Rock Ruan, Jeju
In the ancient world, ships did not have as advanced technologies as today, and the main way of moving a gigantic ship across the sea, was by having lots of men rowing with oars. Most of the ships had the characteristics of being large and wide. This was to suit the conditions of battles on sea; which were collisions. They had as many oarsmen as possible on both sides of the ship, to have greater momentum and knock over the enemy's ship when the ships collided. Large ships were favoured because the size meant it was harder to knock over, however it meant that they would need more oarsmen to operate, so we often see around a hundred oarsmen or more on a single ship.
(1) Battle of Salamis 480BC
This image represents what it was like in the battle of Salamis. After two ships make contact, the soldiers on the ships have a hand-to-hand battle with their enemies. They also carved eyes on their boats to call upon the gods and goddesses to guide their boats and to ask that they would not be shipwrecked.
(2) Penteconter
A Penteconter is thin and long, similar to a modern day raft. On each side there was a row of oars and each row had 25 oars. With a total of 50 oars, therefore it could be called “ship with 50 oars”.
(3)Bireme
A Bireme has two rows of oars on each side instead of one in a Penteconter. It possibly originated from Phoenicia.
(4)Trireme
It is the dominant ship in the army fleet due to its fast speed and agility. The oarsmen in the top row are called thranites, the middle row are called zygites and the bottom row is called thalamites.
There are even quadriremes, quinquereme and even higher orders.Mostly, however, the boats have the same number of rows as the trireme, just with more oarsmen in the same row in order to power the bigger ship. The Romans invented a weapon called a corvus. According to Polybius, it was a bridge that dropped onto the enemy's ship to provide a stable pathway between the two, which turned the ship battle into a land battle which is what the Romans were good at. However due to the weight, the ships were at a higher risk of capsize, especially during storms. In 255BC-249BC, two ships equipped with a corvus sank due to a storm.
Bibliography
https://www.ancient.eu/Battle_of_Salamis/ https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-Romans-Greeks-and-Chinese-put-eyes-on-their-boats https://carolashby.com/the-roman-navy/ Source: (1) Battle of Salamis 480BC https://greekcitytimes.com/2019/09/22/september-22-480-bc-greece-wins-battle-salamis/ (2) Penteconter https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PHOENICIA,_Sidon._Tennes._Circa_351-347_BC.jpg (3) Bireme https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AssyrianWarship.jpg (4) Trireme https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trireme_cut-fr.svg#globalusage
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