absurdity of this supposition is alone sufficient to over-turn the whole theory of his system : for, if it be admitted that the thwarts onwhich the rowers in the middle tier sat were not raised from the bottom of thatvessel to a greater height than that just given, what must have been its draughtof water, or, what could have been the elevation of the lower tier, as wellfrom the surface of the water, as from the bottom of the vessel itself?

Some persons, in the laudable hope of solving this almost inexplicable enigma,have endeavoured to apply the different terms, by \vhich the rowers are dis-tinguished, to different parts of the vessel lengthwise : supposing that the thala-mitce were stationed at the stern, the zygitce in the midship part, and the thranitceat the head, conforming to those appellations now given by moderns to different,parts of the hull. This idea also meets with very forcible objections : objectionsquite sufficient to destroy its validity, though it appears, it must be allowed, onmany grounds, far less absurd than that which preceded it. To close this vainand almost impossible attempt toward reconciling contradictory auhorities, andthe vague statements already given, reference may be had, in part, at least, to onevery intelligible to common understanding, the description given by Vossius ofPtolemy’s galley : since authentic testimonies prove, that however inconvenienteven such an arrangement as that is, may seem to moderns, three tiers of oarswere frequent among the ancient gallies of war ; and such difficulties as presentthemselves, in opposition to the belief, yield, to the suggestion there started,more, perhaps, than to any other that has yet been offered.

There seems, however, some reason to suspect, that the difficulties whichhave arisen in this so long subsisting controversy have been, in no slight degree,,encreased, by supposing that the shape or contour of the Roman gallies wasin some measure similar to that of a modern strait sided ship. The totalabsence of any treatise on the ancient marine, or description of the mode ofconstruction, written at the time, or soon after the vessels, so described, werebuilt, has rendered the subject extremely obscure ; and left the speculative en-quirer, in modern times, to follow his own idea as temper shall incline, orinformation supposed to be most perfect, shall guide. T et few r have ever hap-pened to conjecture, that the ancient galley bore a much stronger resemblanceto that in modern use, bearing the same name, than to any other. This fact

appears,.