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Corinthian reinforced galleys - PMBardunias - 11-09-2010
During the Peloponnesean war, the Cornthians and Syracusans modified their galleys to allow them to ram the Athenian galleys bow-on:
Quote:Thuc. 7.36.2 In addition to other improvements suggested by the former sea-fight which they now adopted in the equipment of their navy, they cut down their prows to a smaller compass to make them more solid and made their cheeks stouter, and from these let stays into the vessel's sides for a length of six cubits within and without, in the same way as the Corinthians had altered their prows before engaging the squadron at Naupactus.
They seem to have turned the bow of their galleys from the usual spike-shaped ram to essentially a trident-shaped bow. The ram was shortened and heavily reinforced and two projections stuck out about 10 feet from the bow on either side of the beginning of the ram.
Does anyone know of a reconstruction of this, or even some good illustrations?
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - Gaius Julius Caesar - 11-09-2010
Where did you get the details of the ten feet?
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - PMBardunias - 11-09-2010
Quote:Where did you get the details of the ten feet?
They jutted out 6 cubits on either side of the ram, the other 6 cubits being inside the ship. Depending on the cubit you use, that's between 9- 9.74 feet, but presumably also capped with bronze. So "about 10 feet" seemed reasonable.
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - Paullus Scipio - 11-09-2010
Quote:During the Peloponnesean war, the Cornthians and Syracusans modified their galleys to allow them to ram the Athenian galleys bow-on:
Quote:Thuc. 7.36.2 In addition to other improvements suggested by the former sea-fight which they now adopted in the equipment of their navy, they cut down their prows to a smaller compass to make them more solid and made their cheeks stouter, and from these let stays into the vessel's sides for a length of six cubits within and without, in the same way as the Corinthians had altered their prows before engaging the squadron at Naupactus.
They seem to have turned the bow of their galleys from the usual spike-shaped ram to essentially a trident-shaped bow. The ram was shortened and heavily reinforced and two projections stuck out about 10 feet from the bow on either side of the beginning of the ram.
Does anyone know of a reconstruction of this, or even some good illustrations?
This is not quite correct.There is no 'trident' shape to the bows.The type of bow most people are familiar with is the "post Corinthian" bow. Previously, triremes had a 'hollow' bow. See Connolly's reconstruction of this type, p.265 "Greece and Rome at War", and the coin reverses on p.264 giving a good 'before and after' idea of the old and modified bows.
What Thucydides says can be translated thus: "They shortened the bows of their ships and strengthened them;they laid out stout 'epotides', and fixed stays from the 'epotides' to the ships sides both inside and out" (the 'epotides' lit: "ears" were the transverse beams across the hull supporting the 'paraxereisia' = outrigger that supported the upper bank of oars, sometimes in English called 'catsheads').
The Greek word for 'fixed' is the same derivative as the English term 'hypotenuse'. The stays thus formed a "Y" support to each of the the "T" shapes formed by the 'epotides' running at 90 degrees to the ship's sides. This strengthened 'epotides' meant that the opponent's epotides and paraxereisia would be smashed in a near head-on collision, allowing the scraping off of the opponent's oar-banks.......
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - PMBardunias - 11-09-2010
Quote:There is no 'trident' shape to the bows.
Excellent. I was describing what I had read and it did not make sense because anything jutting 10 feet out of the catsheads would be far too weak to ram. This makes much more sense.
Note that the Athenian galleys did not sink after their bows were staved in. Was this due to a bulkead in the bow?
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - Paullus Scipio - 11-09-2010
Paul B. wrote:
Quote:Note that the Athenian galleys did not sink after their bows were staved in. Was this due to a bulkead in the bow?Not that we are aware of. Triremes, being wooden did not generally sink, but simply filled with water and sat there waterlogged, or turned turtle because they had no stability once the weight of the water raised the boat's meta-centre too high.
Guess you didn't read my "trireme" article in AW .......
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Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - PMBardunias - 11-09-2010
Quote:Guess you didn't read my "trireme" article in AW .......
Saddly no, it is one of a few issues that I think one of my neighbors or my postman is enjoying because I never got it. Now I buy them at the store.
Quote:Not that we are aware of. Triremes, being wooden did not generally sink, but simply filled with water and sat there waterlogged, or turned turtle because they had no stability once the weight of the water raised the boat's meta-centre too high.
Well, clearly galleys could sink depending on what is in their hold, but I agree that foundering may be a more accurate description. If true, this makes the effect of a staved in bow something less than foundering. Thucydidies records:
Quote:Thuc. 7.34.5 After an obstinate struggle, the Corinthians lost three ships, and without sinking any altogether, disabled seven of the enemy, which were struck prow to prow and had their foreships stoven in by the Corinthian vessels, whose cheeks had been strengthened for this very purpose.
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This is why I wondered about a bulkhead. The staving in of the bows seems to have rendered them unseaworthy, and obviously useless for ramming, but did not founder them. Perhaps a look at the Greek would tell more.
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - Praefectusclassis - 11-09-2010
Quote:Don't mean to hijack the thread Paul&Paul, but I do want to hear about these things from customersQuote:Guess you didn't read my "trireme" article in AW .......
Saddly no, it is one of a few issues that I think one of my neighbors or my postman is enjoying because I never got it. Now I buy them at the store.
, that's why we bother a random 25-30% selection of our readership after every distribution cycle, to see if and when they got their issues. From what I can tell, it's MUCH better now than around the time of Paul's trireme article.
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - PMBardunias - 11-09-2010
Quote:Don't mean to hijack the thread Paul&Paul, but I do want to hear about these things from customers , that's why we bother a random 25-30% selection of our readership after every distribution cycle, to see if and when they got their issues. From what I can tell, it's MUCH better now than around the time of Paul's trireme article.
I think this is a problem on my end, not yours. I live on one of a few parallel streets with houses that have exactly the same address but for the street- 50th, 51st, etc. From the amount of other people's mail I get, I can be pretty sure mine is going astray- and not everyone is bothering to return it. One of the lost issues was one in which I had written an article and you were kind enough to send two more copies to me before it finally arrived. So now I just buy it at the store. Since I like the fact that it is on store shelves I think such support, and the surcharge, is worth it.
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - PMBardunias - 11-09-2010
How big were these smaller auxillary boats?
Quote:7.40.5] The Syracusans received them, and charging prow to prow as they had intended, stove in a great part of the Athenian foreships by the strength of their beaks; the darters on the decks also did great damage to the Athenians, but still greater damage was done by the Syracusans who went about in small boats, ran in upon the oars of the Athenian galleys, and sailed against their sides, and discharged from thence their darts upon the sailors.
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - Paullus Scipio - 11-09-2010
Paul B. wrote:
Quote:This is why I wondered about a bulkhead. The staving in of the bows seems to have rendered them unseaworthy, and obviously useless for ramming, but did not founder them. Perhaps a look at the Greek would tell more.Yes, a "S.S. Titanic" style bulkhead would doubtless have saved a few triremes in such circumstances - but 'bow-to-bow' or near head-on ramming was fairly rare, even for 'Corinthian' style modified bows - so would have been necessary every few feet - which was not practical anyway... ( since it wasn't going to sink anyway, why try to make it 'unsinkable'??....not to mention too much of a weight penalty....and a single bow bulkhead would have simply made a damaged trireme sit 'bow down' instead of flat)
"A typical hole would immobilise a ship fairly quickly, it being calculated that a hole of only around a square foot would cause a trieres to take on 18 tonnes or so of water in 3 minutes, making it settle two feet or so in the water, and becoming very crank and unstable. Soon the hull beams would be awash, and the vessel easily rolled by movements of the crew etc." (Paul McDonnell-Staff; AW trireme article)
Essentially, a trireme is just a large open rowing boat - like a larger version of a 'rowing eight', with lightness at a premium ( the hull, in order to stay rigid, and not 'hog' or 'sag' in waves, was held taut by a rope - the 'hypozamata', like bow-string holds a bow taut, this feature first being seen on Egyptian ships long before triremes.)
Quote:How big were these smaller auxillary boats?
7.40.5] The Syracusans received them, and charging prow to prow as they had intended, stove in a great part of the Athenian foreships by the strength of their beaks; the darters on the decks also did great damage to the Athenians, but still greater damage was done by the Syracusans who went about in small boats, ran in upon the oars of the Athenian galleys, and sailed against their sides, and discharged from thence their darts upon the sailors.
We are not specifically told - but since the lowest bank of oars sits only some 3 ft or so above the water-line, it would have to be a pretty small boat - probably the ubiquitous fishing rowboats of every Mediterranean harbour, 'dory' or 'dinghy' like 10-18 ft long, propelled by just two or three oarsmen working a pair of oars each and just a few men in each. ( the size of these boats is limited, as it is today, by how big it is possible for one or two men to manhandle up a beach)
Triremes, being large row-boats themselves, did not normally have 'auxiliary boats' and had no means of carrying them, though theoretically they could be hoisted in using mast and spar as a crane...... later iconography sometimes shows an 'auxiliary boat' being towed on larger galleys.
The small boats were effective, particularly against the upper bank of rowers who sat above gunwale height. The 'outrigger'(paraxereisia') that supported the upper oars was just an open frame. Normally in battle, canvas or leather screens were rigged to protect the upper-bank rowers ( thranites) from missiles (parablemata), but this left the outrigger open underneath, which vulnerability could be exploited in a harbour battle by small boats getting in amongst the oars underneath ( and incidently stuffing up the oars !! ), and throwing missiles from underneath the 'parablemata' up at the startled unprotected and helpless upper bank 'thranites', who could only counter by hurling missiles from their seated position, which we are told they were taught how to do.....
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - Giannis K. Hoplite - 11-09-2010
This is perhaps what they would have looked like. Considering that the people on the etruscan boat are presumably children,you can see how small the boat was. Also,the painter has painted the whole boat out of the water,so it might have also been lower.
![[Image: fishbirds.jpg?t=1289345594]](http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o118/kadoglou_gr/fishbirds.jpg?t=1289345594)
![[Image: charonhermes.jpg?t=1289345964]](http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o118/kadoglou_gr/charonhermes.jpg?t=1289345964)
Re: Corinthian reinforced galleys - Paullus Scipio - 11-10-2010
Paul B. wrote:
Quote:Well, clearly galleys could sink depending on what is in their hold,.....A minor point....strictly speaking, a 'trireme'(Greek: 'Triereis' , lit.'triple furnished/equipped' - a reference to the three banks of oars) didn't have a 'hold'. The vessel was more or less a monocoque shell.
Some equipment, spare oars, spars, sails, cordage, anchors and so on, along with modest supplies of food and above all water were stored in the bottom of the boat/bilges. If battle was imminent, the vessel's 'sailing gear' - mast, yard, sail, shrouds, supports and rigging, often the anchor, and any other heavy gear were left behind on shore.
( which latter may have led to tragedy at the battle of Arginusae - a victory over the Peloponnesians that restored Athens naval supremacy. News of the victory was met with joy at first at Athens, and the Athenian public voted to bestow citizenship on the slaves and metics who had fought in the battle. Their joy was soon tempered, however, by news of the aftermath of the battle, in which heavy weather ( and possibly the absence of necessary anchors) prevented the ships assigned to rescue the survivors of the 25 disabled or sunken Athenian triremes from getting to them, and some 5,000 or so sailors drowned. A fury erupted at Athens when the public learned of this tragic loss, and after a political struggle in the assembly, six of the eight admirals who had commanded the fleet were tried as a group and executed.( see Diodorus, XIII.101; Xenophon, I.07 for interesting accounts).
Later triremes were equipped with a second, smaller, mast/bowsprit and small sail ( the 'artemon') carried into battle and raised to aid escape in the event of defeat.