Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World
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SHIPS AND SEAMANSHIP IN THE ANCIENT WORLD BY LIONEL CASSON Ships and Seamanship in THE ANCIENT WORLD PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 1971 PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Copyright © 1971, by Princeton University Press L.C. Card: 78-112-996 ISBN 0-691-00215-0 (pbk.) This book has been composed in Linotype Granjon Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey First Princeton Paperback printing, with Addenda and Corrigenda, 1986 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. To Judy, Gail, and Andi PREFACE MEN OF THE ancient world, throughout the span of their history, were loth to stray far from the sea. It was woven into the fabric of their lives, and among their great contributions to later ages was their mastering of this superbly useful but tricky and dangerous way of communication. The ancient mariners of the Mediterranean can claim credit for most of the major discoveries in ships and sailing that the western world was to know until the age of steam. The details of this achievement—the ar- rangements they hit upon for rowing war galleys, the rigs they devised for merchantmen, the ways they worked out for assembling a hull, and the like—make up a highly technical and specialized subject, yet one that has an intimate connection with ancient man's day-to-day experience. It is no accident that the west's first epic poet chose to sing of a storm-tossed captain, its first historian and first dramatist to highlight a crucial naval battle. Despite the manifest importance of the subject, no scholar came near to doing it justice until the very end of the last century. In 1895 Cecil Torr published his Ancient Ships, a short but admirable summary of what was then known about the design, construction, and equipment of Greek and Roman craft. This filled much of the need, but hardly all; and, though Torr promised studies of the other phases of shipping, he never carried them to completion. Moreover, because of the growing mass of additional material archaeologists were steadily unearthing, even what he did pro- vide soon became outdated. Then, after World War II, underwater archaeology sprang into being and began to tap a source of totally new evidence. This meant that Torr's book was now hopelessly obsolete. At the same time, by a curious irony, the very ones who had cut short its usefulness guaranteed it a new lease on life: the ever increasing number of divers who took up marine archae- ology, and ipso facto turned into students of Mediterranean nautical an- tiquities, made Ancient Ships their vade mecum—it was, after all, the sole reference work available. The stepped-up demand brought about a new printing in 1964; though called a second edition, it reproduced Torr's text without alteration. I started to gather material for the present work in 1953 when, with the help of a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, I visited the pioneer excavation of an ancient wreck that Jacques Cousteau had opened that vii PREFACE year off an islet near Marseilles. I completed the manuscript almost a dec ade and a half later, with the help this time of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which, by giving me a year away from classroom duties, enabled me to assemble the evidence I had gathered into a coherent presentation. My aim has been to replace Torr's monograph with a comprehensive and up-to-date work of reference. I have broadened the scope to include all makes of craft, from tiny fishing smacks to monster grain-carriers, from an admiral's gig to a catapult-carrying supergalley. I have tried to cover them in all aspects: the wood that went into them, the oars and sails that drove them, the officers and men that manned them, the names that were given to them, the speed, the handling, and so on. The task was somewhat lightened by the timely appearance of Morrison and Williams' Gree\ Oared Ships, an authoritative study of Greek warships down to ca. 300 B.C.; the lion's share of the subject, however, required an independent review of the material for the most part. Though I begin the story with the remote moment when men first went down to the sea and carry it as far as the ninth century A.D., the heyday of the fleets of the Byzantine Em pire, my protagonists have necessarily been the shipwrights and sailors of Greece and Rome, whose contribution was far and away the most sig nificant. The notes bulk as large as the text. I did not want merely to formulate what we know—or think we know—on any given point; I was equally concerned to put before the reader precise indications of what our knowl edge rests on. And so the text is everywhere supported by footnotes that cite whatever evidence is available—ancient writings (inscriptions and papyrus documents as well as the works of ancient authors), paintings and sculptures and models, the reports of archaeologists and divers. The notes treat as well the many controversial points that are unavoidable in a study such as this. Those that required extended discussion, as well as certain topics too specialized for the text and too voluminous for a note, are dealt with in appendices. Unlike Torr or any of the others who have involved themselves with some phase of this field, I have designed my work for the full spectrum of readers, from the specialist in the history of technology or in ancient history and literature to those with but a casual interest in the subject. The text is free of Greek characters or similar esoterica; citations from the Greek or Latin—generally quoted in extenso for handy reference—are everywhere given in translation as well as the original; the publications of Vlll PREFACE nautical experts are referred to as freely as those of Classical scholars and archaeologists; wherever possible, parallels have been adduced from the ships and practices of later ages. I have had much welcome help. I have already mentioned the grants I received from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation. I must thank in particular the former director of the Guggenheim Founda tion, Henry Allen Moe, who, a professional seaman himself at one time, has followed my work with gratifying interest. New York University on two occasions awarded me grants for travel and the acquiring of photographs. I owe an enormous debt to the underwater archaeologists. George Bass, Gerhard Kapitan, Michael Katzev, Peter Throckmorton, Frederick van Doorninck, Jr.—all have unstintingly supplied photographs of, and in formation about, their latest findings, while Frederic Dumas, Μ. Y. Girault, Anna Marguerite McCann kindly allowed me to reproduce photographs they had taken. Indeed, I am grateful to many who gener ously provided photographs: A. and A.-M. Bon, Michael Eisman, Alison Frantz, Ch. Makaronas, Mario Moretti, John Morrison, Ernest Nash, Josephine Powell, G. M. Richter, Otello Testaguzza. The drawings for Figs. 171 and 172 were made by Joseph Ascherl, for Fig. 173 by Milton Brown. John Morrison put at my disposal a set of proofs of his Gree\ Oared Ships six months before it saw publication, and Roberto Peliti, publisher of O. Testaguzza's Portus, rushed the first copy off the press into my hands. I have had invaluable advice on naval matters from Ole Crumlin-Pedersen, Manlio Guberti, above all, R. C. Anderson; on Greek naval tactics from Herman Wallinga; on points of Roman law from Arthur Schiller; on papyrological problems from Naphtali Lewis; on numismatic points from Bluma Trell; on matters relating to ancient art from John Ward-Perkins and Blanche Brown; on Egyptian ship-names from Alan Schulman. A difficult and involved manuscript was put in superb shape for printer and plate-maker by the skill of Polly Hanford and Jan Lilly. The manuscript and the endless drafts that preceded it were typed by my wife; without her patient and able help the completion of this book would have taken years more. And Rae D. Michelman contributed long and arduous hours to the preparation of the indexes. July 1970, Rome CONTENTS Preface vii List of Illustrations xv CHAPTER ONE: Floats, Rafts, and the Earliest Boats 3 I Rafts 3 II The Earliest Boats 5 CHAPTER Two: Egypt and Mesopotamia 11 I Egypt: The Predynastic Age 11 II Egypt: 3ΟΟΟ-ΙΟΟΟ B.C. L6 III Mesopotamia 22 APPENDIX I : Riverboats of Mesopotamia 25 2: Towing 29 CHAPTER THREE: The Eastern Mediterranean: 3000-1000 B.C. 30 I The Aegean 30 II Crete 32 III The Levant 35 IV Summary 38 APPENDIX : The Evidence 40 CHAPTER FOUR : The Eastern Mediterranean: 1000-500 B.C. 43 I The Homeric Galley 43 II Galleys on Geometric Vases 49 III The Invention of the Two-Banked Galley 53 IV Sixth-Century Warcraft: the Black-Figured Vases 60 V Merchantmen 65 VI Rig 68 APPENDIX I : The Ship-Pictures on Geometric Vases 71 2: Aphracts in Geometric Age Representations 75 CHAPTER FIVE: The Age of the Trireme: 500-323 B.C. 77 I The "Trireme Question" 77 II Introduction of the Trireme 80 III The Rowing Arrangements 82 IV Hull of the Greek Trireme 85 V Types of Greek Triremes 92 VI The Phoenician Trireme 94 CONTENTS CHAPTER SIX: The Warships of the Hellenistic Age: 323-31 B.C.