IV. The Structure of the Athenian Trireme ; considered with reference to certain 

 difficulties of interpretation. By J. W. Donaldson, D.D. late Fellom of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge. 



[[Read November 6, 1856.] 



The formal recognition of philology, as one of the subjects for discussion at the meetings 

 of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, seems to me to impose on those of the members, who 

 have more especially devoted themselves to this branch of academic study, the duty of sug- 

 gesting as soon as possible some discussion calculated to awaken an interest in this new or 

 rather additional department of our transactions. And as pure linguistic investigation is a 

 sealed book to many, and eminently uninviting to all those, who are not critical scholars by 

 profession, I have thought it best to take an application of philological research, on which 

 I have something new to offer, and which is, or ought to be, both intelligible and interesting 

 to all, who care for the language or the doings of the ancient Greeks. 



As the Athenians, at the time when their literature assumed its distinctive form, were 

 pre-eminently a maritime people, it was to be expected that nautical terms would take their 

 place among the most usual figures of speech. Many of their best writers had either, as we 

 say, " served in the navy," or had become familiar with the language and habits of the sea- 

 ports. Even if the wealthier men had not personally served as strategi or trierarchs, or had 

 not made voyages for profit or pleasure, they had lounged in the dockyards and factories of 

 the Piraeus, and seen the triremes put to sea on some great expedition ; and if the poorer 

 citizens had not pulled the long oar on the upper benches, they had lived in familiar inter- 

 course with many whose hands were hardened with constant rowing, and whose ears were 

 ringing with the never ceasing drone of the pipe to which they kept stroke in the voyage or 

 the onset of battle. It is not at all surprising then that Attic literature is full of direct 

 allusions to the structure of the ship of war and to all the incidents of sea-life. And in 

 point of fact nothing is more common than the occurrence of nautical metaphors. But 

 although this has been duly noticed, and though much has been written on the subject, there 

 are still some phrases in common use, which have not yet received an adequate explanation, 

 and consequently some passages, which still require to be illustrated by a more complete and 

 accurate investigation of the Athenian trireme. It is my intention, in the present paper, to 

 submit to you some of the conclusions at which I have arrived after a renewed survey of the 

 ancient authorities. 



It is a well-known fact that ships of war in the most glorious days of the Athenian republic 

 were mainly, if not entirely, triremes, or galleys with three banks of oars. This convenient 

 form of the rowing-vessel, combining, as it seems, the maximum of speed and power, was 

 invented by Ameinocles the Corinthian about 700 b. c. The elementary form, of which it 



