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Greek Ruler of
Macedonian Kingdom
King Demetrius I Poliorcetes –
294-288 B.C.
Bronze 15mm (3.36 grams) Struck 294-288 B.C.
Reference: Sear 6775; Newell 20
Head of Demetrius right, wearing crested Corinthian helmet ornamented with
bull’s horn.
Prow of galley right; BA above, monogram beneath.
Son of Antigonos the One-eyed, Demetrios Poliorketes (the ‘Besiger’) was a
romantic chracter who pursued a most colorful career spanning more than three
decades. In his earlier years he assisted his father, whose power was centered
in Asia Minor, and in 306 he achieved a great naval victory over Ptolemy of
Egypt, in the batte f Salamis, off the coast of Cyprus. After many vicissituedes
he seized the Macedonian throne in 294, although he reigned for only six years
the dyansty which he founded lasted unil the end of the Macedonian Kingdom. He
died as a captive in Syria in 283 B.C.
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Demetrius I (337-283BC), called Poliorcetes “The Besieger”), son of
Antigonus I Monophthalmus
and
Stratonice
, was a king of
Macedon
(294-288 BC). He belonged to the
Antigonid dynasty
.
Marble bust of Demetrius I Poliorcetes. Roman copy from 1st century AD of a Greek original from 3rd century BC
Biography
At the age of twenty-two he was left by his father to defend
Syria
against
Ptolemy
the son of
Lagus
; he was
totally defeated in
Battle of Gaza
, but soon partially repaired his loss by a victory in the
neighbourhood of Myus
.
In the spring of 310, he was soundly defeated when he tried to expel
Seleucus I Nicator
from
Babylon
; his
father was defeated in the autumn. As a result of this
Babylonian War
, Antigonus lost almost two thirds of his empire: all eastern
satrapies became Seleucus’.
After several campaigns against Ptolemy on the coasts of
Cilicia
and
Cyprus
,
Demetrius sailed with a fleet of 250 ships to
Athens
. He
freed the city from the power of
Cassander
and Ptolemy, expelled the garrison which had been stationed there under
Demetrius of Phalerum
, and besieged and took
Munychia
(307 BC). After these victories he was worshipped by the Athenians
as a
tutelary
deity under the title of Soter (“Preserver”).
In the campaign of 306 BC against Ptolemy he defeated
Menelaus
, Ptolemy’s brother, in the naval
Battle of Salamis
, completely destroying the naval power of
Egypt
. In 305 BC,
now bearing the title of king bestowed upon him by his father, he endeavoured to
punish the Rhodians
for having deserted his cause; his ingenuity in devising new
siege engines
in his unsuccessful attempt to reduce the capital gained him
the title of Poliorcetes. Among his creations were a
battering ram
180 feet (55 m) long, requiring 1000 men to operate it; and a
wheeled siege tower
named “Helepolis”
(or “Taker of Cities”) which stood 125 feet (38 m) tall and 60 feet (18 m) wide,
weighing 360,000 pounds.
In 302 BC he returned a second time to Greece as liberator, and reinstated
the
Corinthian League
. But his licentiousness and extravagance made the
Athenians long for the government of Cassander. Among his outrages was his
courtship of a young boy named Democles the Handsome. The youth kept on refusing
his attention but one day found himself cornered at the baths. Having no way out
and being unable to physically resist his suitor, he took the lid off the hot
water cauldron and jumped in. His death is seen as a mark of honor for himself
and his country. In another instance, he waived a fine of 50 talents imposed on
a citizen in exchange for the favors of Cleaenetus, that man’s son.[1]
He also sought the attention of Lamia, a Greek courtesan. She demanded a price
of 250 talents. He put a tax on soap to raise the money.[2]
He also roused the jealousy of
Alexander
‘s Diadochi
;
Seleucus
, Cassander and
Lysimachus
united to destroy him and his father. The hostile armies met at the
Ipsus
in Phrygia
(301 BC). Antigonus was killed, and Demetrius, after sustaining
severe losses, retired to
Ephesus
. This
reversal of fortune stirred up many enemies against him�the Athenians refused
even to admit him into their city. But he soon afterwards ravaged the territory
of Lysimachus
and effected a reconciliation with Seleucus, to whom he gave his
daughter
Stratonice
in marriage. Athens was at this time oppressed by the tyranny of
Lachares
– a popular leader who made himself supreme in Athens in 296 BC –
but Demetrius, after a protracted blockade, gained possession of the city (294
BC) and pardoned the inhabitants for their misconduct in 301.
In the same year he established himself on the throne of Macedonia by
murdering
Alexander V
, the son of Cassander. In 291 BC he married
Lanassa
, the former wife of
Pyrrhus
. But his new position as ruler of Macedonia was continually
threatened by Pyrrhus, who took advantage of his occasional absence to ravage
the defenceless part of his kingdom (Plutarch,
Pyrrhus, 7 if.); at length, the combined forces of Pyrrhus, Ptolemy and
Lysimachus, assisted by the disaffected among his own subjects, obliged him to
leave Macedonia in 288 BC.
He passed into Asia and attacked some of the provinces of Lysimachus with
varying success. Famine and pestilence destroyed the greater part of his army,
and he solicited Seleucus’ support and assistance. But before he reached Syria
hostilities broke out, and after he had gained some advantages over his
son-in-law, Demetrius was totally forsaken by his troops on the field of battle
and surrendered to Seleucus.
His son
Antigonus
offered all his possessions, and even his own person, in order to
procure his father’s liberty. But all proved unavailing, and Demetrius died
after a confinement of three years (283 BC). His remains were given to Antigonus
and honoured with a splendid funeral at
Corinth
.
His descendants remained in possession of the Macedonian throne till the time
of
Perseus
, when Macedon was conquered by the
Romans
in 168 BC.
Literary references
Demetrius appears (under the Greek form of his name, Demetrios) in
L. Sprague de Camp
‘s historical novel,
The Bronze God of Rhodes
, which largely concerns itself with his siege
of Rhodes.
Alfred Duggan’s novel Elephants and Castles provides a lively
fictionalised account of his life.
A galley is a type of
ship propelled by
rowers
that originated in the
Mediterranean region
and was used for
warfare
,
trade
and
piracy
from the first millennium BC. Galleys
dominated
naval warfare
in the
Mediterranean Sea
from the 8th century BC until
development of advanced sailing warships in the 17th century. Galleys fought in
the wars of Assyria
, ancient
Phoenicia
,
Greece
,
Carthage
and
Rome
until the 4th century AD. After the fall
of the
Western Roman Empire
galleys formed the
mainstay of the
Byzantine navy
and other navies of successors
of the Roman Empire, as well as new
Muslim
navies. Medieval Mediterranean states,
notably the Italian maritime republics, including
Venice
,
Pisa
, and
Genoa
, relied on them as the primary warships
of their fleets until the late 16th century, when they were displaced by
broadside
sailing warships. Galleys continued
to be applied in minor roles in the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea even after
the invention of
steam propelled
ships in the early 19th
century.
The galley engagements at
Actium
and
Lepanto
are among the greatest
naval battles
in history.
Definition and
terminology
The term “galley” derives from the
medieval Greek
galea, a type of small
Byzantine
galley.[1]
The origin of the Greek word is unclear but could possibly be related to
galeos, “dog-fish; small shark”.[2]
The term has been attested in English from c. 1300[3]
and has been used in most European languages from around 1500 as a general term
for oared war vessels, especially those used in the Mediterranean from the late
Middle Ages and onwards.[4]
It is only since the 16th century that a unified galley concept has been in
use. Before that, and particularly in antiquity, there was a wide variety of
terms used for different types of galleys. In modern historical literature,
“galley” is occasionally used as a general term for various oared vessels,
though the “true” galley is defined as the ships belonging to the Mediterranean
tradition.[5]
Archaeologist
Lionel Casson
has on occasion used “galley” to
describe all North European shipping in the early and high Middle Ages,
including Viking
merchants and even their famous
longships
.[6]
In the late 18th century, the “galley” was in some contexts used to describe
oared gun-armed vessels which did not fit into the category of the classic
Mediterranean-type galleys. During the
American Revolutionary War
and the wars against
France and Britain the US Navy built vessels that were described as “row
galleys” or simply “galleys”, though they actually were variants of
brigantines
or Baltic
gunboats
.[7]
The description was more a characterization of their military role, and
partially due to technicalities in the administration and naval financing.[8]
Origins
Among the earliest known watercraft were
canoes
made from hollowed-out logs, the
earliest ancestors of galleys. Their narrow hulls required them to be
paddled
in a fixed sitting position facing
forwards, a less efficient form of propulsion than rowing with proper
oars, facing backwards. Sea-going paddled craft have been attested by
finds of terracotta sculptures and lead models in the region of the
Aegean Sea
from the 3rd millennium BC. However,
archaeologists believe that the
Stone Age
colonization of islands in the
Mediterranean around 8,000 BC required fairly large, seaworthy vessels that were
paddled and possibly even equipped with sails.[9]
The first evidence of more complex craft that are considered to prototypes for
later galleys comes from
Ancient Egypt
during the
Old Kingdom
(c. 2700-2200 BC). Under the rule
of pharaoh
Pepi I
(2332-2283 BC) these vessels were used
to transport troops to raid settlements along the
Levantine
coast and to ship back slaves and
timber.[10]
During the reign of
Hatshepsut
(c. 1479-57 BC), Egyptian galleys
traded in luxuries on the
Red Sea
with the enigmatic
Land of Punt
, as recorded on wall paintings at
the
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut
at
Deir el-Bahari
.[11]
Assyrian
warship, a
bireme
with pointed bow. 700 BC
Shipbuilders, probably
Phoenician
, a seafaring people who lived on the
southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, were the first to create the
two-level galley that would be widely known under its Greek name, biērēs,
or bireme
.[12]
Even though the
Phoenicians
were among the most important naval
civilizations in early
Antiquity
, little detailed evidence have been
found concerning the types of ships they used. The best depictions found so far
have been small, highly stylized images on seals which depict crescent-shape
vessels equipped with one mast and banks of oars. Colorful frescoes on the
Minoan
settlement on
Santorini
(c. 1600 BC) show more detailed
pictures of vessels with ceremonial tents on deck in a procession. Some of these
are rowed, but others are paddled with men laboriously bent over the railings.
This has been interpreted as a possible ritual reenactment of more ancient types
of vessels, alluding to a time before rowing was invented, but little is
otherwise known about the use and design of Minoan ships.[13]
Military history
The first Greek galleys appeared around the second half of the 2nd millennium
BC. In the epic poem, the
Iliad
, set in the 12th century BC, galleys
with a single row of oarsmen were used primarily to transport soldiers to and
from various land battles.[14]
The first recorded naval battle, the
battle of the Delta
between Egyptian forces
under Ramesses III
and the enigmatic alliance known
as the Sea Peoples
, occurred as early as 1175 BC. It
is the first known engagement between organized armed forces, using 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.[15]
A reconstruction of an ancient Greek galley squadron based on images
of modern replica
Olympias
The development of the
ram
sometime before the 8th century BC changed
the nature of naval warfare, which had until then been a matter of boarding and
hand-to-hand fighting. With a heavy projection at the foot of the
bow
, sheathed with metal, usually
bronze
, a ship could render an enemy galley
useless by breaking its side planking. The relative speed and nimbleness of
ships became important, since a slower ship could be outmaneuvered and disabled
by a faster one. Early designs had only one row of rowers that sat in undecked
hulls, rowing against tholes
, or oarports, placed directly along the
railings. The practical upper limit for wooden constructions fast and
maneuverable enough for warfare was around 25-30 oars per side. By adding
another level of oars, a development that occurred no later than c. 750 BC, the
galley could be made shorter with as many rowers, while making them strong
enough to be effective ramming weapons.[16]
Early galleys usually had between 15 and 30 pairs of oars and were called
triaconters
or
penteconters
, literally “thirty-” and
“fifty-oared”, respectively. By the 8th century BC, the Phoenecians had added a
second row of oars to these ships, creating the bireme. Soon after, a third row
of oars was added by the addition of an
outrigger
to the hull of a bireme, a projecting
construction that allowed for more room for the projecting oars. These new
galleys were called triÄ“rÄ“s (“three-fitted”) in Greek. The
Romans
later called this design the triremis,
trireme
, the name it is today best known under.
It has been hypothesized that early types of triremes existed in 701 BC, but the
earliest positive literary reference dates to 542 BC.[17]
According to the Greek historian
Herodotos
, the first ramming action occurred in
535 BC when 60
Phocaean
penteconters fought 120
Etruscan
and
Carthaginian
ships. On this occasion it was
described as an innovation that allowed Phocaeans to defeat a larger force.[18]
The emergence of more advanced states and intensified competition between
them spurred on the development of advanced galleys with multiple banks of
rowers. During the middle of the first millennium BC, the Mediterranean powers
developed successively larger and more complex vessels, the most advanced being
the classical trireme
with up to 170 rowers. Triremes fought
several important engagements in the naval battles of the
Greco-Persian Wars
(502–449 BC) and the
Peloponnesian War
(431-404 BC), including the
battle of Aegospotami
in 405 BC, which sealed
the defeat of the
Athenian Empire
by
Sparta
and her allies. The trireme was an
advanced ship that was expensive to build and to maintain due its large crew. By
the 5th century, advanced war galleys had been developed that required sizable
states with an advanced economy to build and maintain. It was associated with
the latest in warship technology around the 4th century BC and could only be
employed by a sizeable state with an advanced economy and administration. They
required considerable skill to row and oarsmen were mostly free citizens that
had a lifetime of experience at the oar.[19]
Greeks and Phoenicians
Early Greek vessels had few
navigational
tools. Most ancient and medieval
shipping remained in sight of the coast for ease of navigation, safety, trading
opportunities, and coastal currents and winds that could be used to work against
and around prevailing winds. It was more important for galleys than sailing
ships to remain near the coast because they needed more frequent re-supply of
fresh water for their large, sweating, crews and were more vulnerable to storms.
Unlike ships primarily dependent on sails, they could use small bays and beaches
as harbors, travel up rivers, operate in water only a meter or so deep, and be
dragged overland to be launched on lakes, or other branches of the sea. This
made them suitable for launching attacks on land. In antiquity a famous
portage
was the
diolkos
of Corinth. In 429 BC (Thucydides
2.56.2), and probably earlier (Herodotus 6.48.2, 7.21.2, 7.97), galleys were
adapted to carry horses to provide cavalry support to troops also landed by
galleys.
The compass
did not come into use for navigation
until the 13th century AD, and
sextants
,
octants
, accurate
marine chronometers
, and the mathematics
required to determine
longitude
and
latitude
were developed much later. Ancient
sailors navigated by the sun and the prevailing wind[citation
needed]. By the
first millennium BC
they had started using the
stars to navigate at night. By 500 BC they had the
sounding lead
(Herodotus 2.5).
Galleys were hauled out of the water whenever possible to keep them dry,
light and fast and free from worm, rot and seaweed. Galleys were usually
overwintered in ship sheds which left distinctive archeological remains.[20]
There is evidence that the hulls of the Punic wrecks were sheathed in lead.
Building an efficient galley posed technical problems. The faster a ship
travels, the more energy it uses. Through a process of trial and error, the
unireme or 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. It could reach 9 knots (18 km/h), only a knot or so slower than
modern rowed racing-boats. To maintain the strength of such a long craft
tensioned cables were fitted from the bow to the stern; this provided rigidity
without adding weight. This technique kept the joints of the hull under
compression – tighter, and more waterproof. The tension in the modern trireme
replica anti-hogging
cables was 300 kN (Morrison p198).
Hellenistic era and rise of the Republic
As civilizations around the Mediterranean grew in size and complexity, both
their navies and the galleys that made up their numbers became successively
larger. The basic design of two or three rows of oars remained the same, but
more rowers were added to each oar. The exact reasons are not known, but are
believed to have been caused by addition of more troops and the use of more
advanced ranged weapons on ships, such as
catapults
. The size of the 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.[21]
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 or three rows of oars.
Ptolemy II
(283-46 BC) is known to have built a
large fleet of very large galleys with several experimental designs rowed by
everything from 12 up to 40 rows of rowers, though most of these are considered
to have been quite impractical. Fleets with large galleys were put in action in
conflicts such as the
Punic Wars
(246-146) between the
Roman republic
and
Carthage
, which included massive naval battles
with hundreds of vessels and tens of thousands of soldiers, seamen and rowers.[22]
Roman Imperial era
Depictions of two compact liburnians used by the Romans in their
campaigns against the Dacians
in
the early 2nd century AD; reliefs from
Trajan’s Column
, c. 113 AD.
The
battle of Actium
in 31 BC between the forces of
Augustus
and
Mark Antony
marked the peak of the Roman fleet
arm. After Augustus’ victory at Actium, most of the Roman fleet was dismantled
and burned. The
Roman civil wars
were fought mostly by land
forces, and from the 160s until the 4th century AD, no major fleet actions were
recorded. During this time, most of the galley crews were disbanded or employed
for entertainment purposes in
mock battles
or in handling the sail-like
sun-screens in the larger Roman arenas. What fleets remained were treated as
auxiliaries of the land forces, and galley crewmen themselves called themselves
milites, “soldiers”, rather than nautae, “sailors”.[23]
Instead, the Roman galley fleets were turned into provincial patrol forces that
were smaller and relied largely on liburnians, compact biremes with 25
pairs of oars. These were named after an
Illyrian tribe
known by Romans for their sea
roving practices, and these smaller craft were based on, or inspired by, their
vessels of choice. The liburnians and other small galleys patrolled the rivers
of continental Europe and reached as far as the Baltic, where they were used to
fight local uprisings and assist in checking foreign invasions. The Romans
maintained numerous bases around the empire: along the rivers of Central Europe,
chains of forts along the northern European coasts and the British Isles,
Mesopotamia and North Africa, including
Trabzon
, Vienna, Belgrade, Dover,
Seleucia
and
Alexandria
. Few actual galley battles in the
provinces are found in records, but one action in 70 AD at the uncertain
location of the “Island of the Batavians” during the
Batavian Rebellion
was noted, and featured a
trireme as the Roman flagship.[24]
The last provincial fleet, the classis Britannica, was reduced by the
late 200s, though there was a minor upswing under the rule of
Constantine
(272–337). His rule also saw the
final major naval battle of the Roman Empire, the
battle of Adrianople
of 324. Some time after
Adrianople, the classical trireme fell out of use, and was eventually forgotten.[25]
Middle Ages
A 13th century war galley depicted in a Byzantine-style fresco.
Late medieval
maritime warfare was divided in
two distinct regions. In the Mediterranean galleys were used for raiding along
coasts, and in the constant fighting for naval bases. In the Atlantic and Baltic
there was greater focus on sailing ships that were used mostly for troop
transport, with galleys providing fighting support.[26]
Galleys were still widely used in the north and were the most numerous warships
used by Mediterranean powers with interests in the north, especially the French
and Iberian kingdoms.[27]
A transition from galley to sailing vessels as the most common types of warships
began in the
high Middle Ages
(c. 11th century). Large
high-sided sailing ships had always been formidable obstacles for galleys. To
low-freeboard oared vessels, the bulkier sailing ships like the
carrack
and the
cog
acted almost like floating fortresses,
being difficult to board and even harder to capture. Galleys remained useful as
warships throughout the Middle Ages since they had the ability to maneuver in a
way that sailing vessels of the time were completely incapable of. Sailing ships
of the time had only one mast, usually with just one large square sail, which
made them cumbersome to steer and virtually impossible to sail in the wind
direction. This allowed the galleys great freedom of movement along coasts for
raiding and landing troops.[28]
In the eastern Mediterranean, the
Byzantine Empire
struggled with the incursion
from invading Muslim Arabs from the 7th century, leading to fierce competition,
a buildup of fleet, and war galleys of increasing size. Soon after conquering
Egypt and the Levant, the Arab rulers built ships highly similar to Byzantine
dromons
with the help of local
Coptic
shipwrights former Byzantine naval
bases.[29]
By the 9th century, the struggle between the Byzantines and Arabs had turned the
Eastern Mediterranean into a no man’s land for merchant activity. In the 820s
Crete
was captured by Andalusian Muslims
displaced by a failed revolt against the
Emirate of Cordoba
, turning the island into a
base for (galley) attacks on Christian shipping until the island was recaptured
by the Byzantines in 960.[30]
In the western Mediterranean and Atlantic, the division of the
Carolingian Empire
in the late 9th century
brought on a period of instability, meaning increased piracy and raiding in the
Mediterranean, particularly by newly-arrived Muslim invaders. The situation was
worsened by raiding Scandinavian
Vikings
who used
longships
, vessels that in many ways were very
close to galleys in design and functionality and also employed similar tactics.
To counter the threat, local rulers began to build large oared vessels, some
with up to 30 pairs of oars, that were larger, faster and with higher sides than
Viking ships.[31]
Scandinavian expansion, including incursions into the Mediterranean and attacks
on both Muslim Iberia and even Constantinople itself, subsided by the mid-11th
century. By this time, greater stability in merchant traffic was achieved by the
emergence of Christian kingdoms such as those of France, Hungary and Poland.
Around the same time, Italian port towns and city states, like
Venice
,
Pisa
and
Amalfi
, rose on the fringes of the Byzantine
Empire as it struggled with eastern threats.[32]
During the 13th and 14th century, the galley evolved into a design that was
to remain essentially the same until it was phased out in the early 19th
century. The new type of galley descended from the ships used by Byzantine and
Muslim fleets in the early Middle Ages. These were the mainstay of all Christian
powers until the 14th century, including the great maritime republics of Genoa
and Venice, the Papacy, the Hospitallers, Aragon and Castile, as well as by
various
pirates
and
corsairs
. The overall term used for these types
of vessels was gallee sottili (“slender galleys”). The later
Ottoman navy
used similar designs, but they
were generally faster under sail, and smaller, but slower under oars.[33]
Galley designs were intended solely for close action with hand-held weapons and
projectile weapons like bows and crossbows. In the 13th century the Iberian
kingdom of Aragon
built several fleet of galleys with high
castles, manned with Catalan crossbowman, and regularly defeated numerically
superior
Angevin
forces.[34]
During the 14th century, galleys began to be equipped with cannons of various
sizes, mostly smaller ones at first, but also larger bombardas on vessels
belonging to
Alfonso V of Aragon
.
The
transition to sailing ships
As early as 1304 the type of ship required by the Danish defence organization
changed from galley to
cog
, a flat-bottomed sailing ship.[35]
During the early 15th century, sailing ships began to dominate naval warfare
in northern waters. While the galley still remained the primary warship in
southern waters, a similar transition had begun also among the Mediterranean
powers. A
Castilian
naval raid on the island of
Jersey
in 1405 became the first recorded battle
battle where a Mediterranean power employed a naval force consisting mostly of
cogs or nefs
, rather than the oared-powered galleys.
The
battle of Gibraltar
between Castile and
Portugal in 1476 was another important sign of change; it was the first recorded
battle where the primary combatants were full-rigged ships armed with
wrought-iron guns on the upper decks and in the waists, foretelling of the slow
decline of the war galley.[36]
Early modern period
Painting of the
battle of Haarlemmermeer
of 1573 by
Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom
. Note the
use of small sailing vessels and galleys on both sides.
From around 1450, three major naval powers established a dominance over
different parts of the Mediterranean using galleys as their primary weapons at
sea: the Ottomans in the east, Venice in the center and
Habsburg Spain
in the west.[37]
The core of their fleets were concentrated in the three major, wholly dependable
naval bases in the Mediterranean:
Constantinople
,
Venice
and
Barcelona
.[38]
Naval warfare in the 16th century Mediterranean was fought mostly on a smaller
scale, with raiding and minor actions dominating. Only three truly major fleet
engagements were actually fought in the 16th century: the battles of
Preveza
in 1538,
Djerba
in 1560 and
Lepanto
in 1571. Lepanto became the last large
all-galley battle ever, and was also one of the largest battle in terms of
participants anywhere in early modern Europe before the
Napoleonic Wars
.[39]
Occasionally the Mediterranean powers employed galley forces for conflicts
outside of the Mediterranean. Spain sent galley squadrons to the Netherlands
during the later stages of the
Eighty Years’ War
which successfully operated
against Dutch forces in the enclosed, shallow coastal waters. From the late
1560s, galleys were also used to transport silver to Genoese bankers to finance
Spanish troops against the Dutch uprising.[40]
Galleasses and galleys were part of an invasion force of over 16,000 men that
conquered the Azores
in 1583. Around 2,000 galley rowers were
on board ships of the famous 1588
Spanish Armada
, though few of these actually
made it to the battle itself.[41]
Outside of European and Middle Eastern waters, Spain built galleys to deal with
pirates and privateers in both the Caribbean and the Philippines.[42]
Ottoman galleys contested the Portuguese intrusion in the Indian Ocean in the
16th century, but failed against the high-sided, massive Portuguese carracks in
open waters.[43]
Galleys had been synonymous with warships in the Mediterranean for at least
2,000 years, and continued to fulfill that role with the invention of gunpowder
and heavy artillery. Though early 20th century historians often dismissed the
galleys as hopelessly outclassed with the first introduction of naval artillery
on sailing ships,[44]
it was the galley that was favored by the introduction of heavy naval guns.
Galleys were a more “mature” technology with long-established tactics and
traditions of supporting social institutions and naval organizations. In
combination with the intensified conflicts this led to a substantial increase in
the size of galley fleets from c. 1520-80, above all in the Mediterranean, but
also in other European theatres.[45]
Galleys and similar oared vessels remained uncontested as the most effective
gun-armed warships in theory until the 1560s, and in practice for a few decades
more, and were actually considered a grave risk to sailing warships.[46]
They could effectively fight other galleys, attack sailing ships in calm weather
or in unfavorable winds (or deny them action if needed) and act as floating
siege batteries. They were also unequaled in their amphibious capabilities, even
at extended ranges, as exemplified by French interventions as far north as
Scotland in the mid-16th century.[47]
Heavy artillery on galleys was mounted in the bow which fit conveniently with
the long-standing tactical tradition of attacking head-on and bow-first. The
ordnance on galleys was heavy from its introduction in the 1480s, and capable of
quickly demolishing the high, thin medieval stone walls that still prevailed in
the 16th century. This temporarily upended the strength of older seaside
fortresses, which had to be rebuilt to cope with gunpowder weapons. The addition
of guns also improved the amphibious abilities of galleys as they could assault
supported with heavy firepower, and could be even more effectively defended when
beached stern-first.[48]
An accumulation and generalizing of bronze cannons and small firearms in the
Mediterranean during the 16th century increased the cost of warfare, but also
made those dependent on them more resilient to manpower losses. Older ranged
weapons, like bows or even crossbows, required considerable skill to handle,
sometimes a lifetime of practice, while gunpowder weapons required considerable
less training to use successfully.[49]
According to a highly influential study by military historian John F. Guilmartin,
this transition in warfare, along with the introduction of much cheaper cast
iron guns in the 1580s, proved the “death knell” for the war galley as a
significant military vessel.[50]
Gunpowder weapons began to displace men as the fighting power of armed forces,
making individual soldiers more deadly and effective. As offensive weapons,
firearms could be stored for years with minimal maintenance and did not require
the expenses associated with soldiers. Manpower could thus be exchanged for
capital investments, something which benefited sailing vessels that were already
far more economical in their use of manpower. It also served to increase their
strategic range and to out-compete galleys as fighting ships.[51]
The North
The Galley Subtle, one of the very few Mediterranean-style
galleys employed by the English. Illustration from the
Anthony Roll
, c. 1546.
Oared vessels remained in use in northern waters for a long time, though in
subordinate role and in particular circumstances. During the
Dutch Revolt
(1566–1609) against the Habsburg
empire, both the Spanish and Dutch (including those who remained loyal to the
Habsburgs) employed galleys in amphibious operations in shallow waters where
deep-draft sailing vessels could not enter.[52]
In the Italian Wars
, French galleys brought up from
the Mediterranean to the Atlantic posed a serious threat to the early English
Tudor navy
during coastal operations. The
response came in the building of a considerable fleet of oared vessels,
including hybrids with a complete three-masted rig, as well as a
Mediterranean-style galleys (that were even attempted to be manned with convicts
and slaves).[53]
Under king
Henry VIII
, the English navy used several kinds
of vessels that were adapted to local needs. English galliasses (very
different from the Mediterranean vessel of
of the same name
) were employed to cover the
flanks of larger naval forces while pinnaces and rowbarges were
used for scouting or even as a backup for the
longboats
and tenders for the larger sailing
ships.[54]
While galleys were too vulnerable to be used in large numbers in the open
waters of the Atlantic, they were well-suited for use in much of the Baltic Sea
by Denmark, Sweden, Russia and some of the Central European powers with ports on
the southern coast. There were two types of naval battlegrounds in the Baltic.
One was the open sea, suitable for large sailing fleets; the other was the
coastal areas and especially the chain of small islands and archipelagos that
ran almost uninterrupted from Stockholm to the Gulf of Finland. In these areas,
conditions were often too calm, cramped and shallow for sailing ships, but they
were excellent for galleys and other oared vessels.[55]
Galleys of the Mediterranean type were first introduced in the
Baltic Sea
around the mid-16th century as
competition between the Scandinavian states of Denmark and Sweden intensified.
The Swedish galley fleet was the largest outside of the Mediterranean, and
served as an auxiliary branch of the army. Very little is known about the design
of Baltic galleys, except that they were overall smaller than in the
Mediterranean and they were rowed by army soldiers rather than convicts or
slaves.[56]
Mediterranean decline
Atlantic style warfare based on heavily armed sailing ships began to change
the nature of naval warfare in the Mediterranean in the 17th century. In 1616, a
small squadron of five
galleons
and a
patache
was used to cruise the eastern
Mediterranean and defeated a fleet of fifty five galleys at the
battle of Cape Celidonia
. By 1650, war galleys
were used primarily in the wars between Venice and the Ottoman Empire in their
struggle for strategic island and coastal trading bases and until the 1720s by
France and Spain but for largely amphibious and cruising operation, not for
large fleet battles. Even a purely Mediterranean power like Venice began to
construct sail only warships in the latter part of the century. Christian and
Muslim corsairs had been using galleys in sea roving and in support of the major
powers in times of war, but largely replaced them with
xebecs
, various sail/oar hybrids, and a few
remaining light galleys in the early 17th century.[57]
Spain still waged classical amphibious galley warfare in the 1640s by supplying
troops in Tarragona in its war against France.[58]
No large all galley battles were fought after the gigantic clash at Lepanto in
1571, and galleys were mostly used as cruisers or for supporting sailing
warships as a rearguard in fleet actions, similar to the duties performed by
frigates
outside of the Mediterranean.[57]
They could assist damaged ships out of the line, but generally only in very calm
weather, as was the case at the
battle of Malaga
in 1704.[59]
For small states and principalities as well as groups of private merchants,
galleys were more affordable than large and complex sailing warships, and were
used as defense against piracy.[60]
The largest galley fleets in the 17th century were operated by the two major
Mediterranean powers,
France
and
Spain
. France had by the 1650s become the most
powerful state in Europe, and expanded its galley forces under the rule of the
absolutist “Sun King”
Louis XIV
. In the 1690s the
French Galley Corps
reached its all-time peak
with more than 50 vessels manned by over 15,000 men and officers, becoming the
largest galley in the world at the time.[61]
Though there was intense rivalry between France and Spain, not a single galley
battle occurred between the two great powers, and virtually no battles between
other nations either.[62]
During the
War of the Spanish Succession
, French galleys
were involved in actions against
Antwerp
and
Harwich
,[52]
but due to the intricacies of alliance politics there were never any
Franco-Spanish galley clashes. In the first half of the 18th century, the other
major naval powers in North Africa, the
Order of Saint John
and the
Papal States
all cut down drastically on their
galley forces.[63]
Despite the lack of action, the French Galley Corps received vast resources
(20-25% of the French naval expenditures) during the last decades of the 17th
centuries and was maintained as a functional fighting force right up until its
abolishment in 1748. Its primary function became to symbolize the prestige of
Louis XIV’s hard-line absolutist ambitions by patrolling the Mediterranean to
force ships of other states to salute the King’s banner, convoying ambassadors
and cardinals, and obediently participating in naval parades and royal
pageantry.[64]
The last recorded battle in the Mediterranean where galleys played a
significant part was at
Matapan
in 1717, between the Ottomans and
Venice and its allies, though they had little influence on the final outcome.
Few large-scale naval battles were fought in the Mediterranean throughout most
of the remainder of the 18th century. The Tuscan galley fleet was dismantled
around 1718, Naples had only four old vessels by 1734 and the French Galley
Corps had ceased to exist as an independent arm in 1748. Venice, the Papal
States and the Knights of Malta were the only state fleets that maintained
galleys, though in nothing like their previous quantities.[65]
By 1790, there were less than 50 galleys in service among all the Mediterranean
powers, half of which belonged to Venice.[66]
Baltic revival
The
second battle of Svensksund
in 1790
between the Swedish and Russian navies was the last major naval
battle between forces that included large numbers of galleys and
other oared vessels.
Galleys were introduced to the
Baltic Sea
in the 16th century but the details
of their designs are lacking due to the absence of records. They might have been
built in a more regional style, but the only known depiction from the time shows
a typical Mediterranean vessel. There is conclusive evidence that Denmark became
the first Baltic power to build classic Mediterranean-style galleys in the
1660s, though they proved to be generally too large to be useful for use in the
shallow waters of the Baltic archipelagos. Sweden and especially Russia began to
launch galleys and various rowed vessels in great numbers during the
Great Northern War
in the first two decades of
the 18th century.[67]
Sweden was late in the game when it came to building an effective oared fighting
fleet while the Russian galley forces under tsar
Peter I
developed into a supporting arm for the
sailing navy, as well as a well-functioning auxiliary of the army which
infiltrated and conducted numerous raids on the eastern Swedish coast in the
1710s.[68]
Sweden and Russia became the two main competitors for Baltic dominance in the
18th century, and built the largest galley fleets in the world at the time. They
were used for amphibious operations in Russo-Swedish wars of
1741-43
and
1788-90
. The last galleys ever constructed were
built in 1796 by Russia, and remained in service well into the 19th century, but
saw little action.[69]
The last time galleys were deployed in action was when the Russian navy attacked
Ã…bo (Turku)
in 1854 as part of the
Crimean War
.[70]
Trade
In the earliest days of the galley, there was no clear distinction between
galleys of trade and war other than their actual usage. River boats plied the
waterways of ancient Egypt during the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 BC) and sea-going
galley-like vessels were recorded bringing back luxuries from across the Red Sea
in the reign of pharaoh
Hatshepsu
(c. 1479-1457). Fitting rams to the
bows of vessels sometime around the 8th century BC resulted in a distinct split
in the design of warships, and set trade vessels apart, at least when it came to
use in naval warfare. The Phoenicians used galleys for transports that were less
elongated, carried fewer oars and relied more on sails. Carthaginian galley
wrecks found off Sicily that date to the 3rd or 2nd century BC had a length to
breadth ratio of 6:1, proportions that fell between the 4:1 of sailing merchant
ships and the 8:1 or 10:1 of war galleys. Merchant galleys in the ancient
Mediterranean were intended as carriers of valuable cargo or perishable goods
that needed to be moved as safely and quickly as possible.[71]
Most of the surviving documentary evidence comes from Greek and Roman
shipping, though it is likely that merchant galleys all over the Mediterranean
were highly similar. In Greek they were referred to as histiokopos
(“sail-oar-er”) to reflect that they relied on both types of propulsion. In
Latin they were called actuaria (navis) (“ship that moves”) in Latin,
stressing that they were capable of making progress regardless of weather
conditions. As an example of the speed and reliability, during an instance of
the famous “Carthago
delenda est“-speech,
Cato the Elder
demonstrated the close proximity
of the Roman arch enemy Carthage by displaying a fresh fig to his audience that
he claimed was been picked in North Africa only three days past. Other cargoes
carried by galleys were honey, cheese, meat and live animals intended for
gladiator
combat. The Romans had several types
of merchant galleys that specialized in various tasks, out of which the
actuaria with up to 50 rowers was the most versatile, including the
phaselus (lit. “bean pod”) for passanger transport and the lembus, a
small-scale express carrier. Many of these designs continued to be used until
the Middle Ages.[72]
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the early centuries AD, the old
Mediterranean economy collapsed and the volume of trade went down drastically.
Its eastern successor, the
Byzantine Empire
, neglected to revive overland
trade routes but was dependent on keeping the sea lanes open to keep the empire
together. Bulk trade fell around 600-750 while the luxury trade increased.
Galleys remained in service, but were profitable mainly in the luxury trade,
which set off their high maintenance cost.[73]
In the 10th century, there was a sharp increase in piracy which resulted in
larger ships with more numerous crews. These were mostly built by the growing
city-states of Italy which were emerging as the dominant sea powers, including
Venice
,
Genoa
and
Pisa. Inheriting the Byzantine ship designs, the new merchant galleys
were similar dromons
, but without any heavy weapons and both
faster and wider. They could be manned by crews of up to 1,000 men and were
employed in both trade and warfare. A further boost to the development of the
large merchant galleys was the upswing in Western European pilgrims traveling to
the Holy Land[74]
In Northern Europe, Viking longships and their derivations,
knarrs
, dominated trading and shipping, though
developed separately from the Mediterranean galley tradition. In the South
galleys continued to be useful for trade even as sailing vessels evolved more
efficient hulls and rigging; since they could hug the shoreline and make steady
progress when winds failed, they were highly reliable. The zenith in the design
of merchant galleys came with the state-owned great galleys of the
Venetian Republic
, first built in the 1290s.
These were used to carry the lucrative trade in luxuries from the east such as
spices, silks and gems. They were in all respects larger than contemporary war
galleys (up to 46 m) and had a deeper draft, with more room for cargo (140-250
t). With a full complement of rowers ranging from 150 to 180 men, all available
to defend the ship from attack, they were also very safe modes of travel. This
attracted a business of carrying affluent pilgrims to the Holy Land, a trip that
could be accomplished in as little 29 days on the route Venice-Jaffa,
despite landfalls for rest and watering or for respite from rough weather.[75]
From the first half of the 14th century the Venetian galere da mercato
(“merchantman galleys”) were being built in the shipyards of the state-run
Arsenal
as “a combination of state enterprise
and private association, the latter being a kind of consortium of export
merchants”, as Fernand Braudel described them.[76]
The ships sailed in convoy, defended by archers and slingsmen (ballestieri)
aboard, and later carrying cannons. In
Genoa
, the other major maritime power of the
time, galleys and ships in general were more produced by smaller private
ventures.
In the 14th and 15th centuries merchant galleys traded high-value goods and
carried passengers. Major routes in the time of the early Crusades carried the
pilgrim traffic to the Holy Land. Later routes linked ports around the
Mediterranean, between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (a grain trade soon
squeezed off by the Turkish capture of Constantinople, 1453) and between the
Mediterranean and Bruges
� where the first Genoese galley arrived
at Sluys in 1277, the first Venetian galere in 1314� and
Southampton
. Although primarily sailing
vessels, they used oars to enter and leave many trading ports of call, the most
effective way of entering and leaving the
Lagoon of Venice
. The Venetian galera,
beginning at 100 tons and built as large as 300, was not the largest merchantman
of its day, when the Genoese
carrack
of the 15th century might exceed 1000
tons.[77]
In 1447, for instance, Florentine galleys planned to call at 14 ports on their
way to and from Alexandria.[78]
The availability of oars enabled these ships to navigate close to the shore
where they could exploit land and sea breezes and coastal currents, to work
reliable and comparatively fast passages against the prevailing wind. The large
crews also provided protection against piracy. These ships were very seaworthy;
a Florentine great galley left Southampton on 23 February 1430 and returned to
its port at Pisa in 32 days. They were so safe that merchandise was often not
insured (Mallet). These ships increased in size during this period, and were the
template from which the
galleass
developed.
Design
Illustration of an Egyptian rowed ship of c. 1250 BC. Due to a lack
of a proper keel
, the vessel has a
truss
, a thick cable along its
length, to prevent it from losing its shape.
Galleys have since their first appearance in ancient times been intended as
highly maneuverable vessels, independent of winds by being rowed, and usually
with a focus on speed under oars. The profile has therefore been that of a
markedly elongated hull with a ratio of breadth to length at the waterline of at
least 1:5, and in the case of ancient Mediterranean galleys as much as 1:10 with
a small draught, the measurement of how much of a ship’s structure that is
submerged under water. To make it possible to efficiently row the vessels, the
freeboard
, the height of the railing to the
surface of the water, was by necessity kept low. This gave oarsmen enough
leverage to row efficiently, but at the expense of seaworthiness. These design
characteristics made the galley fast and maneuverable, but more vulnerable to
rough weather.
On the funerary monument of the Egyptian king
Sahure
(2487–2475 BC) in
Abusir
, there are relief images of vessels with
a marked
sheer
(the curvature along its length) and
seven pairs of oars along its side, a number that was likely to have been merely
symbolical, and steering oars in the stern. They have one mast, all lowered and
vertical posts at stem and stern, with the front decorated with an
Eye of Horus
, the first example of such a
decoration. It was later used by other Mediterranean cultures to decorate sea
going craft in the belief that it helped to guide the ship safely to its
destination. These early galleys apparently lacked a
keel meaning they lacked stiffness along their length. Therefore they
had large cables connecting stem and stern resting on massive crutches on deck.
They were held in tension to avoid
hogging
, or bending the ship’s construction
upwards in the middle, while at sea.[10]
In the 15th century BC, Egyptian galleys were still depicted with the
distinctive extreme sheer, but had by then developed the distinctive
forward-curving stern decorations with ornaments in the shape of
lotus flowers
.[79]
They had possibly developed a primitive type of keel, but still retained the
large cables intended to prevent hogging.[11]
The design of the earliest oared vessels is mostly unknown and highly
conjectural. They likely used a
mortise
construction, but were sewn together
rather than pinned together with nails and dowels. Being completely open, they
were rowed (or even paddled) from the open deck, and likely had “ram entries”,
projections from the bow lowered the resistance of moving through water, making
them slightly more hydrodynamic. The first true galleys, the
triaconters
(“thirty-oarers”) and
penteconters
(“fifty-oarers”) were developed
from these early designs and set the standard for the larger designs that would
come later. They were rowed on only one level, which made them fairly slow,
likely only 5-5.5 knots. By the 8th century BC the first galleys rowed at two
levels had been developed, among the earliest being the two-level penteconters
which were considerably shorter than the one-level equivalents, and therefore
more maneuverable. They were an estimated 25 m in length and displaced 15 tonnes
with 25 pairs of oars. These could have reached an estimated top speed of up to
7.5 knots, making them the first genuine warships when fitted with bow rams.
They were equipped with a single
square sail
on mast set roughly halfway along
the length of the hull.[80]
Antiquity
The ram bow of the trireme
Olympias
, a modern full-scale
reconstruction of a classical Greek trireme.
By the 5th century BC, the first
triremes
were in use by various powers in the
eastern Mediterranean. It had now become a fully developed, highly specialized
vessel of war that was capable of high speeds and complex maneuvers. At nearly
40 m in length, displacing almost 50 tonnes, it was more than three times as
expensive than a two-level penteconter. A trireme also had an additional mast
with a smaller square sail placed near the bow.[81]
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. Arrangement 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 or oarsmen enough
leverage
to complete their strokes without
lowering the efficiency.[82]
Roman era
Galleys from 4th century BC up to the time of the early
Roman Empire
in the 1st century AD became
successively larger and heavier. Three levels of oars had proved to be the
practical limit, but it was improved on by making ships longer, broader and
heavier and placing more than one rower per oar. Naval conflict grew more
intense and extensive, and by 100 BC galleys with four, five or six rows of
oarsmen were commonplace and carried large complements of soldiers and
catapults. With high freeboards (up to 3 m) and additional tower structures from
which missiles could be shot down onto enemy decks, they were intended to be
like floating fortresses.[83]
Designs with everything from eight rows of oarsmen and upwards were built, but
most of them are believed to have been impractical show pieces never used in
actual warfare.[84]
Ptolemy IV
, the Greek pharaoh of Egypt 221-205
BC is recorded as building a gigantic ship with forty rows of oarsmen, but
without specification of its design. A suggested construction was that of a huge
trireme catamaran
with up to 14 men per oar.[85]
The size of ancient galleys, and fleets, reached their peak in ancient times
with the defeat of
Mark Antony
by
Octavian
at the
battle of Actium
. Well-organized contenders for
the power over the Mediterranean did not appear again until several centuries
later, during the
Roman civil wars of the 4th century
, and the
size of galleys decreased considerably. The huge polyremes disappeared and were
replaced by triremes and
liburnian
s, compact biremes with 25 pairs
of oars that were well suited for patrol duty and chasing down pirates.[86]
In the northern provinces oared patrol boats were employed to keep local tribes
in check along the shores of rivers like the
Rhine
and the
Danube
.[87]
As the need for large warships disappeared, the design of the
trireme
, the pinnacle of ancient war ship
design, was forgotten. The last known reference to triremes in battle is dated
to 324 at the
battle of the Hellespont
. In the late 5th
century the Byzantine historian
Zosimus
declared the knowledge of how to build
them to have been long since forgotten.[88]
Middle Ages
Typical specifications
The earliest galley specification comes from an order of
Charles I of Sicily
, in 1275 AD.[89]
Overall length 39.30 m, keel
length 28.03 m, depth 2.08 m. Hull width
3.67 m. Width between
outriggers
4.45 m. 108 oars, most 6.81 m long,
some 7.86 m, 2 steering oars 6.03 m long. Foremast and middle mast respectively
heights 16.08 m, 11.00 m; circumference both 0.79 m, yard lengths 26.72 m, 17.29
m. Overall
deadweight
tonnage approximately 80 metric
tons. This type of vessel had two, later three, men on a
bench
, each working his own oar. This vessel
had much longer oars than the Athenian trireme which were 4.41 m & 4.66 m long.[90]
This type of warship was called galia sottil.[91]
According to Landström, the Medieval galleys had no rams as
boarding
was considered more important method
of warfare than ramming.
Medieval galleys like this pioneered the use of
naval guns
, pointing forward as a supplement to
the above-waterline
beak designed to break the enemies outrigger. Only in the 16th century were
ships called galleys developed with many men to each oar.[92]
Byzantine navy
The primary warship of the Byzantine navy until the 12th century was the
dromon
and other similar ship types. Considered
an evolution of the Roman
liburnian
, the term first appeared in the late
5th century, and was commonly used for a specific kind of war-galley by the 6th
century.[93]
The term drom�n (literally “runner”) itself comes from the Greek root
drom-(á�), “to run”, and 6th-century authors like
Procopius
are explicit in their references to
the speed of these vessels.[94]
During the next few centuries, as the naval struggle with the Arabs intensified,
heavier versions with two or possibly even three banks of oars evolved.[95]
The accepted view is that the main developments which differentiated the
early dromons from the liburnians, and that henceforth characterized
Mediterranean galleys, were the adoption of a full
deck
, the abandonment of
rams
on the bow in favor of an above-water
spur, and the gradual introduction of
lateen
sails.[96]
The exact reasons for the abandonment of the ram are unclear. Depictions of
upward-pointing beaks in the 4th-century
Vatican Vergil
manuscript may well
illustrate that the ram had already been replaced by a spur in late Roman
galleys.[97]
One possibility is that the change occurred because of the gradual evolution of
the ancient shell-first construction method, against which rams had been
designed, into the skeleton-first method, which produced a stronger and more
flexible hull, less susceptible to ram attacks.[98]
At least by the early 7th century, the ram’s original function had been
forgotten.[99]
Belisarius’ invasion fleet of 533 was at least partly fitted with lateen sails,
making it probable that by the time the lateen had become the standard rig for
the dromon,[100]
with the traditional square sail gradually falling from use in medieval
navigation in the Mediterranean.[101]
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.[102]
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.[103]
The overall length of these ships was probably about 32 meters.[104]
The stern
(prymnē), which also housed a tent
that covered the captain’s berth.[105]
The prow featured an elevated forecastle (pseudopation), below which one
or more siphons for the discharge of
Greek fire
projected.[106]
A pavesade on which marines could hang their shields ran around the sides of the
ship, providing protection to the deck crew.[107]
Larger ships also had wooden castles on either side between the masts, providing
archers with elevated firing platforms.[108]
The bow spur was intended to ride over an enemy ship’s oars, breaking them and
rendering it helpless against missile fire and boarding actions.[109]
Early modern
The ubiquitous bow fighting platform (rambade) of early
modern galleys. This model is of a 1715 Swedish galley, somewhat
smaller than the standard Mediterranean war galley, but still based
on the same design.
With the introduction of guns in the bows of galleys, a permanent wooden
structure called rambade (French: rambade; Italian: rambata;
Spanish: arrumbada) was introduced. The rambade became standard on
virtually all galleys in the early 16th century. There were some variations in
the navies of different Mediterranean powers, but the overall layout was the
same. The forward-aiming battery was covered by a wooden platform which gave
gunners a minimum of protection, and functioned as both a staging area for
boarding attacks and as a firing platform for on-board soldiers.[110]
At the
Battle of Lepanto
in 1571, the standard
Venetian war galleys were 42 m long and 5.1 m wide (6.7 m with the rowing
frame), had a
draught
of 1.7 m and a
freeboard
of 1.0 m, and weighed empty about 140
tons. The larger flagship galleys (lanterna, “lantern”) were 46 m long
and 5.5 m wide (7.3 m with the rowing frame), had 1.8 m draught and 1.1 m
freeboard. and weighed 180 tons. The standard galleys had 24 rowing benches on
each side, with three rowers to a bench. (One bench on each side was typically
removed to make space for platforms carrying the
skiff
and the
stove
.) The crew typically comprised 10
officers
, about 65
sailors
, gunners and other staff plus 138
rowers. The “lanterns” had 27 benches on each side, with 156 rowers, and a crew
of 15 officers and about 105 other sailors, gunners and soldiers. The regular
galleys carried one 50-pound
cannon
or a 32-pound
culverin
at the bow as well as four lighter
cannons and four swivel guns. The larger lanterns carried one heavy gun plus six
12 and 6 pound culverins and eight swivel guns.
In the mid-17th century, galleys reached what has been described as their
“final form”.[111]
Galleys had looked more or less the same for over four centuries and a fairly
standardized classification system for different sizes of galleys had been
developed by the Mediterranean bureaucracies, based mostly on the number of
benches in a vessel.[112]
With the exception of a few significantly larger “flagships” (often called
“lantern galleys”), a Mediterranean galley would have 25-26 pairs of oars with
five men per oar (c. 250 rowers). The armament consisted of one heavy 24- or
36-pounder gun in the bows flanked by two to four 4- to 12-pounders. Rows of
light swivel guns
were often placed along the entire
length of the galley on the railings for close-quarter defense. The
length-to-width ratio of the ships was about 8:1, with two main masts carrying
one large lateen
sail each. One was placed in the bows,
stepped slightly to the side to allow for the recoil of the heavy guns; the
other was placed roughly in the center of the ship. A third smaller mast, a “mizzen”
further astern, could be raised if the need and circumstances called for it.[111]
In the Baltic, galleys were generally shorter with a length-to-width ratio from
5:1 to 7:1, an adaptation to the cramped conditions of the Baltic archipelagos.
The documentary evidence for the construction of ancient galleys is
fragmentary, particularly in pre-Roman times. Plans and schematics in the modern
sense did not exist until the 17th century and nothing like them has survived
from ancient times. How galleys were constructed has therefore been a matter of
looking at circumstantial evidence in literature, art, coinage and monuments
that include ships, some of them actually in natural size. Since the war galleys
floated even with a ruptured hull and virtually never had any ballast or heavy
cargo that could sink them, not a single wreckage of one has so far been found.
The only exception has been a partial wreckage of a small auxiliary galley from
the Roman era.[115]
The first dedicated war galleys fitted with rams were built with a
mortise and tenon
technique (see illustration),
a so-called shell-first method. In this, the planking of the hull was
strong enough to hold the ship together structurally, and was also watertight.[116]
The ram, the primary weapon of Ancient galleys from around the 8th to the 4th
century, was fitted onto a structure that was attached to hull rather than
directly on the hull. This way galleys would not be holed if the ram was twisted
off in action. It consisted of a massive projecting timber with a thick bronze
casting with horizontal blades that could weigh from 400 kg up to 2 tonnes.[81]
Propulsion
Throughout their long history, galleys relied on rowing as the most important
means of propulsion. The arrangement of rowers during the 1st millennium BC
developed gradually from a single row up to three rows arranged in a complex,
staggered seating arrangement. Anything above three levels, however, proved to
be physically impracticable. Initially, there was only one rower per oar, but
the number steadily increased, with a number of different combinations of rowers
per oar and rows of oars. The ancient terms for galleys was based on the numbers
of rows or rowers plying the oars, not the number of rows of oars. Today it is
best known by a modernized Latin terminology based on numerals with the ending
“-reme” from rÄ“mus, “oar”. A
trireme
was a ship with three rows of
oarsmen, a quadrireme five, a hexareme six, and so forth. There
were warships that ran up to ten or even eleven rows, but anything above six was
rare. A huge forty-rowed ship was built during the reign of
Ptolemy IV
in Egypt. Little is known about its
design, but it is assumed to have been an impractical prestige vessel.
Ancient rowing was done in a fixed seated position, the most effective rowing
position, with rowers facing the stern. A sliding stroke, which provided the
strength from both legs as well as the arms, was suggested by earlier
historians, but no conclusive evidence has supported it. Practical experiments
with the full-scale reconstruction Olympias has shown that there was
insufficient space, while moving or rolling seats would have been highly
impractical to construct with ancient methods.[117]
Rowers in ancient war galleys sat below the upper deck with little view of their
surroundings. The rowing was therefore managed by supervisors, and coordinated
with pipes or rhythmic chanting.[118]
Galleys were highly maneuverable, able to turn on their axis or even to row
backwards, though it required a skilled and experienced crew.[119]
In galleys with an arrangement of three men per oar, all would be seated, but
the rower furthest inboard would perform a stand-and-sit stroke, getting up on
his feet to push the oar forwards and then sitting down again to pull it back.[119]
The faster a vessel travels, the more energy it uses. Reaching high speed
requires energy which a human-powered vessel is incapable of producing. Oar
system generate very low amounts of energy for propulsion (only about 70 W per
rower) and the upper limit for rowing in a fixed position is around 10 knots.[120]
Ancient war galleys of the kind used in Classical Greece are by modern
historians considered to be the most energy efficient and fastest of galley
designs throughout history. A full-scale replica of a 5th century BC
trireme
, the
Olympias
was built 1985-87 and was put to a
series trials to test its performance. It proved that a cruising speed of 7-8
knots could be maintained for an entire day. Sprinting speeds of up to 10 knots
were possible, but only for a few minutes and would tire the crew quickly.[121]
Ancient galleys were built very light and the original triremes are assumed to
never have been surpassed in speed.[122]
Medieval galleys are believed to have been considerably slower, especially since
they were not built with ramming tactics in mind. A cruising speed of no more
than 2-3 knots has been estimated. A sprint speed of up to 7 knots was possible
for 20–30 minutes, but risked exhausting the rowers completely.[123]
Rowing in headwinds or even moderately rough weather was difficult as well as
exhausting.[124]
In high seas, ancient galleys would set sail to run before the wind. They were
highly susceptible to high waves, and could become unmanageable if the rowing
frame (apostis) came awash. Ancient and medieval galleys are assumed to
sailed only with the wind more or less astern with a top speed of 8-9 knots in
fair conditions.[125]
In ancient galleys, most of the moving power came from a singe
square sail
on a mast rigged a little forwards
of the center of the ship with a smaller mast carrying a
head sail
in the bow. Triangular
lateen
sails are attested as early as the 2nd
century AD, and gradually became the sail of choice for galleys. By the 9th
century lateens firmly established as part of the standard galley rig. It was
more complicated and required a larger crew to handle than a square sail rig,
but this was not a problem in the heavily-manned galleys.[126]
Unlike a square sail rig, the
spar
of a lateen sail does not pivot around the
mast. To change
tacks
, the entire spar, often much longer than
the mast itself, had to be lifted over the mast and to the other side, a complex
and time-consuming maneuver.[127]
Strategy and tactics
In the earliest times of naval warfare
boarding
was the only means of deciding a naval
engagement, but little to nothing is known about the tactics involved. In the
first recorded naval battle in history, the
battle of the Delta
, the forces of Egyptian
Pharaoh Ramesses III
won a decisive victory over a
force made up of the enigmatic group known as the
Sea Peoples
. As shown in commemorative reliefs
of the battle, Egyptian archers on ships and the nearby shores of the Nile rain
down arrows on the enemy ships. At the same time Egyptian galleys engage in
boarding action and
capsize
the ships of the Sea Peoples with ropes
attached to grappling hooks thrown into the rigging.[128]
Around the 8th century BC,
ramming
began to be employed as war galleys
were equipped with heavy bronze rams. Records of the
Persian Wars
in the early 5th century BC by the
Ancient historian
Herodotus
(c. 484-25 BC) show that by this time
ramming tactics had evolved among the Greeks. The formations could either be in
columns in line ahead, one ship following the next, or in a line abreast, with
the ships side by side, depending on the tactical situation and the surrounding
geography. There were two primary methods for attack: by breaking through the
enemy formation (diekplous) or by outflanking it (periplous). The
diekplous involved a concentrated charge in line ahead so as to break a
hole in the enemy line, allowing galleys to break through and then wheel to
attack the enemy line from behind. The periplous involved outflanking or
encircling the enemy so as to attack them in the vulnerable rear or side by line
abreast.[129]
If one side knew that it had slower ships, a common tactic was to form a circle
with the bows pointing outwards, thereby avoiding being outflanked. At a given
signal, the circle could then fan out in all directions, trying to pick off
individual enemy ships. To counter this formation, the attacking side would
rapidly circle, feigning attacks in order to find gaps in the formation to
exploit.[130]
Ramming itself was done by smashing into the rear or side of an enemy ship,
punching a hole in the planking. This did not actually sink an ancient galley
unless it was heavily laden with cargo and stores. With a normal load, it was
buoyant enough to float even with a breached hull. It could also maneuver for
some time as long as the oarsmen were not incapacitated, but would gradually
lose mobility and become unstable as it flooded. The winning side would then
attempt to tow away the swamped hulks as prizes. Breaking the enemy’s oars was
another way of rendering ships immobile, rendering them into easier targets. If
ramming was not possible or successful, the on-board complement of soldiers
would attempt to board and capture the enemy vessel by attaching to it with
grappling irons. Accompanied by missile fire, either with bow and arrow or
javelins. Trying to set the enemy ship on fire by hurling incendiary missiles or
by pouring the content of fire pots attached to long handles is thought to have
been used, especially since smoke below decks would easily disable rowers.[131]
The speed necessary for a successful impact depended on the angle of attack;
the greater the angle, the lesser the speed required. At 60 degrees, 4
knots
was enough to penetrate the hull, but
this increased to 8 knots at 30 degrees. If the target for some reason was in
motion towards the attacker, less speed was required, especially if the hit came
amidships. War galleys gradually began to develop heavier hulls with reinforcing
beams at the waterline, where a ram would most likely hit. There are records of
a counter-tactic to this used by
Rhodian
ship commanders where they would angle
down their bows to hit the enemy below the reinforced waterline belt. Besides
ramming, breaking enemy oars was also a way to impede mobility and make it
easier to drive home a successful ramming attack.[132]
Despite the attempts to counter increasingly heavy ships, ramming tactics
were superseded in the last centuries BC by the Macedonians and Romans who were
primarily land-based powers. Hand-to-hand fighting with large complements of
heavy infantry supported by ship-borne catapults dominated the fighting style
during the Roman era, a move that was accompanied by the conversion to heavier
ships with larger rowing complements and more men per oar. Though effectively
lowering mobility, it meant that less skill was required from individual
oarsmen. Fleets thereby became less dependent on rowers with a lifetime of
experience at the oar.[21]
The Byzantine fleet repels the Rus’ attack on Constantinople in 941.
The Byzantine
dromons
are rolling over the Rus’
vessels and smashing their oars with their spurs.
Middle Ages
By late antiquity, in the 1st centuries AD, ramming tactics had completely
disappeared along with the knowledge of the original trireme and its high speed
and mobility. The ram was replaced by a long spur in the bow that was designed
to break oars and to act as a boarding platform for storming enemy ships. The
only remaining examples of ramming tactics was passing references to attempts to
collide with ships in order to roll it over on its side.[133]
With the collapse of the unified Roman empire came the revival of large fleet
actions. The
Byzantine navy
, the largest Mediterranean war
fleet throughout most of the early Middle Ages, employed crescent formations
with the flagship in the center and the heavier ships at the horns of the
formation, in order to turn the enemy’s flanks. Similar tactics are believed to
have been employed by the Arab fleets they frequently fought from the 7th
century onwards. The Byzantines were the first to employ
Greek fire
, a highly effective incendiary
liquid, as a naval weapon. It could be fired through a metal tube, or siphon
mounted in the bows, similar to a modern
flame thrower
. The properties of Greek fire
were close to that of
napalm
and was a key to several major Byzantine
victories. By 835, the weapon had spread to the Arabs, who equipped harraqas,
“fireships”, with it.[133]
Byzantine ship attacking with
Greek fire
.
Madrid Skylitzes manuscript
, 11th
century.
Once the fleets were close enough, exchanges of missiles began, ranging from
combustible projectiles to arrows,
caltrops
and javelins. The aim was not to sink
ships, but to deplete the ranks of the enemy crews before the boarding
commenced, which decided the outcome. Once the enemy strength was judged to have
been reduced sufficiently, the fleets closed in, the ships grappled each other,
and the marines and upper bank oarsmen boarded the enemy vessel and engaged in
hand-to-hand combat. On Byzantine galleys, the brunt of the fighting was done by
heavily armed and armored troops called hoplites or kataphraktoi.
These would attempt to stab the rowers through the oarports to reduce mobility,
and then join the melée. If boarding was not deemed advantegous, the enemy ship
could be pushed away with poles.[133]
Later medieval navies continued to use similar tactics, with the
line abreast
formation as standard. As galleys
were intended to be fought from the bows, and were at their weakest along the
sides, especially in the middle. The crescent formation employed by the
Byzantines continued to be used throughout the Middle Ages. It would allow the
wings of the fleet to crash their bows straight into the sides of the enemy
ships at the edge of the formation.[134]
Early modern period
In large-scale galley engagements tactics remained essentially the same until
the end of the 16th century.
Cannons
and small firearms were introduced
around the 14th century, but did not have any immediate effect on tactics; the
same basic crescent formation in line abreast that was employed at the
battle of Lepanto
in 1571 was used by the
Byzantine fleet almost a millennium earlier.[135]
Artillery was still quite expensive, scarce and not very effective. The galley
therefore remained the most effective warship in the Mediterranean since it was
the type of vessel that could be most effective in boarding actions and in
pulling off amphibious operations, particularly against seaside forts that had
still not been adapted to heavy artillery.[136]
Artillery on galleys was initially not used primarily as a long-range standoff
weapon since the distance at which early cannons were effective, c. 500 m
(1600 ft), could be covered by any galley in about two minutes, much faster than
they could be reloaded.[137]
The estimated average speed of Renaissance-era galleys was fairly low, only 3
to 4 knots, and a mere 2 knots, when holding formation. Short bursts of up to 7
knots were possible for no more than 20 minutes, but only at the expense of
driving the rowers to the limit of their endurance and risking their exhaustion.
This made galley actions relatively slow affairs, especially when they involved
fleets of 100 galleys or more.[138]
The sides and especially the rear, the command center, were the weak points of a
galley, and were the preferred targets of any attacker. Unless one side managed
to outmaneuver the other, battle would be met with ships crashing into each
other head on. Once the fighting began with galleys locking on to one another
bow to bow, the fighting would be over the front line ships. Unless one was
captured by a boarding party, fresh troops could be fed into the fight from
reserve vessels in the rear.[139]
The armament of 15th and 16th century galleys usually held their fire until the
last possible moment and unleashed just before impact to achieve maximum amount
of damage before the melee began. The effect of this could often be quite
dramatic, as exemplified by an account from 1528 where a galley of Genoese
commander Antonio Doria instantly killed 40 men on board the ship of Sicilian
Don Hugo de Moncada in a single volley from a
basilisk
, two demi-cannons and four smaller
guns that were all mounted in the bow.[140]
Surviving examples
Original vessels
The naval museum in
Istanbul
contains the galley Kadırga
(Turkish for “galley”, ultimately from Byzantine Greek katergon), dating
from the reign of Mehmed IV (1648–1687). She was the personal galley of the
sultan, and remained in service until 1839. She is presumably the only surviving
galley in the world, albeit without its masts. It is 37 m long, 5.7 m wide, has
a draught of about 2 m, weighs about 140 tons, and has 48 oars powered by 144
oarsmen.
Reconstructions
A 1971 reconstruction of the
Real
, the flagship of
John of Austria
in the
Battle of Lepanto (1571)
, is in the Museu
MarÃÂÂtim in Barcelona
. The ship was 60 m long and 6.2 m
wide, had a draught of 2.1 m, weighing 239 tons empty, was propelled by 290
rowers, and carried about 400 crew and fighting soldiers at Lepanto. She was
substantially larger than the typical galleys of her time.
A group called “The Trireme Trust” operates, in conjunction with the Greek
Navy, a reconstruction of an ancient Greek
Trireme
, the Olympias.[141]
Archaeological finds
In 1965, the remains of a small Venetian galley sunk in 1509 were found in
Lake Garda
, Italy. The vessel had been burned
and only the lower hull remained.[142]
In the mid of 1990s, a sunken galley was found close to the island of
San Marco in Boccalama
, in the
Venice Lagoon
.[143]
The relic is mostly intact and it was not recovered due to high costs.
Rowers
Contrary to the popular image of rowers chained to the oars, conveyed by
movies such as
Ben Hur
, there is no evidence that ancient
navies ever made use of condemned criminals or slaves as oarsmen, with the
possible exception of
Ptolemaic Egypt
.[144]
The literary evidence indicates that
Greek
and
Roman navies
generally preferred to rely on
freemen to man their galleys.[145][146]
Slaves were put at the oars only in exceptional circumstances. In some cases,
these people were given freedom thereafter, while in others they began their
service aboard as free men.
In the Middle Ages, galleys continued to be rowed predominantly by free men,
either conscripted or hired. This had the advantage that these men could be
armed, thus the proportion of fighting complement to motive power remained high.
By the 16th century, this was becoming harder to sustain economically and there
was an increase in the use of convicts and slaves. This led to a drop in
efficiency, as more soldiers needed to be carried, and a change in rowing design
to accommodate less skilled oarsmen.[147][148]
In early modern times, it became the custom among the Mediterranean powers to
sentence condemned criminals to row in the war-galleys of the state, initially
only in time of war. Galley-slaves lived in very unhealthy conditions, and many
died even if sentenced only for a few years – and provided they escaped
shipwreck and death in battle in the first place.
Prisoners of war
were often used as
galley-slaves. Several well-known historical figures served time as galley
slaves after being captured by the enemy, including the Ottoman corsair and
admiral Turgut Reis
and the
Maltese
Grand Master
Jean Parisot de la Valette
.
Demetrius I (337-283BC), called Poliorcetes “The Besieger”), son of
Antigonus I Monophthalmus
and
Stratonice
, was a king of
Macedon
(294-288 BC). He belonged to the
Antigonid dynasty
.
Biography
At the age of twenty-two he was left by his father to defend
Syria
against
Ptolemy
the son of
Lagus
; he was
totally defeated in
Battle of Gaza
, but soon partially repaired his loss by a victory in the
neighbourhood of Myus
.
In the spring of 310, he was soundly defeated when he tried to expel
Seleucus I Nicator
from
Babylon
; his
father was defeated in the autumn. As a result of this
Babylonian War
, Antigonus lost almost two thirds of his empire: all eastern
satrapies became Seleucus’.
After several campaigns against Ptolemy on the coasts of
Cilicia
and
Cyprus
,
Demetrius sailed with a fleet of 250 ships to
Athens
. He
freed the city from the power of
Cassander
and Ptolemy, expelled the garrison which had been stationed there under
Demetrius of Phalerum
, and besieged and took
Munychia
(307 BC). After these victories he was worshipped by the Athenians
as a
tutelary
deity under the title of Soter (“Preserver”).
In the campaign of 306 BC against Ptolemy he defeated
Menelaus
, Ptolemy’s brother, in the naval
Battle of Salamis
, completely destroying the naval power of
Egypt
. In 305 BC,
now bearing the title of king bestowed upon him by his father, he endeavoured to
punish the Rhodians
for having deserted his cause; his ingenuity in devising new
siege engines
in his unsuccessful attempt to reduce the capital gained him
the title of Poliorcetes. Among his creations were a
battering ram
180 feet (55 m) long, requiring 1000 men to operate it; and a
wheeled siege tower
named “Helepolis”
(or “Taker of Cities”) which stood 125 feet (38 m) tall and 60 feet (18 m) wide,
weighing 360,000 pounds.
In 302 BC he returned a second time to Greece as liberator, and reinstated
the
Corinthian League
. But his licentiousness and extravagance made the
Athenians long for the government of Cassander. Among his outrages was his
courtship of a young boy named Democles the Handsome. The youth kept on refusing
his attention but one day found himself cornered at the baths. Having no way out
and being unable to physically resist his suitor, he took the lid off the hot
water cauldron and jumped in. His death is seen as a mark of honor for himself
and his country. In another instance, he waived a fine of 50 talents imposed on
a citizen in exchange for the favors of Cleaenetus, that man’s son.[1]
He also sought the attention of Lamia, a Greek courtesan. She demanded a price
of 250 talents. He put a tax on soap to raise the money.[2]
He also roused the jealousy of
Alexander
‘s Diadochi
;
Seleucus
, Cassander and
Lysimachus
united to destroy him and his father. The hostile armies met at the
Ipsus
in Phrygia
(301 BC). Antigonus was killed, and Demetrius, after sustaining
severe losses, retired to
Ephesus
. This
reversal of fortune stirred up many enemies against him�the Athenians refused
even to admit him into their city. But he soon afterwards ravaged the territory
of Lysimachus
and effected a reconciliation with Seleucus, to whom he gave his
daughter
Stratonice
in marriage. Athens was at this time oppressed by the tyranny of
Lachares
– a popular leader who made himself supreme in Athens in 296 BC –
but Demetrius, after a protracted blockade, gained possession of the city (294
BC) and pardoned the inhabitants for their misconduct in 301.
In the same year he established himself on the throne of Macedonia by
murdering
Alexander V
, the son of Cassander. In 291 BC he married
Lanassa
, the former wife of
Pyrrhus
. But his new position as ruler of Macedonia was continually
threatened by Pyrrhus, who took advantage of his occasional absence to ravage
the defenceless part of his kingdom (Plutarch,
Pyrrhus, 7 if.); at length, the combined forces of Pyrrhus, Ptolemy and
Lysimachus, assisted by the disaffected among his own subjects, obliged him to
leave Macedonia in 288 BC.
He passed into Asia and attacked some of the provinces of Lysimachus with
varying success. Famine and pestilence destroyed the greater part of his army,
and he solicited Seleucus’ support and assistance. But before he reached Syria
hostilities broke out, and after he had gained some advantages over his
son-in-law, Demetrius was totally forsaken by his troops on the field of battle
and surrendered to Seleucus.
His son
Antigonus
offered all his possessions, and even his own person, in order to
procure his father’s liberty. But all proved unavailing, and Demetrius died
after a confinement of three years (283 BC). His remains were given to Antigonus
and honoured with a splendid funeral at
Corinth
.
His descendants remained in possession of the Macedonian throne till the time
of
Perseus
, when Macedon was conquered by the
Romans
in 168 BC.
Literary references
Demetrius appears (under the Greek form of his name, Demetrios) in
L. Sprague de Camp
‘s historical novel,
The Bronze God of Rhodes
, which largely concerns itself with his siege
of Rhodes.
Alfred Duggan’s novel Elephants and Castles provides a lively
fictionalised account of his life.
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