The quinquereme was the dominant oared galley in the Punic Wars. Dionysius of Syracuse is credited with inventing it. Five referred to the five oarsmen that rowed a bank of oars. It is believed that this meant two oars (the top and middle) had two men apiece and one oar (the bottom) had a single strong oarsman. The Roman and Carthaginian fleets did have a few ships bigger than fives, but they rarely participated in battles. The five was the ideal size for a warship at that time. Ptolemy IV of Egypt (ruled from 221-204 B.C.) had a “forty” built to show off. It was 400 feet long and 50 feet wide. It may be the largest human-powered warship in history. The figureheads at the prow and the stern rose to 70 feet above the water. According to Plutarch, it had 4,000 rowers, a 400- man crew, and 2,850 marines. Obviously, this ship was not built for action. It was a symbol of the pharaoh’s vanity. There is no record of any galley above a “ten” seeing combat in the First Punic War.
On a galley, only the outer oarsman needed to be skilled. Some historians believe that because of the lack of trained oarsmen, the Roman fives had only one bank and thus had five men to each oar. This makes sense because having only one oar rowed by five men meant a fleet of 100 quinqueremes needed 5,400 skilled oarsmen whereas the three-bank system would require 16,000 skilled rowers. However, if the Romans had quinqueremes that had five men per oar, the ancient sources, like Polybius, would have mentioned it. On a quinquereme, the rowing was similar to a trireme with its three banks, but now there would be five rowers instead of three. The Romans famously trained its rowers on the beach. Rowing required a lot of cohesion. There would have been no reason to practice if it was simply five men per oar.
A typical quinquereme had 90 oars on each side. It was 150 feet long and 30 feet at the beam. The galley also had a sail, but it was furled when a battle took place. The sail was used when there was a nice breeze and it was coming from the rear. The ship was steered by a long oar that was placed at the stern of the ship. That might seem awkward, but the warships were quite nimble. And surprisingly fast. When the oarsmen were called upon for maximum effort, the ship could reach to over 8 miles per hour. They could maintain a cruising speed of 4.6 miles per hour for an extended period of time. The ship had a bronze reinforced ram (the Romans called it a rostrum) on the prow. A galley was built to fight, not cruise. A quinquereme carried around 280 oarsmen, 20 deckhands, and 120 marines (only 40 if the ship was not going to be in a battle). The officers were the captain, a pilot who steered, a rowing master (keleustes) who led the rhythmic singing when cruising and the drum beat cadence when in battle, and the bow officer. The crew included a carpenter, an engineer, a musician, and a time keeper. To fill out the crews, Roman recruiters lured farm boys and city workers. Basically, the fleet was rowed by plebeians. Some historians insist the Romans would not have used citizens for such a task, but instead relied on its allies. Contrary to Hollywood movies, like “Ben Hur,” the galleys were not rowed by slaves.
The size of the crew left little room in the ship for supplies, including food and water. This meant the oarsmen not only had to endure physical labor, but also lack of sleep, food, and water. Since the ships were not very seaworthy, they tried to avoid losing sight of land. It was customary to beach the ship at dusk for the crew to forage for food and water and bed down for the night. If the fleet was travelling along an enemy coast, finding a safe place to beach could be a problem. Searching for safety was exhausting. Plus, scouting ahead for an enemy fleet was not easily done. It was not uncommon for an exhausted fleet to run into a fresh enemy fleet. All of these details were new to the Romans going into the First Punic War. They had a lot of learning to do. However, Rome’s talent of adapting from its enemies came into play in bridging (literally) the gap between Carthaginian seapower and Rome’s.
- from The Scipios in Spain
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