The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-10
ANCIENT WARsHIPS.
A Dip Into the Lore of the Greeks
and Egyptians.
From the PHILADELPHIA Record.

From the Philadelphia Record
AS compared with the warships in which
the ancients set out to annihilate the en-
envy, that queer little tub of an affair to
which the "three wise men of Gotham
pinned their faith wasn't so impossible
after all. Outside the few anchors, figure
heads and rams found amid the ruins OF
the docks at Athens we have no rem
nants of the ships themselves; and accord
ing TO latter-day wise men, the works of
artists with either the brush or the pen
must be taken with man a grain of salt.
No matter how many vases may picture
the setting forth of Jason and his fifty
companion heroes in their 'hfty-oared gal
ley" the Argo, in search of the Golden
Fleece, nor how many writer's may tell us
just what sort of ships the Greeks retired
10 for the carrying out of the scheme of
the crafty Ulysses for the victorious end
ing of the Trojan war We're still at sea
all the same concerning these self-same
ships. OF course, that makes little diff
ference To those of us whose interest is
only in the Golden Fleece, or the fair
| Helen, as the case may be, only we re
talking about warships now.
In the Mediterranean, where a sailing
ship might lie becalmed for days. it would
stand to reason that oars would be the
characteristic instruments of navigation
In fact, so long as the Mediterranean ma
tons dominated Western Europe vessels
of the Southern type We're built upon the
Northern coasts though, as a usual thing.
there was wind enough for sails and too
much wave for oars. Oars would prob
ably have remained in use longer than
they did had there been an adequate sup
ply of galley slaves. But, to so back TO
the ancients again, the rover was not US
ually a slave; Athenian citizens i'm the
days of Pericles who were quite alive 10
their overpowering mentality often labor
ed at the oar.
A long look backward (25OO B. c.. in
flcO and we see the art of rowing as
practiced on the Nile in the time of the
pyramid builders, the Fourth dynasty. On
Egypt's pictorial monuments some crews
are represented as rowing, with theil
faces toward the stern, while others. fac
ing the bow, are padding. And padding
is proven to be the Older practice Later
1850 b. c., crews are Enthusiastically row
ing and yet grasping their oars in the
attitude of padding. There's no way Of
knowing when they began building war
ships with a single bank of oars though
two-banked warships were used by the
Phoenicians 200 3. c., and Egypt produced
three-b banked one a century later These
for 200 years were the largest warships
aaoat. One authority says four and five
banked ships were built for the Syracusan
fleet 398 b. c. 1t was left for Alexander
the Great TO make the advance to ten
banks, probably between signs for more
worlds to conquer. He had a whole fee,
Ct seven banked ships on the Euphrates
A Macedonian ship Of sixteen banks i
mentioned in the treaty with the Romans
1871 y. c.
But there's no end to these banks, for
Plutarch mentions warship Of forty
banks The longest oars on these forty
banked ships were So cuoits, the same as
~. axtrora.. breadth a tho shin RI fea,
In warshipg there were always as many
rowers as oars, but in lighter vessels they
were sometimes light enough to be sculled
IN pairs The Romans 50 b. c.. adopted
the two-banked models which the Libur-
mans had found SO handy ia their Adriatlc
warfare, and in course Of time they maIe
'liburna" a generic term applicable to