92 Dr DONALDSON, ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE ATHENIAN TRIREME. 



passed between rowers seated below one another. And hence we derive the explanation of the 

 passage in Aristophanes (Equites 546), which has been found unintelligible : 



cupecrO' avTw iroXv to poOiov, ■jrapairefi'^aT' e(f> evoexa KWTrajs 

 Qopvfiov ■^prjaTOV XrjvdiTTjv — 

 " raise for him a plash of applause in good measure, and waft him a noble Lenaean cheer with 

 eleven oars." It seems that there were eleven tiers of seats between each diazoma of the 

 Theatre at Athens, the diazoma itself being counted as the twelfth row. Accordingly, each 

 wedge would suggest the idea of eleven benches of rowers, and the applause, which the chorus 

 demands, would come like the plash of eleven oars striking the water at once. 



(6) As the o-eXis was the only uninterrupted thoroughfare by which the officers could 

 pass to and fro to give their orders and keep the men to their work, we get at last the long 

 sought explanation of a passage in jEschylus, which all the commentators have failed to eluci- 

 date. In the course of the altercations between JEgisthus and the chorus at the end of the 

 Agamemnon, the usurper is made to address the senators as follows (v. 1588): 



av TavTU <pwi/6is veprepa yr pocnj fuevo^ 

 KWTrri, KpuTovvTwv Tcov em i^oyifi oopoSi 

 " These words from thee, that sittest at the oar 

 Below, while rulers on the cross-bits walk ?" 



Here the editors are quite at sea. They cannot understand why the ^vy'irai should be 

 described as the Kparovvres instead of the dpav'irai. Dr Blorafield went so far, in his struggle 

 to get out of the difficulty, as to suppose that the old men of the Chorus were the daXa/ixioi, 

 iEgisthus and Cly toemnestra the i^vy'iTai, and the murdered Agamemnon the dpavirrj^ ! Paley 

 is satisfied with saying, that the third tier was as inferior to the second, as the second was to 

 the first, " quare satis recte se habet comparatio." And Klausen fancies he has unravelled the 

 perplexity by supposing that J^schylus is speaking of a bireme, being quite ignorant of the 

 fact, that if biremes had been used at Athens, the upper tier of rowers would still have been 

 QpaviTaiW The fact is that all these commentators have overlooked a refinement of Greek 

 Syntax, ^schylus, who was as well acquainted with sea-life as any of the men that pulled 

 at Salamis, has been careful to introduce the participle irpoarinevo^ in speaking of the rower, 

 while by writing eTrJ ^"'y^ instead of eirl X^vyuiv, he expressly tells us that the KpaTovvres 

 were not seated on the ^i'7a'> but had their feet upon them. Every Greek scholar is aware 

 that when we wish to say that a man is seated with his legs hanging from his seat, whether it 

 be on a chair, a rowing-bench, or on horse-back, we use kirl with the genitive; but 'eir\ with 

 the dative, when we wish to say that the whole man is upon that which serves as his footing. 

 If the officers had seats they were placed upon the Xvyd, and were much higher than the 

 stools of the 9paviTai, so that even when seated, the Kparovvre^, or officers, might speak of 

 the rowers of the highest tier as veprepa ■irpoar]fievov^ Kwirri. Their seats then being placed 

 on the ^vya, they might be said either KaOrjcrOat or earmevai eiri ^uyoii, because their feet 

 rested on them; but the l^vy'irai could only be said KaGfjaQai eiri (yywv. Hence we have 

 in Eurip. Phmniss. 74: evel ^ eirl ^vyoii KaOe^er ap)(fis, and Eustathius tells us that the 



