Quinquérème

Origins

At fourth century BC, after the Peloponnesian War, there was a shortage of oarsmen tested enough to arm the Trière S. With Syracuse, Denys Old the seeks a solution then, avoiding having recourse to experienced oarsmen, it ends up creating Tétrère S (Quadrirème S) and pentères (quinquérèmes). A long time, name lent to confusion for the historians, by analogy with the Trière S and they thought ships with four and five rows of oars. But such a galère would have been difficult to build and in any event unstable at sea. Thereafter it is even refers to hexères, heptères and with the top, clearly the diagram of designation was very different.

The task to include/understand their construction is of more complicated by the absence of archaeological remainders . The modern historians seem to agree on the fact that the number indicated the number of oarsmen and not of oars, on each side. The exact provision is unknown, but it seems rather probable that they all were at least tested. After the forwarding of Sicily, in -413, it had become obvious that the oarsmen of higher rows were vulnerable to the shooting of projectiles, one thus decided to protect them thanks to a higher bridge, on these new ships. According to Polybe, the crew of a quinquerème was of 300 oarsmen, 120 Fantassin S and 50 marine S. the historian Fik Meijer suggests that the oarsmen were distributed thus on each side:

58 thranites pushing on the 29 higher oars.
58 zygites pushing on the 29 median oars.
34 thalamites pushing on the 34 lower oars.

These quinquerèmes does not seem to have been as stable as their ancestors the trières and their not very important advantage of speed. The Greeks, is by conservatism or because of a sufficient number trained oarsmen seems to have been sulky this innovation, the trière remaining the principal force of the Mediterranean marines of the time.

Hellenistic polyrèmes

The hellenistic Time, will start again the arms race naval, the tendency for the galères will be at that time with gigantism. The Macedonia built hexères, in -315, Antigone One-eyed the in built heptères, its son Démétrios Ier Poliorcète, in war against Ptolémée Ier, lance then of the octères, then nine, ten, twelve and finally sixteen.

A change in the naval tactics explains the appearance of such monsters. The assembly of the catapults S, which had tried out Alexandre Large the with the head office of Tyr, the advantage of mobility of the lighter ships like the Trière makes it possible to destroy. Their use is not to run the unfavourable ships, but to decrease their mobility by killing and wounding part of their oarsmen. The light galères are more vulnerable to this type of attack because they have oarsmen in more small number and not - covers by a bridge. Some blows with the goal in their bench of stroke, make it impossible for them of maneuvrer for a éperonage, it then becomes possible to approach them without risks. The heaviest galères are on the contrary very at ease in this kind of combat, because their oarsmen more and are protected better, therefore they keep their mobility more easily. Moreover it embarks more easily of the catapults because of their size, and for the same reason a more naval infantry which gives them an advantage determining at the time of the boarding.

True mastodons of the seas appear, with oars of 17 Mètre S, pushed by eight oarsmen. The oarsman inside was to undoubtedly take a step ahead and another behind with each blow of oar. Lysimaque would have built the galère Leontophorus, propelled by 1600 oarsmen and taking on board 1200 soldiers. The historian J.S. Morrison supposes that these models were to be Catamaran, to be realizable. Plutarque describes a quadragintarème (40) built by Ptolémée IV with 4000 oarsmen, 3000 soldiers and 400 sailors. He adds however that it was only for the parade because the boat resembled so much a building which it was almost impossible to launch.

Roman galères

The Roman make bring the proof that these not very mobile monsters, are at the thank you of combined attacks of more reasonable ship of size. They build only trirèmes, quadrirèmes and quinquirèmes. Although always provided with a spur, their ships fight mainly by boarding. They have two assets: the quality of their naval infantry, derived from their legionaries and the means of forwarding them on board enemy ships, the Corbel (system of boarding). This invention is a simple tilting footbridge equipped with a hook at its end, this last is card-indexed in the bridge of the adversary and then makes it possible to the Roman infantryman to easily manage aboard ship to conquer, the superiority of the equipment for the body with body of those, makes then the difference.

The Battle of Actium, sees the defeat of the heavy fleet Egyptian of Marc Antoine by that more mobile of Octave. Thereafter for lack of another opposition that of the Pirate S, the need for the heaviest ships becomes less obvious, the trirème becomes dominating, after 325, there does not exist any more quinquirèmes.

literature

Vernon Foley and Werner Soedel, Ancient oared warships , Scientific American 244 (4): 116– 129, April 1981.
Fik Meijer, have off History Seafaring in the Classical World , Croom and Helm, 1986.
J.S. Morrison and R.T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships: 900– 322 BC , Cambridge University Near, 1968.
J.S. Morrison, J.F. Coates: Romance Greek and oared warships . Oxford, Oxbow Books 1996. ISBN 0-900188-07-4
Polybius History

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