POLYREME of the Hellenistic Period 4th - 2nd cent. B.C.

[aukepalmhof]

POLYREME: Several explanations can be offered for the development of these large warships. One is that having some or all of the oars rowed by more than one individual meant that the techniques and skills of all the individual oarsmen need not have been very well developed, as long as one man on each oar could lead the others. In this sense it may be argued that the polyremes were developed to utilize masses of untrained, or at least inexperienced, oarsmen who might provide muscle power without needing to have the experience that would make them expensive to hire. A counter-argument is that naval commanders often went to great lengths to ensure that their oarsmen did get good training. For example, in 261 the Romans trained the oarsmen for their new fleet on both land and sea (Polyb. 1.21). Indeed, it could be argued that rowing with more than one person at an oar demands more, not less skill and practice to be effective, as it requires coordination between the men on each oar, in addition to that between the groups of oarsmen in each vertical unit of two or three oars along the side of the ship. It should also be noted that polyremes seem to have been inferior in speed not only to triremes, which continued to feature in the navies of the period, but even to smaller ships, so the application of increased muscle power to the oars was not intended to make the warships faster.
Probably the most important advantage that the polyremes had over smaller, lower-rated ships was their increased carrying capacity. They were broader in the beam and could accommodate larger numbers of marines on their fighting decks. This was particularly the case for the bigger vessels, such as ‘tens’, which were probably rowed at two levels only, and could perhaps accommodate up to 200 marines. This led to a greater reliance on grappling and boarding enemy ships than was the case in the classical period. It has even been suggested that the Romans developed a type of ‘five’ with single banks of oars, each rowed by five men, so that they could be built very broad across the beam and accommodate a very large complement of marines, up to 120 at the battle of Ecnomus in 256.132 Against this view is the fact that Polybius (1.20.15) explicitly says that the Romans copied a Carthaginian design of the ‘five’, in which case there would have been no great difference between their ships and those in the Roman fleet.
A further advantage that the larger ships offered was that their decks were higher above the waterline, offering not only greater space for marines and catapults, but also better elevation for the launching and throwing of missiles by hand or from catapults. As the beam of the ship increased so its steadiness in relatively calm water would be improved, making it an ideal missile platform. Also, a higher deck would make the ships more difficult for opposing marines to attack from smaller ships. Towers were constructed on the fighting decks of some ships to enable the marines to shoot arrows and hurl javelins from a still great elevation. It also seems that these large, broad ships were significantly heavier and sturdier of build than their classical predecessors, since they were not built for speed. This will have made them more resistant to damage when rammed.
As noted above, the ships rated higher than ‘ten’ seem not to have been used for ship-to-ship combat, so an additional explanation must be sought for their design. The use of ships as fighting platforms to attack city and harbour defences, for example by Demetrius I Poliorcetes against Rhodes in 305 (Diod. Sic. 20.85–8), suggests that the very large polyremes may have been designed with this function in mind. Demetrius’ fleet of 500 ships was likely to have been deployed against the coastal cities of Asia Minor, had he not been ousted from Macedon by Pyrrhus in 287. In this respect, the largest polyremes are analogous to the very large siege towers built for Demetrius’ attacks on Salamis and Rhodes in 306 and 305 respectively.
Greece 2011 0.20 Euro sg?, scott?
http://www.cogandgalleyships.com/blog/6 ... e-galleys/