[Illustration: 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 attention[10] 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.