Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/320

 five tiers, of six men in each, lengthways, making one-fifth the rowers on each side of a quinquereme, according to Polybius, who mentions three hundred as the whole number of rowers in it, besides one hundred and twenty fighting men." But this further explanation does not assist in the elucidation of his theory of "one man to each oar." On the contrary, it rather tends to confuse, unless the General means that there were one hundred and fifty row-ports on each side of the quinquereme mentioned by Polybius, which would be absurd.

But the impracticability of the whole plan is shown when an examination is made of the space that would be required to place, single file, three hundred rowers at the oars of a quinquereme.

The sweep of an oar is measured by its length, and would require a certain defined space for its movement, irrespective of the number of men at work upon it. The single-banked French galley already described was one hundred and fifty feet long, having twenty five benches on each side, requiring a length of one hundred feet. All other accounts, as well as experience, show that the benches were, and required to be, three feet apart: and, allowing one foot for the breadth of the bench, each oar would require a space of four feet in a horizontal line. According to the General's theory there would be thirty oar-ports on each bank, which, allowing for their obliquity, would require the gallery attached to the side of his galley to be somewhere about two hundred feet in length for the accommodation of the rowers. No doubt such a vessel could be built, but it is very questionable if any such vessel ever