Atlantic Warfare Yesterday : 359 



only could be squirted but also took fire spontaneously. Thus it 

 anticipated the liquid flame throwers of World Wars I and II. 



Even including the Greek fire galley warfare seems to have had 

 very simple and restricted methods of attack and defense. Yet for 

 many centuries wars were lost or won, empires rose and fell on the 

 basis of this simple repertory of maneuvers. 



Galleys grew larger in size, adding more banks of oars, increasing 

 the number of oars in each bank, increasing the length of the oars 

 or sweeps and the number of men employed on each sweep. Often 

 these increases in size instead of improving the speed of the vessel 

 rendered it slow and cumbersome. Still the effort to attain speed and 

 power went on and we even know the exact date at which a new 

 type of vessel emerged. 



Aristides and Themistocles came into power in Athens in 482 b.c. 

 as the heads of a party hostile to the Persians. At this time the state 

 owned mines at Laurium where a new vein of silver had just been 

 discovered. Themistocles prevailed upon the people to devote the pro- 

 ceeds of this vein to the building of 200 triremes described as a newly 

 invented type of war vessel. Aristides was ostracized for opposing 

 this plan. 



In 415-413 B.C. a single Athenian expedition against Sicily involved 

 the use of 134 triremes. These carried a fighting force of 4,000 armed 

 soldiers (hoplites). This figure does not of course include the galley 

 rowers, who could be compelled to row but could not be counted on 

 as fighters, so the total expedition was a large one. 



After this the classic pattern of naval warfare in the Mediter- 

 ranean was set. With minor variations the battles between Greece 

 and Rome, the Punic Wars, the battles for power among Roman 

 generals, the conflicts of Italy in the West with Byzantium in the 

 East all followed the basic pattern of galley warfare. The most ro- 

 mantic of all galley battles took place on September 2nd, 31 b.c. 

 when a Roman fleet of Octavian went out to meet the mixed fleet 

 of Antony and Cleopatra in the battle of Actium. Over 200 ships 

 were engaged on each side under the very eyes of their leaders. Pos- 

 sibly Octavian held an advantage in having Ughter and more mobile 

 ships but the issue was still in doubt when Cleopatra deserted the 

 battle taking her fleet with her and Antony sailed away after her 

 leaving his army to surrender and his fleet to destruction by fire. 



The ultimate development of galley warfare came on October 7, 

 1571, in the battle of Lepanto fought in the narrow waters of the 

 Corinthian Gulf in Greece. There had been an unending series of 



