ancient greek galley trireme had three banks of oars on each side.
ancient greek galley trireme had three banks of oars on each side.
ancient greek galley having three banks of oars on each side?
trireme
ancient galleys were named according to the number of oars, the number of banks of 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 for every oar. "quinquereme" ("quintus" + "rēmus") was literally a "five-oar", but actually meant that there were several rowers to certain banks of oars which made up five lines of oar handlers. for simplicity, they have by many modern scholars been referred to as "fives", "sixes", "eights", "elevens", etc. anything above six or seven rows of rowers was not common, though even a very exceptional "forty" is attested in contemporary source. any galley with more than three or four lines of rowers is often referred to as a "polyreme".
galley
the galley from napoli, which sailed to his left, was again showing signs of disorder, so he ordered it moved to the right, away from the approaching turks. loredan had his ships withdraw a while, in order to draw the turks further from gallipoli and have the sun in the venetians' back. once ready, loredan led his own flagship to attack the leading ottoman galley. its crew offered determined resistance, and the other ottoman galleys came astern of loredan's ship to his left, and launched volleys of arrows against him and his men. loredan himself was wounded by an arrow below the eye and the nose, and by another that passed through his left hand, as well as other arrows that struck him with lesser effect. nevertheless, the galley was captured after most of its crew was killed, and loredan, after leaving a few men of his crew to guard it, turned against a galleot, which he captured as well. again leaving a few of his men and his flag on it, he turned on the other ottoman ships. the fight lasted from morning to the second hour of the night. the venetians defeated the ottoman fleet, killing its commander and many of the captains and crews, and capturing six great galleys and nine galleots, according to loredan's account. doukas claims that the venetians captured 27 vessels in total, while the contemporary egyptian chronicler maqrizi reduced the number to twelve. loredan gives a detailed breakdown of the ships captured by his men: his own ship captured a galley and a galleot of 20 banks of oars; the contarini galley captured a galley; the galley of giorgio loredan captured two galleots of 22 banks and two galleots of 20 banks; the grimani galley of negroponte captured a galley; the galley of jiacopo barbarini captured a galleot of 23 banks and another of 19 banks; the same for the capello galley; the galley of girolamo minotto from napoli captured the ottoman flagship galley, which had been defeated and pursued before by the capello galley; the venieri and barbarigo galleys of candia took a galley. venetian casualties were light, twelve killed—mostly by drowning—and 340 wounded, most of them lightly. maqrizi puts the total number of ottoman dead at 4,000 men.
battle of gallipoli (1416)