Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/312

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Here we have a specific account of oars varying from fourteen to fifty-seven feet in length, the latter requiring to have lead embedded in their handles as a counterpoise to the weight outside the rowlock. Besides, it is clear that the oars must have increased in size according to the banks on which they were employed. In the case of the oar fifty-seven feet in length, if worked from a great height a large portion of it would require to be inboard—say nineteen feet against thirty-eight; and even the one-third would not, at a line of nine feet above the water, be sufficient as a counterpoise, unless the shoulder of the oar were of unwieldy thickness or heavily weighted by lead. In all single-banked vessels the oar worked on the gunwale, and was kept in its place by means of a leather thong. In larger galleys it passed through an oar-port. Various ancient writers assert that there was only one man to each oar, and add, that he sat, when rowing, on a single bench or small stool attached to the ribs of the vessel, and within a very short distance from the scalmus of his oar.

But these assertions, though they increase the difficulty of solving the intricate problem of how galleys, with more than one bank of oars, were propelled, can have no weight when opposed to practical experience. It is clear, without any testimony beyond our knowledge of the physical power of man, that no one man, however herculean, unless he had the aid of machinery, of which there is no proof, could work an oar in the manner described. Indeed, we know that in ancient galleys of every description, above the smallest uniremes, more men than