88 Db DONALDSON, ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE ATHENIAN TRIREME. 



an appropriate designation. In larger vessels, however, these "iKpta would be remanded to the 

 decks fore and aft, the cross-pieces would be separate KktiiSe^ or ^1170, to furnish a ready 

 access to the hold; and, in the case of a trireme, both to allow ventilation for the lowest tier 

 of rowers who worked there, and also to permit the officers, who gave them the stroke, to hear 

 the whistle or word of command, to say nothing of the fact that there was no room for a 

 complete deck between them and the second tier of rowers. Still, however, these i^vyd would 

 be a-eXmara, or means of walking from stem to stern; for, by the nature of the case, there was 

 no other footing. As then we know that there were ^vya in a Greek trireme, as the middle 

 tier of rowers were called ^yylrat, because they sat there (Jul. Poll. i. 87 : ra fieaa t^s vem 

 ^vyd, ov o'l ^vy7Tai KaOrji/Tai), and as it was necessary that room should be economized, and 

 the length of the upper oars kept at a minimum, we conclude that these middle rowers 

 actually sat upon the transfra or cross-planks of the vessel. Bockh is led to the opposite 

 conclusion by the phrase eSpa^ Kwirrji ^vyias in one of his Inscriptions (11. 40, p. 286). But 

 this merely means that the trireme in question had one of the tvyd broken close to the oar- 

 hole, just as the same vessel is stated to have been defective in its Tpdcprj^ or bulwark. And 

 in a subsequent part of the same inscription (p. 291) we have the phrase twv ^vywu Keird- 

 TTtjvTai vevre, " only five of the cross-bits are supplied with oars," which implies that the 

 ^vyd were the proper place for one class of the rowers. 



II. The Thalamitce. 



That the OoKan'iTai got their name from having their seats in the QdXanos (Jul. Poll. i. 

 87: ddXaiJLOs ov o'l OaXdnioi eperToviri), and that this meant the hold of the vessel, is quite 

 obvious, and it would generally be supposed that the hold was so called, because, like the 

 women's apartments, the nursery, the store-room, &c. in a house, it was the inner part, the 

 least accessible quarter of the ship. It may however be doubted, whether, in its proper 

 meaning, OdXa/mos, like BoXos, did not imply specifically a vaulted chamber. If so, the 

 hold, sloping inwards to the keel, would represent an inverted OdXa/ioi, just as the bees' cells 

 were called by this name (Anth. Pal. ix. 404, 2): 



airXacTTOL yeipwv avToirayet^ 6aXa/j.ai, 

 i. e. " chambers not formed by the hands, but all of a piece." We have a similar inversion in 

 the laquear or lacunar of the cieling, which was an inverted pit, bin, tray or trough, and in 

 the word 066a, which properly meant a drinking-vessel with a shaip point at the bottom, 

 but was also used to designate a cap, with a sharp point at the top. In fact the words "cap" 

 and "cup" might be taken as different forms of the same word denoting inverted uses of 

 the same object. Be this as it may, it is clear that the OaXaixlrai sat in the hold, with 

 their feet upon the water-line; and as there was no lower range of cross-bits, they must have 

 had benches projecting from the side of the ship. It is just possible that these benches were 

 technically called OdXafioi. At least, in the curious story told by Timseus (ap. Athen. p. 37) 

 of the young men at Agrigentuni who fancied that their house was a trireme at sea, one of 

 them says viro tov Seovs KaTafiaXwv efiavrov vtto to()s OaXafjiovi, ws evi fxaXiara Karwrarw 



