Tho I hope ES get it right in some future AoE game.
[This message has been edited by Defiler_of_INRI (edited 03-31-2004 @ 08:12 AM).]
3D online, gosh...
About topic, there is another type of Galley -- Biremi/ Biremes, galleys with two rows of oarsmen. More info at Para.15.
Some data bout' Greek trièrès, Latin triremis, KOTH tiremi :
How was a trireme built?
For many centuries people have speculated about the way the warships of the ancient Greeks and Romans were built. Most controversial is the trireme in which three rowers sat next to each other on each side (six in a row in total). Two attempts have been made to build a full-size replica of a trireme: in the 19th century under Napoleon III and in 1985-7 by the English professor John Morrison and the ship designer John Coates. The second attempt was undoubtedly more successful than the first, but many aspects are still controversial. It seems that there are plans in the Netherlands to build a third replica. I became interested because I was building little ship models as a hobby, and also because of two exhibitions: Greece and the Sea in the New Church in Amsterdam in l987 and Ancient Ships and Seafaring in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam in l995-6. At the latter exhibition there was a test section that was used to design the Olympias, the trireme of Morrison and Coates. One was allowed to sit in it, which I did, after much hesitation, when there was nobody around (apart from the surveillance cameras). The Olympias itself was scheduled to come to Amsterdam too, but unfortunately this was cancelled because the hull was too worm-eaten. Can laymen judge something like this, or is it strictly a matter for specialists? Many ancient shipwrecks have been found, but only of cargo ships, never of warships. Wrecks were only partly preserved if they were pressed down on the bottom by the cargo. The only chance to find a wreck of an ancient warship is probably in a silted-up harbour of river mouth. Near Troy and Ephesus there may be dozens of ancient shipwrecks hidden in the ground, but excavation is difficult and expensive. Some Viking ships have been found in this way. As long as no wrecks of ancient warships are found, we have to rely on a few works of art and hints in ancient texts. These are so rare that interpreting them is rather a matter of common sense than of expertise, unlike, for instance, deciphering cuneiform tablets. The same is true, in my opinion, of most of the other subjects treated here. The hull of a new trireme could be made of polyester; that would be cheaper and require less maintenance. In the Olympias the builders undoubtedly used as many authentic wood joints etc. as possible; there is no need to do that all over again. The most important representations are the Lenormant relief that was found in Athens (about 400 BC) and an Attic vase by the Talos painter in Ruvo in Italy, fig. 97 and 99 in the book Sailing Ships by Björn Landström. The most important data are: There were usually 200 men on board, including 170 rowers. The A-, B- and C-rowers are officially called: (A) Thranitai -- after the word thranos of which the meaning is uncertain, but which I think means the gangway along the side of the ship, on which one could walk from the bow to the poop. In a Byzantine galley, the word thranos was synonymous to katastroma (deck) or sanidoma. (C) Thalamioi -- from thalamos (hold). They sat down in the hold. They were probably the smallest rowers, who were, according to a comedy writer, sometimes 'polluted' by the other rowers. It is not quite clear what this means. Perhaps they were exposed to bullying, because they had a low status among the oarsmen. In this passage someone is complaining about the undisciplined behaviour of the crews. The most important question is: "How did the rowers sit next to and or above each other?" Generally there are two possibilities, which I shall call the W-formation and the V-formation. Most authors assume that they sat in a W-formation: the As and Bs sat more ore less next to each other, the As perhaps a little higher than the Bs; according to Landström (fig. 102, 105) together on one bench. Below, between A and B, sat the Cs. In this arrangement it is almost inevitable that the rowers had oars of different lengths. The Cs have the shortest, protruding through the hull through holes very close to the waterline. Tim Severin imitated the voyage of the Argonauts in a smaller ship with oars of 4.50 m in length. That proved to be very impractical. He should rather have used shorter oars, e.g. 3 m long. Morrison chose for the V-formation and oars of equal length. In this the rowers sit in a sloping line: the As on top on the outside, the Cs below on the inside, the Bs in between the others. In the Olympias this turned out to be possible, but not ideal. The Cs often bumped their heads against the beams on which the Bs were sitting. In a real battle this could lead to severe concussions. I myself prefer the W-formation and oars of unequal lengths, because that seems much more practical to me. My solution is not really very different from the ones already proposed in 1890 and 1896 by Kopecky and Haack (see R.C. Anderson, Oared Fighting Ships, fig. 3 and 6) and similar to the design of a larger Roman ship in Die Römische Flotte by H.D.L. Viereck. So it is not really new at all. Everybody agrees that triremes had an outrigger: a part outside the hull that gave room to the extra rowers. Penteconters had no outriggers. (Landström thinks they did: fig. 86, 91.) I think a penteconter had only Bs and Cs. The Bs sat in the middle, next to each other. There was probably no gangway in the middle, as in later galleys, only on the sides (the thranos). To make the ship faster, the beams were extended to make an outrigger, supported by two rows of supports (compare Viereck's design). At least, that is my interpretation of the not very clear representations on the Lenormant relief and the Talos vase. The As sat either where the thranos was in the penteconter or on the outrigger itself. Biremes That galleys with two rows of oarsmen (biremes) had the upper rowers on the inside is seemingly contradicted by representations of later Roman galleys (R) on Trajans Column (2nd century AD) and of Phoenician biremes (P) on Assyrian reliefs (8th century BC). How about that? I think that in the Roman period a new system was adopted that did use outriggers. Such ships were perhaps called liburnae (derived from a Croatian pirate ship). The liburnae must have been different from earlier biremes in some way. The Assyrian reliefs (P) present a more difficult problem. According to some, the trireme was invented by the Phoenicians and according to Thucydides there were already triremes in the 8th century, more than 200 years before the battle of Salamis. If so, the Assyrian reliefs may well represent triremes! Thucydides only writes (I 13) that the Corinthians were the first Greeks who had built triremes, not that they had invented them. Why should the Greeks have waited for 200 years before using their own invention? It is much more likely that the Greeks had their own kinds of ships and only started building triremes when they were threatened by the Persian fleet, which consisted mainly of Phoenician ships. The Japanese only modernised their army when the American admiral Perry had come to Japan with his 'black ships' in 1853. The curved supports Above the outrigger, curved supports are visible. Were they curved outward )( or inward ()? Outward )(, according to Morrison. There is something to be said for that, but I think it is much more likely that the supports formed an inverted U and carried a narrow upper deck (see Landström fig. 98, 102 and 105). Morrison thinks that the short things under the A-rowers (S-shaped on the Talos vase) are connected to the deck supports. I used to think so too, but later I realised that that was not necessary. That the deck was split in two halves, as on the Olympias, is not in accordance with the available evidence. Next question: Did the As sit inside or outside the supports? It would be terribly impractical if the As were confined inside the supports, even if it looks that way on the relief. It is much more likely that the As sat outside the supports on the outrigger. On the Assyrian reliefs the upper rowers are clearly outside the supports. On the Lenormant relief the knees of the As are visible; this is impossible on the Olympias, because the As sit lower. It's all rather simple, really, but it took me years of thinking to figure it out. ...
The length was at most 35 m, the width at most 4.8 m.
Triremes were bigger and faster than two older types, the triakonteros (thirty, probably with single rows of oarsmen) and the pentèkonteros (fifty, probably with double rows, so four oarsmen in each row across). The latter type was called 'fifty', but vase paintings and the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad suggest that these ships could carry at least a hundred rowers, on two levels. Perhaps only the rowers on the highest level were counted. The others were down below in the hold, if it was not filled with cargo. It is unlikely that the 'fifty' was shorter than the 'thirty', as some people have suggested.
In a trireme there were three kinds of rowers, which we shall call A, B and C here: 62 A's (red), 54 B's (green) an 54 C's (yellow).
Only two lengths of oars are known: 9 cubits (4 m) and 9,5 cubits (4.20 m). It is possible that this refers only to the A- and B-oars and that there were also shorter oars. That is what I believe myself. Morrison thinks that all rowers (A, B and C) had equally long oars and that the slightly shorter oars were for the rowers near the bow and the poop. Others assume that the A-, B- and C-oars had different lengths.
(B) Zygitai -- from zygon (beam). They sat on the crossbeams.
How did the rowers sit?
I played Cossack expac, terrible... Town Center the size of monitor! Etc. I end up buying a new mouse pad. Unless you're playing 'Stronghold' & such then it's okay.
Now let's talk bout' April Fool :
Kumar Shah is Angel Zen.
Okay... END.
Now let's get back to "topic" :
My earlier post is about how complicated Tireme REALLY is, historian, archeologist etc professional group of people who work closely, debate and even built one just for the sake of continuum.
But look! Today's generation think differently, for them Tireme represent more like a sub aquatic cockroach who goes around firing someone's arse... Well no one is to be blame exzzzcept one --> See how influential this game is, Ensemble Studio is BIG! Bigger than you all ever expected and will continue to "educate" us in flimsy manner for a very long time unless... To Be Continue ...
Copyright © 1997–2024 HeavenGames LLC. All rights reserved.
v2.5.0