Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/317

 than thirty-nine feet long, especially as that length would be amply sufficient for propelling a single-banked vessel. In that case the oar would be "thirteen" feet inboard as described, affording abundance of space for six slaves to be stationed at it, although the two nearest the side would be of comparatively less service in rowing. To enable the rowers, and especially those who were stationed nearest the centre of the galley, to work with effect, their benches must have been placed in a slightly oblique position.

From this description, there is no difficulty in understanding the character of the uniremes; it is only when we come to inquire what was meant by biremes, triremes, and so forth, and how they were propelled, that the most conflicting statements are met with. Although Scheffer, General Melvill, and others, have bestowed an immense deal of learning in their endeavours to prove that each oar was rowed by one man only, and that the banks were placed directly one over the other, the bulk of the testimony of ancient writers, confirmed by experience, is opposed to any such views. Besides, the most casual inquiry will show that it would be impracticable to row any galley with more than two banks of oars on the plan suggested. Every additional rank adds to the difficulty in a greatly increased ratio; and if hexiremes were efficient ships, which, on the authority of Polybius they were, it would have been altogether impracticable to propel them by oars on the plan suggested.