How many banks of oars did an ancient 'Quinquereme' have?
"oar, the quinquereme from a trireme by placing two oarsmen on the two uppermost levels (the ""thranitai"" and ""zygitai"", according to Greek terminology), and the later hexareme by placing two rowers on every level. Other interpretations of the quinquereme include a bireme warship with three and two oarsmen on the upper and lower oar banks, or even a monoreme (warship with a single level of oars) with five oarsmen. The ""double-banking"" theory is supported by the fact that the 4th-century quinqueremes were housed in the same ship sheds as the triremes, and must therefore have had similar width (ca. 16"
"Trireme A trireme (; derived from Latin: ""trirēmis"" ""with three banks of oars""; ""triērēs"", literally ""three-rower"") was an ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greeks and Romans. The trireme derives its name from its three rows of oars, manned with one man per oar. The early trireme was a development of the penteconter, an ancient warship with a single row of 25 oars on each side (i.e., a single-banked boat), and of the bireme (, ""diērēs""), a warship with two banks of oars, of"
"slightly on the height to top of stern, which he reports as forty-eight cubits: Note that the translation of ""forty banks"" is overliteral; see below. The trireme, a three-ranked galley with one man per oar, was the main Hellenistic warship up to and into the 4th century BC. At that time, a requirement for heavier ships led to the development of ""polyremes"" meaning ""many oars"", applied to ""fours"" (""tetre-"" in Greek, ""quadri-"" in Latin) or more and ""fives"" (""penta-"" in Greek, ""quinque-"" in Latin) and later up to ""tens"", the largest that seems to have been used in battle. Larger"
"variants of the trireme design began to appear: the invention of the quinquereme (Gk. ""pentērēs"", ""five-oared"") and the hexareme (Gk. ""hexērēs"", ""six-oared"") is credited by the historian Diodorus Siculus to the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse, while the quadrireme (Gk. ""tetrērēs"", ""four-oared"") was credited by Aristotle to the Carthaginians. Far less is known with certainty about the construction and appearance of these ships than about the trireme. Literary evidence is fragmentary and highly selective, and pictorial evidence unclear. The fact that the trireme had three levels of oars (""trikrotos naus"") led medieval historians, long after the specifics of their construction"
"oars or lines of rowers. The terms are based on contemporary language use combined with more recent compounds of Greek and Latin words. The earliest Greek single-banked galleys are called triaconters (from ""triakontoroi"", ""thirty-oars"") and penteconters (""pentēkontoroi"", ""fifty-oars""). For later galleys with more than one row of oars, the terminology is based on Latin numerals with the suffix ""-reme"" from ""rēmus"", ""oar"". A ""monoreme"" has one bank of oars, a ""bireme"" two and a ""trireme"" three. Since the maximum banks of oars was three, any expansion above that did not refer to additional banks of oars, but of additional rowers"
"probably 50 oars, arranged with 25 oars on each side. Again unlike Hellenistic vessels, which used an outrigger, these extended directly from the hull. In the later two-banked (""bireme"") dromons of the 9th and 10th centuries, the two oar banks (""elasiai"") were divided by the deck, with the first oar bank was situated below, whilst the second oar bank was situated above deck; these rowers were expected to fight alongside the ship's marines in boarding operations. The Greek scholar Christos Makrypoulias suggests an arrangement of 25 oarsmen beneath and 35 on the deck on either side for a dromon of"
"meaning is no clearer than the Latin. Whatever the ""five-oar"" or the ""five-row"" originally meant was lost with knowledge of the construction, and is, from the 5th century on, a hotly debated issue. For the history of the interpretation efforts and current scholarly consensus, see below. In the great wars of the 5th century BC, such as the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, the trireme was the heaviest type of warship used by the Mediterranean navies. The trireme (Greek: ""triērēs"", ""three-oared"") was propelled by three banks of oars, with one oarsman each. During the early 4th century BC however,"
"galleys with three files of oarsmen per side as triremes. Depictions of two-banked ships (biremes), with or without the ""parexeiresia"" (the outriggers, see below), are common in 8th century BC and later vases and pottery fragments, and it is at the end of that century that the first references to three-banked ships are found. Fragments from an 8th-century relief at the Assyrian capital of Nineveh depicting the fleets of Tyre and Sidon show ships with rams, and fitted with oars pivoted at two levels. They have been interpreted as two-decked warships, and also as triremes. Modern scholarship is divided on"
"by one oarsman each. 20th-century scholarship disproved that theory, and established that the ancient warships were rowed at different levels, with three providing the maximum practical limit. The higher numbers of the ""fours"", ""fives"", etc. were therefore interpreted as reflecting the number of files of oarsmen on each side of the ship, and not an increased number of rows of oars. The most common theory on the arrangement of oarsmen in the new ship types is that of ""double-banking"", i.e., that the quadrireme was derived from a bireme (warship with two rows of oars) by placing two oarsmen on each"
"Bireme A bireme is an ancient oared warship (galley) with two decks of oars, invented and used by Greeks even before the 6th century BC. Biremes were long vessels built for military purposes, had relatively high speed, meticulous construction, strength, and depending on the number of rows of oars, were called ""uniremes"", ""biremes"", ""triremes"", ""quadriremes"", etc. The name bireme comes from ""bi-"" meaning two and ""-reme"" meaning oar. It was typically about long with a maximum beam width of around . It was modified from the penteconter, a ship that had only one set of oars on each side, the"
"Aegospotami more than 300 ships and 60,000 seamen were involved. In Battle of Aegospotami, the city-state of Athens lost what was left of its navy: the once 'invincible' thalassocracy lost 170 ships (costing some 400 talents), and the majority of the crews were either killed, captured or lost. During the Hellenistic period, the light trireme was supplanted by larger warships in dominant navies, especially the pentere/quinquereme. The maximum practical number of oar banks a ship could have was three. So the number in the type name did not refer to the banks of oars any more (as for biremes and"
"and money) investment-intensive. The ship's primary propulsion came from the 180 oars (""kōpai""), arranged in three rows, with one man per oar. Evidence for this is provided by Thucydides, who records that the Corinthian oarsmen carried ""each his oar, cushion (""hypersion"") and oarloop"". The ship also had two masts, a main (""histos megas"") and a small foremast (""histos akateios""), with square sails, while steering was provided by two steering oars at the stern (one at the port side, one to starboard). Classical sources indicate that the trireme was capable of sustained speeds of ca. 6 knots at a relatively leisurely"
"stated that the Roman copies were heavier than the Carthaginian vessels, which were better built. The quinquereme provided the workhorse of the Roman and Carthaginian fleets throughout their conflicts, although ""fours"" and ""threes"" are also mentioned. Indeed, so ubiquitous was the type that Polybius uses it as a shorthand for ""warship"" in general. According to Polybius, at the Battle of Ecnomus, the Roman quinqueremes carried a total crew of 420, 300 of whom were rowers, and the rest marines. Leaving aside a deck crew of ca. 20 men, and accepting the 2–2–1 pattern of oarsmen, the quinquereme would have 90"
"two-level penteconter. A trireme also had an additional mast with a smaller square sail placed near the bow. Up to 170 oarsmen sat on three levels with one oar each that varied slightly in length. To accommodate three levels of oars, rowers sat staggered on three levels. Arrangements of the three levels are believed to have varied, but the most well-documented design made use of a projecting structure, or outrigger, where the oarlock in the form of a ""thole pin"" was placed. This allowed the outermost row of oarsmen enough leverage for full strokes that made efficient use of their"
"outrigger. From the mid-4th century, however, at about the time the quinquereme was introduced in Phoenicia, there is evidence of ships without outriggers. This would have necessitated a different oar arrangement, with the middle level placed more inwards, as well as a different construction of the hull, with side-decks attached to it. From the middle of the 3rd century BC onwards, Carthaginian ""fives"" display a separate ""oar box"" that contained the rowers and that was attached to the main hull. This development of the earlier model entailed further modifications, meaning that the rowers would be located above deck, and essentially"
"the ram's original function had been forgotten. The dromons that Procopius described were single-banked ships of probably 25 oars per side. Unlike ancient vessels, which used an outrigger, these extended directly from the hull. In the later bireme dromons of the 9th and 10th centuries, the two oar banks were divided by the deck, with the first oar bank was situated below, whilst the second oar bank was situated above deck; these rowers were expected to fight alongside the marines in boarding operations. The overall length of these ships was probably about 32 meters. The stern (""prymnē"") had a tent"
"less likely alternative is that it had two levels with three oarsmen at each. Reports about ""sixes"" used during the 1st-century BC Roman civil wars indicate that they were of a similar height to the quinqueremes, and record the presence of towers on the deck of a ""six"" serving as flagship to Marcus Junius Brutus. Pliny the Elder attributes the creation of the septireme (; , ""heptērēs"") to Alexander the Great. Curtius corroborates this, and reports that the king gave orders for wood for 700 septiremes to be cut in Mount Lebanon, to be used in his projected circumnavigations of"
"new naval forces also made it difficult to find enough skilled rowers for the one-man-per-oar system of the earliest triremes. With more than one man per oar, a single rower could set the pace for the others to follow, meaning that more unskilled rowers could be employed. The successor states of Alexander the Great's empire built galleys that were like triremes or biremes in oar layout, but manned with additional rowers for each oar. The ruler Dionysius I of Syracuse (ca. 432–367 BC) is credited with pioneering the ""five"" and ""six"", meaning five or six rows of rowers plying two"
"polyremes were built, with Ptolemy II Philadelphus eventually building a ""twenty"" and a ""thirty"", and Ptolemy IV Philopator building the ""forty"". The maximum practical number of oar ranks a ship could have logistically was three (Greek and Latin ""tri-""). Beyond three, the number in the type name did not refer to the number of ranks of oars any more (as for biremes and triremes, respectively two and three ranks of oars with one rower per oar), but to the number of rowers per vertical section, with several men on each oar. Indeed, just because a ship was designated with a"
"Diadochi. It was richly decorated, required 1,600 rowers (8 files of 100 per side) and could support 1,200 marines. Remarkably for a ship of its size, its performance at sea was reportedly very good. The enneres () is first recorded in 315 BC, when three of their type were included in the fleet of Antigonus Monophthalmus. The presence of ""nines"" in Antony's fleet at Actium is recorded by Florus and Cassius Dio, although Plutarch makes explicit mention only of ""eights"" and ""tens"". The oaring system may have been a modification of the quadrireme, with two teams of five and four"
"ships, quadriremes and penterames. Liburna was different from the battle triremes, quadriremes and quinqueremes not because of rowing but rather because of its specific constructional features. It was long and wide with a draft. Two rows of oarsmen pulled 18 oars per side. The ship could make up to 14 knots under sail and more than 7 under oars. Such a vessel, used as a merchantman, might take on a passenger, as Lycinus relates in the 2nd-century dialogue, traditionally attributed to Lucian of Samosata: ""I had a speedy vessel readied, the kind of bireme used above all by the Liburnians"
"which was made of 180 Quinqueremes and triremes. Carthaginians favoured light, maneuverable crafts and they carried an extra sail for speed but fewer soldiers than their Greek counterparts. Carthaginian forces had encountered Syracusan quinqueremes at Motya and are credited with inventing the quadrireme, but it is not known if these ship types were present at Catana in 397 BC. Mago, the Carthaginian admiral, had installed rams on his transports to augment the striking power of his fleet. Dionysius had launched a massive building program between 404–398 BC. Syracuse built 200 new ships and refitted 110 old ones, many being quadrireme"
"the ship. A midship mast with sail could also propel the ship under favourable wind. Penteconters were long and sharp-keeled ships, hence described as ""long vessels"" (, ""nḗes markaí"" ). They typically lacked a full deck, and thus were also called ""unfenced vessels"" (, ""áphraktoi nḗes""). Homer describes war ships during the Trojan War of various numbers of oars varying from twenty-oared, such as the ship that brought Chryseis back to her father, to fifty-oared, as Odysseus’ ship that had fifty men and as many as 120 men of the Boeotian ships. According to some contemporary calculations, penteconters are believed"
"sea vessels as weapons of war, though primarily as fighting platforms. It was distinguished by being fought against an anchored fleet close to shore with land-based archer support. The first true Mediterranean galleys usually had between 15 and 25 pairs of oars and were called triaconters or penteconters, literally ""thirty-"" and ""fifty-oared"", respectively. Not long after they appeared, a third row of oars was added by the addition to a bireme of an outrigger, a projecting construction that gave more room for the projecting oars. These new galleys were called ""triērēs"" (""three-fitted"") in Greek. The Romans later called this design"
"the Arabian peninsula and Africa. At Salamis Demetrius Poliorcetes had seven such ships, built in Phoenicia, and later Ptolemy II (r. 283–246 BC) had 36 septiremes constructed. Pyrrhus of Epirus (r. 306–302 and 297–272 BC) also apparently had at least one ""seven"", which was captured by the Carthaginians and eventually lost at Mylae. Presumably, the septireme was derived by adding a standing rower to the lower level of the hexareme. Very little is known about the octeres (, ""oktērēs""). At least two of their type were in the fleet of Philip V of Macedon (r. 221–179 BC) at the Battle"
"bireme having two sets of oars on each side. The bireme was twice the triaconter's length and height, and thus employed 120 rowers. Biremes were galleys, galleasses, dromons, and small pleasure crafts pamphyles. The next development, the trireme, keeping the length of the bireme, added a tier to the height, the rowers being thus increased to 180. It also had a large square sail. These ships were frequently used by the Romans, as during the second of Caesar's invasions of Britain. The bireme eventually evolved into the trireme. A unit commandant (who was given a tent on the open deck)"
"Penteconter The penteconter, alt. spelling ""pentekonter"" and ""pentaconter"", also transliterated as ""pentecontor"" or ""pentekontor"" (, ""pentekontoros"" ""fifty-oared""), plural penteconters was an ancient Greek galley in use since the archaic period. In an alternative meaning, the term was also used for a military commander of fifty men in ancient Greece. The penteconters emerged in an era when there was no distinction between merchant and war ships. They were versatile, long-range ships used for sea trade, piracy and warfare, capable of transporting freight or troops. A penteconter was rowed by fifty oarsmen, arranged in a row of twenty-five on each side of"
"liburna was similar to the Greek penteconter. It had one bench with 25 oars on each side. Later, in the time of the Roman Republic, it became a smaller version of a trireme, but with two banks of oars (a bireme), faster, lighter, and more agile than biremes and triremes. The liburnian design was adopted by the Romans and became a key part of the Roman Navy, possibly by way of the Macedonian navy, in the 2nd half of the 1st century BC. Liburnae ships played a crucial role in the naval battle of Actium in Greece, which lasted from"
"to have been between long, approximately 4 m wide, and capable of reaching a top speed of . However, modern reconstructions of penteconters, as well as other ancient ship designs such as triremes, manned by modern untrained amateurs, attained that top speed fairly easily on initial sea trials, which implies that the top speed of that type of ship in the ancient era had to be substantially higher. Ancient Greeks also used the triaconter or triacontor ( ""triakontoros""), a shorter version of the penteconter with thirty oars. There is a general agreement that the trireme, the primary warship of classical"
"the two, with both terms referring to horse-carrying vessels (""usserii"") capable of carrying from 20 to 40 horses. The bireme Italian-style galleys remained the mainstay of Mediterranean fleets until the late 13th century, although again, contemporary descriptions provide little detail on their construction. From that point on, the galleys universally became trireme ships, i.e. with three men on a single bank located above deck, each rowing a different oar; the so-called ""alla sensile"" system. The Venetians also developed the so-called ""great galley"", which was an enlarged galley capable of carrying more cargo for trade. Little is known on particular Byzantine"
"by Demetrius Poliorcetes. There were two chief design traditions in the Mediterranean, the Greek and the Punic (Phoenician/Carthaginian) one, which was later copied by the Romans. As exemplified in the trireme, the Greeks used to project the upper level of oars through an outrigger (""parexeiresia""), while the later Punic tradition heightened the ship, and had all three tiers of oars projecting directly from the side hull. Based on iconographic evidence from coins, Morrison and Coates have determined that the Punic triremes in the 5th and early 4th centuries BC were largely similar to their Greek counterparts, most likely including an"
"larger type number did not mean it necessarily had or operated all three possible ranks: the quadrireme may have been a simple evolution of a standard trireme, but with two rowers on the top oar; it may also have been a bireme with two men on each oar; or it may just have had a single rank with four men on a each single oar. Classes of ship could differ in their configuration between regions and over time, but in no case did a ""four"" ship have four horizontal ranks of oars. From galleys used in the 16th to 18th"
"had one as his personal flagship, as did Sextus Pompeius. At the Battle of Actium, hexaremes were present in both fleets, but with a notable difference: while in the fleet of Octavian they were the heaviest type of vessel, in the fleet of Mark Antony they were the second smallest, after the quinqueremes. A single hexareme, the ""Ops"", is later recorded as the heaviest ship serving in the praetorian Fleet of Misenum. The exact arrangement of the hexareme's oars is unclear. If it evolved naturally from the earlier designs, it would be a trireme with two rowers per oar; the"