Galley

The term galley can refer to any ship propelled primarily by man-power, using oars. Most galleys also use masts and sails as a secondary means of propulsion.

Ancient galleys

The first galleys

Galleys travelled the Mediterranean from perhaps 3000 BC. The Greeks and Phoenicians built and operated the first known ships to navigate the Mediterranean: merchant vessels with square-rigged sails. The first military vessels, as described in the works of Homer and represented in paintings, had a single row of oarsmen along each side (in addition to the sail) to provide speed and manoeuvrability.

Related Topics:
Mediterranean - 3000 BC - Greeks - Phoenicia - Square-rigged - Homer

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Early sailors had very little in the way of navigational tools. Compasses did not come in to use for navigation until the 13th century after Christ, and the development of sextants, octants and accurate chronometers, together with the mathematics required to determine longitude and latitude, had to wait until considerably later. The ancient sailors navigated by means of the sun and of the prevailing wind. By the first millennium BC they had started using the stars to navigate at night. But if blown out of sight of land then they became lost. The implications for ship design meant that manoeuvrability remained paramount for coast-hugging and threading through archipelagos, while reliable (non-wind-based) speed became a sine qua non for daylight expeditions across open water. Massed oars provided the optimal technological solution to the problems.

Related Topics:
Navigation - Compass - 13th century - Sextant - Octant - Chronometer - Longitude - Latitude - First millennium BC

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Penteconters

The development of the ram in about 800 BC changed the nature of naval warfare, which had until that point involved boarding and hand-to-hand fighting. Now a more manoeuvrable ship could render a slower ship useless by staving in its sides. Some doubt exists as to whether the winners in naval encounters usually sank defeated galleys. The Greek word for "sunk" can also mean "waterlogged", and reports survive of victorious galleys towing the defeated ship away after a battle. The paucity of archaeological remains of sunken ships, in comparison with the abundance of galleys according to the writings of contemporaries, provides further evidence that victors may not have commonly sunk defeated ships.

Related Topics:
Ram - 800 BC

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Building an efficient galley posed difficult technical problems. A ship travelling at high speed creates a bow-wave and has to expend considerable energy climbing this wave instead of increasing its speed. The longer the ship, the faster it can travel before this effect hampers it, but the available technology in the ancient Mediterranean made long ships difficult to construct. Through a process of trial and error, the monoreme — a galley with one row of oars on each side — reached the peak of its development in the penteconter, about 38 m long, with 25 oarsmen on each side. Historians believe that it could reach speeds of about 9 knots (18 km/h), only a knot or so slower than modern rowed racing-boats. The penteconter's size required that its builders stretch cables between the bow and stern to distribute the stress evenly.

Related Topics:
Bow-wave - Penteconter

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Triremes

Main article: Trireme

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Around the 7th or 6th century BC the design of galleys changed. Shipbuilders added a second row of oars above the first, and then very soon afterwards, a third. These new galleys were called trieres, meaning "three-fitted"; the Romans called this design the triremis (in English, "trireme"). The origin of the design is uncertain; Thucydides attributes the innovation to the boat-builder Aminocles of Corinth in about 700 BC, but some scholars distrust this and suggest that the design is Phoenician in origin. The first mention of triremes in action is in Herodotus, who mentions that the ruler Polycrates had triremes in his fleet in 539 BC.

Related Topics:
7th - 6th century BC - Romans - Thucydides - 700 BC - Herodotus - Polycrates - 539 BC

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The early 5th century BC saw a conflict between the cities of Greece and the expansionist Persian Empire under Darius and Xerxes, who hired ships from their Phoenician satrapies.

Related Topics:
5th century BC - Darius - Xerxes

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The Greeks defeated the first invasion force at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, but realised that pursuing land battles against the more numerous Persians could not hope to win in the long term. When news came that Xerxes was amassing an enormous invasion force in Asia Minor, the Greek cities expanded their navies: in 482 BC the Athenian ruler Themistocles started a programme for the construction of 200 triremes. The project must have been very successful, as 150 Athenian triremes were reported to have seen action in the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC at which Xerxes' second invasion fleet was defeated.

Related Topics:
Battle of Marathon - 490 BC - 482 BC - Themistocles - Battle of Salamis - 480 BC

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Triremes fought in the naval battles of the Peloponnesian War, including the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, which sealed the defeat of the Athenian Empire by Sparta and her allies.

Related Topics:
Peloponnesian War - Battle of Aegospotami - 405 BC - Athenian Empire - Sparta

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Quinqueremes and polyremes

Main article: Quinquereme

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In the 4th century BC, after the Peloponnesian War, navies experienced a shortage of oarsmen of sufficient skill to man large numbers of triremes. The search for designs of galley that would allow oarsmen to use muscle power instead of skill led Dionysius of Syracuse to build tetreres (quadriremes) and penteres (quinqueremes).

Related Topics:
4th century BC - Peloponnesian War - Trireme - Dionysius of Syracuse

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According to modern historians, the numbers used to describe these larger galleys counted the number of rows of men on each side, and not the numbers of oars. There were thus three possible designs of quadrireme: one row of oars with four men on each oar, two rows of oars with two men on each oar or three rows of oars with two men pulling the top oars on each side (probably galleys of all three designs were built). Quinqueremes are thought to have had three rows of oars, with two men pulling each of the top two oars.

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This change was accompanied by an increased reliance on tactics such as boarding and using warships as platforms for artillery. In the wars of the Diadochi, the successors to the empire of Alexander the Great built bigger and bigger galleys. Macedon was building sexiremes (probably with two men on each of three oars) in 340 BC and septiremes in 315 BC, which saw action at the Battle of Salamis in Cyprus (306 BC). Demetrius, involved in a naval war with Ptolemy of Egypt, built eights (octeres), nines, tens, twelves and finally sixteens!

Related Topics:
Artillery - Diadochi - Alexander the Great - Macedon - 340 BC - 315 BC - Battle of Salamis in Cyprus (306 BC) - Demetrius - Ptolemy of Egypt

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Triremes and smaller vessels continued in use, however. Light versions called liburnians were used as auxiliaries, and were quite effective against the heavier ships thanks to their greater manoeuvrability. In the last great naval battle of the ancient world, at Actium in 31 BC, Octavian's lighter and more manoeuvrable ships defeated Antony's heavy fleet. After that, with the Roman Empire in charge of the entire Mediterranean, a large navy was no longer needed. By AD 325 there were no more galleys with multiple rows of oars.

Related Topics:
Liburnian - Actium - 31 BC - Octavian - Antony - Roman Empire - Mediterranean - AD 325

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